Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House resumed at 8:01 p.m.

INTEREST RATES

Mr. S. Smith moved resolution 17:

That the Legislative Assembly, noting the failure of the government’s budget to provide immediate and effective relief from the high interest rates now burdening mortgaged home owners, farmers and small businessmen in Ontario, declares it has no confidence in this government.

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, there is an offer from the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) to give up before we even start the battle. I would accept this, but I’m afraid his friends, his recent converts from socialism, unfortunately feel differently.

We feel the problem facing Ontario is one which cannot simply be laid at the feet of the federal government, but is one for which Ontario must take responsibility in order to help those Ontarians at present in need.

Let me say a few words about interest rates in general, to set the pattern and the background for the motion we have presented. I think we are all aware that over the years interest rates, reflecting the degree to which money is more or less made available for investment purposes, have tended to follow inflation, and, some would contend, have been deliberately increased in an effort to deal with inflation.

Whether they have been a consequence of inflation or an attempt to deal with inflation, I think we all understand that as long as we have inflation, one way or another, interest rates are going to be high.

What we do not accept, however, is that interest rates in Canada need to be so strictly related to the inflation rate of our neighbour, the United States of America. We said this, of course, during the previous federal government of the Right Honourable Mr. Clark, and we say it during the present federal government. We believe that Canada would be better advised to follow a policy of greater economic independence.

Be that as it may, however, the main point I want to make is that our interest rates are not, at their present level, primarily a result of an effort to deal with Canadian inflation. By the admission of the governor of the Bank of Canada, part of the reason for interest rates being as high as they are is to deal with the possibility of the Canadian dollar falling vis-à-vis the American dollar, and is, therefore, more a reflection of American inflation.

There is certain room for movement -- I might say, room for action -- on the part of both the federal and the provincial governments, to assist those who are hardest hit by the high interest rates, without being counterproductive -- against, in other words, the very purpose of the high interest rates.

We would not be so irresponsible as to suggest, Mr. Speaker, that if these high interest rates were needed to combat inflation the government should put a lot of money into undoing the very effect the interest rates are supposed to have. Not at all. What we are saying is that these high interest rates in Canada are higher than they need to be to fight inflation and, therefore, there is a certain room for governments to aid those who are hardest hit, to bring relief to those people without facing the accusation that in so doing they are in some way undoing the very anti-inflationary purpose of the interest rates themselves.

It is interesting to note that even the Treasurer has come, to some extent, to the conclusion -- he will speak for himself, I am sure, with great ability -- but it is interesting that he seems to have come, to some extent, to the conclusion that there is a certain room for governments to move in this regard.

I recall that when the Right Honourable Mr. Clark raised the interest rates in keeping with the American situation, the Treasurer said he didn’t know quite what to say because five of his economists told him that was a good thing, three said it was a bad thing, and they were all so darned convincing -- I hope I am quoting the Treasurer correctly -- that he didn’t quite know which way to go on the issue.

One can sympathize with anyone having to take advice from a number of economists nowadays but, as it happens, the Treasurer seemed to resolve his dilemma once Mr. Clark was no longer in office. At that point it suddenly became clear to him that the interest rates did not need to be all that high and he found himself much more free, shall we say, to criticize the federal policies once they were red policies rather than blue policies.

We are used to this in this House. We are used to the fact that everything good that has happened to Ontario over the last 37 years is supposedly a reflection of the excellent management provided by the members opposite and that everything bad that happened is due to international forces, is due to enemies in the labour movement, is due to the federal government, which is usually Liberal. I suppose if such a fairy story has convinced people to vote for this government for the last 37 years, we must forgive the members opposite for thinking that it has not yet worn thin and that it might yet fool the people again at some point. Frankly, I don’t feel people are willing to buy that any longer. But I am being sidetracked by the thought of whether the people will be fooled by Tory policies in the future.

Mr. Nixon: Never again. It is game over for the Tories.

Mr. S. Smith: I must return to the point I am supposed to speak to. I would hate to be accused of wandering from the main point of the motion, Mr. Speaker.

I want to say this. There are some very important needs created in Ontario as a consequence of the high interest rates. To be fair, it is not in every instance that the high interest rate itself has been the sole creator of the problem. For instance, let us speak, first of all, of the farm community.

People in the banking business in southwestern Ontario tell me that their desks right now are piled high with files that represent the lives, the aspirations of farmers who deal with those particular banks. In fact, these people are in very grave danger of losing all the equity they have ever had, that they have built up during their lifetimes on these farms. To be fair -- and I know the Treasurer will want to say this anyway -- it is not just the interest rates that have done this. Many of these are hog farmers and we know how a lot of them expanded their production unwisely. Some are cattle farmers in similar situations. Some are farmers with crops that do not fall under supply management and are, therefore, facing a credit squeeze at this time. We understand the problems.

Mr. Foulds: This is the authentic voice of rural Ontario speaking.

Mr. Nixon: He knows more about it than anybody in the NDP.

8:10 p.m.

Mr. S. Smith: The member for Port Arthur is very upset about the fact that I would offer to say something on behalf of the farm community. I hope he will understand that although I don’t pretend to be an expert in farm matters, I do have the advantage of about 15 or 16 members who are and have been farmers and who represent the rural areas, unlike the member for Port Arthur, who doesn’t have a farmer in his caucus and never will have.

Interjections.

Mr. S. Smith: The member for York South (Mr. MacDonald), is trying to palm himself off as a man of the soil.

Mr. MacDonald: Go back and lie on your couch.

Mr. S. Smith: I admit he has a considerable knowledge of agricultural matters and has been an effective critic for his party in these matters. The member for York South knows I have enormous personal respect for him. However, I think he would be the first to admit that most of his farming activity lately takes place in flower boxes and in the cracks in the asphalt around his riding.

Interjections.

Mr. S. Smith: May I say that the farm community has come to visit members of our caucus and talked with me. I have spoken with bankers. I don’t need to be an expert in farming to have an enormous respect for those people who are the producers of food in our society and, secondly, to have a very profound feeling of sadness to see how difficult it is, especially for the new fanner, especially for the young farmer and especially for those in certain crops and certain herds where the difficulty stems both from the low commodity prices and from the high interest rates.

Even if we can all agree, as ladies and gentlemen in the Legislature, that it is not just the interest rates, but that the low commodity prices are also a very important factor, we must do what we can within our ability to help. We do not have the ability at this time nor, do I suspect, would it be a policy that any of us would wish to implement immediately to increase the price of certain food commodities. It is not a desirable nor an achievable objective. What we do have is the ability to help those people who are hardest hit by the high interest rates.

If we lose these farming people, if they are put in a position where they have to sell out to large agri-business or they have to sell out to foreign owners or they have to take the discouragement and the misery which comes with losing one’s life savings and one’s aspirations of farming, if these people become the example for the next generation, who are already in some great trepidation about whether going into farming is a good way to spend one’s life, given the vicissitudes of that way of existing, if we cannot help people and prevent them from having their farms foreclosed, from having their equity lost, from having to sell out, if we can’t do that for our farming community then what are we about in this Legislature? Surely we understand that.

I am not for a moment saying the federal government should not be helpful. Frankly, I am disappointed they haven’t been more helpful up to now.

Mr. Martel: Move no confidence in them then.

Mr. S. Smith: It is suggested by the member for Sudbury East that I should move my no-confidence motion in the federal House. As it happens, I am the Leader of the opposition in the provincial House. Although the member for Sudbury East does not have the privilege or the pleasure of turning out of office a government at the federal level, which I know he wishes to do, he does have the possibility of turning out the government at the provincial level, which he refuses to do.

Mr. Martel: You will change your mind before we get to the vote. You will flip-flop three times before then.

Mr. S. Smith: The member for Sudbury East is going to lose his job in the public relations department of Inco if he keeps shouting like that.

We must help the farming community.

Let me say a few words about the small business community. The greatest hope we have in Ontario is to once again take our rightful place as a business and economic leader in Canada, not as the province that grows the least slowly of all 10 provinces as has happened under Mr. Davis in the 1970s. The best opportunity we have to become the growth centre we should be is by developing not the multinationals and not by inviting in branch plants, but by helping small and medium-sized Canadian-owned, owner-operated businesses in our province.

To give the Treasurer his due, the budget he has brought in contains certain measures to assist small business. We favour those and members can be sure if we were in a position to bring in a budget, those measures would be reintroduced. But I say this, and I say it very sincerely, the small businesses that will be helped by those measures will be helped about a year from now when it comes time for their taxes to be filed. They will be helped down the road.

These people we are concerned about, these people who can produce affidavits from the bank managers to say the interest rates are the reason for the possible nonviability, these people who are now having bankruptcies at record levels in Ontario with a 40 per cent increase in bankruptcies in southwestern Ontario, these people who are the very fibre and substance of the small communities as well as some of the earlier ones in Ontario, these people need help with interest rates now.

We propose that the government should move to assist these people and not just say it is someone else’s responsibility. Other provinces have helped their farmers. Other provinces have helped other citizens deal with high interest rates, yet Ontario, which used to lead, now hangs back and promises us a study.

The third group I wish to discuss is the people who have after many years managed to save up enough money to plan their lives accordingly, and have managed to purchase a home. A home may be the one stake they have in our society. We believe a home is a root to a stable society. There is no violence in the streets when on those streets people own their own homes. It is a very interesting phenomenon, but owning a home is a very important stake in society.

It should not be a roulette game that when people own a home they have to worry about what is going to happen to interest rates. When people decide to buy a home they base it on their income, they base it on their expenditures, on their family size. To increase, suddenly out of nowhere, the payments on that home by 50 per cent or 60 per cent, as happens to people whose mortgages go from 9.5 per cent to 10 per cent up to 16 per cent or 17 per cent, is a totally unfair burden to place on these individuals.

