L004B - Wed 28 Apr 1999 / Mer 28 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 amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): It was to be Mr Cleary to have the floor, but he's not here.
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: It was my understanding that Mr Cleary asked to divide his time and that unanimous consent was given.
The Acting Speaker: I don't agree with your arguments, I should say. It's the turn of the third party. Debate?
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): I'm very pleased to have an opportunity to speak tonight on the speech from the throne because I think the government had great effrontery to produce a speech from the throne that had so little substance to it, that had so many political overtones to it, quite out of keeping with the traditions of this place and quite unnecessary, in fact, given the point at which they obviously have arrived, given the kind of advertising they've been doing and their push towards an election.
Of all the issues we are trying to deal with in the province of Ontario, the ones that people want dealt with are those in the areas of health and education and community services, and everything that the government does tries to divert the attention of the voting population away from those issues.
Before I came to this place, I worked in counselling with battered women, and woman after woman who was in an abusive situation with her partner would come to me and talk about a form of abuse, a form of emotional abuse, psychological abuse that was pretty well experienced by most of those abused women. The abuser's technique was to try to convince his victim that what she perceived to be reality, what her experience in the world was, was not true, that something else entirely was what was really happening. Things that had been said one day were denied the next day; things that had been presented in one way one day were presented in another way the next day. We used to call it, in the vernacular, a crazy-making technique, because what it did was make those who were under that constant psychological abuse question themselves, question their own perceptions, question their ability to look at issues, to analyze them, to make decisions and then to stick to those decisions.
Quite frankly, the techniques that the government of the day is using with the population of Ontario directly echo that mechanism of psychological abuse. This government, day after day, stands up in this House and appears in our living rooms, at our expense, telling us that what we perceive to be reality in our lives and in our communities is not the case. They try to tell us that the reality is very different from how we experience it, and they hope that they will be able to break down the ability of the voters of Ontario to perceive truth from falseness and the ability of the voters of Ontario to judge them on what will be their judgment day, election day.
One of the realities of life in this province since this government took office is that most of their activities have involved communication. They tell us, when we disagree with them, that we don't understand them and they haven't communicated well enough. They refuse to accept that there are large numbers of people in this province, more than half the people in this province, who do not agree with what they are doing, and they try to convince us by a bombardment of advertising, for which we have paid through our tax dollars, which purports to be a message from the government of Ontario when in fact it is a political propaganda tool from Mike Harris.
I don't know whether this propaganda tool will work in most ridings. I know that when I go door to door in my riding, I hear voter after voter telling me how their intelligence is being maligned by this government, by these tactics. I know it is an offence to a lot of people in London North Centre that their tax dollars, instead of going to improve health care, to improve education, are going to bolster the fortunes of a government that tomorrow night plans to have a dinner that will raise over $2 million for their party coffers. It's not that the government party doesn't have lots of money; that's not why they're spending public dollars for their propaganda. That's not it at all. It's because they want to skew the impression, that somehow this is not politics, that somehow the representations they're making to the people of Ontario are reality, that they're not a fantasy.
But we know, those of us who are constituent representatives, that black is not white, that everything is not OK in health care, that however many CEOs of however many grateful corporations can be called in to do announcements and vindicate the government about the bit of money that's been thrown back into the system, there are many others who are prepared to identify the flaws in the actions of this government and what is affecting our constituents day by day.
Most of the members here know that I try not to be the kind of person who chases ambulances and comes in with horror stories, because I know very well how difficult it is for families who have been through the wringer of this health system to hear their stories bandied about in public. But when you face a propaganda machine such as has been set up by this government trying to convince people that their reality is not true, you have to counter it with the realities that people are experiencing.
In counselling, we call it a reality check: "They say this is the case. Have you experienced that or have you a different experience?" Trust yourself, trust your own experience and know that your experience is worth more than the most slickly produced propaganda ads that any government can ever produce.
I do believe very strongly that people are not the gullible fools this government obviously believes them to be. I don't think my riding is exceptional in being so offended by the willingness of this government to use its power, to use its tax dollars to further its own end. More and more people in the province every day are asking every time the government comes up with a policy statement: "So who is going to benefit from this? Who is going to be the beneficiary of this?" Usually the answer is those who have the most - those who have the most wealth, those who have the most power, those who least need the intervention of government to protect them. Those are the people who benefit from the policies of this government.
Day by day it becomes very clear that this government has aligned itself with only a small segment of the population. This is not a government that follows in the tradition of Progressive Conservative governments of my childhood, where those governments believed that part of their job was to represent everybody in Ontario, not just their friends. This government has chosen sides and this government has chosen to take the side of those who least need protection, those who least need advocacy, those who least need all of the benefits conferred on them by the power of this government.
This government is part of the problem of the growing gap between the rich and poor in this province and in this country. They came into government denigrating the whole purpose of government. They come in day by day and tell us how useless it is for us to debate in this place, to have a public, democratic process that makes decisions. They're very clear that they're going to make decisions on behalf of their friends and the people who support them. It doesn't matter what the rest of us say, because they have already lined up all their power, all their resources on the side of their friends.
Who are those friends? They're the friends who are going to benefit from the existing tax cut, those 6% of people in Ontario who have managed to get 25% of the results of the 30% tax decrease, people who stand to gain, in some cases, by millions of dollars and in many other cases by hundreds of thousands of dollars from the tax cut that this government has put in. Every year that happens, the gap grows between the rich and the poor, because, of course, we can't forget that at the other end of the scale this government has maintained the minimum wage at the same level for four years, this government has cut social assistance to the poorest, this government has made it more difficult for those who are disabled to get assistance if they weren't already on the plan and this government has consistently put into place policies that force people on low incomes to pay user fees, to pay a whole plethora of new expenses that take no account of how much money they have.
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When the government imposed the co-pay on medications under the drug benefit plan, the members of this government said, "What's $2 a prescription?" Well, $2 for a prescription is a lot of money if you're a single person on welfare and you get $520 a month and you have to try and find accommodation in this province with very little support for low-income families to get accommodation, and you happen to have a chronic health problem and require 10, 12, 15 prescriptions a month. Two dollars times 10 is $20; times 15 is $30. Of the disposable income you have left over from that low amount you get on social assistance - that has to pay for your food, that has to pay for any insurance that you might have, that has to pay to clothe you, that has to pay for transportation - $20 or $30 out of that pot is a lot of money.
"Well," says the government, "there are many companies that have dropped on board, like Shoppers Drug Mart, who are willing to forgo the $2 prescription rate." Only what does that mean? That means you're tied to their pharmacy. "That's just good business," say the pharmaceutical companies and the large corporations, only it doesn't take account of whether that's the most appropriate place for seniors, for the disabled, for the poor to get their prescriptions. It doesn't take into account that they may have to travel by transit in order to get their prescriptions, because, of course, there isn't free delivery for them - and very often that's the case: it's a trade-off between free delivery and paying your co-pay.
So everything is dividing the rich and the poor, and every single action that this government takes creates a huge gulf between those of us who are privileged, who have enough, and those who consistently fall short of what they need for a decent and dignified life.
The policies of this government and, I may say, the federal Liberal and before it the federal Progressive Conservative government, are largely responsible for that growing gap between the rich and the poor. We know, because we have the advice of many who have studied the societies that have gone this way, that taking this route eventually leads a society into more and more costs that spiral and escalate that gap between rich and poor, that make a world of "them" and "us," that create a situation where those who have spend lots of money protecting themselves against those who have not, and those who have not fall deeper and deeper into the pit and have less and less commitment to a civil society. Yes, we spend less money on education, but we spend more money on policing and on corrections. We spend less money on social housing and we spend more money making sure that those who don't have homes don't attack us in our homes. That's the cost of a society where the gap grows between the rich and the poor, and every single policy of this government leads us further and further down that track.
Now they tell us in this throne speech that they have this fantastic idea: They're going to increase the gap again by lowering taxes. They're going to attack again the very fabric of our communities by lowering taxes. I want to talk about this mythology of taxes being the problem. Taxes are not the problem in our society. Taxes are in fact our decision as a society about how to share the wealth that we have, to make sure that we narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. Taxes are the ability that we have as government to ensure that the runaway fortunes of those at the top of the scale at least are shared to a small extent with those who do not have the same privilege, do not have the same good fortune. And believe me, it's good fortune.
There's a social Darwinism that prevails in right-wing political thinking, and it goes something like this: Survival of the fittest is the name of the game, and if you're poor, if you don't have a home, if you haven't been able to get an education, then somehow it's your fault; you're not fit enough. And everyone who has is somehow better than everyone who has not.
That's a theory that is usually put forward by people who already were beyond the threshold of opportunity long before they came to work towards their own good fortune. We have a whole generation of people who have come along with much greater privilege because of the work of our parents and our grandparents in a very extraordinary period of our economy, a highly socially upwardly mobile period of our economy, where the things we may take for granted in my generation were never taken for granted by the previous generation.
What we see is our children facing the reality that that upward mobility, that ability to amass personal goods and so on, had very little to do with the individual effort of people and a whole lot to do with the economic upturn that happened in the post-war period, unprecedented in economic history. We don't see the same future for our children, and we know, when we get together as parents of my generation, that our children do not have as many automatic opportunities as we had in that very, very upwardly mobile time.
I don't know about you. I know my child works very hard. I know lots of her friends who work very hard, who are bright, who are committed, who do everything they can to earn a living, and many of them can't find work in their field. Many of them have physical or mental problems that make it difficult for them to get ahead. Many of them find themselves in the position of never having had permanent, secure work that enables them to show their talent and to show their commitment.
It's getting worse every day for kids who don't have privilege, who don't have that little leg up that it takes because they can't afford college and university, they can't afford to get to the threshold so they have opportunities like those whose families can present it to them on a platter.
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): It's very interesting to listen to the presentation from the member for London Centre tell us about how we could have a perfect world, and maybe that's what they thought was happening during their five-year term. I do have some empathy for the problems they had. I heard Bob Rae say that he wanted to form the government and be the Premier in the worst way, and that's exactly how he got it: in the worst way, the way the Liberals had left it for them. With the Liberals, the economy was headed downhill. They claimed there was a balanced budget when there wasn't a balanced budget, misleading the public as they tend to do.
It was interesting that she talked about the future of our children and having some concerns for them. I can tell you that this is the most compassionate government the province has ever seen, concerned about the children of the future. Where we were going - the Liberals doubled the spending and then the NDP doubled the debt - that was a terrible legacy to leave for our children.
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This government is about stimulating the economy. It's about having the quality of leadership that's leading us out of that decade of wandering in the economic desert of Ontario, and we are now going places. We've developed a strong economy, and with that strong economy we can have a strong, vibrant health care. We can have some quality education and have dollars for education. We can also have a very protective social program which the people you are referring to require and need. But the kind of program that you brought along and that the Liberals brought along was encouraging people to be on welfare, not encouraging them to get off. Work for welfare is not punitive; it's all about helping people get out and earning -
The Acting Speaker: Thank you.
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): I'm pleased to have the opportunity to respond to my colleague from London Centre, whose opinions I take very seriously, though we differ on many issues. I want to begin by concurring with her.
I sense the anxiety across the aisle. Having spent more than $100 million on advertising in the last year, that government is still plagued by mistrust. People don't trust you on health care. They don't trust you on education. I don't doubt your motivation. I wouldn't suggest for a minute that your motivations are wrong, but the so-called tough decisions you've made have been the wrong decisions. It was wrong when you closed 39 hospitals without proper consultation. It was wrong when you changed the education funding formula to force the closure of schools all over Ontario.
You have benefited by the robust economic growth we've experienced as a result of the federal Liberal government, I must say, as I pay tribute to my friend and colleague from Windsor, Paul Martin, and Jean Chrétien. You have benefited from that in a way that you couldn't possibly have anticipated.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order. You give it; you take it.
Mr Duncan: You've benefited in ways that you never thought possible.
Interjection.
The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Northumberland, I want you to withdraw that word.
Mr Galt: Withdrawn.
The Acting Speaker: Thank you.
Mr Duncan: He can't control himself.
You've benefited in ways you never thought possible. Good for the federal Liberals. We look forward to the election campaign.
Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): I'm delighted to take this opportunity to comment on the remarks made by my colleague from London Centre. She began her comments talking about what I would have to say is a credibility gap. She talked about the advertising campaign that the previous speaker referred to, the $100 million, and was trying to paint a very, very rosy view of the world, and she said, "This contrasts with people's daily experiences."
I can think of no better example than just a year ago September when I was knocking on doors in my by-election. People told me more than once, more than twice - it didn't matter who was with me at the door, they all said the same thing to me - that these cuts the government had brought in had reduced services in health care, had closed hospitals, had overloaded home care, had cut community services, had taken money out of classrooms, and they were telling me that it wasn't worth this income tax cut if the result was all these losses in services.
I'm proud to be with a party that actually has a fiscal program that can finance the repair that's needed to this Harris agenda. I'm very proud, because that was the one salient efficiency with the people who went with me door to door. They stood there; they heard the message that this income tax cut wasn't worth all this damage.
There are not millions of dollars of government funding on advertising that can change people's real-life experiences. They know they had to wait longer in emergency rooms. They know that hospitals had to let nurses go. They know what happened when the municipalities got overloaded with these downloaded provincial services. They know what happened to the special education program for their children. They know these things and they know who's responsible.
