Journal des débats 1982-mai-18 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Speaker: John B. Aird, the Lieutenant Governor, transmits estimates of certain sums required for the services of the province for the year ending March 31, 1983, and recommends them to the Legislative Assembly. Dated Toronto, May 18, 1982.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION FUNDING

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, the budget presented to the Legislature last week by my colleague the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) is providing a direct increase in the construction of needed water and sewage facilities for Ontario municipalities.

My ministry will provide an additional $5.6 million in grants to Ontario municipalities over and above the $173.4 million already committed for the construction of water and sewage facilities in the ministry's capital construction budget this year.

Mr. Kerrio: It is time you cleaned up your act.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Watch out. You are going to be the first victim.

The extra funding was approved by cabinet not only to construct much needed water and sewage facilities, but also to stimulate employment opportunities in the construction sector. It is estimated that every $1 million spent on this type of construction translates into 15 man-years of onsite employment in the construction industry. The $5.6 million in additional funding, which is in support of a total of $41.7 million in new construction, means 625 man-years of employment during the current fiscal year.

This increased funding also means an increase in jobs in associated and supporting industries. Equipment manufacturers, cement makers, pipe manufacturers and other related industries will benefit from this increased funding.

The ministry's program of grants to municipalities and our construction activities creates a positive environmental effect and also has the added value of generating jobs at a time when they are much needed.

CAPITAL WORKS PROJECTS

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to join with my colleague the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) in announcing our ministries' contribution to this government's job creation initiatives through the acceleration of capital works projects announced in last Thursday's budget by the Treasurer.

With a total expenditure of well over $1 billion per year, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Ministry of Northern Affairs already generate a considerable number of jobs, both directly through our regular construction and maintenance programs and indirectly by providing all parts of the province with a first-class transportation system to support and stimulate efficient trade.

I am happy to be able to add to that figure today by announcing that a further $60.5 million is being made available through the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program which will co-ordinate the administration of this government's employment stimulation program. This will permit the acceleration of 31 road construction projects and many other maintenance projects as well, creating nearly 2,500 jobs in the private sector while speeding up the completion of some much needed highway work.

Mr. Nixon: Like the 403?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Just wait a minute.

Mr. Nixon: We have been waiting for 15 years.

Hon. Mr. Snow: The $60.5 million will be spent on various types of projects. First, the labour intensive task of refencing portions of Highways 400, 401, 417 and the Queen Elizabeth Way will cost some $3.5 million and create 240 jobs. These highways and the rest of the provincial system will benefit from an additional $2.5 million allocated for improved maintenance, one of the areas in which we have had to cut back as a measure of restraint in recent years. Over 500 people will be employed in these tasks.

On construction projects containing concrete and steel outside the Metro Toronto area, MTC will spend $7.7 million and the Ministry of Northern Affairs an additional $12.5 million, employing over 600 people.

As examples of the kinds of projects we are undertaking, in the riding of Victoria-Haliburton MTC will advance a contract to reconstruct Highway 519 from 2.1 kilometres north of Highway 530 north to Eagle Lake, while MNA has been able to accelerate the upgrading of Highway 144 from 9.7 kilometres south of Highway 560 for a further distance of 36 kilometres in the riding of Nickel Belt.

Within the Metro area, another $5 million will see 150 people working to advance construction of structures on Highways 401 and the QEW. Also in the Metro area, construction on Highways 404 and 427 will be accelerated with an additional $2.5 million, plus another $2.5 million for consulting fees on these projects.

2:10 p.m.

In other areas of the province this year, the ministries of Northern Affairs and Transportation and Communications will spend $14 million plus additional moneys on projects which will carry over into 1983, creating another 280 jobs. These projects will include such major roadwork as the reconstruction of Highway 7 for eight kilometres east of Norwood and 13.5 kilometres of Bending Lake Road, 60.5 kilometres north of Highway 622.

On minor roadwork where local contracts are called, another 200 people will get jobs through an expenditure of $2.3 million for day labour. Another 100 people will be employed in the construction of $1 million --

Mr. Sargent: All Tory ridings.

Hon. Mr. Snow: If the member for Grey-Bruce had been here earlier he would have heard me mention some of the ridings which, to me, are not Tory.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Would you like to hear all this good news again, Eddie?

Mr. Speaker: I think we had better get on with the business.

Hon. Mr. Snow: On minor roadwork where local contracts are called, another 200 people will get jobs through an expenditure of $2.3 million on day labour and another 100 people will be employed in the construction of $1 million worth of new salt domes and patrol yards. These new salt domes -- I say to the Minister of the Environment -- will help greatly with the environmental aspect of storing our salt.