It is not good enough to say we will help those who are above 30 per cent of their family income in terms of shelter payments, because I want to point out that in today’s society family income in many instances comes from more than one breadwinner.

Mr. Foulds: Is that the gunslinger pose?

Mr. S. Smith: No, this is my thoughtful statesman’s pose.

There are many families with more than one breadwinner and although it may be argued that the family income is so many dollars, let’s say $30,000 in total, if it comes from two breadwinners, two earners, it is not realistic to base 30 per cent on that $30,000 because there are expenses involved in transportation to one’s place of work, in the type of clothing one may require, in day care and in babysitters. It is not that simple for people with two incomes suddenly to be regarded as though $30,000 was a lot of money.

I say that to demand that they have to reach 30 per cent is to put a good many of those people to the wall. I say, furthermore, although the Treasurer nods and says in most instances there is nothing to worry about, although he thinks there is no reason to help these people, there is plenty of reason to help these people.

8:20 p.m.

I realize that time is limited, and I want other members on our side to have some opportunity to speak. I could go on at some length, but I will not do so. I know the NDP enjoys it when I go on at great length because it is their only opportunity for education in many instances, but I will confine myself to a few comments, for their benefit and for the benefit of others.

We produced a paper well in advance of the budget explaining one way that farmers, business people, small business people and home owners could be helped. We do not say that is the only possible way, but we put a lot of thought and effort into it. We believe we put forward a good program, a helpful program, which with federal support would be an even better program. What do we have from the Treasurer? We have the promise of a study of various options in the month of May. Isn’t that marvellous -- a study of various options. His own officials, when they presented that in the lockup, had to laugh, because it is just a sop to the NDP to get them off the hook. Everybody knows that is what it is.

What good is it to go to the farmers faced with foreclosure, to the home owners against the wall, to the small business people faced with bankruptcy and tell them the government is going to have a study of options? Can they go to their bank manager with the Treasurer’s study of options? Is that going to get them anywhere? No possible way.

Look at what the president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, a former NDP member, said: “The problem of interest rates is the number one issue in Ontario at this time. People are losing their houses now. Small businesses are going bankrupt now. Investment decisions are being put off now. Jobs are being lost now. Ontario needs action now.” That is what Mr. Pilkey said.

Why confine ourselves to former NDP members? The member for Wentworth (Mr. Isaacs), who sits so peacefully and pleasantly in the House right now --

Mr. Laughren: Placidly.

Mr. S. Smith: -- placidly you might even say -- said only on April 25:

“Does the Premier (Mr. Davis) realize that many families are facing mortgage renewal now and cannot wait until mid-May or later? What does the Premier advise a family to do when they are faced with a mortgage renewal which includes monthly payments they know they cannot afford? Should they sign a mortgage when they know they will be unable to meet the payments? Should they abandon the home to the mortgage holder? Or should they hope and pray that the Treasurer will do something to help them before too many mortgage payments become due?”

We know what his policy is. We know what the policy of his leader is. The member for Wentworth never told the people in the by-election -- and I was there; I know -- he was going to go in and support the government. I can assure the House he never said that. No. The same man who says now, “Should these home owners hope and pray that the Treasurer will do something to help them before too many mortgage payments become due?” is a member of the party of exactly such hopes and such prayers, because they certainly do not have any principles: the NDP, the party of no determined principles.

I know the NDP have seen the same polls we have seen. They are aware that their support is at a post-war low in Ontario. They are trying to avoid political annihilation, and I can understand self-preservation as an instinct. It is an instinct I know something about, but much as I can understand that instinct, there is no way I can respect it. There is no way I can respect a party that presented eight no-confidence motions and suddenly decided that this is a government worthy of support.

Listen, Mr. Speaker, to their leader: Their leader now says and the Premier says, “Dr. Smith and the Liberals don’t want to help the pensioners. That’s why they want an election.” What nonsense. Of course the pensioner program would be reintroduced immediately as part of a Liberal budget and would remain retroactive. But it would be introduced in such a way that nobody got less than he would have got under the old program. We wouldn’t be giving money to E. P. Taylor and taking it away from the people near the very bottom of the income scale.

So many thoughts come to mind that it is hard to limit myself but I shall tear myself away from this interesting situation we are debating and allow others to have the floor.

This government has allowed Ontario to deteriorate economically during the 1970s. We have squandered the 1970s. I don’t intend to waste the 1980s. We will have an election soon. The election may come when the Premier calls it or it may come when we call it, but sooner or later the record of this government will go before the people of Ontario and there will be a change and then Ontario will get moving again.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, it’s always revealing to have yet another lesson in Liberal economics because it changes from week to week. The best lessons I have heard in years are Liberal economics.

We are going to vote against the Liberal motion of no confidence on interest rates. We understand very well --

Interjections.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, do I have the floor? We in this party understand very well that there must be relief for people hard pressed by rising interest rates. Let that be clearly understood. We insist, too, there must be relief; everyone in the chamber, I suspect, agrees on that. But there’s another thing that we all agree on and that is what it is that has caused the high interest rates in this country. We all know what it is. We know that it is caused by the Liberal wrecking machine in Ottawa.

Here we are in Ontario, picking up the pieces of the damage done by a federal Liberal government these many years. It takes some kind of nerve, more nerve than Dick Tracy ever had, for the Liberals to blame anybody else for the cause of interest rates rising higher than they should be. It takes a lot of nerve for a Liberal to do anything like that.

8:30 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, I shall be very direct to you and to other members of the chamber. We are not voting with the Conservative government of Ontario; we are voting against Liberal hypocrisy in the chamber tonight. We are voting against an election at this time. We are voting against Liberal paranoia because they know full well, as the Liberals in Ottawa engage in their games of manipulation and deceit, they will take a nosedive and they will be obliterated in the province.

There is no doubt in any of our minds that there needs to be interest rate relief provided to home owners and to farmers in Ontario. That is not even in question. We also know that even though that is basically a federal responsibility, this government has an obligation to help out those people who get into trouble. There is an obligation on the part of the provincial government. We know too that the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) and the federal government in Ottawa are playing an incredible game of chicken, waiting to see who will make the first move to provide interest rate relief. We are very much against that.

To look at the Ontario Liberal Party’s reaction to the whole scenario and all the problems of high interest rates, one would almost think, even though it is a federal responsibility, that the Liberals, as though acting on direct orders from Pierre Trudeau and Allan MacEachen, had said, “Stand back, federal counterparts, we will pick up the major part of the tab here in Ontario,” thus taking the heat off their federal cousins in Ottawa. That is what they have been doing.

The Liberals in Ottawa are snickering at the Ontario Liberals because the parent company in Ottawa has told its own branch plant political party what to do and they have done it. They have toed the line. Provincial Liberals toeing the line for their federal counterparts are like a Tory backbencher never stepping out of line. As R. H. Tawney from Great Britain once said, they have a lively sense of favours yet to come. They wait their turn.

I have made a few comments to try to put the whole question in perspective and put some of the blame where it belongs. I would like to state very clearly that the Ontario Tories are not exactly knights in shining armour either. They have been willing accomplices in causing the problems which create rising interest rates in the first place. The Tories know full well, and if they don’t they should, that the reason we have high interest rates is the incredible sellout of this country, including this province. They send the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) out to make sure we have more foreign ownership and higher interest rates. He is engaging in his own form of fiscal sadomasochism.

Mr. Kerrio: Bad as they are, they are not as hypocritical as you are.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, as a member of this Legislature I have a right to hear the remarks of the member, but because of the ridicule from the members over there I can’t hear a thing. I wonder if they would keep quiet?

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, we are very proud that in this party we agree with our federal counterparts that we need a made-in-Canada interest rate policy, not one that is imported from the United States like the Liberals. The Tories won’t do anything about it either.

In the long run we understand what the problems are and they require long-run solutions. In the short run there simply must be help provided to protect home owners and farmers against the rising interest rates. The government has said it will introduce assistance on its own without federal support for the farmers and we intend to hold it to that commitment.

The Liberal Party, a month or so ago, introduced an interest rate relief program. One might wonder why we are so leery of supporting anything the Liberals in Ontario do. They have a plan which would provide that a family with an income of $37,500 and a mortgage of $40,000 will be eligible for a grant -- that’s with interest rates at 16 per cent. So somebody earning $37,500, with the mortgage payments being only 21.7 per cent of their family income, would receive a grant. We think that’s not equitable. That’s not the way the taxpayers’ money should be spent. That is not what we believe in.

Perhaps I could give another example, because I don’t think the Liberal backbenchers know what their financial critic has done to them. Another example is that a family with an income of $30,000 and a mortgage of $30,000 would be getting a grant of $30 a month, even though their monthly payments, including --

Interjections.

Mr. Kerrio: Let’s hear your answer.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Laughren: You will hear it, if you will shut up for one minute.

Mr. Kerrio: You are a second-rate citizen. Tell us your plan.

Mr. Laughren: Would you tell the clown to be quiet?

The point I am trying to make is that the Liberal plan --

Interjections.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: While there is a little bit of kibitzing, my colleague has been attempting to speak for about 10 minutes and there has been so much jibber-jabbering from a couple of people over there. Mr. Speaker, in all fairness, you have been sitting in the chair and I would ask you to bring a little restraint so we can hear what he is saying.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Order. Order.

Mr. Kerrio: He is not making a point of order at all.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, the point I am trying to make is that people whose mortgage payments and taxes are under 20 per cent of their family income would be given a grant by the Liberal plan. We say that is not an equitable plan and we have one that is infinitely more equitable than theirs.

Let me give an example. What we have said is that there must be interest rate relief for people in need. We believe that very strongly. We are more fiscally responsible than the Liberals though and we are more equitable, and I will tell members what we would do. Perhaps I could use three examples. A family earning $15,000 a year in income and with a mortgage of $30,000 --

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Laughren: Do we have to listen to that clown for the rest of the night, Mr. Speaker? Maybe you had better throw one of us out, because he can’t stay. It’s ridiculous.