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): I'm pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the comments made by the member for London Centre. It may come as some surprise to the member for London Centre that I agree with a lot of what she had to say, particularly her remarks in terms of jobs and opportunities.
Far too often one of the fundamental beliefs in our society has been that this generation could do better than the previous generation. That is very much in question in the 1990s and that's a real concern. It should be a concern for all of us in all parties, so I completely share that view. It's not recognized across the country as much as it should be, but I certainly wholeheartedly agree with her there.
What we must do is have a plan to grow the economy, a plan to help the private sector and to help the economy create jobs. When I looked at the numbers behind some of the thoughts that the member for London Centre made, I was quite startled. In fact, by 1995 peoples' standards of living had fallen dramatically from the 1980s. What we've seen in the last four years is that real after-tax income for working families in Ontario has increased by $260 more money a month that they can take home to increase their standard of living.
Despite that phenomenal gain, it's still behind what it was in 1989, and we've got to recommit ourselves as a Parliament and as a province to turning that around. What we need is strong and effective leadership for a strong Ontario, to grow the economy, to cut taxes, to cut red tape, to take the difficult but necessary decisions to turn our economy around.
Just in my home constituency of Bells Corners on Tuesday, 400 new jobs at the Compaq call centre. I'm going to be attending next week the groundbreaking for a new high school in Stittsville, Ontario, where the community of parents really fought hard. The expansion of the Queensway Carleton Hospital: A $23-million grant from the province is part of that. Unemployment has fallen from 10.9% to 6.1%. Do we really want to put that at risk? I don't think so.
The Acting Speaker: Response?
Mrs Boyd: I want to thank the member for Northumberland, the member for Windsor-Walkerville, the member for Ottawa West and the member for Nepean for their comments, but I'd like to concentrate some of my discussion on the two Tory members who spoke.
The member for Northumberland tried to talk about the fact that they were the most compassionate government that has ever existed because they were taking away the deficit that was weighing down our young people. This is an example of the kind of hyperbole that people don't believe. They do not know and do not believe that a government is compassionate that took away junior kindergarten funding from many children in this province, that ended child care availability for many children in this province, that saddled students in colleges and universities with huge tuition fees and without an improved student loan program that puts them behind the eight ball.
When both the member for Northumberland and the member for Nepean talk about people being able to have a better standard of living -
Interjection.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Nepean, you had your turn.
Mrs Boyd: - many of those students today that you say you're being so compassionate to will never have the opportunity to buy a home or a car or to start a professional practice, because of the debt they carry, because of your tuition fees.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Perth.
Mrs Boyd: We've all been doing fundraising, so you understand my automatic response.
What we have to recognize and what was not dealt with is that the growing gap between haves and have-nots is affecting us all and will affect us into the future. I beg of the members of this place not to make fun of that problem. It is a very serious one which all of us must address in the coming election because it affects so many of our constituents.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): It gives me a great deal of pleasure to get up and make some comments about the throne speech tonight.
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Mr Gerretsen: Tell them about the gas prices.
Mr Rollins: Oh, the gas prices. John, drive through Belleville and you'll get it a little cheaper than you will in most places.
It was very interesting to listen to the last speaker, with this economy that we have and with the 540,000 net new jobs we have.
I heard the Minister of Education say in this House just the other day that there are more people registered for college and university this year than ever in the history of Ontario. If what they're saying is true, then the cost of that education is wrong.
I'd like to point out to you that up until this government came to power and changed the structure of the education system and the tuition fees, a goodly number of art students had a hard job finding a job when they graduated. They had to do the Beckers jobs and the McDonald's jobs because there weren't jobs for them out there in the field they were educated in. Yet you could have a doctor or an engineer paying the same kind of tuition, and when they graduated, there were jobs waiting for them.
I think this is something this government and this Minister of Education have put in the right place, so that for people who are graduating with an opportunity to make an excellent income, their tuition has been raised. I think that's one of the things that as a government I want to be a part of.
I know some of the hurt we have in this province. Yes, we had a terrible deficit of some $11 billion to try to overcome and make sure we had a balanced budget, but we've done that in a period of four years. We've brought it back down. Probably next Tuesday in the budget you will be listening to a deficit of $3 billion. It may be a little bit lower or a little bit higher, but it's down to that kind of deficit.
At the same time, we've given back to the people of Ontario a lot of dollars in their paycheques so that they've been able to help this economy.
I know in the previous five years, according to the statistics that are out there, there were some 10,000 net jobs lost. When we said in our Common Sense Revolution that we would produce some 750,000 net new jobs in five years, everybody said we were way off target. If we had another year like we've just finished added on to the numbers, we would be awfully close to 700,000 net new jobs. I don't think that's a small part in any way.
When you add up the number of dollars that are coming into the province, some $5 billion more per year today than when we took office some four years ago, I think that's something that helps out. That's one of the reasons we need to spend some money in different places.
I know the taxes were cut 69 times. There are different departments where we have saved taxes or reduced taxes 69 times. We haven't increased taxes like past governments have. I think that's something that's got to be very complimentary to this government and to the people who are in the finance department, to make sure we can still keep paying our bills and still put that kind of decrease on personal income tax. We are back to being the leading province in Canada in paying income tax as far as the provincial part is concerned. If we can lower that again in this next budget, so be it.
It's another increase. Family incomes after taxes have increased, on average, some $3,000 a year. That is a very significant amount of money, yet the people on the other side say, "We haven't had a raise in pay in a long time." I can tell you that when you knock back the provincial income tax by some 30%, that is a raise in pay. It may not be a raise in your hourly rate, but it has certainly raised the pay that you can put in your pocket, take home and buy something with. You can buy something at the corner store, you can buy a new car, you can buy a new washer or dryer or improve your house. Those are the kinds of dollars you can really count on. It isn't dollars that are put in there.
This province has turned the economy around. There's no question that when we were put in power four years ago we were losing jobs by the hour. We were going the wrong way. We certainly have got on the right track, as long as we stay on that track.
It's not an easy course to stay on. In my own riding of Quinte, back in Belleville, Procter and Gamble went through a real competition with the States to see whether it was a plant in the States which was going to stay open or whether it was one in Belleville. Belleville happened to win out. One of the reasons we won out is that our health care system in Ontario is better. Our income tax is better. One of the best things is the standard of living in Ontario, with the competition from down in the States, and a much higher standard of living. That's why the company chose to expand the Belleville plant.
The Belleville plant has just finished hiring some 100 new employees. It spent a period of about six months doing that. That other line is up and running and that production is there. Those jobs, regardless of whether the opposition tells us that they're McDonald jobs and all the rest of the McJobs they want to call them, are somewhere between $15 and $20 an hour. Those are the kind of jobs that have come to the city of Belleville.
Another company in Belleville, Halla Climate Control, has expanded. They went from some 200 people working to some 400.
Interjection.
Mr Rollins: I know the member from Kingston is all upset about that, but I think one of the reasons is he's just a little bit jealous about being able to make sure we can have that. The take-home pay for those people has increased along with those wages because of that tax decrease.
One thing we've got to really look after is our debt and make sure that our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren aren't saddled with a debt that's going to be so cumbersome to them that they will never have the opportunity to enjoy the same kind of lifestyle that, Mr Speaker, you and I have been able to enjoy in this fair province.
To maintain Ontario's economic growth requires a clear plan for the future. I think as a government, under the strong leadership of Mike Harris and his team, we have shown the foresight to make sure that we're in a position where we can make sure the economy stays strong. There's nothing that makes the province of Ontario any better, whether it's in my riding of Quinte or whether it's in Trenton or wherever it is, than having the economy very strong.
We went through some changes in our riding. A hydro project on the Trent River has been sitting there for some eight or 10 years under development, and they haven't been able to get the things in the right place to be able to go ahead with that project. This spring they've started, and that's going to take some 2,000 man-hours of work a year to make sure that hydro plant is built and put up in operation. It's not going to come on line until about the year 2001. With those kinds of hours to work there, there are about eight or 10 people. They're digging rock out and putting that equipment in there. It's going to help generate some clean power. It's water power off the Trent River. That's the kind of power that, once again, we as a government want to see happen.
One of the other things that was very interesting to hear today in the House was when the Minister of Labour stood up and said finally we're starting to get some teeth in it, some legislation to make sure that we aren't losing our good jobs to the people in Quebec and allowing them to come in and bid on jobs when we haven't got the same kind of privilege. I know you think Quebec work is just along the borders, but I can tell you that in my riding of Quinte some Quebec workers have been into our area on different projects. I think those are the kinds of things that as a government we need to be very proud of and be able to stand up and make sure that those people are looked after in the same fashion, that we in Ontario have the right to go in there.
Talking a little bit about the health care system, yes, we had to restructure the health care system. I don't know whether everybody thinks the only time they've ever had to wait in a waiting room has just been in the last three or four years. I can tell you that going back 20 years ago there were lots of times that people would sit in the halls for 15 and 20 hours and could see only a doctor; there wasn't the operating room.
Interjections.
Mr Rollins: The people across the hall stand there and holler and yell, but the federal government took some $17 billion away from the health care and the education system in the province. They said Uncle Paul Martin - Uncle Paul Martin and his red pen took away $17 billion. They've given us back -
Mr Gerretsen: That's nonsense.
Mr Rollins: Over the years. Add it up. I don't know where you've been using your calculator. It's $17 billion -
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
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Mr Rollins: When they turn around and give us back $1 billion for one year, it is a big gift. All we want back is the $17 billion that you took away from us, Mr Martin, and we'll have a lot more nurses working in hospitals. "We're giving you back something new." They're not giving us back anything new. They're taking away some of the things; they're keeping it away from us. They're giving us back our own candy, and I think that's a little bit hard.
In Belleville and Trenton, Bancroft and Picton, we had a problem with our hospitals because we had four managers, we had four CEOs, we had four boards running hospitals. Yes, through the amalgamation and bringing it together, now we're down to one. I think when you take the money that we were spending on management and making sure that the hospital operation in four different locations had the same kind of operations - we've amalgamated it together. Did it amalgamate together without some pain and effort? Absolutely not. The Belleville hospital board, the Trenton board and the Picton board all had their turf that they wanted to protect. But we did manage to get them together. They had quite a few meetings where the doors were slammed and people left, but we brought them back to the table time and time again until finally, this year, they made the commitment that they would go together and have one CEO. The thing is starting to get into shape and the dollars are flowing, not to the management but down to the where the work is.
I can tell you, having visited on more than one occasion the emergency at Belleville General Hospital - lots of times - that there have been no lineups. A year ago, when my mother had problems with a heart attack and it happened to be on Easter Sunday, we went into a very empty emergency ward. Did we get help? Yes, we got help. We had excellent care.
But I'll tell you, there are times there is a large lineup. There need to be some things done and changes in the health system. We've got a lot more people to put through the same system and we've got to make sure that we have some more doctors. Doctors are one of the problems in rural Ontario, and we certainly have that problem in Belleville. We're short a few doctors, no question about it. I thought the previous Minister of Health had an excellent idea, to make those tickets available to the new graduating doctors out in rural Ontario and let them move out there. But the doctors didn't feel that was the best system, so they went to the 30% reduction in the overserviced areas. It has probably helped some, but it hasn't helped enough.
When we took office four years ago, Trenton was in dire need of doctors. Through hard, diligent work, they managed to achieve a few of those new doctors coming out. At the present time Trenton is not too badly off, but Belleville has had a couple of older doctors retire and a couple have moved away. Yes, a couple have moved to the States, but I can also tell you that those doctors who moved to the States came back into the Ontario system. They were away only two or two and a half years. They said they weren't satisfied with the way they were working in the States, the hours of work they were putting in and also the rate of pay, because down there you have to collect your own money. There's no guarantee that those monies are going to be there.
I think of the long-term-care plan. In Hastings county and in the Belleville-Quinte area, we're very fortunate to be one of the few areas in the province - and I think a lot of that goes back to the extended care program of a predecessor of mine, Dr Richard Potter, who was Minister of Health. He was one of the first ones who started that long-term care. It was one of the projects that was started in Belleville, and I think that's one of the reasons that in Hastings and Prince Edward, in that area down there, we're fortunate enough to have enough care that the people around there do not have problems finding rooms in some of the nursing homes. Yes, there are times they have trouble getting into the nursing home they may want, but with the community care access centre being opened up, if people want to move from one place to another when there's a room available, they are allowed to do that. I think the Minister of Long-Term Care has had a lot to do with putting more money in.
We just opened a new facility in Belleville a week ago Friday, and the facility they have there is certainly very acceptable. I know 20,000 new long-term-care beds were the first in a decade that the province of Ontario has had. We couldn't do that if we hadn't had the strong economy and more money coming into the province of Ontario to make sure that those beds were allowed to be opened up and put in.
The growing economy has made it possible for the provincial government to increase health care spending by $1.5 billion. I can say that four years ago we had a government on the other side that said, yes, they would freeze the health care budget exactly where it was. I think at that time it was something like $7.4 billion or $7.2 billion, and one of the other parties said they were going to increase it -
Mr Gerretsen: Seventeen.