In summary, construction work will be advanced to generate local employment in the following ridings -- listen carefully, Eddie -- Algoma, Carleton, Carleton-Grenville, Cochrane North, Burlington, Durham West, Elgin, Etobicoke, Fort William, Frontenac-Addington, Grey-Bruce, Hastings-Peterborough, Kenora, Kent-Elgin, Lincoln, Middlesex, Nickel Belt, Nipissing, Northumberland, Oakville, Parry Sound, Perth, Port Arthur, Rainy River -- the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid) is not here -- Renfrew North -- the member is not here -- Sudbury East, Victoria-Haliburton and York North.

There has been an additional MTC municipal allocation of $7 million which is now being reviewed. I shall report to this House on the distribution of that $7 million in a few days' time.

I am confident that this extra money will prove a valuable stimulus for local economies across the province while benefiting all our citizens with the additions and refinements of our key road transportation network.

REPAIR AND RENOVATION PROJECTS

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, as a result of the budget announced last Thursday by my colleague the Treasurer, the two ministries for which I am responsible will receive an additional $15 million for capital projects for the repair of school, college and university buildings in Ontario.

The program will be administered by the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development, of which I am pleased to be a member. The capital programs will be aimed at creating short-term employment opportunities in all parts of the province. All work undertaken under the program will be completed within the current fiscal year.

At the elementary and secondary levels, $5 million has been allocated. This amount, coupled with the school boards' contribution, will generate a total of $7 million. This will involve approximately 50 repair and renovation projects totalling $4,175,000, an additional $1,504,000 for asbestos removal and cleanup and $1 million for energy retrofit programs in schools across the province.

The projects will be selected from school board capital expenditure forecasts submitted to the ministry last fall. The program will concentrate on a large number of small projects, including roofing replacement, heating systems, elevators, fire safety work and small additions or renovations that can be completed within the fiscal year. It is estimated that this program will generate about 1,000 temporary jobs.

An amount of $10 million has been allocated for repairs to university and college buildings. Of that amount, $5.5 million will be spent on university buildings and the remaining $4.5 million for college buildings. Preference will be given to projects that contain a minimum of 60 per cent onsite labour and that can be completed within the current fiscal year.

The program will include projects involving health and fire safety, asbestos hazard abatement, energy conservation projects and renovations and repairs. The colleges and universities have been asked to submit to the Ministry of Colleges and Universities a list of proposed projects as soon as possible. It is expected that the program involving the university and college buildings will produce some 2,000 temporary jobs.

CORRECTION OF MEDIA REPORTS

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I stand on a point of privilege. It has been widely reported by the electronic and print media that I said feminine hygiene products are not essential. Today I have reviewed my interview tape with members of the press gallery and now I know for a fact that I did not say, nor did I imply, this.

I would also like to say that a headline in the Toronto Sun today in no way reflects anything I said to that newspaper's reporter. I did not say, "Let them eat peanut butter." I did not use those words or even refer to peanut butter.

I have always enjoyed an open and frank relationship with the media and I hope to continue this. I am sure I can do this because of their natural tendency to be accurate and fair.

ORAL QUESTIONS

TAX INCREASES

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer since he is trying to change some impressions he has created in the past two or three days.

Hon. Mr. Eaton: The press did that. They wouldn't put it on the front page if he did say it.

Mr. Peterson: Why don't you grow up?

The Treasurer was asked by a reporter in an interview, "The general impression, Frank, is that it is a nickel-and-dime budget. People are accusing you of hitting the little guy and taking a little bit from everybody. People may not be able to afford that other couple of cents on things like a can of pop. Why is this the thrust with the budget?"

The Treasurer's response was: "That is a common thread, nickel and dime, taking it from the poor. It is the Canadian way of approaching almost every tax measure I run into. I am not aiming at the poor. First of all, I've got to challenge you. If you are poor, is it a can of pop you should be buying? You know, there must be other priorities for your money if that is what you are spending it on."

Did the Treasurer say that and did he mean it? Is that who he intended to hit with this budget he brought in?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, when I do say things, I admit it. Yes, I said that.

I was being asked, as I have been asked by many reporters, to explain the logic behind the sales tax base changes. My explanation has been simple. Over the years, many eliminations from base have been made. When we review the sum of 21 or 22 years of changes, we find there is not much thread or logic to some of the eliminations. A year ago, I served notice that we would review those base eliminations and I partly did so this year. It is as simple as that.

I did not use the test of essentiality, although obviously some things like food and children's clothing are not going to be taxed and are not intended for taxation.

Mr. Peterson: The reality is that sometimes the Treasurer talks about essentiality and sometimes he does not, to suit the purposes of his new round of tax and revenue grabs for his budget.

Does the Treasurer not agree with me that his new round of tax increases hits the poor far harder than it hits the rich? Was that the intention of his budget, to extract more out of the poor?

2:20 p.m.