Mr. Kerrio: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. What is your point of order?

Mr. Kerrio: I refuse to listen to that pip-squeak refer to --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Would the member for Niagara Falls take his seat?

That’s not a point of order. The member for Nickel Belt.

8:40 p.m.

Mr. Laughren: I find it very strange that the Liberals would introduce a no-confidence motion and then let the clowns take over. It’s a serious matter we are debating here.

With our program, our policy, a family with an income of $15,000 and a $30,000 mortgage would receive an annual grant of $1,320. A family with an income of $20,000 and a mortgage of $35,000 would receive a grant of $672 annually, and a family at the top of the scale -- we think the ceiling should be around $25,000, not almost $40,000 like the Liberals. We estimate that at that level, with a mortgage of $40,000, there would be a grant of approximately $150, or $144 to be precise.

We believe in a scheme that is graduated, that is progressive and that will look after the families in greatest need because of rising interest rates. That’s what we believe and that’s what I put in my response to the budget the other night. I suggested to the Treasurer that’s the program he should look at, not one that’s a bottomless pit, not one that’s regressive in nature, not one that provides relief to people whose mortgage payments are less than 20 per cent of their family income.

Mr. Sargent: Why doesn’t the member bring in a motion? We will support it.

Mr. Laughren: I want to see what those people are going to do.

While we are voting against this Liberal hypocrisy disguised as a motion, we are also serving notice to this government that action must be taken to provide relief to home owners who are hard pressed by high interest rates. We are serving notice to them and we are very serious about it.

We also believe that the small business community has received some relief in that budget with its capital exemptions and with its capital investments. We are also firmly committed to relief for the farmers who are hard pressed as well.

We think there are about 20,000 home owners in Ontario who are going to be hardship cases this year as their mortgages roll over, and those are the ones for whom we’re prepared to stay here and work out a program to ensure that they get help, not go out on the hustings with these people so they don’t get help. That’s what the Liberals are trying to do.

In conclusion, I would offer two pieces of advice: to the government, that they should get on with the job of providing relief to farmers and to home owners, and to the Liberals, to start talking to their colleagues in Ottawa. They should be able to get action, because blood is thicker than water.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my remarks tonight with the remark that someone made on May 13, 1974, approximately six years ago, in talking about an Ontario budget: “In this budget, the provincial Treasurer has made economic history. For the first time in the history of Canada he has not only met the pressures of the day, but he has made the social policy of this government part and parcel of the budget. He has transformed the budget from a mere economic weapon into a weapon that will achieve many of the social reforms that are the hallmarks of this party.”

Those remarks were made by me in response to the budget of former Treasurer John White. Those remarks were true six years ago. They were true because the budget of Ontario entered a phase where it became a social weapon, one that was primarily aimed at making the retirement years of people of this province years that would be filled with the dignity and self-respect that comes from being able to weather the vicissitudes or the changes or even the worries of a changing economy that in 1980, just as in 1974, often stem from results beyond the control of any government in this country.

The budget that was tabled by my friend and colleague, the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller), firmly establishes a foundation that will ensure a continued stance in dignity and a continued participation in the community by those who are in their retirement years.

Mr. Kerrio: Plus a $1-billion deficit.

Hon. Mr. Drea: It is a landmark budget because for the first time it addresses the demographic changes in our society that --

Mr. Kerrio: Give them chapter two now.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I am going to start that sentence again and I would eminently ask the buffoons across the way to keep quiet.

Mr. Kerrio: Let the buffoon on the other side speak.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Sargent: Come over here and say that.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I assure you that I may be the last speaker tonight but I would appreciate some order.

Mr. Kerrio: We will balance the budget in 1980.

Hon. Mr. Drea: As I was saying, this is a landmark budget, because it does approach the demographic changes that are going to have such a profound impact, not only on our economy as they are beginning to have today, but on our standard of living and, finally, the most important thing, our quality of life. Yet tonight I am being asked, as is every member of the House, to vote no confidence in that approach. What I am being asked to vote against is very significant, albeit over the years, a first step towards enabling the older person in our society to maintain their own homes, notwithstanding the inflationary pressures that affect their fixed incomes.

When you are 65 or 70, Mr. Speaker, and have paid off your mortgage and have paid off your interest, your great concern is what will the property taxes do to you. No matter how efficient the municipality and no matter how efficient the board of education, they have to face the fact that inflationary pressures mean that the local municipalities will have to raise more funds.

In the three elections I have been in the one common concern of the older person has been not the demand, but the plea, that something be done particularly about the education taxes. Sometimes it includes the entire property tax as well. It is made on the basis that they paid and made their contribution to a society and now they fear they will no longer be able to keep up with the need for revenues that come from an increased expectation within that society.

In this budget, one half of the people over 65 who are property owners in this province will have their entire tax load taken from their shoulders.

Mr. Sargent: That is a lot of malarkey.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Almost two thirds of the retired persons in this province will have their property taxes offset by the cheques that will come from the province.

8:50 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you this measure has such overwhelming support in this House tonight that, just a few moments ago, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) pledged his heart and soul that no matter what happened here tonight he would reintroduce it. If it is so important for so many people, then why am I and every other member of the House tonight being asked to dissolve the House so those cheques will never go out?

I am not even being asked to vote against the budget because it does not go far enough in terms of small business. Just a few moments ago, right over there in the loyal opposition, that very frustrated, somewhat hyper loyal opposition of tonight, the leader solemnly pledged that the benefits for small business in the 1980 budget of the Treasurer were so vital to the progress of this province that no matter what happens tonight they will be reintroduced.

I and the other members of this House are being asked to vote tonight so those measures will not ensue into effect on schedule. Never before have I been asked to vote against something for pure political expediency. Even the political expediency comes with an apology that, notwithstanding what happens tonight, they will all be reintroduced.

I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker -- I suggest to you, I suggest to you for the third time, in order that the rather unruly conversations can continue -- that the budget I am being asked to vote against was a budget that came in on schedule, on the day it was supposed to, in the manner it was supposed to, notwithstanding the fact that less than 24 hours before there was a sneak attack and a stab in the back aimed directly at the Treasurer of this province by the federal Minister of Finance, Mr. MacEachen. It was supposedly not a mini budget, supposedly not a budget -- I understand it was a statement of economic destiny.

I say to the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio), the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) and the member for Lincoln (Mr. Hall), who is not here: In the federal Finance minister’s sneak attack he was so careless in his insatiable lust for political expediency and money that every grape grower in the peninsula is looking for Liberal scalps tonight. When I go to the Niagara Peninsula, those grape growers are out in appreciation of the work of this government. Those three honourable members cannot even go out tonight.

Mr. Kerrio: How many members has the minister down there?

Mr. Bradley: How many members has the minister?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Two thousand jobs are going to be lost because the Minister of Finance of Canada had to move quickly in the stealth of the night, and did not really understand the tax he was imposing. This afternoon, obviously, somebody had a frantic phone call with him.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I don’t speak to the Finance minister. As a matter of fact, I am rather enjoying watching him twist on that little petard. All of a sudden the federal Finance minister concedes that perhaps he really didn’t know what he was doing with this tax and is going to retreat.

Tonight, I am being asked to vote against a budget that is going to bring the benefits that I talked about a moment ago. Yet, what are those who say, for the sake of political expediency, for the right to tread the boardwalk, for the right to put up our wee little sign, there should be an election that will cost millions, going to do about the grape growers, about the 2,000 of them who are out of business because of their party in Ottawa? Surely, tonight instead of all this playacting --

Interjections:

Mr. Kerrio: How many members have you got in Niagara?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Order. Would the honourable member for Niagara Falls refrain from interrupting?

Mr. Kerrio: Yes, Mr. Speaker, if he refrains from directing his --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This is the last time I will ask the honourable member to refrain.

Mr. Sargent: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I will take the honourable member’s point of order in a moment.

I distinctly told the member for Niagara Falls that would be the last time he would be allowed to interject. He did interject; therefore, I would ask the honourable member to leave the chamber.

Mr. Kerrio left the chamber.

Mr. Laughren: That’s one clown less.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: What is your point of order?

Mr. Sargent: My point of order is this: The member who was speaking, the honourable minister, was directing his remarks in the exchange towards the member and the member for Niagara Falls was within his rights to interject.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member doesn’t have a point of order.

Mr. Laughren: Throw him out too.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, surely instead of all of this the business of the House ought very well be conducted tonight. What is going to be the fate of the Niagara grape grower because of the indiscriminate and rather thoughtless attempts at taxation? Indeed, what is going to happen to the --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Order.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, surely the time of the House might be much more advantageously used to cope with that situation than with this exercise we are going through tonight.

This government, in the course of the budget debate, and I assume the remarks were aimed at the Treasurer, has already been called inefficient, ineffective and inept. If it is the mark of an inefficient, ineffective and inept monetary policy of a provincial government that it does not have to borrow on the open market then Canada certainly needs more such inefficiency, such ineffectiveness and ineptitude.

If the self discipline this government has used to produce restraint without sacrificing necessary social services is a mark of inefficiency or ineptness, then I humbly suggest many more governments on this continent need those characteristics. Because certainly the results of discipline, of restraint, of the gumption to tighten the belt, are evident.

9 p.m.

As the Treasurer mentioned in his budget, there was additional revenue realized last year which in the ordinary course of events would have tempted one to produce more programs and to spend the money. Restraint, no matter how practical and how necessary, doesn’t come without sacrifice and without criticism. But that wasn’t done. I suggest if perhaps more governments, more Legislatures and indeed more Treasurers or Ministers of Finance might enjoy those characteristics, then we might be much better off for it.