Mr Rollins: Excuse me, $17.4 billion or $17.2 billion, and the other party said, "We're going to increase it by $200,000." Well, $200,000 is a far cry from the $1.5 billion that we as a government have seen fit to increase it by, even at the same time as the feds decided they would take somewhere around $3 billion a year away from us and cut us back. When you add that up, it certainly is a lot of money that we have to look after.
I want to talk a little bit more about the education that we talked about as far as universities are concerned. When we first started changing the schools, we had very little co-operation from very few teachers and very few principals on Bill 160, where they thought we were on the right line. But I can tell you, in talking to many of the teachers and principals today, if you start to listen to what is happening, they are more satisfied than they were. When you ask a bunch of teachers, is it right that they should have their principals and vice-principals in the union, most of them have started to realize that it is better with them out of the system, because then there's a different grievance position, that when the principal or vice-principal makes a ruling on it, it does put some different management in. This was the only system today where management and the rank and file were in the same union. That was one of the things in Bill 160, when we travelled the province of Ontario, that we had to make sure the principals and vice-principals were taken out of the union. I think that had a lot to do with it.
Another thing with the strong leadership of Mike Harris and the Minister of Education is that we've started to make the learning process the best that we possibly can. As a legacy of our government, we can make sure more children have the best opportunity they can possibly have, whether it be in Ontario or anyplace in Canada, to have the best education and make sure they get off to an early start in life, with young people going to junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten - at the start, when we came in, they needed all that. As a government we have seen fit, and the Minister of Education and the Premier have made it clear, that the money will be available to make sure those students are allowed to. We have learned from a long line of experience that the child does learn a lot between the ages of three and six, if we can get them in an environment where they can learn a little bit more and have them better prepared for education and further education.
Those are the kinds of things I heard in this throne speech. I'm only too proud to be part of a government that has been able to make those accomplishments. It's not easy and it is not without some people who are not happy with the way we have changed things. I can tell you, it doesn't matter who makes a change or where it is, whether it's a small change or a big change: Many people get very upset because there is a change.
As a government, one of the fundamental changes we have made is that we are going to start to pay our bills as we go. We are not going to go further in debt. We're going to continue to put money back into the priorities of education and health and to make sure we have an environment where the economy is strong and can keep on growing. If we don't have a strong economy, it makes very little difference whether we have good education or anything else, because we have to have that person graduating. Regardless of what graduating they do, we must make sure they can graduate and get the job they want and keep that generation going.
We know that over the last few years, in particular over the last four years, we had lost all that kind of hope, and we had lost it in a big-time way. The last government that was in had deteriorated that kind of outlook for a lot of us in Ontario.
It's my pleasure to have spoken on this throne speech today.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
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Mr Duncan: Let me begin by saying to my colleague from Quinte that the people he has represented have been truly fortunate for the last four years to have him as a member of Parliament and that it's an honour to have served with him. All that being said, we haven't agreed on a whole heck of a lot while we've been here.
Because the member for Quinte began by talking about the government's record on the economy, particularly on the finances of the province, I'd like to address those issues for a minute. What we have is a province with a projected debt this year of about $112 billion. My understanding is that makes Ontario, when you factor in Ontario Hydro particularly, the largest non-sovereign debtor in the world. In 1995, when they took over, admittedly there was a financial calamity on our hands. There was a large deficit and the government chose to pursue the policies it did. What has it brought? As I understand it - I may be wrong, but I believe Ontario is the second-last province to balance its budget, second last to British Columbia, the Glen Clark government in British Columbia, the gang in British Columbia that's on the third party's side.
I should also like to point out that the province's credit rating, in spite of the Martin-induced boom this country has experienced, has not gone up one notch. What do we have? We have a government that claims to be managing the affairs of the province well, but what it has done is jacked up our debt more than any other government except the NDP, and it has seen no relief on interest because of that. I don't know where they think they get off, but they did it all wrong.
Mr Cullen: I'm pleased to follow on and provide some comments on the member for Quinte's remarks on the speech from the throne. I'm detecting a pattern here of defensiveness. There is this overwhelming compulsion on the government's side to talk about tough decisions and to defend their record. Instead of looking forward, they're trying to protect what they've done.
It's an interesting view of history because they talk about tough decisions. I just say to myself that people can understand dealing with the deficit, except this is a government that has run four years of deficits. People can understand fighting the deficit if at the end of the day they are going to end up at a better place, but they're discovering that in fighting the deficit this government has taken $800 million out of health care, $1 billion out of education, $400 million out of post-secondary education and $600 million out of municipalities. In the end, they find that the government has added $22 billion to the provincial debt, as the member for Windsor-Walkerville has indicated.
What do we have to show for it? Over 40 hospitals closed, hundreds of schools being closed, people on social assistance, the most vulnerable in our community - Mr Speaker, I bet you didn't know that in Ottawa-Carleton for 1995 only 34%, some one third -
Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: In this House we cannot call the honourable members liars. I understand that, and that's fair, but if a member in this House lies -
The Acting Speaker: Order. I want you to withdraw this word immediately.
Mr Murdoch: I didn't hear you.
The Acting Speaker: I want you to withdraw the word that you just used; if not, I will ask you to leave.
Mr Murdoch: What word's that? I just asked you a question.
The Acting Speaker: Don't fool around.
Mr Murdoch: I didn't call -
The Acting Speaker: Please, don't fool around. Otherwise, I'll name you.
Mr Murdoch: I would have to go home then, wouldn't I?
The Acting Speaker: If you don't, I will ask you to leave.
Mr Murdoch: Can I ask you just if a person is -
The Acting Speaker: No, withdraw it immediately.
Mr Murdoch: All right, I'll withdraw.
The Acting Speaker: I name you.
Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): He withdrew, he withdrew.
The Acting Speaker: Please.
Hon David Turnbull (Minister without Portfolio): He withdrew.
The Acting Speaker: I didn't hear it.
Mr McLean: I did.
The Acting Speaker: He did?
Mr Murdoch: I got up on a point of order.
The Acting Speaker: You did?
Mr Murdoch: I said, "All right, I withdraw."
The Acting Speaker: OK, thank you.
Give him back his 30 seconds.
Mr Cullen: Thank you, Mr Speaker.
I am focusing on the facts that are on record. When I talk about the provincial debt that has been added by this government because it has constantly - in fact, the Minister of Finance will show in each of his budgets how much they have added towards the provincial debt. It's a matter of public record. This government is running on a deficit. Quite frankly, if it hadn't been cutting income taxes, it would have had a balanced budget last year and we wouldn't be seeing over 40 hospitals being closed. We wouldn't be seeing over 100 schools being closed by the policies of this government. That's what he should remember.
Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): I'm pleased to make some remarks on the comments made by my colleague the member for Quinte. It certainly has been a delight to hear from the member for Quinte from time to time. During this throne speech debate, we've had an opportunity to hear really a pretty sharp contrast in views on economic theory and on the theory of operating government from the NDP and our own party and of course a total lack of ideas or theories from the Liberal Party, which is something we're used to around here.
I thought the member for Quinte provided a very sincere and also a very passionate view, which would largely come from his background as a small business person. The member for Quinte commented on how the method we have used to reduce the deficit has been measured, how it has been done compassionately and how it has also been done in a way that leads to government having more money to spend on education and health care. That's being demonstrated with our reinvestments in those two areas.
The member talked, again very sincerely, about his own community - there were numerous references to communities in his riding, including Belleville - and how he has heard from his constituents, in terms of the changes we've brought about in health care and in education, that although they recognize they have been difficult, they recognize as well that we had the responsibility to carry out those changes.
It was quite interesting to hear from the member for Quinte after having heard from the member for London Centre because of their obvious difference in views. I thought the member for Quinte provided a real, tangible view on the methods we have used. Also, in contrast to the view from the member for Ottawa West, the member talked a lot about the future. He talked a lot about how our policies are going to lead to a better future for the young people in his riding. I thought the member for Quinte really did a fine job of theorizing on the throne speech.
Mr Gerretsen: I too want to comment on the comments from the member for Quinte. It certainly has been a pleasure serving with him in this House. I was somewhat surprised that he didn't talk about gas prices. I know that one of his claims to fame here is the fact that he is a gas-buster. He and two other of his colleagues were to make sure that the gas prices were kept down. In actual fact, in the Kingston area they've gone up some 10 cents in the last couple of months or so, so I take it that's not one of his success stories.
Let there be no doubt about it that there isn't a member in this House who doesn't want to see his community and the province prosper. That's without question. Let it also be said that all governments - foreign, such as the American government, the federal government, and yes, even some of the measures you've implemented - have led to the growth in the economy in the province of Ontario. There can be no question about it. We're a lot better off as a whole economically than we were in the early 1990s. But it is neither your doing nor the federal government's doing. It is a combination of everything that's working in this country.
Let me also say that up until fairly recently the economic growth that took place in the province of Ontario did not extend further east than Cobourg. In eastern Ontario there are areas where they still haven't seen any of the economic growth he talked about.
Let's just talk about the mismanagement of this government. Can they explain why they fired 10,000 nurses some two years ago and why now they're promising to rehire them? That's what I would like to hear them explain to the people of Ontario.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Quinte, you have two minutes.
Mr Rollins: I'd like to thank the members for Windsor-Walkerville and Ottawa West, my colleague from Muskoka-Georgian Bay and my gas-buster friend from Kingston. I might say to my colleague from Kingston that yes, maybe that's one of the things we haven't been able to accomplish here, but I think you will notice that over the last year particularly the price of gas has quit fluctuating quite so much. That is a proven fact.
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Mr Gerretsen: Just going up, up, up.
Mr Rollins: It went up, John, because when we started out it was at $11 a barrel and now it's $17 a barrel, but still the price at the pumps by the week has slowed down quite significantly. The only two weekends that the gas-busters didn't look after the price of gas in Ontario were last Thanksgiving and the first weekend of this year, and both times the oil companies stuck it to us one more time. So I can tell you the gas-busters are going to be up and working real strong and you, the consumers of Ontario, will be benefiting.
The member for Windsor-Walkerville mentioned the debt of Ontario Hydro. I think that under the new restructuring and the new Minister of Energy the plans are that by the year 2014 that debt will be reduced and done away with, but it still takes about 15 years to remove that debt. I think if we as a government had not tackled that problem, and let it go on the way it was, it would have been a lot longer in the life of this country to make sure that Ontario Hydro was going to retire that debt.
I also want to make a comment to the member for Ottawa West, who said something about cutting back welfare. I can tell you, anybody who is working for minimum or low wages should be better off than somebody sitting at home on welfare, and I will continue to say that as long as I have any breath in me.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Duncan: At the outset, I seek unanimous consent to share my time with the member for Scarborough North.
The Acting Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.
Mr Duncan: I too am pleased, as my colleagues before me, to join the debate on the government's thrown speech.
The throne speech really contained nothing new other than that it did acknowledge that the government just completely let down the disabled community on the issue of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. They decided not to proceed with their failed bill. I respect their decision to do that and recognize the fallacy of the bill in the first instance.
We look forward to hearing what the government's proposed agenda for the next four years will be. I'd like to talk about issues that I think are important to the people in my riding of Windsor-Walkerville and Windsor-St Clair, speak for a few moments about health care and education and speak about what impact these policies that we discuss on a broad level here have on local communities.
First of all, I think we all have to be reminded that this government has closed one out of every five hospitals in Ontario. That is after promising not to. I'm paraphrasing but I distinctly remember the Premier saying to Robert Fisher in the last leaders' debate, "Robert, it's not our intention to close any hospitals." Now it's one out of every five.
What has that meant for my community? Well, the NDP had actually initiated the hospital closure process in my community. They closed two hospitals, and the government merely followed through on their original plans. The Harris government, like the previous government before it, had no real vision about reinvesting in health care. So we lost two hospitals in Windsor. We had no reinvestment. We had a lot of rhetoric from the previous government, but we saw no dollars. We saw lost revenues. We saw lost beds, not only acute care beds but chronic care beds. We've lost two hospitals.
We've closed one half of our emergency rooms without expanding the remaining two. Instead of four emergency rooms handling a patient volume of roughly 120,000 cases a year, we have two. We didn't put any expansion into it.
I should say that as part of their deathbed repentance this government, when they realized the deep trouble they were in, not only in my community, started making announcements. If we're lucky, we'll see a renovated emergency room at Hotel Dieu Grace that's fully designed to handle the volume of patients it is expected to carry sometime late next year, fully eight years after the process of hospital reconfiguration was begun. What does that mean? It means we've had people on beds in corridors in our emergency rooms; it means we've had seniors, children and others having to wait; it means we've had the so-called code 7s, the redirects. When an ambulance gets there, they have to be sent somewhere else.
Hospital administrations and people in those hospitals and the government have quite correctly argued that there has been an inappropriate use of certain beds in the hospitals by people who belong in long-term-care facilities. What did we get? We got a promise of more long-term-care beds, again fully seven years after this process began, and two hospitals were closed and the time horizon for actually opening these beds is nowhere in sight. That's what that policy has meant to my community.