Hon. F. S. Miller: No, Mr. Speaker. This province has an honourable record of assisting the poor in many ways, including a sales tax credit to them, and the honourable member knows that. He knows we have a sales tax credit and, in fact, that a cheque for a flat $50 goes out once a year to every senior citizen in this province to help with those tax measures, because the bureaucracy of providing some form of special allowance in any other way would be too complex.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, will the Treasurer not admit he has introduced a new regressive principle in sales taxation, which is that for the first time he is taxing labour: the labour that goes into the repair of a car, the labour that goes with a plumber coming to fix the plumbing, an essential service in your home?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the honourable gentleman obviously has not understood the budget, because plumbers are not taxed.

Mr. Foulds: Is car repair?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Car repair is taxed. That is tangible --

Mr. Foulds: Why is the labour taxed?

Hon. F. S. Miller: My friend, just a second. You will have your supplementary in a moment.

If one said labour is not taxed then I do not know how I would set the tax on, say, an automobile, a refrigerator or a carving knife, because every one of those objects has labour content.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I would like to get back to the original question. We certainly appreciate the fact that the Treasurer does not intend to tax food. That certainly is a relief.

I want to ask the Treasurer why he would make such an inane comment as he was quoted as having made and which he has confirmed this afternoon that he did make: that the poor should not buy pop? Why would he give the people of Ontario the impression that the poor are wasteful with their money, that they are out spending their money on nonessential items such as pop? Why would he make such a mean-spirited statement and try to deflect the problems we have in our economy to the poor instead of tackling these problems himself?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member is sinking rather low in that question, I think. In no way did I make that implication. The question put to me by the interviewer at that point was, "Was the tax avoidable?" That was the issue.

ONTARIO ENERGY INVESTMENT

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a new question for the Treasurer. The Treasurer made a speech at noon and answered some questions from the Toronto Society of Financial Analysts and the Toronto Association of Business Economists at the Park Plaza Hotel. He said, "I would be quite happy to talk about anything you wish." The first question was, "Mr. Treasurer, would you care to comment on Suncor?" His response was, "It was a nonbudgetary item." Then there were, of course, straight guffaws and, "Wasn't that a clever response?"

Then the questioner said, "When I buy a hamburger I notice it." The Treasurer said he would not talk about it today because it is not in the budget. He then went on to say, "Well, in fact, $62 million in payments will come out of this year's budget." That is a quote. I heard the tape of his speech.

My question to the Treasurer is, does he not feel there are a tremendous number of people in this province just seething when they first see him waste hundreds of millions of dollars on things like Suncor and now he is going back to tax children and lower-income people in this province to pay for those kinds of excesses?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I trust the honourable member listened to the tape carefully enough to recognize that the questioner asked a second question between the two he cited. I was there discussing this year's budget. His second question was, "How did you pay for that $650 million?" I answered, "$325 million was in last year's budget and $62 million is in this year's budget." That was my answer, was it not? Was that not what was on the tape?

You see, the member conveniently likes to link things together when in fact the linkage is not always there. I was there to answer questions on budget policy, not on general government policy, and I answered all the questions from the floor quite happily.

I want to tell the members one thing: We are starting to get, as I predicted we would, an overwhelming degree of support from people like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, who have sent a letter to us.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Oh, he is not interested in the small businessmen. They do not matter to him. That is obvious. He has no relationships with small businessmen, no. He pooh-poohs them in this House. Let me say, when he is out in the hustings he talks as if he is the sole representative of the small businessmen. He is not, we are.

Mr. Peterson: Last week the Treasurer accused me of not understanding the poor because he was poor and I was not. Today he is accusing me of not understanding the small businessmen.

Let me tell him, he does not understand this province. This is the worst budget in the history of this province.

I want to go back and ask him the original question on which he has been weaseling for months. How can he justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an oil company when he is taxing poor people in this province on their pop and applying what is an obvious injustice?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I assume that question is supplementary to the first question.

Whether the Leader of the Opposition likes that investment or not -- and he had his option and he has said he does not -- in the wisdom --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am here answering his questions. I remained patiently in my seat as he asked them.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: One of the great things about my party, my friends -- it was obvious in their party yesterday; there is no unanimity to that party. It took them all day long to decide if they would come back here to vote. The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) missed one day of guidance to that party and it fell apart.

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Treasurer: A 59-year-old woman in my riding lives on $2,700 a year through general welfare. What is more of a priority to him and his government, $650 million to Suncor or giving this woman enough money to live in dignity in this province?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I find that a bit confusing since the member's party wanted us to spend $1,300 million to buy Suncor.

Mr. Peterson: Just because the Treasurer is confused about Suncor -- and he talks to me about caucus unanimity; they are all experts on dissension. We are the only ones who understood this question from the beginning.

I want to ask the Treasurer, is he going to stand up and continue to weasel or is he going to admit now that he should have sold Suncor in order to keep the taxes down for those people who can least afford to pay them?

Hon. F. S. Miller: With the failure of Alsands and a number of other projects, the member may be very pleased to see one of the indigenous synthetic fuel plants being partly owned by this province in the future, and able to guarantee a degree of supply of oil and with the potential to expand.