If I am being asked to vote against this budget tonight, what I am being asked to do is, in the words of the critic of the opposition -- just part of a sentence, but I was here when he said it, and he said it with great drama and I believe great honesty; I am convinced after hearing his remarks in detail and reading them over later that he did mean it -- and that is the line that what is given is either so little as to be absurd, or given so inequitably that it hurts those who need the help so much.

If what this budget provides is so little as to be absurd, then I suggest that absurdity may be the national characteristic that provides for a full and responsive economy. If it is a budget that is meeting the emerging needs of an ageing population and that is considered to be so little as to be absurd, then what am I being asked to vote against?

The fundamental issue is that I am not, nor are members of this House, being asked to vote against anything. They are being asked, with all the candour of an outraged seducer when his clumsy attempts are foiled, to go forward into an adventure that will satisfy the insatiable lust for power of some, the insatiable ego of others, but, above all, meet the insatiable fear of the fact that inevitably some in this House, for better or worse -- and unfortunately it is getting worse by the day -- are being linked so intimately with Ottawa that the very scourge of the voters that is going to come upon them who now occupy power in Ottawa may very well, and unfairly, be vested right at the ballot box if things are allowed to continue much longer.

We are not being asked to vote for or against a budget. We are being asked to provide a life-saver before somebody goes down for the third time. And it would be at a cost of millions to the taxpayers, at tremendous inconvenience to the public in a year when they have had a federal election -- and a municipal election is just down the road -- more uncertainty, more chaos, in what has to be the fixed and stable institution in these trying days in all of government.

And it would be on an issue so nonexistent that the Leader of the Opposition promised that if his master plan worked and this House dissolved tonight, the very first thing he would do is to come back in and reintroduce the entire budget.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that is not the politics of hypocrisy. That is not the politics of adventurism. That is the politics of schizophrenia. At this time in Ontario there is no need for a mixed mentality, not only a paucity of ideas but a bankruptcy of mentality. Not a single positive suggestion is advanced. We are always being asked to vote against. “Give me my lifetime desire to lead my charger out and then, when all is done, I will come back after having spent all of the money and do exactly what is already on a piece of paper.” I leave the judgement on that proposal to the very sound mentality of the majority of this House.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The member for Huron-Middlesex.

Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, I find it very difficult to believe that a member can stand up in this House and expound on what we all know is a very superficial budget. He talks about the increases in pensions for senior citizens, the additional aid for hospitals, and what have you, knowing full well that farmers throughout Ontario are facing bankruptcy and foreclosures, knowing that we need the food to feed the people in Ontario regardless of what their pensions happen to be.

It is unfortunate that we are restricted in time, because I wanted to talk about the impact of the interest rates on farmers and what that means to all the consumers in the province. Unfortunately, I do not have the time so I will have to restrict my remarks to the impact of interest rates on the farming industry.

Farmers are facing a very serious economic situation in Ontario. For many, it is a critical period in their lives. The times are difficult indeed. Farmers are being hit with unprecedented increases in their input costs: fertilizers, fuel, pesticides, equipment, replacement costs and particularly the cost of credit, everything necessary to put a crop in the ground or to get the livestock ready for market. Costs have gone up at a rate which would have been unbelievable just a few years ago.

This situation is not unique to farmers. It is being experienced by all businessmen, including small businessmen in rural Ontario. I can see there are many members here who represent that particular part of Ontario. But what is unique to farming is the fluctuation in the prices which farmers receive for their products. Since a year ago, beef has dropped 11 per cent, pork 33 per cent, soybeans five per cent. Corn prices are also declining. Even tobacco farmers, who have seen a moderate increase in their prices, have been hurt by the decrease in the size of the crop due to blue mould.

Poultry prices -- eggs, chickens and turkeys -- have increased moderately but not enough to keep pace with inflation. The same is true of dairy prices. The federal government has predicted a 40 per cent drop in Ontario farm net income this year. Unfortunately, it looks as if their predictions will be true. If it was not for the decrease in prices of products grown on the farm, farmers might well be able to tighten their belts and carry on.

With the drop in prices, the situation for some has become desperate. That is the most pressing issue facing farmers today and the cost of money compounds the problem. Each spring, farmers must spend large sums to put crops in the ground. Very few have the cash to put in their crops without seeking credit. Credit has become very tight and for some, unfortunately a growing number, impossible to find, whether from their bank or their suppliers.

9:10 p.m.

Under the present circumstances, many crops will not be planted. It is difficult to estimate the number of acres which will lie idle, but the number is significant. Furthermore, farmers will reduce the fertilizer requirements by about one half. Think of what that will mean to consumers next year and in the years after.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Henderson), the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) and all government members of this House were made well aware of the farmers’ dilemma on April 10 when debate took place in this Legislature on the resolution introduced by the member for Grey (Mr. McKessock). Prior to that, in the latter part of March, a letter was sent to the Treasurer from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture requesting aid on interest rates. They estimated the minimum aid required would be a $25 million interest subsidization program.

This would be used to provide short-term loans at 10 per cent to help farmers through this year’s planting season. Only farmers who could demonstrate need would be eligible. Twenty-five million dollars seems like a lot of money until one puts it into perspective.

Ontario agriculture is a $4 billion industry and generates nearly a quarter of the province’s jobs. British Columbia now provides $27 million a year in subsidized loans for its farmers and Quebec $30 million. Ontario’s agriculture is bigger than that of British Columbia and Quebec combined.

There are a number of areas in the farming industry where action is needed by this government. I am not going to take the time to mention them, but I will say that the most important issue at the present time is the planting of this year’s crops. Farmers are in an economic straitjacket. Without assistance, many farmers will not survive the year. Unfortunately, it is the younger or the more innovative farmers who are being hit hardest. What will happen if we lose them? Who will feed future generations and continue to provide the people of Ontario with one of the least expensive, highest quality sources of food in the world?

The present problem has implications for our whole society. As I indicated, if I had the time I was going to tell members what an increase of five per cent in interest rates in the dairy industry, in the beef industry, and in the cash crop industry would mean to the consumer if that could be passed along to the consumer in the price of the product the farmer receives at the farm gate. It is astounding how much the price of milk would go up and how much the price of beef and all the other commodities the consumer relies on would go up.

It is imperative that the Ontario government respond without further delay to help the farmers now. Farmers know that interest rates are a federal responsibility.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Why doesn’t the member know it then?

Mr. Riddell: Just hold on. They also feel the province has some responsibility as well, became it was the province which talked the farmers into a capital-intensive investment and not a labour-intensive investment. The member for Durham-York (Mr. W. Newman) knows that as well as anyone. With the incentive grants, with the Industrial Milk Production Incentive Program and all the rest of it he has talked the farmers into a capital-intensive investment and now he has some responsibility.

Mr. Nixon: Every other province has a program but this one.

Mr. S. Smith: It’s the only province that doesn’t help its farmers.

Mr. Riddell: That’s right.

Mr. Nixon: The government hasn’t listened to the Minister of Agriculture and Food for 10 years.

Mr. McNeil: The Liberals are not the least bit interested in helping farmers.

Mr. Riddell: Let me tell the member for Elgin this: Farmers are not in the mood for buck passing. He knows that.

Mr. McNeil: You should know it too.

Mr. Riddell: Farmers need help and they need it right away. This government has procrastinated too long. Many farmers have already been forced out. Others are facing foreclosure. Take a look at the papers. The member for Elgin (Mr. McNeil) reads the Western Ontario Farmer. He should take a look at the ads, and the number of farms that are for sale, many of them liquidations. They are going out of business. The only way we are going to be able to save the farming industry in Ontario is by giving the people an opportunity to elect a government that cares, and that is a Liberal government.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, you can understand the concern which I would have this evening in speaking in this debate when I have had to forgo one of those immense pleasures which was available to me of singing a duet with the member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell) on the stage of the Castle Frank high school in the great ward seven of the city of Toronto. I have given that up this evening. She has to sing solo in that concert because of a debate precipitated with an unbelievably inappropriate sense of timing by the Liberal Party.

Let me say two or three things so that there will be no confusion about it. The vote is whether or not this House has confidence in the government. Of course, this party does not have confidence in that government. Anybody has known for a long time that we have not any confidence in that particular government. But let me say to the Liberal Party, and I am speaking now to the sane men and the women in the Liberal Party, not to support this ill-advised motion of confidence which has been brought at this time in this House, but to look at what they are doing.

I am quite prepared to say this party has already extracted from the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) a commitment to protect the farmers of this province. Next to this party, I would trust the fate of the farmers of Ontario to that party before I would risk their fate with that other party.

Let me make one other point. We will extract -- mark my words -- from this government the kind of assistance to the home owners of the province that we have been asking for since the day this House came into session. Let me talk about something somewhat more fundamental than that. The one thing the Liberal Party does not have is any sense of polities. It has no sense of timing. It has no understanding. If we were to vote with the Liberal Party this evening, there would be no Legislative Assembly of Ontario in existence at the time when the major debate in Quebec is taking place with respect to the referendum vote.

Let me make a second point and let me make it very clear. There would be no Legislative Assembly in existence in Ontario at the time when the fate of one of the cities in this province is at stake. The keystone of the arch of the industrial life of this province is threatened because of policies instituted by the Liberal Party in Ottawa and connived in by that government. We are faced with the most crucial negotiations which have ever taken place with respect to one of the major car industries and with other aspects of the car industry in this province.

The government knows that without this assembly in session, without this party every day asking, demanding and insisting upon job protection for the people in the Windsor area, this government would not have the strength or the willpower to withstand the negotiations which are presently going on. Everyone now knows, and it is very clear, that in the absence of this party and this party’s demands on that government, the Minister of Industry and Tourism would not have made the demand for jobs for the people in Windsor and the peripheral jobs involved in the whole of the automotive industry.

9:20 p.m.

Let me say this, and let there be no misunderstanding: If we had to rely on the federal government in Ottawa -- with the three ministers from that area as part of that cabinet -- if we had to rely on them for the capacity to protect jobs, we would not have protection of any kind.