The area of cancer care: The government suddenly recognizes the crisis, a crisis that was identified in the case of the Windsor cancer centre in 1994. Again, just prior to the last election the local cabinet minister for that government announced a new cancer centre for Windsor in 1995. Here we are, four years later, and I drove by that centre and met with officials from that centre just last week and we still haven't broken ground. The Windsor cancer centre had identified its problems years ago. So now, even though we'll be one of the last centres, we are faced with the prospect of our citizens going across the river to our neighbours in Detroit to seek radiation treatment within acceptable time limits.
The same can be said in the education field. We can talk about the cuts the government made. We can talk about making permanent the social contract cuts of the previous government, almost half a billion dollars out of our schools. We can talk about a whole range of those sorts of issues. The bottom line from our perspective is that despite improved testing, despite a change in attitude, despite standardized report cards, issues which our party supports and has all along, we're still having difficulty meeting the demands and needs of our young people for the coming millennium.
This government, despite its claims to good management, cut $1 billion from our education system. They cut special education, adult education and English-as-a-second-language programs. They cut them, and those very programs help improve the productivity of our economy and help allow all of our citizens to participate equally in the prosperity we have enjoyed without any thought here in Ontario.
I predict that tomorrow we'll hear more rhetoric about those things, about what the government is going to invest in those areas. The problem is that it's four years later. The problem is all about mismanagement.
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What I find particularly troubling is that the government has done all of this under the guise of good economic decision-making. They made the tough decisions, is what they've said, and they don't want that prosperity to be threatened. We say they made the wrong decisions. We say they made the wrong decisions in health care. We say that when they cut the money out of our hospitals and failed to reinvest in new community-based services, they made the wrong decision. We say that, like the previous government, when they cut funding from education they made the wrong decision.
In the case of our economy, our province remains the largest non-sovereign debtor in the world. The credit rating this government receives from independent bond rating agencies is the same as it was the last day the NDP was in office. They will probably be the second-last or last provincial government in this country to balance its budget.
In spite of a booming economy, in spite of our recognized needs and demands in the fields of health care and education, this government has failed to prepare this province for the new millennium. The so-called tough decisions were the wrong decisions. The people of this province won't trust this gang with our hospitals and our schools and our universities and our community colleges again.
The people have seen through the facade. They've seen through the phony $100-million advertising campaign that frankly, in our view, is neither accurate nor completely straightforward. We look forward to the election. We look forward to changing the tone and the tenor of this province.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): The throne speech is a reminder to the people of Ontario of the damage this Mike Harris government has done by the way they've administered the cuts to programs that have hurt the most vulnerable people in our society. The closures of hospitals have put people's lives at risk, and some people have died in the process.
The throne speech reminds us of the chaos the people of Ontario can depend on. Those who are most vulnerable are looking for affordable housing. This government comes in and brags every day about how good they are. They have attacked the poor and have given to the rich and said, "Look how wonderfully the economy is doing." A responsible government is a democratic government, a government that represents all people and, furthermore, makes sure that the most vulnerable in our society are being protected.
Take, for instance, a topic like education. Look at post-secondary education, the colleges and universities. Tuition fees have increased 60% since this Conservative government, the Mike Harris government, has been in power. What does that tell us? Those who can't afford a post-secondary education will not get one because of the increase in tuition fees. Many people who graduate today have loans higher than the mortgages some of us were holding 15 or 20 years ago, just for an education, for their first degree, and the government continues to brag about how well they have done.
This government has looked on the homeless and ignored them. As a matter of fact, we know that ever since they appointed the Minister of Housing, he has not even answered a question on housing. What he has done is dismantled any program that would have offered affordable housing. This is the government that created the greater chaos we have in homelessness today.
Closing some of those psychiatric hospitals has caused those people to be on the road, nowhere to go. Then they come and wrap themselves around the Anne Golden report and say, "We support that." We haven't seen any money. We have seen the mayor of Toronto try his best to bring attention to the chaos we find today, but we have seen no response from this government, just promises.
Let me comment quickly on one of the things I heard in the throne speech. I think they mentioned the Child and Family Services Act. This is something that really amused me.
As a matter of fact, no. I'd rather comment on early childhood education. I remember that when Dalton McGuinty brought out First Steps and talked about how important it is for young children, kids, to get nutrition and an education, this government was busy cutting junior kindergarten. As a matter of fact, Mike Harris and his gang were saying it was one of the most stupid things they had ever heard. He was actually laughing at that. But he stood in the House and used the Queen's representative to announce the fact that now he thinks it's a sensible thing to do. Why? There's an election. The women in this province have seen that this man has no regard for young people or for children, but he realized it's a good way to get a vote, so today he's embracing that.
Can you trust this man, Mike Harris? Can you trust this government, which at one stage was so brutal to the poor and is now saying how much it wants to embrace and be compassionate, to wrap itself in this compassionate fold? They're now saying, "Give us another five years to finish the job." To finish who? The poor, those who are most vulnerable in our society? To finish those who are on welfare, who had paid their taxes as an insurance so that when times were rough they would be able to get some subsistence? They cut them 22%. I ask them, why don't they cut some of their big buddies' incomes 22% and see how they would squeal? No, they didn't do that.
Who is at the trough? Remember the Leslie Noble situation? She was dipping at one side, consulting here, and then in the meantime advising the Premier. How can you stand in the House today and talk about a compassionate way and about fairness and about dealing with those who are the most vulnerable in our society, when even one within your fold is dipping twice and saying, "That's fine, because when I speak to the Premier, when I work with him, he is the Premier, and when I consult it's a different fold."
This is the government that is asking for another four or five years to go back and talking about how compassionate they are. This is the government which, when people wanted protection for affordable housing and rent control, slashed it completely and said, "Go fend for yourselves with those landlords," who don't care, really. There are some wonderful landlords out there, but some of the most vicious landlords out there are saying, "Here is the time to throw those people out" or to live in this disgraceful situation.
This is the government. Mike Harris is asking for another term to come back, saying, "Give me four more years to do the job, to finish the job." To finish whom?
We said this is the best province, this is the best country. Ask those people on the grille outside, who are dying, who have no place to live, who have no hospital beds to go to. Ask them if this is the best province in the world. They are more concerned about their own lives, which we all should be. The government collects a tremendous amount of tax money. Those people are hoping it will be redistributed in a compassionate manner, with understanding for those who are in need. Do they get it?
This is the government which brags about fiscal responsibility, which has never balanced a budget. I understand that the last time they balanced a budget was in 1970. They promise they are going to balance the budget, but what they have done is that they have borrowed from one place and paid down the deficit, borrowed the money and gave it to their friends - their rich friends; I don't think they have any friends who are poor anyhow. Today we have a debt. They have increased that debt $23 billion more. A fiscally responsible government, they say. So who will carry the burden? The burden will be carried by our children later on in the 21st century. In the years 2001 and 2002, the people who are coming out of school with the burden of a high student loan will be carrying the debt that this government has created while it says it's a booming economy. Not for those who are carrying those debts.
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They stand here today and say, "How proud we are of what we have done" to those they have done it to. Tomorrow I understand there's a fundraiser. They're bragging about how much money they will roll in. Let me tell them that the intelligence of Ontarians far exceeds their money. When they go to the polls, they'll understand what type of a compassionate government they want. They would want a government with the insight of 20/20 vision; someone who will look beyond two or three or four years and the next election; someone who will say, "In the next 20 years, yes, I will be comfortable, because now we're taking some very responsible fiscal action, an action that will itself spread the wealth."
Yes, it's a wealthy province, but for whom? For the few, for the friends of the Conservatives and Mike Harris's friends, who are not really concerned anyhow. As I said, the Minister of Housing, who never answers questions anyhow about housing because, I presume, there is no housing ministry here - and the arrogance of the Minister of Community and Social Services bragging about how they have reduced the welfare load or the cases because they have kicked them off and said they have forced them to get a job.
I was at a debate the other day. Jack Carroll, whom I'd rather call by his constituency, said that any job is a good job. My golly, he said that people should be taking any job they want. That's the attitude of this government. We'll see them at the polls and we'll make that decision.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mrs Boyd: I'm happy to have an opportunity to comment on the speeches by both the member for Windsor-Walkerville and the member for Scarborough North.
I'd like to refer first to some of the comments from the member for Windsor-Walkerville because he, like the former Minister of Health, the member for Simcoe West, appeared to be blaming the previous NDP government for the fact that although we had announced the plans to go ahead with the cancer centre, somehow we hadn't been able to carry through on that. I would like him to remember that was the result of an election that elected this government, which didn't go through with funding not only the cancer centre in Windsor but also the cancer centre in Durham and the cancer centre in Mississauga.
What is more, it's the government that went back on the agreement that the community of Windsor had with the NDP government that if they went ahead voluntarily with the restructuring of their hospital, they would be the recipients of the dollars to make the changes that had to be made, because they had been very clear, as have most communities, about what needed to happen if that hospital restructuring were going to be reality.
The member is quite right. It is only in these last few weeks where the Tory government has begun to realize the effect of not flowing the funds to those hospitals that have worked so hard in communities that are out in front in terms of hospital restructuring, that their mistake in not flowing the money to the emergency situation in Windsor is a very serious error. It has been clear for months and months that unless that money was flowed to Windsor, they couldn't possibly deal with the needs of health care in that community. The member is right that this government is responsible for that.
Mr W. Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): It gives me great pleasure this evening to have a few minutes to comment on the points put forward by the member for Scarborough North. When I think about the member for Scarborough North, two things come to mind: what a nice individual and friendly person he is. But then I think back to 1995 and Bill 26. I cannot get it out of my mind that he would take such a stand here in the Legislature. I was just looking at the front page of the Sun the other day. It had the picture there - I'm sure the member is well aware of it - of all the Liberals and the NDP standing in a group around the member for Scarborough North, saying, "How strong we are, how we shall not" -
Interjections.
Mr Jordan: No. You call it what you're like. If you people were present, if you people even understood what this government accepted when they took power - let me just let you think about it for a minute. We're spending a lot of time talking about the things we've done since we took power, but no one is talking about the conditions under which we had to accept power. Think about that. We were facing bankruptcy; there were two sets of books, one set saying there was a surplus - and his government did the same thing to the NDP government. They told the NDP government they had a surplus. Peterson said, "There's a surplus." He went across the country and told the people that.
Mr Gerretsen: If the member from Lanark believes that in 1995 the provincial coffers were bankrupt, we're even more bankrupt now, because then the total debt of this province was $88 billion; now it's $112 billion. You have added on to the public debt of this province. About $10 billion of that was to pay for a tax cut. In other words, your actions have added to the public debt of this province.
The other thing I found very interesting was his comment with respect to Bill 26. That was the bully-bill, known throughout the province as the bill in which everyone -
Interjections.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Direct your comments and questions towards the members who spoke.
Mr Gerretsen: My comments and questions are towards what the members for Windsor-Walkerville and Scarborough North were talking about. Excellent speeches they gave. They gave perfect summations as to what this government is all about, and this government is all about bullying people. It bullied the people on welfare; it bullied the teachers; it bullied the nurses; it bullied every group out there. All the groups lost, with the exception of one group, and that was the doctors. They won. That's the only group that you cowered to and you gave them what they wanted.
If he wants to talk about Bill 26, a bill that is still remembered by many people across this province as the bill that did more against democracy in this province than anything else - because a lot of the other things that have happened in this province since then from a public policy viewpoint all go back to -
The Deputy Speaker: The member's time has expired.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I want to comment on the speeches of the members for Windsor-Walkerville and Scarborough North, to say that I agree with almost all of what they have to say, particularly the member for Scarborough North. I'm always amazed when the member for Scarborough North speaks here, because I have this feeling inside that he should actually be a New Democrat. You should be over here; you really should. Some of the things you say - I tell you, it takes a lot of courage in the political environment we live in today -
Mr Gerretsen: He wants to be a winner.
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Mr Martin: Do you want to be a winner, or do you want to be right? I think that's often the question we need to ask ourselves here, for integrity's sake.
To the member for Scarborough North, it takes a lot of courage, in the political environment we're in today, to speak up on behalf of the poor; it really does. Because this government and their ilk, their supporters and benefactors, have poisoned the environment so much around the question of the poor and fighting poverty and poverty issues that any politician who wants to strictly play by the rules of winning - which is what the member for Kingston said a few minutes ago - and is not concerned at all about the question of integrity is not going to speak about these things.
When you consider the agenda of this government and the fact that they've targeted consistently, from day one, groups of people across this province who are vulnerable or marginalized or in some way seen by the general public as perhaps not quite in the in crowd - and then they have a go at them for nothing other but political expediency, for political purposes, you begin to understand what drives this government.
There was nothing in the speech from the throne the other day that spoke to any vision or plan that will affect the ordinary working man and woman or family in this province in any way at all.
The Deputy Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville has two minutes to respond.
Mr Duncan: I want to address the comments of the members of the third party and then the government. First of all, when I hear a New Democrat talk about integrity, I remember public auto insurance; I remember the social contract. In the 1990 campaign the New Democrats said they would pay for their campaign promises by taxing the rich. What did they do? They taxed everybody. This was the party of organized labour that opened up and stripped collective agreements. So when we hear "integrity" coming from over there, let's just remember what happened between 1990 and 1995, a time they're going to try to forget but that we won't forget. We won't let them forget it as we move forward into the general election.