BUDGET PRIORITIES

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Treasurer why he made the decision to attack Big Macs and to reduce the tax on La Scala meals? Why did he feel he had to attack the working and the poor to raise revenue instead of attacking poverty in this province? I want to know why he has his priorities in his budget so skewed that at the present time his taxation bounds are so out of line that corporate taxes provide only 7.5 per cent of his revenues, while personal taxes provide a phenomenal 52 per cent?

2:30 p.m.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I think the honourable member in the latter part of his question starts touching upon legitimate differences of approach between his party and mine to the health of the economic sector. I suggest to him that we believe the small business community and the corporate community are essential job creators. He has been telling me for months that nothing is more important than job creation.

In this budget, not only have we taken action to produce short-term jobs in the public sector, as he heard my three colleagues announce today, but also we have taken what will be recognized as one of the bravest steps for a long time: the elimination of corporation tax in the very area where business really creates jobs, Ontario's small business community. As that ripples through the economy, we will be seen to have taken one of the most positive job-creating steps any government has taken for years.

Apart from that, the first part of the member's question was traditional rhetoric. I think he would have to accept the fact that he has started out almost every question to me every year by saying I am hitting the poor and doing something for the rich.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Why didn't you mention the problem of somebody living on $2,900 in this province? You don't even mention it in this budget. That's your priority.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I only suggest to the member that one of the components of the hospitality industry that is most competitive in international markets remains the convention business. Steps taken in my budget give that sector of the hospitality industry a major tax advantage.

Mr. Foulds: Does the Treasurer not agree that in the past two years unemployment has become the major problem in Ontario? In the past two years, since 1980, he has increased his revenues from personal taxes by 48 per cent and decreased taxation to the corporate sector by 21 per cent. How many jobs has the Treasurer created in that way? Not one.

Hon. F. S. Miller: One of the reasons the corporate tax is dropping is that the profits are dropping. The corporate taxes went up very quickly last year, and that was one of the reasons I did very well as year-end approached: I profited very handsomely, and I still will profit very handsomely, from the taxes on major corporations.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer has heard from the hotel industry. I believe I got a copy of a letter sent to him with regard to the fact that he is taxing liquor at the rate of 10 per cent, food at seven per cent and rooms at five per cent -- an auditor's nightmare. Why does he not be realistic and give them a straight five per cent rate across the board? He could raise much more money that way than he would by 10, seven and five.

I had a phone call an hour ago from a small coffee wagon vendor who has to go out of business because she cannot keep a set of books to sell coffee out of her wagon. Does the minister not agree totally that he has a budget that is looking after the greedy at the expense of the needy?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have great respect, admiration and love for my colleague, Mr. Speaker, but I have to say to him that if he thinks five, five and five is more than five, seven and 10, then he and I stopped going to school at different levels. If I take five of everything on rooms, seven of everything on dining rooms and 10 of everything on the bar, I am getting more than if I take five everywhere. The logic of that should pervade even a Liberal mind.

Mr. Sargent: I'll bet you a bottle of whisky you are wrong.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. F. S. Miller: If I drank, I would take the bet. In any case, Mr. Speaker, I think the temper of Ontario's taxpayers does not begrudge a 10 per cent tax on liquor. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that is the least objected-to tax in Ontario, except by those of us who happen to be in the business. If one is in the business, one does not like it. I am in the business; the member is in the business.

Mr. Sargent: I am not.

Hon. F. S. Miller: In any event, the consumer has not been complaining about the tax on liquor.

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, is the Treasurer aware that in 1960 for every dollar collected in personal taxes, $1.79 was collected in corporate taxes but that in this particular budget for every dollar collected in personal taxes, only 14 cents will be collected in corporate taxes?

Does the Treasurer not understand what a dramatic shift has occurred in the past 22 years and that more and more of the tax burden now is on the personal income tax? Is it not about time that there was a fair and equitable tax system in this province where the ordinary individuals, those on middle and low incomes, paid no more than their fair share, rather than having to pay more than their fair share under this budget?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I am sure my official critic has done his arithmetic and knows that he has chosen corporate income tax as the only measure of taxation from the corporate sector.

Mr. Cooke: No.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Is he not allowing for capital tax? Is he not allowing for sales tax on machinery and equipment?

Mr. Cooke: Yes.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Well, if the member is allowing for all those, his figures sound screwy to me, because until last year the balance in the main was towards the corporate sector and away from the private sector.

TAX BURDEN

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Treasurer another question about tax shifting. This is about tax shifting to the public institutions of this province, the school boards, universities and hospitals.