The federal Liberal Party has no capacity to extract from the Chrysler Corporation in the United States the kind of guarantee which this government may be able to extract if we demand it and insist upon it.

I want to say to the Treasurer, so that he and his colleagues will have no misunderstanding about where we stand on the question of those negotiations, I am aware of the circumstances in which such negotiations take place. I know what we are talking about there. We are talking about a guarantee of 15,000 jobs. We are not talking about this government being asked for money for capital investment; we are talking about a government bring asked to provide working capital.

This government is the banker. Can you imagine a banker going to a company and saying, “The conditions under which we’re going to advance these funds are the protection of jobs in this province” and then having Chrysler Corporation say: “Oh yes, but we want an out on that clause. We don’t want that kind of protection; we’re not prepared to give it to you”?

Without this party, that government may very well succumb to that kind of businesslike argument. I am saying to the government on behalf of this party -- my colleagues have said it on many other occasions -- -that we expect a job guarantee, ironclad. No ifs, no ands, no buts. And if somewhere down the line the circumstances change, they can come and talk to the banker. By that time, we will be the banker and we will do the dealing on what is going to take place.

The Liberal Party, with absolutely no sense of anything other than its own opportunistic wishes with respect to an election, is going to throw into jeopardy the jobs of one of the major automobile industries in this province.

I want the government to understand that it has our total support so long as it hangs tough in the next few days on the bargaining with the Chrysler Corporation in the face of an impending cave-in by the federal government about the job guarantees. But the government has to hang tough. If it doesn’t hang tough, then it can be certain that our sense of timing will come into play.

Let me get another thing straight: When this government falls by vote in this House, it will be by motion of this party, not by motion of the Liberal Party.

Surely my colleagues in the Liberal Party must understand this. The Conservative government fell in Ottawa last December on motion of this party, and when this government falls it will be on motion of this party. We do not march to the Liberals’ tune. We have our agenda; we have our policies.

Let me tell the Liberals one other thing before I sit down, and I am talking to the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Gaunt), the member for Grey-Bruce (Mr. Sargent) if he were here, and the member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini).

Let us get it straight. From 1945 to 1960, when the sellout took place in this country, for most of that time there was a Liberal Party in power. When the Conservative Party came to power under the late John Diefenbaker there was some indication that there might be some capacity to talk about protecting the economic integrity of Canada. But when James Coyne put the issues to the then Conservative government, they slit his throat. When Walter Gordon tried to indicate to the Liberal Party that it was time they changed their policies, they were so intent on scrambling back into power that in a very short time they slit Walter Gordon’s throat.

This party was founded upon the principles of economic nationalism to support the integrity of Canada, and I am not going to sit idly by while the Liberal Party cosily attempts to move in either at this level or at that level and take over the area that is fundamental to the democratic socialist party to which we belong. When the election is fought it will be fought on the principle of a made-in-Canada policy to which this party adheres.

Let me give the Liberals one minor piece of advice. They can ponder it as long as they want, and they can talk about it as long as they want as long as they understand it. It is very simple. To the extent that this country imports goods and services in excess of the value of what it exports, it must import an equivalent amount of capital. It is the importation of that equivalent amount of capital over the years of this government in power in Ontario and the Liberal Party in power in Ottawa, with intervening periods of the Progressive Conservative Party, that has created the economic dependence of Canada on the United States and the mishmash that we are now facing because of the deterioration of the automotive industry. This is no time to vote no confidence. This government needs this party in this assembly every day while these crucial matters are being debated both in Quebec and in the negotiations which are taking place.

I appeal to the sanity of certain members of the Liberal Party not to vote on this motion tonight, because their timing is wrong. Their purpose may serve their purpose, but it does not serve the needs of the kind of people that we in this caucus represent.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take my turn in this debate, if one can call parts of it that. I wish the television had been here tonight. If the television had been here tonight, I think we would have given some indication to the people of this province of the lack of capacity of the official opposition to govern this province. When they cannot govern their own party in this House, it is a pretty bad scene. I have seen many debates, but seldom have I seen one where so many interruptions took place while a member of the New Democratic Party was speaking. Nor have I seen as much of an attempt, at least in the first of the speakers, to add a touch of drama, almost saccharin, to the debate.

I would like to read a quotation that I heard some time ago. It comes from the time of Elizabeth I. It says:

“He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they might be shall never want attentive and favourable hearers.”

That message is as true today as it was in the time of Elizabeth I. It is always easy to convince people that those who govern are incompetent.

9:30 p.m.

Mr. S. Smith: It is particularly easy in the minister’s case.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I do not doubt that. Of course, the Leader of the Opposition’s duty and responsibility is to show how incompetent I am.

However, I have seldom found it necessary to go after individual small businessmen in letters and to destroy their careers as the honourable member did with Highbury Ford Sales Limited in London. I do not go after somebody like that without checking facts. I have a letter here addressed to the Leader of the Opposition from a dealer whom he criticized in public and I bet never apologized to in public.

That dealer did nothing improper, and the honourable member knows it. I would like to see the response, because that gentleman wrote to the Leader of the Opposition and sent me a copy, saying, “Mr. Smith, the statements you have made and the press coverage they received will tarnish the fine reputation which Highbury Ford earned since I purchased the dealership five years ago. I am an independent businessman who works hard, reputably and honourably, and I believe you owe me an apology.”

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: The minister knows, or should know, the incident he speaks of is one where, once his program of rebates for 1979 models was introduced, this particular company placed advertisements in the paper advertising the rebate program and advertising certain cars for sale, which same cars previously had been advertised about a week before then. They advertised them for a higher price in the new ad than they did in the old ad.

According to the manager of that particular company, in the letter which the minister has referred to --

Mr. M. Davidson: That’s not a point of order.

Mr. S. Smith: Does the member mind if I defend myself? Let’s be reasonable for a moment.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order. I recognize the point of order. Make it brief.

Mr. S. Smith: I will try to make it brief, believe me, Mr. Speaker. It is a point of privilege and not one of order.

The manager claims that in point of fact it had been their intention to raise the price of those items anyhow, and that the ad had been placed in the hands of the advertising manager before they realized the rebate program ad would be appearing at the same time.

I understood that, but I asked him to explain to me, just as I asked the Treasurer, why a rebate program was needed if the market was so good that people could actually raise the price of their cars. I found, therefore, that particular businessman to be very unacceptable and I told him so.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The honourable member has had sufficient time to put his point on the record. He should not ask the Speaker to make rulings that might properly belong in a court of law.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege for the sake of the record: There was a complete investigation of this particular matter in London by my officials, and the dealer was found blameless. Those are the same investigators who, under another circumstance, did lay charges. I think that should be in the record because of the remarks of the Treasurer.

Mr. Acting Speaker: I wish the members would depart from this subject because, as I say, it is a difference of opinion. I do not think it is one for the Speaker to make a ruling on.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, it has something to do with credibility and concern about small businessmen. A good deal of tonight’s debate hinged upon whether the Liberal Party had a concern about individuals. The wild rush for power of the Leader of the Opposition, who has tried to precipitate an election in this province tonight so that he can establish his future career -- which, thankfully, will not be here -- has made him blind to any human’s needs. He hungers after an election so much that he would compromise any principle, against any stated wishes of the electorate --

Mr. S. Smith: Personal insult is no excuse for argument.

Hon. F. S. Miller: My friend -- no, I thank goodness the honourable member is my colleague, and not my friend.

Mr. Riddell: The minister should go to Clinton and talk about his credibility.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I had the courage to go to Clinton and meet people face to face and tell them what I had to do. I did not send a messenger. I did not try to besmirch anybody in any other way, and the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) knows it. Very few over there would have that kind of courage.

I would like the honourable member to have the job some day to do some of the things he talks so pontifically about on that side of that House, about saving the taxpayers’ money. He hasn’t the courage to stand up for a principle.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order. If the members would address their remarks through the chair instead of pointing the finger at one another and addressing them directly, I think we would attain greater order in the House.

Mrs. Campbell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Would you define for this House what is meant by attributing motives to another member of this House?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The motives were implied by that gentleman over there to me about an incident when I was Minister of Health.

Mr. Acting Speaker: I am not about to attempt to define that. I would ask the Treasurer to proceed with his speech and to try to deal with the main content of the motion.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, look at the kinds of problems we have talked about tonight. Ontario does not try to deny its role or responsibility in the problems faced by small businessmen, by farmers and by property owners. What we did say in the budget, in a positive sense, was that we had some responsibility towards the farm community and would find it necessary to act unilaterally and would do so if, as and when we exhausted our attempts to get the federal government to help us. That commitment has been made in the budget in writing. It is one I intend to honour.

All members should recognize that the combined effect of two governments can be far more useful. In fact, when unilateral action is taken, one simply doesn’t have anything left to negotiate with. I would hope honourable members would be concerned about that and support us as we try to get a reasonable deal for Ontario’s farmers and home owners, through the federal government.

We often criticize the federal government; let me give them some credit. I think they took a very positive step on Monday night in the budget when they introduced in the throne speech debate, without so much as a blush or batting an eye, parts of the budget that the previous federal finance minister had brought in. A very important measure introduced was the small business bond. Frankly, that doesn’t help too many farmers, because farmers are not generally incorporated; I am told that only five per cent are incorporated, whereas a much larger percentage of small businessmen are. But that bond has the potential of bringing interest rates down by fully one third and the cost of that subsidy is shared by the federal and provincial government.

I say that is great, and I encourage it and endorse it. I don’t criticize them where they do take an action that I sincerely believe is done in the interests of all of our clientele and that is done jointly. I only ask that that kind of thinking and action be extended to the other groups too.