I want to address for a moment the comments of the government members who spoke to our speech and say that, first of all, health care and education have been mismanaged and your level of incompetence in those two issues will precede you into the election. The people of this province don't think you made the tough decisions; they think you made the wrong decisions. Those wrong decisions have been catalogued. They've been catalogued in people in waiting rooms; they have been catalogued by kids not having access to good-quality public education.
This government, which likes to trumpet its record as a good financial manager, is the government that took this province's debt up yet another $22 billion to $23 billion. This government, that likes to tout its record as a financial manager, is the second-last province in this great country to balance its budget. This government had money for a tax cut at a time when that money could have been used to reduce the debt, restore health care and restore education. You had your priorities wrong. That's why the people won't trust you in health care; they won't trust you in education. You didn't make the tough decisions; you made the wrong decisions.
The Deputy Speaker: I wanted to draw the attention of the House to a visiting group of young people from Scarborough Centre. I want to point out to you the First Cliffcrest Beavers, their parents and leaders. Welcome to our Legislature.
I recognize the member for Ottawa East.
Mr Cullen: It's Ottawa West, Mr Speaker.
I'm pleased to participate in this debate on the speech from the throne. To our young friends there, we're really talking about the government's agenda for the next couple of weeks, maybe, if we're lucky. This is supposed to be the legislative agenda for the third session of the 36th Parliament, yet as I go through it, and it's clear from the commentary that we have, it's kind of like the end of school. The kids in the gallery will recognize that. You know, towards the end of June kids are impatient, they smell summer coming, vacation time coming, and they want to get out of the building. I detect around here that there are a lot of members who would like to get out of the building because they want to go knocking on doors and campaigning for re-election. That's all well and good, but unfortunately the speech from the throne is nothing to campaign on.
I look at the speech from the throne and I see six bills, three of which are recycled from the previous session. Of these bills that are being recycled, one assuredly will pass - the Child and Family Services Act - but the other ones, given this government's own inclination to pull the trigger within two weeks, are not likely to see swift passage in this House. The other three bills are interesting as well. Some of them, of course, we will support, and others, again, are just there for show.
What are members in this House doing when they talk about the speech from the throne? The government side is very intent on defending the government's record, because they know that this is the opportunity, to talk to us but more importantly to talk to those people who are watching, and they want to hone their campaign speeches.
As the member for London Centre said, in conjunction with all the government advertising, it is to tell the public that everything is all right in Mike Harris's Ontario. Well, everything is not all right in Mike Harris's Ontario and therein lies the rub. The reason everything is not all right in Mike Harris's Ontario is the one very fundamental part of the Common Sense Revolution, that keystone of the Common Sense Revolution, which is the income tax cut.
In my community, if you earn $30,000 a year, the income tax cut is worth two cups of coffee a week; maybe not insignificant, but people in my community can see first-hand the impact, the cost of that income tax cut. Walk down the streets - Georgina or Winnington or Parkview - and these are single-family homes. These are people most of whom are earning more than $80,000 a year, but they're quite upset that their neighbourhood school, which does not have one vacant room, is being closed. It is a successful, viable community school. I know it well. It's merely blocks away from where I live. This school is being closed because of the government's school accommodation formula, which radically rewrites the whole definition of the use of schools. Not only does the community lose its school and the child care centre is lost, but the very place where Beavers and Cubs and Girl Guides go is lost to the community.
The city of Ottawa, the city of Nepean for its schools, the city of Gloucester for its schools, the city of Cumberland because we now have a city of Cumberland, and Kanata and all the other communities are saying: "Wait a second. This school accommodation formula which flows from Bill 160 has got nothing to do with education; it has got everything to do with taking money out of our community. We don't want to lose these community facilities. We don't want to lose these things that make communities real communities."
In my community of Ottawa West, whether it's in the White Haven community or down at Crystal Beach, Crystal Bay and Lakeview, which is now in the member for Nepean's community but will soon be in my community as I go knocking on doors, they don't want to lose these facilities.
Let me tell you more about what people will be saying about this keystone in the Common Sense Revolution, this income tax cut. I was at Trinity United Church all of two nights ago, up on Maitland, in front of 40 people whose average age, I have to tell you, would have to be 60-plus. These are active seniors. They are there, these 40 people. They're part of a group called Church in Society, of the United Church. They're talking about health care.
We could all talk about what's happened with the cuts to health care, the $800 million that came out, the laying off of over 10,000 nurses, and now the money coming from the federal government being passed through, because that was the deal, not because Mike Harris thought this was a good thing. After all, he was the man who stood up and said: "Well, these nurses go. It's like Hula Hoops. They have their time and place." That's what he said, which I thought was rather unique. I grew up in the Hula Hoop era but I thought nurses were very important to our health care system.
These people see the ads on TV and they're not taken in, because they live the real life experience. You come out of hospital after having a stroke or a heart attack, where you're covered for 24-hour-a-day care and your medication is all paid for, and you land with a thump in the home care system which is capped at 15 hours a week. If you need 30 hours or 25 hours of care because you just came out of the hospital, it's not there. You have to either rely on family and friends or pay for it out of your pocket at $18 an hour. Of course you have to pay for your medication on top of that.
These people are saying: "Wait a second. What happened to our health care system, our medicare system? Why is it we don't have a seamless structure here?
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I can recall when the hospitals, after having had this money cut by the Harris government, were passing people out sicker and quicker, as fast as they could because they couldn't afford to hang on to hospital patients. It overloaded the home care system. Our community care access centre found itself, in December, three months away from the end of its fiscal year, coming to the provincial government and asking for $3 million. Not only could it not handle the waiting list for physiotherapy and for visiting nurses and all the other services, but it couldn't handle the onslaught coming out of hospital. So they told people that for three weeks over the Christmas season - 75%; that's 11,000 people, so we're talking of nearly 8,000 people on home care in Ottawa-Carleton - "You'll have to rely on family and friends, because we can't afford to give you 15 hours maximum a week."
No wonder the community went up in flames. The cancer society because their membership access home care, the Kidney Foundation, the liver society, heart and stroke, over 70 groups - seniors' groups, health care groups, all the foundations, the charitable organizations - whose members use the home care system certainly got themselves on the phone, because they understood who had the finger on the button.
We did get some funding, but the funding we're getting courtesy of the federal government flowing through, because of the mistake it made, even the money going through there only begins to repair the damage Mike Harris did to our health care system in 1995-96. The $800 million going out is $2 billion in today's dollars, and that's not the amount of money that's coming from the feds.
What happens to the need for home care, the need for palliative care, the need for long-term care? Even the government's announcement of 20,000 new beds being accelerated won't put a dent in the waiting list, because we have to play catch-up and we have an aging population who have health care needs that will not be met by this government.
Why do we find ourselves in this situation? Because of the keystone of the Common Sense Revolution, that income tax cut.
My community is a middle-class community. Yes, we have social housing in our community. Yes, we have people who are on welfare, and I want to come back to that because that is the saddest story of the Common Sense Revolution.
I want to come back to these people who came out on Monday night to Trinity United Church, these folks who own their own single-family homes on large lots, who have paid their taxes, built their homes and raised their families. Their families have flown the coup and they're in their retirement years, and they're coming out because they are very concerned about the trend towards a two-tier system and the trend towards Americanization of our health care system, and they don't like it.
They remember well what happened in the 1950s when Ontario, under a Tory government, resisted medicare. They remember what happened in the mid-1960s when medicare finally came in and they were told that this would be a public health care system that would be accessible to every Canadian, no matter who they were or where they lived. It would be affordable, it would be public.
What has happened since Mike Harris took power? Not only do we see the cuts to our emergency rooms, the overcrowding in emergency rooms, the increase in pharmaceutical costs with the user fees, over $230 million of additional user fees for drug costs, the Trillium plan, but now we see the government in an inadequate position to meet the needs for home care. Why? Because its first duty was to cut income taxes.
As I said earlier, for someone earning $30,000 a year it's two cups of coffee a week. But the first priority of this government was to cut income taxes. Never mind that it carried on running a deficit year after year after year. Never mind that it added $22 billion to the provincial debt, and $10 billion of that was as a direct result of this income tax cut. We know now that had income taxes not been cut, in fiscal year 1998-99 we would be in a balanced budget situation. That's last fiscal year. We would have been in a balanced budget situation, without having to close hospitals.
In my community, closing hospitals means the downsizing of the Civic, the downsizing of the Elisabeth Bruyère, the closure of the Riverside, the closure of the Grace, the downsizing of the Montfort. In the west end particularly, it means the downsizing of the Ottawa Civic Hospital and the closure of the Grace.
These people who live in my community, who raise their families in my community and who have seen me at their doorstep, whether I was on school board, city council or regional council, and now as their member of provincial Parliament - and I should say that they will soon be receiving my householder telling them about the work I do here in their mailboxes - these people know you have to pay for these services from taxes, and what they see in terms of their benefits as opposed to the costs in terms of health care, there's no argument. Indeed, that is why in September 1997 the people in Ottawa West rejected the Tory candidate overwhelmingly and elected me at 53%.
Interjection: They elected a Liberal.
Mr Cullen: I want to speak to the notion of whether or not the Liberals have a policy or a program that can address the crisis in health care that has been caused by this keystone in the Harris government's revolution, which is the cut to income tax.
I have to tell you that I was at an NDP nomination meeting in Ottawa South, and I said to the assembled throng there that the key message they should bring out in that community is, "Don't waste your vote on a Liberal."
Mr Baird: Hear, hear.
Mr Cullen: The reason why I say that is quite clear. If you have difficulty with the Harris agenda, the cost to health care, the cost to community services, the cost to education as a result of this income tax cut, you cannot campaign to repair that damage without addressing the keystone of the Common Sense Revolution. If you're not prepared to roll back some portion of that income tax cut, you will not have the money to deal with health care, education, all the other things.
The Liberals talk a good game: They don't like that income tax cut; they don't like the cuts to health care; they don't like the cuts to education; they don't like the cuts to community services. But without rolling back that income tax cut, they have no money. They cannot spend twice what this government is already spending in terms of federal transfers. They cannot spend it twice. It is already being spent.
I belong to a party which, I'm quite pleased to say, is going to do something about this keystone that has generated all this damage to our community services, to our health care, to our education. That is, quite simply, the New Democratic program, which will roll back the income tax cut for the top 6% of the population, those individuals with taxable incomes of $80,000 or more.
When I was at Trinity United Church and my seniors were there and they heard me speaking, how many of them -
The Deputy Speaker: It may be all right at that church to flash that, but it's not here. No props.
Mr Cullen: I have here the speech from the throne, and I'm sure I'm referring to the speech from the throne in all of these things.
Interjections.
The Deputy Speaker: Order. I don't mind you reading from it. I don't care to be corrected when I'm suggesting that it's a prop. I won't have it.
Mr Cullen: My apologies, Mr Speaker, but I do intend to quote from it. Thank you.
When I mentioned earlier that the centre point of our campaign is to roll back the income tax cut for those with taxable incomes of $80,000 or more, we have a place to put that money. It will generate $1.5 billion, and it will go back into health care, it will go back into education and it will go back into community services. We know where the money is coming from. It's a balanced-budget approach, not adding one cent to the deficit.
When I talk to my community about home care and they hear from us that we're going to invest $250 million immediately into home nursing, homemaking and personal support services so that people can live independently and with dignity in their own homes for as long as possible, and when I tell them we're going to stop the bidding war for home care contracts, which leads to unrealistically low bids, low wages for health care workers and poor service, that health care funding should go into patient care, not for profit, people in my community recognize that. They understand that you can't get something for nothing, and they understand that these monies have to go there because our own health care restructuring commission says that these are the priorities, long-term care, palliative care, home care.
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One thing I did want to return to is the issue of what this Mike Harris government has done to the poorest in our community. I'm reminded of this because - and again, I don't intend to use this as a prop, but I intend to quote from it. This is the report on homelessness that came from regional government to our community services committee.
The report on homelessness makes some rather remarkable statements on Ottawa-Carleton. People think Ottawa-Carleton is fat-cat city, but they don't know the extent of homelessness in our community. Last year 5,000 people were without shelter in our community, over 900 of whom were kids, not street kids but children.
What is interesting to find from this, and disturbing to me, is that prior to 1995, 34% of those people receiving social assistance were paying more than their shelter allowance towards their rent, which means that over a third of these people had to take from their food money, their health money, money that's needed for their children, to help pay the rent. That is deplorable, to find that one out of three would find themselves in that situation.
However, after the cut to welfare rates which was imposed by this Harris government as part of financing an income tax cut where one quarter of the benefit goes to the top 6% of the population, people earning over $80,000 a year or more, 86% of those on social assistance found themselves paying more than their shelter allowance on their rent. That means four out of five people had to take from their food money, their health money, money for their future, money for their kids, to help pay the rent. No wonder we have a homelessness problem, because you've got to eat to live, and if you can't pay the rent, then on the street you go.
So we have these 5,000 people, families, living in shelters. The primary reason they were there five years ago was marital breakup; today it's eviction, because they cannot afford to pay the rent.
Shame on this government for putting ahead of the needy in our community an income tax cut which benefits mostly the wealthy in our community. Some 25% of the benefit of this income tax cut goes to 6% of the population, those individuals earning $80,000 or more. That is why when I go door to door in my community, in the well-to-do communities in Ottawa West -
Mr Baird: And in my community.