How can the Treasurer justify a budget that imposes massive increases in the middle of the school year on the budgets of local boards of education? For example, is he aware that the removal of the sales tax exemption on building materials, classroom supplies, Ontario health insurance plan premiums, etc., in the present year will cost Toronto more than $750,000, Sudbury $400,000, Windsor $500,000 and Waterloo county $665,000? How can he justify taking away $250,000 from Peterborough, which is half of what they are supposed to get for the special education program?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member speaks of those entities as if they were not paid for by the same taxpayers as pay for the province. They are the same people in the province. Frankly, the member knows that we have been pursuing, with the federal government and with others, a policy of paying each other's taxes. That is exactly why those changes were made.

Mr. Foulds: In view of the Premier's role as the former Minister of Education -- remember equalization of educational opportunity throughout the province and the county school boards? -- how can the Treasurer justify imposing higher costs on assessment-poor school boards such as the Kirkland Lake Roman Catholic Separate School Board, which attempted to keep its tax increase to 6.1 per cent this year but which now must find another $30,628 and as a result will have to levy an additional 9.8 per cent in taxes or six mills? What solution does the Treasurer have for them? What recommendations does he have about programs they should cut for their kids?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am not making any recommendations to cut programs for their kids. If one looks at the gross impact on the mill rate of the changes I have made, I think one will find that it is not anywhere near the figures the member is talking about relative to the changes that occur as a result of inflation.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, accepting that it is the same taxpayer who pays taxes at the federal, municipal and provincial levels, how can the government expect to have any credibility with the federal government and criticize them about slowing down the rate of transfer payments to the provinces and shifting the tax burden when this government does exactly the same thing to local municipalities and school boards?

How can this government expect to have any credibility with the public of Ontario and expect to be heard, understood and believed when it does exactly the same thing to local government as the federal government is attempting to do to this government?

Hon. F. S. Miller: No, Mr. Speaker, that is not the same thing. A good deal of the money that the federal government redistributes goes to other provinces. In fact, the money that they have not sent back to us this year, the $300 million, was possibly applicable to wider jurisdictions or coming from wider jurisdictions. They are not the same, and in the main we have treated our boards and our municipalities with a degree of discussion and co-operation that we have not had at the federal level. I accept that I will not get accolades from either group, but I think I have stuck to a principle that is important and fair.

2:40 p.m.

Mr. Foulds: Why are you trying to do to the municipalities, the hospital boards and the school boards what Allan MacEachen did to you and to Ontario? Why is the tax shift not the same, Frank? Why do you consider it different? Reprehensible though that federal tax shift was, at least you had time to bargain and argue; you just failed to bargain and win.

The Premier (Mr. Davis) said at the first ministers' conference, "All governments should agree that any major restructuring of the tax system be subject to the processes of prior public consultation and review." Why did you have no consultation or review with the school boards of this province before shifting this extra burden to them?

Mr. Speaker: I ask all honourable members to co-operate and refer to the ministers by title in their questions. Those people who are answering should refer to the members by ridings.

Mr. Foulds: Sorry, Mr. Speaker; I withdraw "Frank" as unparliamentary and substitute "Treasurer."

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have always called him my honourable friend. I hope I can continue to do so.

I have explained to a number of audiences and I will say here that, for example, when the tax goes on building materials for a hospital in the north, where we pay five sixths of the cost, the member will find us paying five sixths of the tax. Where the school boards are involved in those capital works, our share of grant will apply.

LIVESTOCK DEPREDATIONS BY RAVENS

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, a number of weeks ago the member for York South (Mr. MacDonald) asked me a question about press reports of livestock in northwestern Ontario being attacked by ravens. I indicated at that time that we were investigating. I would like to report on the results of that investigation.

In the intervening period, we have investigated four complaints of alleged attacks by ravens on livestock in the northwest. Of those four, we were able to obtain specimens of two animals from those four attacks. Gross and histopathological examinations were carried out by the veterinary laboratories at the University of Guelph and at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

The indications from those gross and histopathological examinations are that, first, both animals were attacked by ravens just prior to death and, second, the death of both animals resulted from other conditions and not from the ravens' attacks; that is to say, the ravens attacked weakened animals. Which leads to the third conclusion of these examinations: in both cases, the animals were very weak and had other problems at birth which caused their deaths.

Because of the fact that death resulted from factors other than the ravens' attacks, which appear to have occurred on weakened, emaciated, about-to-die animals, the ministry would not be paying compensation even if present legislation included ravens in addition to wolves and bears.

In considering this matter, I have instructed staff to begin to develop amendments to our legislation to include wildlife, the definition of which we will work out with the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, since there is a widespread belief that ravens are responsible, what is the minister doing by way of public relations or dissemination of this information so the public can be acquainted with what the minister deems to be the facts?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I thought I had an obligation to report this information here first. As the honourable member knows, I had the information with me on Friday. I had indicated to the Speaker that I had the answer to a previous question. Because of rotation, the Speaker did not get to me.

We will, of course, communicate with the owners of the animals involved. I have indicated to my staff my instructions to develop some kind of a communications plan that we disseminate the information as widely as possible through the northwest.