What did Ontario do for the small businessman? I could quote the Financial Post of this week, since I was being told how little I had done. It says on page five, “Miller’s favourite constituency, small business, gets the lion’s share of beneficial tax measures totalling roughly $85 million through expansion of the venture-capital SBDC [small business development corporation] program and the new investment tax credit equal to 20 per cent of the cost of depreciable assets.” What they did miss were the great reductions in the capital tax payable by Ontario’s small businesses -- a transfusion of $85 million; $15 million in the tax area; $35 million probably in the other sections -- directly aimed at assisting the very vulnerable small businessman in this province as they go through a tough year.

Mr. Peterson: It’s really going to help next week, isn’t it, when they go bankrupt?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have to admit I can’t stop every bankruptcy at any point. I can take measures that help prevent the bankruptcy of those who are otherwise running a business well. The member knows that fact and I know it. I am simply trying to say those are the ones we have to concentrate on. Whether I like it or not, there are always some businessmen at times of three per cent interest who have trouble.

9:40 p.m.

The member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) did bring up a key point, I thought. He brought up the point that the major problem of the farmers right now is prices. That is putting more pressure on more farmers in Ontario, I think, than any other item. I hope we agree on that. I am not trying to disagree. I am in no way reducing the import of that for the kinds of farmers who are highly specialized in today’s world and who take many more risks than farmers used to take when everything on the farm was produced with their own skills and few things were purchased. Farming isn’t that way any more, and you and I know it, Mr. Speaker. There are many purchases to be made at today’s prices, and yet one takes what one can get for many commodities when the market buys them. Those kinds of pressures are ones I recognize.

I referred to the fact that I have had a bit of experience on that side. I do accept that young farmers have specific problems in the community right now, and I do want to find programs that will help those young people to survive this period so that we will have a future generation. I only ask that members opposite give us a wee bit of time while we finish off some of the discussions. They know I talked to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture last week. They know the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Henderson) talked to them again this week. We are continuing those negotiations, trying to find out how to help them, and I hope we are very close to it.

I would say that the question of mortgage interest deductibility for home owners, which has been addressed by several speakers tonight, is one that still requires a good deal of negotiation with the federal government. There has to be help for those people in trouble. I don’t think any of us have denied that. How one defines trouble and how the program gets delivered are still subject to some negotiation. I can say that kind of negotiation is proceeding. Ontario stands ready to be involved in a system that is shared on the basis of our normal tax revenues with the federal government.

Members opposite are all representatives of the people of Ontario. They recognize it is a national problem. They had a lot of talk about a Canadian interest rate. We have Canadian interest rates today. They are several points below the American rates because inflation in this country, for a number of reasons, is lower than it is in the United States. We have successfully kept Canadian interest rates lower than American rates since about mid-November. That is about the time they peaked and we started going below. Why? Because fundamentally the energy base of this country -- not Ontario’s running of its government -- has kept that kind of essential value in our dollar that has allowed us to lower our interest rates without a tremendous outflow of cash that otherwise occurs.

Otherwise, why wouldn’t all the money in the world flow out of Switzerland, which has a four or 4.5 per cent interest rate right now for mortgages? Why would it not all desert Switzerland and go to the United States, where it is 18 per cent right now? It doesn’t for one simple reason. People have faith in the basic value of their currency. In fact, that is why Canada currently has a lower rate than the United States and why we have a made-in-Canada interest rate policy right now. The simple reason we can afford to have it is that our economy is doing better and our dollar is worth more because of our energy reserves and good business.

My colleagues over there have to recognize when they lambaste me for the poor management of this province that my cash requirements last year were something like four per cent of my spending. On the federal scene, they were 28 per cent, seven times on a relative basis our basis, not in dollars but in percentage. That was hard work. That was unpopular work. It was the Clinton kind of work, if one wants it.

I went into several ridings where my colleagues will have some trouble winning because of me. I never failed to recognize that, even in the heat of doing it. Members opposite tell us we have to be responsible, and we have to take measures that will cut the inflation spiral. We took those measures in a minority government situation so that we could come into this year, as we have, and next year, with a gradually declining cash requirement, aiming for our balanced budget by 1983-84; so that we could release $500 million of money in this current year and Ontario Hydro wouldn’t have to go out and borrow it in the market place, which is a far more productive use of the resources; and so that we could cut the percentage of the gross provincial product we tax away from the consumers of Ontario from 17.2 per cent to 15.5 per cent in three years.

An hon. member: Tell us about Minaki Lodge.

Mr. Riddell: The people out in the rural areas can’t believe that Minaki Lodge is more important than a hospital.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I say to my friend that the hospitals of Ontario, in this year’s budget, got $487 million more than they got last year. We are adding 601 nursing-home beds to the nursing-home service this year, and we added 400 last year. We are adding to home-care services. We are adding to day-care services. We are giving pensions to senior citizens that exceed those of last year. We are bringing them up to an amount so that if one adds the guaranteed annual income supplement, the guaranteed income supplement and the old age security, plus these kinds of benefits for the senior citizens, they are well past the poverty line. For example, do members know that right now single pensioners get $240 a year from free coverage under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, $125 on average from drug benefits, $50 from sales tax rebates, $400 from the property tax program, in addition to the $50 to $100 they will be getting July 1, and that brings them up beyond the average poverty line figures. There is a large argument about what the poverty line is but, on average, it’s in that area.

We feel the budget of Ontario is one that has been accepted and understood and welcomed by average people in this province, because it solves the problems of average people in this province, and I challenge the members opposite to take us out on the hustings to prove otherwise.

Mr. Charlton: Mr. Speaker, I found it quite significant that, in his opening statement on this motion tonight, the member for Hamilton West chose to quote my colleague from Wentworth (Mr. Isaacs). He used the quotation -- and I can’t quote it exactly from memory -- in which my colleague laid out very carefully his concern about the urgency of providing assistance, on the interest rate problem, for home owners and for others, such as farmers and small businesses.

Unfortunately, I found it rather strange that the leader of the official opposition -- a man who is asking the people of Ontario to make him Premier so he can govern this province -- could stand up in this House tonight and suggest that an election campaign of five or five and a half weeks, plus the time it would take after that campaign is over for the victorious party to regroup, to set up an administration and start putting programs in place, would be a faster solution to an immediate problem than a task force taking a serious look at the alternative methods of dealing with the interest rate problem, reporting in the month of May, then getting on to deal with that problem in this House.

I find it strange that the member for Hamilton West could suggest in this House and to the people of this province that elections are necessarily a solution to anything. The people in this country have just been through two elections. Last May we had a federal election. The Tory cousins in Ottawa of the government across the way said that, if they formed the government, they would deal with the interest rate problem; they would keep interest rates down. They won the election and they did nothing. Last February we had another election and the Liberals said the same things, but they have done nothing, absolutely nothing.

I don’t believe and the people of this province don’t believe that an election is necessarily going to provide a solution. They are sick of elections without any changes. They want some serious work done on the issues at hand, and the issues at hand happen to be interest rates, the auto industry, jobs, our declining manufacturing sector and a whole range of other problems.

9:50 p.m.

My colleagues the member for Nickel Belt and the member for Riverdale put part of the matter very succinctly. We in this party firmly believe that those things we have got out of this government this year are only the beginning. We seriously believe that we in this Legislature have a better opportunity, for the people of Ontario, to deal with the issue of interest rates and the issue of Chrysler, as my colleague for Riverdale suggested, than we will ever have on the hustings while the problems go by the board altogether while we are out there playing political games.

The leader of the official opposition suggested a couple of weeks ago at a nomination meeting in Hamilton that the New Democratic Party in Ontario had become irrelevant and that his party had become the social conscience of the province. I would like to say to him that in this budget the government and the Treasurer dealt with health care, which we made an issue in this province. They dealt in part with property tax credits, which I personally have made an issue in this House for three years now, with little or no comment from the party to the right. They dealt with special education educational opportunities for the retarded, day care and a number of other things. All of those are issues emanating out of this caucus.

The Liberal Party missed the boat on all of them, and they are missing the boat on the interest rate issue because their desire is and always has been for power and nothing else. They are not interested in providing a solution on the interest rate issue. They are interested in it as an election issue, the same as their federal colleagues were and the same as the Tory colleagues of the government were in Ottawa as well. They are interested in it for no other reason than as an election issue.

We believe anything that happens in this province to be worthwhile has to be a benefit that is put in place and becomes a fact. We are prepared to stay here and see that the government deals with the problems of interest rates, the problems of the auto industry, the problems of a declining manufacturing sector in the province and the problems of job creation, but we are not prepared to help the party to our right play games with the people of the province.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a few words I want to say about this debate and about the overt agenda and the hidden agenda of the Liberal Party in proposing this no- confidence motion tonight.

This debate is over two issues. One issue is the question of interest rates, and the other is the pretension of the Liberal Party that they have so much to offer Ontario that we should go and have an election now. As my colleague the member for Riverdale pointed out, having an election right now means this Legislature cannot respond to the questions of national unity being raised in the context of the referendum debate. It means this Legislature cannot continue to badger the Tories and, through the Tories, badger none other than the federal Liberals to make sure we get a fair deal for our automobile workers who are now threatened with unemployment on a permanent basis if nothing is done to ensure that Chrysler Canada stays and the jobs Chrysler provides continue to be provided.

I want to put a few home truths about what this debate is about and about the polities of this province, in case the Liberal leader has not understood what is happening. If the member for Hamilton West could get out of the delusions of grandeur which seem to envelop his head, he would know the people across the province are tired of election campaigns. They had 60 days of electioneering in January and February. They had 60 days electioneering last April and May. They had almost constant politicking at the federal level because the Joe Clark government was a minority government, and they are saying it is about time to see whether the minority government of this province can get the job done. We believe there are possibilities of getting some action from this parliament over the few remaining months before we do go to a provincial election.