Mr Cullen: - and indeed in some parts of Nepean, people tell me to solve homelessness, to ensure that there's adequate home care, to make sure that the schools remain in our community, whether it's St Thomas School in Crystal Beach, Crystal Bay, whether it's White Haven school in White Haven, whether it's Queensway school in Queensway Terrace North. It is worth it for me to pay a little more in tax, to go back to 1995, to maintain the quality of life that we have become accustomed to in Ontario. That will be the election issue.
Mr Baird: I always enjoy listening to a speech by the member for Ottawa West. The member for Ottawa West and I may disagree, but at least we take difficult but necessary stands on issues, which is so different from our friends in the official opposition.
I did find one part of the member's speech to be remarkably interesting, his comments with respect to a speech he gave to the Ottawa South New Democratic riding association. He said, "Don't waste your votes on the Liberal Party." Never have I heard such wise words in this House as that comment. It's tremendously good advice, not just to people in Ottawa South but to people in Nepean-Carleton as well, and I'll be sure to pass on that advice on a day-to-day basis.
Where the honourable member and I disagree is on how you deal with the challenges facing our society. Like he, I'm concerned about the issue of homelessness in our province, whether it's in an urban area, a rural area or suburban Ontario. But the best way we deal with those is perhaps where the road becomes forked. I believe you've got to grow the economy, that if you can create an environment where the private sector will create jobs, that is the best thing we can do. The best social program for someone is a job.
I'm concerned that not enough jobs have been created. But 540,000 net new jobs is an excellent start, and it has happened because we've had strong and effective leadership. We can't put all that at risk by a risky scheme put forward by the Liberal Party or the strategy that he has put forth.
I encourage him, though, to talk about his economic philosophies with respect to taxation when he visits Centrepointe in my riding, when he visits Qualicum and Graham Park in my riding. I hope he tells those people in those homes that he thinks they're not taxed enough and he'd like to take a $1.5-billion tax grab. The wrong way.
Mr Gerretsen: I found it very interesting to listen to the member for Ottawa West. I wonder if in 1997, when he ran in that by-election, he was telling people exactly the same thing. Was he telling people at that point in time, "Don't waste your vote but just vote for me"? In this House we never quite know whether he's reading from the Liberal talking points or from the NDP talking points. Some people would suggest that maybe they shouldn't be wasting their vote on the NDP in the coming election, but that of course remains to be seen. It all depends on how badly the people of Ontario want to get rid of the Harris reactionary government that we've had over the last four years in this province.
He made some reference to the fact that we have not costed out the promises we've made in our 20/20 Plan, Mr Speaker. Let me make it absolutely clear to you and to the people of Ontario that we have costed out every last penny of the $2.5 billion that we are going to reinvest in health care and education, and it's from the existing budget. It is not taking into account at all any revenue growth. It will be part of the 20/20 Plan that will be available to each and every Ontarian within the next week or so, so that people can make up their own minds whether or not the fiscal promises that we've made in that plan make any sense. I'm telling you, every last penny of it has been costed out, even down to items where we feel $2 million to $4 million to $5 million can be found in different budgets that currently exist within the provincial budgetary documents.
Mr Martin: It is my privilege tonight to rise, if only for a short time, to comment on the -
Mr William Saunderson (Eglinton): That's good.
Mr Martin: That's typical of the member across the way. First they don't listen, and then when they actually do wake up to the fact that somebody is speaking, they have nothing else to say except to be rude or curt or dismissive. That's what we've come to expect from you over the last four years: dismissive and arrogant and rude. Those are the words that describe you most in my experience and my view here in this House.
The member for Ottawa West is somebody people in this House and across this province would do well to listen to. He's a person who comes to this job with some long experience in working on behalf of his community in the areas of health care and education, questions of social justice. We in this caucus have been enriched by his moving over and his contribution and his presence. He speaks again today in the same way that he has spoken consistently over the last couple of years that I've known him in this place, and from the people who knew him when he was a councillor in the area of Ottawa, he has been consistent in his very excellent analysis of the economics of things and the impact they have on the lives of families and individuals in his community.
He speaks here tonight about the province and the impact of the policies of this government. With the smoke-and-mirrors exercise we're going through at the moment with the speech from the throne, and I suggest the budget next week, you will again begin to believe and to see that what he's saying is in fact the truth.
The Deputy Speaker: The member's time has expired. Comments and questions?
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Mr Galt: I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation by the member for Ottawa West, but what was even more entertaining was the member for Kingston and The Islands, the king of flip-flop for the Liberals, criticizing somebody in the NDP for flip-flopping. The irony is just absolutely unreal.
This 20/20 Plan, as I've heard it referred to, that the Liberals have brought out is a 20% increase in taxes and $20 billion more in debt. That's where we're going to end up with their 20/20 Plan. The vision is absolutely phenomenal. I can just see where it's going. You really don't lay out what it's going to cost. You talk about your energy plan. You talk about how it's going to equal the cost of a cup of coffee and a doughnut. In fact the conversion of the Ontario Hydro plants is going to amount to over $6 billion, and you people have the nerve to refer to that as a cup of coffee and a doughnut. That's the kind of exaggeration you're going through.
At least with the NDP we know where they're at. They're honest. They lay out the plan. It's another $1.5 billion they're going to take from the rich, and they admit to that. They tell us where they're going to get it, but with the Liberals you just never know what they're going to say today and what they're going to say tomorrow.
Interjection: It's smoke and mirrors.
Mr Galt: It's smoke and mirrors and they just keep changing it.
It's interesting to hear the member for Ottawa West talk about hard-hearted government. In fact, what this very compassionate government has been doing is establishing an economy so we have some dollars to spend on things like health care, which is very important to your party as well as to our party; so we have some dollars from a strong economy to spend on quality education. Those are the kinds of things that you can do with good leadership once you get a good economy going.
Mr Baird: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Based on the speech by my colleague the member for Northumberland, I'd like to ask for unanimous consent for the member for Kingston and The Islands to detail to the House how he will find $7 million to $8 million of cuts from the Legislative Assembly, as promised in their 20/20 Plan. Maybe he could table that with the Clerk.
The Deputy Speaker: Is it agreed? It is not agreed.
The Chair recognizes the member for Ottawa West.
Mr Cullen: I know that the member for Kingston and The Islands owes me one.
I am pleased to respond to the comments by the members for Nepean, Kingston and The Islands, Sault Ste Marie and Northumberland.
I have to go back to the crux of my argument, which is that the cuts to income taxes have generated all the cuts to community services, health care and education, to pay for an income tax cut which only benefits mostly people who are very well off. Most people understand that if you're earning over $80,000 as an individual, that's your taxable income every year, how much more help do you really need? Yet we just look at the reality, and this is a credibility gap that the government has.
The government firmly believes that this income tax cut has solved all kinds of ills. It is so out of touch with reality that it doesn't understand the ills it has created. When they lose, as they have, the community of White Haven because of their policies, they have to recognize that there's a problem here. When they lose, as they have lost, the community in Crystal Beach-Lakeview, then they have to begin to realize that talking about 540,000 jobs, which is still less than what they promised in their Common Sense Revolution, is not cutting it.
I'll use the example of Nortel, which is expanding in terms of jobs. The member opposite will crow about that, but they're having problems attracting people to the neighbouring communities because the health care is not there, never mind for themselves but for their parents, and because you're closing schools there to pay for an income tax cut. People are saying: "I pay taxes and I expect service. If the service is not there, why are you giving me back money? I want those services." The proof is in the pudding. That's the issue in this election.
Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): It's my privilege to be the third speaker in rotation for remarks on the speech from the throne. At the outset I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the people of Ontario, in fact the people of Durham East, for the privilege of serving them in this particular session, the 36th Parliament of Ontario.
As I was looking at the speech from the throne, I hearkened to the remarks of the Lieutenant Governor, the Honourable Hilary Weston. I'm going to try and talk about not just the throne speech but how it applies to my riding of Durham East. I'm quoting the Lieutenant Governor and this is what she said in the speech from the throne, "All in Ontario have worked hard." Certainly my constituents have worked hard. We've all been part of resolving a situation where Ontario was spending way beyond its means, with an $11 billion deficit. This is what she said:
"All in Ontario have worked hard - taxpayers, families, employees, small business owners and government. The people of this province have made great progress to get our house in order after years of neglect. While more work remains, people have said the province is on the right track."
I agree with those remarks. It has been challenging for all the people of Ontario and respectfully I say thanks, not in an arrogant way but I think that whenever you redress a situation that's out of control, it's difficult and it's a shared responsibility. I've always said it really starts with each individual recognizing that they're part of the solution or they're part of the problem.
Out of respect for my constituents, I took some time to reflect this afternoon, because I was asked to speak, on the important sectors, and these aren't in any particular order but I want to mention the people, the real names, the faces, the things that have made a difference over the last four years of my privilege of serving the riding of Durham East.
I start with the most important sector. The most important sector, perhaps, arguably, is the agricultural sector. This afternoon I was privileged to be invited to meet with the Farmers of Ontario, a very important group. The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs addressed the group, and they spoke to him directly about their plan for the new century in Ontario. They were confident, they were there, and they were received in confidence.
I'd like to recognize Mr Ed Segworth of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, and Bob Dow of the corn producers. I might add that Anna Bragg, the new president of the Ontario Corn Producers' Association is from my riding, in fact she lives just down the road from where I live. It really drives it home. This is about the people of Ontario, of which I'm one, with the privilege to serve here. There's Wayne Newman from the Ontario Agricultural Commodity Council, Peter Oosteroff, who's a dairy farmer of Ontario, and many more.
It would suffice to say that the agricultural sector in our economy is $7 billion, farm gate receipts, and the ripple effect goes throughout our economy.
Recently in my riding I met with Russell Dow and watched the lambing operation just a few weeks ago at his farm; he's a former director in that sector.
I attended all the meetings this past winter with the Durham Region Federation of Agriculture and Victoria county and listened to the producer groups and their concerns - the biotechnology issues, the heavy capital investment to be competitive in this global economy, a very misunderstood sector that's unappreciated.
Now when I have a boiled egg for breakfast I really think of the egg producers in my riding. It's something that the people of Ontario have to realize, that that sector, whether it's the pork producers or the grain or the apple producers, they have all shared in this recovery of Ontario. The job's not done. Clearly we're there to try and support that sector.
I've also met with the cattlemen's association and the soil crop. Of course I would be remiss not to mention that in the soil crop, the Atlantic packaging and the bio-solids on the land is an important, on-going issue. I keep the Minister of the Environment, the Honourable Norm Sterling, posted and let him know that I'm interested on behalf of my constituents, that we have to maintain the quality of our resource: the land and the very food that's produced from it.
That's my first remark respectfully to my constituents with the agricultural sector.
I automatically gravitate to the many organizations I've had the privilege to speak to over the past four or five months: the Kinettes and the Kinsmen, the Lions Club, the Rotary Club. At each of them I look out and see people familiar to me from my time as a councillor and just as a citizen in the community watching these people volunteering in our community.
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Marilyn Mushinski, as the parliamentary assistant to the Premier, was giving out awards in Scarborough, and she thought I'd sort of monopolized the volunteer recognition night, which was a week or so ago, I had so many of my constituents. It's sort of a rural part of Ontario although we're in the GTA - that's a debate for another day - but volunteerism comes quite naturally with communities that are knit together over time. There were members from the hospital board, the Lions Club, the visual arts centre, Big Brothers, and they were all recognized and thanked by Marilyn Mushinski and myself that night in Scarborough.
I thank them personally here tonight, because they're part of the solution of not expecting us to tax more to solve every problem in Ontario. That may become an important part of the debate over the next few weeks if there's an election but, ongoing, our solution has always been to look at every possible option of delivery of high-quality service without increasing taxes.
The highlight of that whole event of recognizing of volunteerism in Ontario and in my riding - it's impossible to select one recipient, but there was one person, Gwenyth Thompson from Port Perry, who worked for a long time in the hospital sector as a volunteer, and she was recognized by Lieutenant Governor Hilary Weston at Hart House. It was a real honour for me to be there, not prestigiously, but to thank her on behalf of my constituents. Volunteers, whether it's the 4-H Club or all the way up to one of the Rotary service clubs, are part of the community, and they are the people whom I try to represent.
Arguably there are those out there who think every time I meet with them there's always got to be more money to solve every problem. I wish there were more money, but when I think of that I always think of my family, your family and those people in my community who are perhaps on a fixed income. They can simply not afford continually rising taxes. That sounds like a very tired debate, but we have to reinvent ourselves and how we do things.
Orono, Newcastle, Burketon, Blackstock, Port Perry, Bowmanville, Curtis, all of those communities, are made up of many small businesses. There are no large corporate partners there. It's mainly made up of small businesses. I try to attend on a regular basis the meetings, whether it's with the chamber of commerce or with the Clarington Business Group or whether it's the newly formed board of trade.
In going to those meetings, I meet all sorts of partners, whether they are people in home-based businesses, which is an expanding sector, people starting up a small financial consulting business, real estate agents - the list goes on. What I've done with them is I've watched and listened, and I had a consultation on budget input. It was arranged by Ron Collis and the Clarington Business Group. We met in the school. A number of people attended. We just received their observations. Some may have characterized them as criticism, but those observations by those real people operating small businesses were submitted to Ernie Eves as part of the budget consideration.