In answer to letters I have had from several individuals in that area, I have already pointed out that they do have the right to protect their own property notwithstanding the results of these examinations if their properties are frequented by flocks of ravens.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, the minister will recall when the original question was asked that I did put a supplementary question to him on the possibility of summer employment, given that the original investigation might prove the problem was big enough to demand extra attention from some person or persons such as university students who might be looking for a summer opportunity.

I take it from his answer that the problem, as he sees it, is not big enough to demand or require that kind of additional attention. Is that true? Or does he perceive this to be something that could bring on some summer work for university students in the northwest?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Based on this report, Mr. Speaker, I would have to say that it would not seem to me there is the need for some students to be involved. Frankly, I would not know, except perhaps in the dissemination of information which I think we can do through the local media, through our agricultural representative and his staff, and through the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier), who has consistently indicated quite a strong interest in this matter. I am sure that through his good offices as well we can be sure the information is widely disseminated to the public in that area.

We will continue to investigate complaints, as we always do.

TAX ON FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS

Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Treasurer. I wonder whether he has skulked into the back office because he is afraid to face the music or whether he does plan on coming out. In his absence, I will direct my question to the Premier -- ah, here comes the Treasurer.

In his budget the Treasurer has, among other items, imposed a tax on sanitary pads and tampons. He was quoted in today's Globe and Mail as saying, "In general, consumer items draw tax unless they are considered to be absolutely essential items." I understand he may revoke that quote.

He is also quoted as saying, on the issue of the essential aspect of tampons: "That's being taxed, so is men's shaving cream. I guess I can grow a beard."

Growing a beard may be advice that the Treasurer has for the men of this province. What advice does he have for the women of this province to avoid this tax?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I answered that in the point of privilege. I simply point out that there are many essential items being taxed. Essentiality is not the major criterion. We have avoided certain ones like food, but we have taxed many things one could call essential.

I would say a lot of people could call an automobile essential to get to and from work, but a vehicle tax has applied for a long time. I am sure one would say the fuel in the bus that brings one to work, if one does not own a vehicle, is essential but it is taxed.

Ms. Copps: It is obvious that the Treasurer has no understanding of the essentiality of sanitary napkins and tampons to the women of this province, because comparing them to automobiles is absurd.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, please.

Ms. Copps: By what possible stretch of his mean, male-minded imagination could he impose a tax on tampons and sanitary napkins, which is a direct tax to the women of this province?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am sure the member is doing her best to embarrass me. That is fine. That is her privilege. I can only say to her that I have been married for 32 years. I have some understanding of the functioning of a female.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, the minister has quite rightly withdrawn the comments that were attributed to him. Why does he not simply withdraw this aspect of the tax?

2:50 p.m.

ASSISTANCE TO SMALL BUSINESSES

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Treasurer. The minister will be aware, I am sure, that as of April 30, 1,207 business bankruptcies have occurred in this province. At that rate there will be 3,621 this year, which will be a 25 per cent increase over 1981.

Does the minister not understand that his tax expenditure to those companies that are incorporated only assists businesses that are making a profit? Is it not about time that he changed this program to assist the small businesses in this province that will not get the benefit of his tax expenditure but need assistance to stay in business because of the high interest rate problem?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, in no way do I lack concern for that truth. The fact remains that the major impediment to their success is the high interest rate policy. That high interest rate policy is a direct effect of the lack of confidence of the people of Canada in the government of Canada, a government that has shown absolute and complete incompetence in the management of this economy.

I am doing what I can; I am trying to create jobs. Jobs are created by winners; winners need some help, and I have tried to help them.

Mr. Cooke: The Treasurer has predicted that 10,000 jobs will be created by this $250-million tax expenditure. Does the minister not realize that through these 3,621 bankruptcies we will lose 18,000 jobs in this province? He stands idly by, letting these losers, as he calls them, go down the drain. Why does he not get a program in place that will save those 18,000 jobs instead of doing what he is doing? We will have a net loss of 8,000 jobs under his program.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Any time one creates jobs one in general helps all businesses, because most businesses depend on customers earning a living to come in and buy their products. If I take any measures to stimulate the economy and, more important, to change the negative psychology, aided some days by those on the other side, that permeates this province, we just might get an uplift in everything.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, surely the Treasurer understands that the greater percentage of those small businesses facing bankruptcy and of those not making a profit are in cities like my own city of Windsor and cities that have members on the government side, like Brantford and Chatham. Surely he understands that his budget did not one thing for those small businesses in these communities.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, please.

Mr. Wrye: All that is going to happen is that they are going to be driven further towards the brink of bankruptcy. What is the Treasurer going to do to help the small businesses in those communities that cannot make a profit right now because the economy is so far down?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I think that basically was the question asked by the previous member.

CORRECTIONAL STAFF PRACTICES

Mr. Eakins: Mr. Speaker, while the Treasurer speaks of job creation, I would like to direct my question to a minister who fired five of his employees, the Minister of Correctional Services.