The Minister for Culture and Recreation (Mr. Baetz) has just come in here; he is flintlike and adamantine most of the time but, if the Liberal Party were prepared to put any energy or effort into making this House work, they would find that it was possible to get a few results. I want to tell the House that today I learned from the minister that the Woodsworth homestead in Etobicoke, the birthplace of J. S. Woodsworth, is to be preserved. The birthplace of J. S. Woodsworth was due to go under the wrecker’s hammer today, but it has now been decided, I am told by the Minister of Culture and Recreation, that the government will see to it that homestead is preserved as a shrine to the founder of the New Democratic Party. If the Liberals had their election, we would not see that homestead preserved.

If the member for Hamilton West believes the people of Ontario are preparing to embrace the Ontario Liberal Party, I want to tell him there is absolutely no sign of that anywhere in the province. I have been a long way across this province for a long time. If he thinks the federal election results are going to propel his party to power, I would point out that consistently, year after year and election after election, the Ontario Liberals are never able to come within 11 percentage points of what federal Liberals get in Ontario. I would point out to him as well that if the results --

Mr. Bolan: Just remember John Rodriguez.

Mr. Cassidy: What happened to Rodriguez? It was the deal between Liberals and Tories in northern Ontario..

Mr. Peterson: The people there wouldn’t embrace your party.

Mr. Cassidy: The member for London Centre should say how many federal Liberals in northern Ontario have already indicated to their provincial Conservative buddies that when the provincial election comes along they are going to take a walk, because the interests of that party in northern Ontario are more to keep the New Democrats out than to get their party in. We just want New Democrats up there.

If they want to know about northern Ontario, in the federal election there was a higher percentage of the vote cast for the NDP in northern Ontario than in Saskatchewan, where we got seven members elected to Parliament, and very fine members they are. It’s a two-party system right there. That party cops out in the north at the provincial level in the same way the Tories cop out when it comes to federal elections in northern Ontario.

The last federal election where we had a majority Liberal government elected was in 1974 and, in the subsequent provincial election in Ontario, the Liberals went to third for the first time in 30 years. It’s going to happen again.

If the leader of the Liberal party were not so blinded by partisan whatever-it-is, he would realize that the interest rate problems we have in this province right now stem from the misguided monetary policies we have in this country -- monetary policies that are taken straight from the US Federal Reserve courtesy of Allan MacEachen and Pierre Trudeau, people whom the member for Hamilton West supported in the federal election campaign.

10 p.m.

I recall around Christmas when the member for Hamilton West made cracks about the Premier. He, as Liberal Party leader, asked, “Why is the member for Brampton going to his condominium in Florida instead of supporting Joe Clark? Why is there such a rift between the provincial Tories and the federal Tories?”

I want to point out that the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party should be ashamed of himself for having supported Pierre Trudeau in the federal election, because Pierre Trudeau is responsible for the outrageous interest rate policies we have in Ontario.

I say to the member for Ottawa West (Mr. Baetz) -- I see the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) is absent again -- and I say to the Liberals as well, that if the Liberal Party of Ontario were genuinely interested in ensuring that small businessmen and farmers and home owners in this province were protected against outrageous and exorbitant interest rates, then instead of being in this chamber tonight, every member of the Ontario Liberal caucus would be out lobbying federal Liberals and telling them to give Canadians a fair deal on interest rates.

The decision of the federal Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) to bring in a mini-budget a week ago Monday, with no advance warning, and a day before he knew the Treasurer of Ontario was bringing in his budget, was as underhanded a piece of deceit as I have ever seen in provincial-federal financial relations.

I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, and through you to the House, that the reason for this misguided piece of political opportunism, this no-confidence motion that has been put tonight, is that the Liberals in Ontario know that with each month that goes by, their leader’s chances of returning to psychiatry get greater and greater.

The Liberal Party knows that if they wait six months for an election, they are headed for a disaster, and if the province has to put up with Pierre Trudeau and federal Liberal policies for 12 months, the Ontario Liberal Party is headed for a debacle in the next provincial election.

When we come to an election, the credibility of the Liberal Party of Ontario will be just as much at stake as the credibility of the Conservatives in Ontario.

When we come to an election, we are going to be asking the Premier of Ontario, “What was this government doing to serve the auto pact to create jobs in the automobile industry?” We are going to be asking the government of Ontario, “Why was there no industrial strategy to stop the industrialization that was going on?”

What I am going to say to the Ontario Liberal Party is, how could they have sat there year after year after year, while we New Democrats raised issues about the automobile industry and the auto pact? Why were they not prepared to say one word about how the auto pact was short-changing the people of this province?

When we come to jobs in the next provincial election, the Liberals are going to strut and posture. We know that. We will be asking about their credibility when they sat there year after year and never raised a question about the failure of their federal counterparts to bring down an industrial strategy for Canada that would make every part of this great country of ours strong and provide employment for the million Canadians who now are out of work.

When the question of interest rates comes up, we will remember the fact that the Liberal Party was prepared to attack the Premier, his cabinet and the government, but the Liberal Party acted like a limp fish when it came to uttering criticisms of the federal Liberals who are responsible for the situation we have right now.

When we come to an election, we will be fighting the Tory cutbacks, and those cutbacks continue. We will also be fighting the hypocrisy of the provincial Liberals when they talk restraint on one hand but on the other hand go to the Sault and promise more roads; when they promise restraint but the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney) promises more spending to every education group he sees across the province; when they say they want restraint and then argue for more money for every kind of social service; when they say they care about the trade union movement and then have what the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) said about the workers down at Fleck Manufacturing Company.

Mr. Riddell: No, not the workers, but the union leaders.

Mr. Cassidy: They are a two-faced bunch, and their hypocrisy should be displayed. It is a hypocrisy that is shown by the fact that they are trying to have an election right now when what we should do is get out and resolve some of the problems in the province. That is what we are committed to do in the New Democratic Party.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, we have seen one of the most amazing intellectual conversions tonight since Saul on the road to Damascus. I was amazed how little of the debate tonight focused on the issue at hand. You will understand, of course, Mr. Speaker, that the Liberal Party deems that the issue expressed in the no-confidence motion is the single most important issue facing this province at this time. Let me say we hope it goes away. There is some evidence it may decline in the very near future. But I want to establish tonight that this is a problem that needs direct, immediate government action now.

We have heard tonight a replay of the James Coyne affair. We have all bled with him as his throat was slit by the federal government. We have heard almost every issue discussed from the referendum to the auto pact. That is not the issue here tonight nor why we are proposing no confidence in that government. That is the only device we have to impress the realities, not only of this economic problem but also of this real and imminent social and personal problem, on this government now. It is not good enough for us to say we will have a discussion paper some time in May.

I regret in a way that this discussion of interest rates we are having tonight has not had more serious consideration. It has been taken in a very facetious manner by a number of members. I regret that because I want to impress upon them in the time I have remaining why I think, as one who does believe that government has only a limited role, that there is a definite, necessary role here for government which should be played now.

Two weeks from now is not good enough and three months from now is not good enough. The Treasurer’s almost-stated strategy is to hang on with the compliance of my hypocritical friends to the left who are satisfied with committees and discussion papers. In the vernacular of the street, that crew to the left is the easiest make in town.

10:10 p.m.

I accept the point of view of my worthy friends opposite when they say they do not have the authority to create interest rates. I agree with that. But clearly they have the responsibility for the fallout. If they do not, who has the responsibility for the foreclosed mortgages, for the bankrupt farmers and for the bankrupt small businessmen?

Those are real and immediate problems. We brought to this Legislature and laid before the members opposite, and before the people, a real program; a short-term, targeted, sectorial, costed approach that we thought and believed, and many experts believed, would help to solve this problem as it exists now in immediate and present terms.

The human or social fallout is not something we are going to easily recover from. I hear stories daily; people phone me; people write me. I want to talk about that in a minute. I want this taken much more seriously, because my agricultural friends and the Minister of Agriculture and Food know of a situation near him where a young farmer got involved with a farming installation. He was over his head because of the high interest rates. When he went to the feed store, the co-op said, “No more credit.” That case ended in a suicide.

I know of other cases where farmers have had to walk into the bank manager and say to him, “Do you know how to feed hogs?” and throw him their keys. I know that happened in one case. Three days later the humane society phoned the bank manager and said, “You had better come out and feed your hogs.” Those are real cases, and not one or two. I could name names, but I do not want to bring any embarrassment to people in this province.

In my area, bankruptcies are up by 40 per cent this year. The social cost of that is not going to be easily recovered from. I know of cases of young people going in to renew eight or nine per cent mortgages who are facing double payments this year. I know cases of people who have come to me not being able to face it. We read daily of the social fallout: the broken marriages, the increases in mental health problems and that kind of thing: This is a real and human problem, and if one puts it in straight economic terms he is missing the import.

The government’s solutions for the small business problems are not bad, but they are going to occur at the end of the next taxation year. No amount of interest bonds or small business development corporation help or investment tax credits or vendor compensation is going to help those people who are faced with real problems now.

I want to read a letter I received, because I think it is important, and I want to ask the Treasurer for a response to it:

“I was listening to your discussions on television on Tuesday evening regarding financial assistance for small business. I have worked and operated a small building business for the past 25 years. I have built houses for the Ontario Housing Corporation in approximately six area locations, and I have also built houses and small buildings of my own over the years.

“I started to build a semi-detached house in Kitchener and now find, with mortgage rates at 17 per cent and bank loans at 18 per cent plus, the mortgage companies will not give me sufficient mortgage financing to complete this house that I have started. No one is building or buying houses at these high mortgage rates. I cannot finish this house I have started and I need financial help right away.

“I have worked hard all my life building houses, and now I find myself in a very bad position that I cannot do anything about.”

Let us not forget that these unfortunate victims of the high interest rates did not cause them. These are not problems of their own making.

“I owe $21,000 on this lot and house in the Kitchener area, and I just cannot borrow money at 18 per cent to carry on, as I have no income now that there is no work in construction. I contacted the industrial development bank and they advised me their rates are one per cent over banks at 19 per cent interest.