Some of the members aren't perhaps paying as close attention as they should to the detail of this particular comment, and I wish they would. Mr Leach, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, is here and I appreciate that he's nodding his head. He agrees with me, I believe. Overwhelmingly, I heard favour for a sales tax reduction. If we were to have a reduction in provincial sales tax, hopefully the federal government would get the signal. That will affect every consumer at every income level, with obviously more favour to the people with the smaller income because more of their income is disposable income. That's on the record; that's here.
I want to thank the board of trade, Michael Patrick and Adrian Foster, who are arranging a post-budget breakfast meeting with a local accountant, a CA, Peter Hobb, who will comment very objectively on the budget. Working with small business, whether it's the Scugog Chamber of Commerce - Yvonne Pepper and Brian Callery - it's extremely important for me to listen, not to editorialize on their important observations.
If I look at the bigger picture in Ontario, small business creates jobs. We've heard that over and over again. When I think of jobs, and I think of my family - I have three children in university coming home this summer, Andrew, Marnie and Rochelle - they'll be three of the many university and college students looking for summer employment, so I look at the Ontario summer jobs strategy and the plan of our Ministry of Education and all the ministries working together to create opportunities. It's anticipated there will be over 53,000 new jobs for young people who are home from their education. That's more than twice the number of those that were found through the jobs strategy in 1995. Last year the summer jobs strategy surpassed the expectations. I hope it does it again this year. It's for the youth and part of small business. We have to create opportunities for young people or work with the sector to create those opportunities.
I would be remiss not to acknowledge the importance of education and to hear in public in this forum and with respect to the throne speech that most teachers are hard-working, dedicated professionals. There are a few in the union movement who have spoiled it not just for the classroom teacher, but arguably for many of the students. That is very difficult for me, as my wife is a teacher and I know the stress that has been created.
I hosted a forum on the three Rs: rights, responsibilities and respect in the classroom. It was organized by my legislative intern. They had a reception here tonight. Gord Westmacott organized the whole thing, a very professional young man who has a very imminently bright future. I just wish that I had an important enough position to have him as one of my staff members, but I'm sure with his undergraduate degree in journalism and his graduate degree that he's working on, he'll be scooped up by any one of the parties. His research skills are excellent, as are his journalism and communication skills. He set that meeting up he had the principal of the high school, Fred Mandryk, and the community policing officer from the Durham regional police, Staff Sgt Ted Dionne, and Constable Paul Hawrychuk. He also invited Donna Lucas-Astley, who is a member of a school community council but also a member of the Ontario Parent Council.
He also had Greg Koenderman, an OAC student and former president of the Bowmanville school council; and Ron Hooper, who's the president of the Bowmanville Business Improvement Area. He invited Toni Skarica, who's the MPP for Wentworth North and also a member of the crime commission, but a former parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education. So we had a panel. I was rather subordinated in this role. We were listening to teachers, parents, educators and students, a cross-section of the community. We summarized their observations on rights and responsibilities of students, teachers and parents, a very balanced discussion that night. I thank the people who participated.
Once again I drive it back to our reforms or changes that have affected every single family and every individual, but we have listened and certainly I have listened. Those comments were unedited, fed to the minister and I expect that the discussion was well heard.
I also have attended a number of new school openings in my riding. I think there are up to 12 new schools in Durham, where we had an inordinate number of portables throughout the area, a rapidly growing area. I attended the opening of St Leo's School in Brooklin and met with - very amicably, I might add - the principal, Jeananne Ralph; the mayor; and Jim Flaherty, the Minister of Labour who's taking over that part of my riding in the next election, a very joyful, hopeful event, a wonderful, beautiful school with great teachers and students and support in the community.
I also expect to attend the opening of another new school, St Elizabeth, in Bowmanville, where by the way my wife is a teacher. It will be a real privilege to be in public office and to be there at the official opening of a brand-new elementary school, very much needed in the area.
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There's also a new secondary school in my riding just down the street from where I live, St Stephen's secondary, a wonderful school, open access to children from all over the community. In the last few weeks, with the few times I've had the opportunity to speak to people at coffee parties and people who have invited me into their homes to meet with neighbours and small business people, I've heard about health. I tell them that we are spending more money in health. There's no one here who can dispute the absolute accuracy of their public accounts record. Year over year we have spent more money in health care; arguably we have spent it differently.
People in my riding watch the CBC news or the CFTO news; they read the Toronto Star; they hear about all the calamity that's going on in Toronto. But the reality is this: In Durham region for the last couple of decades we've experienced enormous growth in what is probably one of the lowest-funded areas in the province, not just for hospitals but children's aid societies; for education and for community-based services.
I tell them Toronto is angry because we're moving cancer treatment and dialysis and other high-level services from Toronto to Durham. There are 500,000 people in Durham. Now we're bringing services closer to patients. Naturally, the 1,600 people and their families who have to travel to Princess Margaret are now going to have their services closer here in Durham. I thank Elizabeth Witmer for her work - and a very difficult challenge. I thank my constituents for being patient when they're just going to watch Lakeridge Health Corp in Oshawa and Port Perry and Bowmanville expand the services not just in the community but in facilities.
Most recently, the Honourable Cam Jackson was at the celebration of International Year of Older Persons. The co-chairs of my committee, completely non-political, Kent Farndale and Harold Hammond, hosted the day. They were very fortunate; they arranged Don Herron, who is the co-chair of the Canadian coordination committee, and Lois Neely, who's the provincial representative on the Canadian committee. We had a wonderful celebration. At that celebration, Cam Jackson brought real dollars to the community. Liz Fulford from Durham community care was there to receive the funding for community-based services. It's an ongoing commitment to drive services closer to people. I work with community groups, whether it's service clubs, families or individual students who come to the constituency office.
As the time is running out, I want to complete my remarks. I've had the privilege, under the International Year of Older Persons in 1999, to meet a wonderful individual who is recognized with the Order of France, with the Legion of Honour from France, Mr Fred West, who will be celebrating his 100th birthday on May 15, 1999. He served in the First World War. He's in good health. I say hello to Fred and his family and I thank the people in the community and the Legion in Bowmanville that support him. Even Fred and the young people I speak to realize that change is difficult. Respectfully, I stand here and say that with the courage and leadership of the tough decisions that have been made, they should share in the satisfaction of a job almost done.
I appeal to each of you: Each problem in the future will have a number of choices to be made. There will be those that challenge us and those that promise us. They will promise to do one thing, whether it's the helicopters or whether it's the airport, and the Liberal solution to every plan is to spend more of your taxpayer money. I appeal to you; the throne speech had the message. It has been difficult but the people of Ontario -
The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr Gerretsen: The way the member started, I almost thought it was his swan song in the Legislature, but he made some valid points. I think the most valid point he made was about trying to build consensus around an issue when he talked about how he brought together the teachers and the various partners in the education system and how they had a good discussion and came up with some valid recommendations for that school or number of schools that he was talking about.
I suppose the real question that a lot of people out there are having is, why haven't you done that about a lot of the changes you have made? If there's one criticism that I continually hear about this government when I travel around and canvass door to door as I have for the last three or four months, it is that you've gone too far and certainly too fast and you've bulldozed over a lot of people.
I'm absolutely convinced that when your government was elected back in 1995 - and you won that election, I'll grant you that - a lot of people out there thought they were getting the Conservative government that had built consensus in Ontario under the leadership of Leslie Frost, John Robarts and Bill Davis. That's who the people thought they were getting. The perception out there, and my experience from being in this House, is that they didn't get anything like that. Since that period of time, you have antagonized and fought with just about every group that is out there. We start off with the most vulnerable in our society, the people on welfare, and we go to the teachers, the nurses, just about every group that's out there. Why didn't you try to build some consensus around the issues, which is the one thing -
The Deputy Speaker: Thank you.
Mr Cullen: I'm glad to comment on the remarks of the member for Durham East. Listening to his comments that he spoke in a quiet and considered way, you could tell that he was concerned about teachers' reactions in his community. He spent a long time talking about that, and I think he's correct to be concerned, because damage has been done to our educational system by the government that he's a member of.
They have taken $1 billion out of education. They have put in this one-size-fits-all funding formula which has penalized the urban boards. They have linked the construction of new schools with the use of school space, and one has nothing to do with the other. He's finding that teachers were quite upset when his government insisted that secondary teachers teach 25 minutes more and had these wonderful ads with the clock on them. No one ever asked, does this mean students get taught 25 minutes more? Of course they don't get taught 25 minutes more. As a matter of fact, what happens is that the teacher gets 25 more students to teach, which means there's less time per pupil and therefore clearly a reduction in the quality of education. No wonder he's concerned when teachers who live the experience - they see the ads on TV - know the damage this government has done. No wonder he is concerned.
I have to agree with him on one thing, though, and that is: How is this going to be solved? We have a fiscally responsible platform to find the money that addresses the issue because it comes down to the income tax cut. But when you listen to the Liberals who talk a good game, who are concerned about the cuts, this is why I say if you are truly concerned about the impact of the Harris agenda, the damage of that income tax cut on education - you can't waste your vote on the Liberals because they do not have the funds to restore the damage. For his community, even though he may see that the Liberals are the challenge -
The Deputy Speaker: Thank you.
Mr Galt: I finally heard something from the member for Ottawa West that I agree with, and that is, "Don't waste your vote on a Liberal."
It's just a real pleasure to sit here and listen to the member for Durham East make his presentation. He's my neighbour, really, in the riding to the west - a very thoughtful, very considered, very well planned and thought-out presentation that reflected on the throne speech. Listening to other members speaking, especially the member for Kingston and The Islands, I noticed that you wouldn't know that they were addressing the throne speech. This one was very thoughtful, the way he made reference to the International Year of Older Persons and talked about Fred, who belongs to the Legion in his community, very effective.
He talked about some of the difficult decisions we've had to make as a party, that our leader has had to make - very effective as a leader - but they were necessary, tough, difficult decisions. Change is difficult at any time, but after 10 years, a decade, of being out on an economic desert, a lost decade, something had to be done. The member for Kingston and The Islands said that everything we were doing was great except it was too much too fast. Well, when you had 10 years of nothing happening, we were trying to catch up. In five years, to catch up for the 10 lost years, things did have to move fast. It was unfortunate that it had to move that fast, but this country was in big trouble. We didn't have any choice but to move very quickly because we were on the edge of economic disaster, bankruptcy, whatever you want to describe it as. We had to get the economy under control, and we did: 540,000 net new jobs. The result has been that we can now do something for health care, we can now do something for our education.
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The Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for Sault Ste Marie.
Mr Martin: I want to thank the Liberals for yielding their time and allowing me an opportunity to comment on the speech from the member for Durham East. This may be the last chance I get to respond in this way to a speech that you've made here. I want to make sure that it's worthwhile, given that the election will probably be called next week and we'll all be out there on the hustings, and some of us will be back and some of us won't. That's the reality of this place and that's the dice that we throw and we'll see, won't we?
The member for Durham East, I have to say from the outset, has been a good foot soldier for the Common Sense Revolution. He one of the folks over there who drank the Kool-Aid, who has all the lines down, who knows the rhetoric, who's with the program. I've sat across the table from him at committee on several occasions and we've nearly always been on completely opposite ends of almost every issue and discussion we've had, because he has followed word by word every diktat that the heads of this government, who preside mostly in the Premier's office, have deemed is in keeping with that which is good and right for this province. So to hear him tonight doesn't surprise us. He's in support of the program and will continue to be.
As a bit of an aside, early on in our time together, in the heat of argument I made an ill-considered comment to him that I want to apologize for, because I don't want him to carry that with him should we not come back, one or the other of us, after the next election. I want to think well of him and hopefully he will think well of me. This next election will play out in the best interests of the people of Ontario.
The Deputy Speaker: The member for Durham West - East - has two minutes to respond.
Mr O'Toole: In the next election my riding will be referred to as Durham, so you were more or less correct. Durham West, East - all of it will be Durham.
I want to thank the member for Kingston and The Islands and briefly comment on, why didn't we consult? Well, there had been 10 years of consultation: the Royal Commission on Learning, the acute care study, the whole Fair Tax Commission. We had consulted. It was time for action. The Liberals will still consult, but no action.
The member for Ottawa West, respectfully to teachers, just doesn't get it. The royal commission which that government that he flip-flopped over to, being a Liberal - he's neither one nor the other. He's a push-me, pull-me. They actually kicked him out of the caucus.
Mr Cullen: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I am a member of the New Democratic caucus and should be recognized as such.
Mr O'Toole: That is the actual fact I was reporting. On education, we're actually spending more on education, more on special education, and he doesn't get it. The royal commission was founded on the basis that education was in some sort of trauma. The government he's a member of now, the NDP, at the time had the royal commission because there was a problem, by definition. The commission said, "There's a problem; let's find a solution." He should pay attention to the script they started. Dave Cooke is carrying on some important amendments: the College of Teachers, education quality.
The member for Northumberland never ceases to amaze me, the number of times he speaks and how accurate he is in his characterization of what has transpired. I compliment him. I work with him, and I think he has difficult challenges in his riding. I know just how hard he's working for the hospitals in Port Hope and Cobourg and trying to find a solution. Every day I see him relentlessly tagging after the Minister of Health and trying to solve the problem.