The minister will recall that it was just one year ago when a series of serious incidents took place at the Lindsay Jail which resulted in his ministry firing five guards to take attention off serious problems in his ministry's administration. Knowing that these were very difficult inmates with bad records and that three days after incarceration at Lindsay one inmate brutally attacked and beat one of the guards, and in view of the fact that one month later these same guards were again beaten by these same inmates, why were these inmates not moved to a more secure institution? Why did he let this continue to fester until, a third time two days later, a similar incident happened and then he fired the guards? Why did he allow this to happen, and why did he not fire or discipline some of the people in his own ministry?

Hon. Mr. Leluk: Mr. Speaker, I have corresponded with the member for Victoria-Haliburton on three occasions regarding this matter. He knows that we had a very thorough internal investigation into the incident he speaks of. On the basis of the findings of the investigation conducted by our own inspections and investigations branch, disciplinary action was taken against the five officers in question, the five members of our staff, for use of force that exceeds ministry policy and guidelines.

These five staff members grieved the decision of my ministry. In both cases, in reviewing the information that was provided, two independent arbitration tribunals found that there was use of excessive force by the jail guards or correctional officers, and they upheld the decision taken by my ministry.

I would like to know whether the member for Victoria-Haliburton condones the use of excessive force by staff members in our institutions. Is he telling this House that he does not believe in the grievance process in this province? Where do the member and his party stand on that matter?

Mr. Eakins: I think the minister will agree that one of the reasons all this happened is that there is practically no training for the jail guards in the province. The minister will recall that a judge and jury in Lindsay court acquitted eight guards on charges of assault; the minister says they used excessive force, but a judge and jury said they did not. The minister continues to want to use five employees as scapegoats.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Ask the question.

Mr. Eakins: Let the minister listen to this.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Eakins: Speaking of the training of these jail guards, I quote from the grievance board report:

"There is no doubt in anyone's mind that inmates Brabant and Barnes were dangerous individuals. They had brutally beaten two correctional guards two nights earlier. They had been making threatening comments since they had been incarcerated on April 17. After the May 24 incident, it was determined that when one of them was taken from his cell there would be at least two correctional officers present and with night sticks. No one at the Lindsay Jail could recall any previous occasion when riot or night sticks had been issued to the staff."

Still speaking of training, I also want to read the other grievance board report --

Mr. Speaker: I am waiting patiently for the supplementary, please.

Mr. Eakins: This is very important. I quote:

"Added to this is the fact that none of the guards had any skill in the use of such sticks and should not have been using them in close combat. Added to this is the fact that Mr. McGill had only served nine shifts and was faced with a highly dangerous inmate!"

Is the minister telling me that the guards who serve in the jails in this province are properly trained? Here we have a grievance board report saying they are not.

Hon. Mr. Leluk: I am telling the member for Victoria-Haliburton that my staff does have adequate training for the purpose. I just want to point out one thing. The member mentioned that the courts acquitted members of our staff at the Lindsay Jail, and that is very true. But there were two independent investigations conducted, one by the Ontario Provincial Police and one by my own investigations and inspections branch. Those staff members who were acquitted were charged with assault causing bodily harm arising out of the OPP investigation.

In our case disciplinary action was taken, not for assault causing bodily harm but for the use of excessive force in the line of duty, breach of regulations --

Mr. Kerrio: You don't expect the guards to use their night sticks to pick their teeth.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Leluk: So there is the difference. I want to say to the member for Victoria-Haliburton that the staff of our institutions have a very difficult job. They do an excellent job in handling the inmates in this province. I have always supported our staff but this minister and this ministry will not tolerate use of force in excess of that which is prescribed under our regulations.

OHIP PREMIUM INCREASES

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Treasurer with respect to his 17 per cent increase in Ontario health insurance plan premiums. Obviously he has chosen to pay the first year's instalment of the $1-billion doctors' settlement out of increases in OHIP premium revenue.

Can I ask the Treasurer how he conceivably thinks it makes any sense that OHIP premium revenue now is approximately equal to the total amount of revenue raised by corporate taxes in Ontario?

Second, does he think there is any justice in a taxation system which imposes on a family of four earning a family income of $15,000 a year, more money in taxes from premium rates, which is now $648 a year, than is imposed by the progressive provincial income taxes? How can he possibly justify that kind of a tax system?

3 p.m.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, on average, I am told, 70 per cent of all the OHIP premiums are paid by corporations.

Mr. Foulds: What about the other 30 per cent?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Obviously, the other 30 per cent is paid by individuals. Some of them are paid --

Mr. Foulds: What about it?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Some of them are paid by individuals directly. Some of them are partially paid by individuals and partially by corporations.