“Small businesses are going bankrupt very fast and I really need help right away. We have no control over these high mortgage and interest rates and do not know what to do now or how to cope with this situation. I have invested some money in this double house in hope of being able to finish it and moving into this house, but now I have no way of completing the house.

“I have contacted at least 20 companies in the Kitchener area about a job, but I cannot find work and I have no income. I want to work and I have worked hard all of my life when housing was being built. I have got to have some kind of financial help for my family or I cannot carry on with this situation. I have to pay taxes and heating and other expenses. I would appreciate hearing from you regarding my situation and what can be done about this impossible situation I find myself in. I need assistance now.”

I think that says it all. These people are not out buying Cadillacs with fins. These people just want to survive a very temporary but difficult situation. What we are doing in not helping them is robbing them of hope. When we rob someone of hope and when despair starts to set in, we are robbing them of their human dignity, and one does not easily recover from that. In the process of not helping these people, we are destroying an ethic that we feel is so very important in this party, and that is the ethic of having a stake in community. When we remove a person’s right to hope and chance to dream about having some stake in a business, a farm or a house, then we are going to destroy some of the fundamental working principles upon which this province was founded, and we are not going to recover in one day.

I am glad the Premier is back from his crusade. I want him to hear this. I want him to understand it in real terms. I will supply names of individuals, hundreds of them, to him. These are real cases. This is not fabricated. I say to the Treasurer and the Premier, they have a role of responsibility. If they are not going to honour it, I say to my friends on the left, who masquerade as the party of compassion, rise up with us, take these guys on and we will institute it.

Interjections.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, the volume of noise is a straight function of their political embarrassment tonight. They are like pigs squealing under pressure.

I wish I could convince them, but I think we have lost them. I have never seen so much intellectual dishonesty out of people I formerly respected, at least for their ability to carry an argument over the last little while, as has come from some of these people to my left. I used to think they had principle; unfortunately they do not.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There has been a lot of hyperbole tonight. There has been a lot of excessive language tonight. I distinctly heard the honourable member accusing members of this House of dishonesty. I think he can choose another word.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, if I may respond. I think the words were intellectual dishonesty, which describe a train of thought.

Mr. Speaker: I don’t differentiate between intellectual dishonesty and any other kind of dishonesty.

Mr. Peterson: Distortion is the word I will substitute therefor, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Let me say, in finishing, that I have lost all hope that our friends to the left will support us tonight. I regret that very much. Let me take this opportunity to impress upon the Premier to save his breath. I know he has had a busy day and will be entitled to his two minutes or so where he can capsulize everything with his usual skill. But let me say to him, this is a real problem; act. Do something. We have presented a plan. If he does not like it, he can change it. We will assist him. We will work with him. We will sit over the weekend to have this in place by Monday morning. But I say to him not to leave it, because lives are being destroyed in the meantime.

10:20 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I regret I did not hear some of what I am told were the significant contributions to the discussions this evening. I understand that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) was at his usual dramatic best after several hours in front of the mirror prior to his contribution. I understand the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio) is probably still in the Tory caucus office commiserating about the real seriousness of this motion of non-confidence.

I am not going to be sarcastic tonight, except to make one observation. I say to the member for Hamilton West, because I think the Ontario Liberal Party has disappeared -- I don’t see any sign of it any more --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have seen egos and I have seen egos, but I have to wonder when I see official communiqués coming out from the opposition with not a single word about the great old traditional Liberal Party of Ontario. Is the member for Hamilton West ashamed of the name? I am not. It has been a great party. What is he doing to it? Does he know what he is doing to it? I say to the Leader of the Opposition, it is so easy to see through what he is attempting to do. But he is destroying his own credibility in the process. We know he wants an election. We know why he wants an election. He wants an election now because his party is going down. The Liberal Party in Ottawa is causing the problem. I know that.

I have been in this House now for about as long as anyone else, except one or two members opposite. I have sat here and listened to a lot of budgets. Not only is the budget presented by the Treasurer a few days ago the best budget of this decade -- it is the first and best of this decade -- it is also the best of the last decade; it is one of the best budgets that has been presented here.

Do the Liberal members know what they want to do? They want to defeat this government before we can provide the increased support for our senior citizens. What do they think the senior citizens across this province feel?

I have to confess, I would be delighted to campaign on the budget of the Treasurer. I would love to go around this province and say: “The Liberal Party of Ontario does not want us to increase your tax credit, Mr. or Mrs. Senior Citizen. They have no sensitivity. They have no feelings. They don’t want to see these programs move ahead. They don’t want to see the economic stability, the common sense, the humanity and the sensitivity demonstrated by the Treasurer in his budget.”

It was a great budget. Ask the members opposite, who want to defeat this government, who want to cost the taxpayers of this province $25 million to have an unnecessary election. Ask them in their own consciences --

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: We have only a couple of minutes left, and I am sure the honourable --

Mr. Sargent: How does one change a word like that?

Mr. Speaker: I think you can without any difficulty.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, before the member for Grey-Bruce so constructively interrupted me, I was going to make this observation. I know some of the members opposite; I know them well. If they were to stand up and say what is in their hearts -- not what is in their minds or what they have been told to say -- what would they say? Does the Liberal leader know what some of his own members have said to me? They have said, “Mr. Premier, that was a first-class budget.” Liberal members have said it is a first-class budget. The member for London Centre thinks it is a first-class budget. He can’t stand in his place and deny it. His father-in-law thinks it is a great budget. His brother thinks it’s a great budget. His wife thinks it’s a great budget --

Mr. Peterson: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: The Premier said that I said to him it was a great budget. That is abjectly untrue. My father-in-law may feel it’s a good budget but, of course, he’s in the pocket of my father-in-law; so why wouldn’t he?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think I said that the member said that. I said that he feels it’s a great budget.

Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you how refreshing it is to come back here after a quiet day.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Can I say this to the member for Hamilton West? I hope I never embarrass my colleagues over here as consistently as he embarrasses the colleagues who support him. I have to tell him that. He knows what they say. We both know what they say.

I make a very sincere plea to the members opposite who still have a bit of independent thinking going for them: Recognize the hypocrisy of the no-confidence motion we are debating. Recognize there are important issues in front of us. Recognize this Legislature has a great deal to do. Recognize and see through the very blatant attempt to force an election. They know why; they want to do it because they sense that the national government, the government that’s being administered by their national leader -- they used to kid me; now, when I kid them, they can’t take it. I have to tell them this: A political party in this province should be able to carry its own weight. It shouldn’t be disturbed by what people may or may not feel about the government of Canada. We never apologized for our colleagues when they had the responsibility, and we don’t do it now.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the members opposite --

Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to remind the Premier that it is 10:30. I am obliged to put the motion. He has 30 seconds to wind up; I will give him that opportunity.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, in 30 seconds: I very simply urge the members of the Liberal Party of Ontario to recognize their responsibility; to reject the motion that is in front of this House; to support the other members of this House in an attempt to give meaningful government to the people of this province; to assist the Treasurer in the programs that he has initiated; to show a little maturity, a little common sense. I recognize that what I am saying is falling on deaf ears, but I make the plea.

The budget of this Treasurer is one of the finest I have seen. We will support it with enthusiasm with the members opposite. I expect we will find that we will be back here at 10 a.m. and that the Liberal Party will have failed once again to force an election on the people of this province.

10:30 p.m.

The House divided on Mr. S. Smith’s motion, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Blundy, Bolan, Bradley, Breithaupt, Campbell, Conway, Cunningham, Eakins, Gaunt, Haggerty, Hall, Mancini, McEwen, McGuigan, McKessock, Miller, G. I., Newman, B., Nixon, O’Neil, Peterson, Reed, J., Reid, T. P., Riddell, Ruston, Sargent, Smith, S., Stong, Sweeney, Van Horne, Worton.

Nays

Ashe, Auld, Baetz, Belanger, Bennett, Bernier, Birch, Bounsall, Breaugh, Brunelle, Bryden, Cassidy, Charlton, Cooke, Cureatz, Davis, Davidson, M., Davison, M. N., Di Santo, Drea, Dukszta, Eaton, Elgie, Foulds, Germa, Gigantes, Grande, Gregory, Grossman, Havrot.

Henderson, Hennessy, Isaacs, Johnson, J., Johnston. R. P., Jones, Kennedy, Kerr, Lane, Laughren, Lawlor, Leluk, Lupusella, MacDonald, Mackenzie, Maeck, Makarchuk, Martel, McCaffrey, McCague, McClellan, McMurtry, McNeil, Miller, F. S., Newman, W., Norton, Parrott.

Philip, Pope, Ramsay, Renwick, Rollins, Rotenberg, Rowe, Samis, Scrivener, Smith, G. E., Snow, Stephenson, Sterling, Swart, Taylor, J. A., Taylor, G., Timbrell, Turner, Villeneuve, Walker, Warner, Watson, Welch, Wells, Wildman, Williams, Wiseman, Yakabuski, Young, Ziemba.

Pair: MacBeth and Edighoffer.

Ayes 30; nays 87.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, this matter having been settled, I would like to indicate the business of the House for tomorrow and next week.

Tomorrow the House will continue with the budget debate,

Next week, as has been arranged, the members of this House will participate in a Confederation debate. The rules have been adjusted to provide that all speakers participating in the debate will speak for 20 minutes, except for the opening three speakers from the different parties, who will share the afternoon of Monday, and the closing speeches by the party leaders which will be on Friday and which will be 45 minutes in length.

The House will meet on Monday in the afternoon and in the evening; on Tuesday in the afternoon and the evening; on Wednesday, with no question period, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.; on Thursday morning, if needed, and on Thursday afternoon and evening, with the question period at 2 p.m.; and on Friday morning, with a 30-minute question period and a recorded vote just before closing at one o’clock.

The House adjourned at 10:37 p.m.