The Deputy Speaker: The member's time has expired.
Hon Al Leach (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I respectfully request the agreement of the House to give the member another 20 seconds for the interruption from the member who can't remember what party he's in.
The Deputy Speaker: Agreed? No.
Further debate?
Mr Gerretsen: I guess I will be winding up the debate this evening. I want to refer specifically to the throne speech, because this debate is the response to the throne speech. I'd like to refer to one particular bit that contains the following sentence. It states: "Although the people of Ontario have already accomplished a great deal, our work to protect the environment teaches us that we must continue to make progress and cannot coast on yesterday's victories."
I find that line to be very, very ironic, especially in light of the report that came out today by the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario; it's the report for 1998, Open Doors. The people of Ontario should know, first of all, that the Environmental Commissioner is an individual who is not a government employee. It is not a government agency in the normal sense of the word. She and her department are employees of this Legislature and she reports to the Legislature. She reports on how the different environmental rules and regulations and laws are affected in the different ministries as a result of changes to the environmental regulations.
From a very quick perusal of this document - and she has about 150 different recommendations in it as to how government can improve the environment in the various departments from her perspective. But leaving that aside and just dealing with the summary of the report and the stunning indictment that she gives this government in terms of how it has dealt with the environment -
Mr Rollins: Who hired her?
Mr Gerretsen: "Who hired her?" I hear from the opposite side. I've tried to make it quite clear that this individual is hired by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, not by the government of Ontario, not by the opposition of Ontario. She works for each and every one of us to make sure that the environment is protected and that the government follows its own rules and regulations as far as the environment is concerned.
Let me just read, for those people who may be watching, some of the conclusions she has come to, and then people can make up their own minds as to whether or not the statement contained in the throne speech about the wonderful work this government has done in the environment is actually true.
What does she say? She says, "My 1998 report to the Legislative Assembly documents the decline of Ontario's capacity to protect the environment." She goes on to say: "Environmental initiatives of the Ministry of the Environment, which have been highly touted by the Ontario government, are unlikely to deliver the level of protection promised.... The ministry is retreating from the enforcement of effluent limits and is making little progress on applying pollution prevention to hazardous wastes. It has promised to update 70 provincial air quality standards, but in two years" - they promised 70 - "has produced only nine guidelines and no new enforceable standards."
It goes on to say that Ontario's emphasis on less government when it comes to the environment has translated into less enforcement and less protection for the environment.
On hazardous waste management, it states that the Ministry of the Environment "has not made good on its commitment to pollution prevention, and has instead indicated that it hopes to achieve pollution prevention through voluntary initiatives the ministry is promoting to industry."
It goes on and on and on, condemning the government in just about each and every department. It says, for example, "The Ontario government's restructuring of governance for electricity generation will not deliver the promised benefits for the environment. Indeed, my report shows that unless the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology put tough caps on emissions for electricity producers, Ontario's air quality will become even worse."
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On the blue box program - remember how that was hailed across the province for the last 10 or 15 years so that everybody could be involved in protecting the environment - what does she say? "Ontario fares worse than almost every other province in Canada. The blue box system, which was innovative when first introduced, is now facing serious problems."
She goes on to say, "The Ontario government does not have mechanisms in place to ensure that land use policies that protect the province's environment are being applied."
Today we had a question in the House to the Minister of Transportation that also dealt with the environment. What did she say about that? She said that the Ministry of Transportation provides very little support for public transit, does little to monitor local public transportation systems.
She also states that there is little targeted support for green industries and that none of the money from the Ontario research and development challenge fund has gone into research into new environmental technologies.
That is the summation of the report that she has presented: a condemnation of the government when it comes to the environment, totally and completely. Again, this is not from an interest group, this is not from an outside agency; this is from a person in a department that is directly responsible not to the government but to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
Mr Rollins: Who hired her, John?
Mr Gerretsen: They keep saying, "Who hired her?" as if that should make a difference. The point, quite simply, is that an employee that we collectively hired in this Legislative Assembly has condemned your government on the environment.
I know to a lot of people the environment is not as high in people's priorities as some of the other issues that are out there, but as far as I'm concerned, this is a total condemnation as to what you have not done in the whole field of the environment.
The other issue I hear about out there as I go door to door is the government's advertising techniques. Just recently there have actually been some advertisements paid for by the PC Party, but I know from just talking to people that they quite frankly are getting sick and tired of being continually bombarded by television ads over the last six months. You can't watch a hockey game without having some government ad. You can't empty your mailbox at home any more without getting some sort of pamphlet on health, on safety, on welfare reform, on a report to taxpayers.
Mr Murdoch: Why don't you read them?
Mr Gerretsen: Yes, I've read them. I've read each and every one of them, and they are all pure government propaganda.
There is nothing wrong with a party wanting to let the public out there know what its position is on various issues. Parties fund-raise for that and they put out their message for that. But to use the taxpayers' money to finance over $100 million of blatant partisan advertising, the likes of which we have never seen before in this province, is wrong and the people of Ontario know that it's wrong. Particularly when it's happening at a time when there have been so many cutbacks in health care and education, the people are asking, "Why isn't that money being spent on some much-needed health care programs or education programs?"
Let me just give you one example that affects my own riding. Last October, 2,000 individuals were cut off from nursing and home care, community care, in my community because the money that the CCAC had had simply run out. They could no longer service those people. They were $1 million short. Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to take $1 million out of the $100-million advertising budget, propaganda budget that this government has been involved in and provide care for the individuals in my community? And the same thing in the other communities out there. That would have made sense.
The most telling situation that I witnessed personally in the last three to four months was when I canvassed one day and ran into an individual, a lady in her mid-70s, who was very concerned about being cut off from home care. I somehow was under the impression that she was talking about herself. She wasn't all that quick of foot and obviously was not in the best of health, but she was able to get around. She said to me after awhile, "Mr Gerretsen, I'm not talking about myself. Come on in and meet my 99-year-old mother," who was lying on a couch under a blanket in a fetal position. She said: "That's the individual who has been cut off. We used to get two hours of home care and nursing care on a daily basis for my mother because I cannot look after her adequately, and that has been cut back to one or two hours a week."
Regardless of your political affiliation, this was a drastic situation, so I contacted home care. I got the necessary permission from the individuals involved to talk about this particular case. I contacted the community care access centre and I said, "Is it true that this individual has been cut off?" I was basically told, "Yes, because we have more urgent cases and we simply do not have enough money in the budget to take care of this."
Two things came to mind: (1) It is totally wrong that that individual should not have been helped; and (2) even from a purely economic sense it makes absolutely no sense because that individual cannot continue to live under those circumstances. One of two things will happen: Either she will pass on or she will end up in an institution at probably about 30 or 40 times the cost it would have taken to provide two hours of home care and nursing care to that individual. That is only one case. Hopefully, it was the worst of the 2,000 cases - I have no idea - but continually I hear that comment from people: "Why are they cutting this off? Why have they got money for this kind of advertising?" Then we wonder why people get cynical about politicians.
The other very interesting thing that I noticed is that people are wondering why all these government announcements are coming out right now. Why is there money available all of a sudden for this, that and other projects, many of them extremely worthwhile projects? I did a little bit of research and what did I find out? I found out that the contingency fund in last year's budget for the province of Ontario was not at the traditional level of about $280 million.
I agree that every organization and every government should have a contingency fund. We had it at the local level, a much lesser amount obviously, but so should the province of Ontario. When you have a $50-billion budget out there you have to build in some contingency. That has traditionally been at about the $280-million level. As a matter of fact, I can give you each and every number that goes back to 1990 as to what the actual amount was.
Guess what it was last year. Not $280 million, but $830 million for contingency - an increase of over half a billion dollars. That is not my propaganda; that comes right out of the budgetary documents. That's where the money came from for all of these wonderful good-news announcements we're getting all over the province. I'll tell you, I'm not for a moment suggesting that the money that the hospitals, that these very needy groups that do a lot of good work in our community do not require these funds. They do. They also required them two years ago, three years ago and four years ago. Why is it all of sudden available now?
We know there's an election coming up, and we can all sort of smile and chuckle about it because isn't that the way politics has always been practised? I have great difficulty with that, I'll be honest with you.
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First of all, you ran on a platform that you were going to be different. You aren't any different. You socked it all away last year so you could make all these kinds of funding announcements right now. It isn't right. People out there realize that. It just increases the general public's cynicism about politics in general and politicians on an individual basis, probably irrespective of party. It doesn't do the system any good, and it doesn't do our democracy any good, because if more and more cynicism builds up in the system, in the long run we all suffer from that.
I just want to get back to one other point, our 20/20 Plan. I find it very interesting that some of my Tory colleagues are taking great exception with the title of the 20/20 Plan. Of course, it talks about a vision for Ontario for the year 2020, a clear vision. I understand that the plan you're going to announce tomorrow was going to be a 20/20 plan as well. When you heard that we called our plan a 20/20 Plan, you decided to call it something else. So don't make it sound as if you don't like the name or this, that and the other thing. There have been a couple of news reports on that, as a matter of fact.
What do we say in there? First of all, we say that the two most important issues out there for the average person are health care and education. I would say health care is probably the predominant issue, because everybody knows somebody who's affected by the health care system, whereas with respect to education, some people who may not have any children in the system or may not be involved with the system may not have as much interest. But certainly everybody can identify with health care.
The first thing we're going to do is hire back those 10,000 nurses you fired indirectly by not giving the hospitals enough money two or three years ago. As a matter of fact, you had to make over $400 million available for the severance packages.
We can disagree about a lot of things, but I think we can all agree on the fact that when you walk into a hospital nowadays and you walk on any ward, there simply aren't as many nurses as there were five or 10 years ago. At one time, you were told that you could only visit patients in the hospital between 2 and 4 and 7 and 9; now you're almost asked to stay there if the person is in an extremely bad situation so that you can look after the individual, because there simply aren't enough nurses on most floors to look after them. These people are overworked, and they've reached the limit. We have to build that confidence back into our health care system.
The same thing applies to education. That's why I was taken in by the comments from the member for Durham East. When people say, "What is the most important thing that should be done with the education system?" I always say the same thing. The first and number one thing we ought to do is build back some positive morale in the system, tell the teachers, who are the primary individuals involved in educating our children on a day-to-day basis: "You're doing a good job. You are a positive influence. We rely on you. Any changes we're going to make, we're going to talk to the federations, we're going to consult with them and we're not going to unilaterally impose it on them." Their morale has to be built up. That is something you have probably destroyed more than anything else, the morale of the teachers out there, as far as the education system is concerned, as you've done with so many other public employees. That is the most important thing, to work with them.
The only way you ever get anywhere in life in the long run is by working with people and by building a consensus, whether we're talking about the health care system, the education system or any aspect of government. You can shout this down, you can make comments about it, but in the long run you know I'm right: that you don't get very far by antagonizing the people, whether it's in health care or education, whom in effect you're going to rely on to implement the new policies and the new aspects of either health care or education that you're trying to implement.
Thank you very much, Speaker, for your undivided attention.
The Deputy Speaker: On Monday, April 26, 1999, Mrs Munro (Durham-York) moved, seconded by Mr Preston (Brant-Haldimand), that an humble address be presented to Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor as follows:
"To the Honourable Hilary M. Weston, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario:
"We, Her Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, now assembled, beg leave to thank Your Honour for the gracious speech Your Honour has addressed to us."
On Tuesday, April 27, 1999, Mr McGuinty moved that the address in reply to the speech from the throne be amended by adding the following thereto:
"This House profoundly regrets that the Mike Harris government has acted on an agenda that has created a crisis in health care and education and threatens our economic future, and condemns the government for:
"Breaking its promises in health care by cutting $870 million from our hospitals, closing one out of every five hospitals and imposing $300 million worth of new user fees;
"Hurting patient care by turning our emergency rooms into waiting rooms, firing nurses until Ontario had the fewest nurses per capita in the country; and forcing more and more patients to go to the US or turn to private companies for everything from basic medical care to cancer treatment;
"Breaking its promises in education by cutting $1 billion from our schools - after promising not to take one cent out of classroom education;
"Hurting our children and students by closing schools, slashing special education and English-as-a-second-language programs, forcing more and more parents to turn to private school, where enrolment is up 15%; and raising tuition fees by more than 60% to make Ontario the most expensive place in Canada to get a post-secondary education;
"Threatening our economic future by increasing property taxes and introducing new user fees, failing to balance the budget, and adding $22 billion to the provincial debt to raise the total provincial debt to over $110 billion."
The first question to be decided is Mr McGuinty's amendment to the motion.
All those in favour of Mr McGuinty's amendment to the motion will please say "aye."
All those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion, the nays have it.
I declare the amendment lost.
We now come to the motion of Mrs Munro.
All those in favour of Mrs Munro's motion will please "aye."
All those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion, the ayes have it.
I declare the motion carried.
It is therefore resolved, that an humble address be presented to Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor as follows:
"To the Honourable Hilary M. Weston, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario:
"We, Her Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, now assembled, beg leave to thank Your Honour for the gracious speech Your Honour has addressed to us."
It being past 9:30 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 2131.