I simply say to the member that the paper I put forward is one on which I am asking for discussion. I hope the honourable member will add to the response. I would assume his party would. We have been very specific in the paper. We invite the member's response and the response of small and large industry. I think he will find that if we do away with the OHIP premium and make it a payroll tax, the companies being hurt the most would be the least able to pay, the small business people.

Mr. McClellan: The payroll tax is the Treasurer's suggestion so of course he can shoot it down at will. It will only fall on his own head.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, please.

Mr. McClellan: My supplementary is this: In response to a question on the Order Paper the Treasurer has already indicated to us in his answer of April 22 that only 52 per cent of families eligible for premium assistance in Ontario are actually receiving it. Why has he brought down another major increase in OHIP premiums, now totalling a 35 per cent increase in premiums over the last two years, without doing anything at all about the utterly useless premium assistance program?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The premium assistance program is not utterly useless. We have discussed that many times. The member knows, as we do, that finding out how many people truly are not utilizing it is very difficult.

The fact remains that at some time or other every member of this Legislature has had a constituent who, through error, neglect, ignorance or whatever, did not pay OHIP or was not required to pay OHIP because of their status. The member knows when disaster overtook them in the form of ill health, this government has always looked after them.

Ms. Copps: Is the minister suggesting that all people who pay direct should now withhold their premiums because this government will "look after them," because that is the actual effect of his statement?

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, please.

Ms. Copps: My question is: How can the Treasurer say this premium assistance program is adequate when a Toronto family of four earning $14,000 a year, which is $2,000 below the poverty line according to the National Council of Welfare, must pay full premiums in this province? How can he call that program adequate?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I invite the honourable member's response too.

TAX ON SOLAR EQUIPMENT

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer recall a statement he made on Friday that the sales tax could now be applied to energy conservation and renewable energy equipment because the seven per cent sales tax exemption is no longer the catalysing factor?

The Treasurer obviously did not talk to the executive director of the Canadian Solar Industries Association, Mr. A. J. Gatrill, who stated to us that "applying the tax on solar equipment is a step in the wrong direction and runs counter to policies promoted by the Minister of Energy," who sits two places over from the Treasurer. Given that the Ontario solar industry is a new industry with major opportunities for job creation, can the Treasurer explain why he is thwarting the growth of this industry?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am sure the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch) will go into any programs he has to support that industry.

At the same time I had to look at the exemptions, as I have said about other items, and decide which ones were critical at this point in our history and to decide whether today's economics, with the price of oil and electricity, really would stop a person from making an investment either in that type of heating system or the energy saving devices. The answer is no, it will not.

Mr. Kerrio: I am sure the Treasurer realizes that the hon. Minister of Energy was in Niagara Falls last Friday cutting the ribbon on a joint effort by Ontario and an independent owner for solar collectors. He may have been snipping the very life of the solar industry, as was said by the people in attendance.

Mr. Speaker: Now for the supplementary.

Mr. Kerrio: Is the Treasurer aware he also stated on Friday that the real energy savings are in off-oil? Is the Treasurer aware that in the US and other jurisdictions there is no sales tax on solar equipment, and there are even individual states giving tax credits ranging from 40 to 60 per cent on the total cost of solar equipment?

Since the government is so committed to the off-oil program and has spent over $6 million on "Preserve it, conserve it" ads, why does the Treasurer not repeal this tax component and provide the type of incentive that will create jobs in this province, particularly in the solar industry whose demise will be brought about by that seven per cent tax?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I understand my colleague, the Minister of Energy, explained the grants to that particular industry when the member was at that opening, did he not? Did he not talk about a 75 per cent grant from this province?

Mr. Kerrio: Yes.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Does the member not think that is more important than a seven per cent sales tax? I do not think his arithmetic is very good.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, is the Treasurer not aware that even provinces much less rich than Ontario, such as Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, exempt solar material and material such as insulation, weatherstripping and wood-burning stoves? What makes it necessary for a province still as rich as Ontario to impose that tax when the poor provinces can avoid it?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am also aware that the sales tax rate in Nova Scotia is 10 per cent, in Newfoundland it is 11 per cent, and the sales tax rate in almost every other province in this country is greater than in Ontario.

TAX INCREASES

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer. But first, if he makes a comparison with a Third World country, Ontario looks even better.

Does the Treasurer not realize he is imposing the sales tax on building material for boards of education and municipalities, home owners and tenants who pay property taxes -- and those taxes have already been increased in 1982 to the point where many people cannot pay them? Can the Treasurer explain if this further increase in taxes will go in the direction that was announced by the Premier (Mr. Davis) before the election to reducing the property taxes and the eventual elimination of school taxes for senior citizens in the Brampton charter?

Hon. F. S. Miller: We have done more than honour the Brampton charter.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Bramalea, of course.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Bramalea, that's right.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have been listening to that speaker too long. It is not the Brampton charter, it is the Bramalea charter.

We came up with what has to be Canada's most generous support program for senior citizens. On average, we are paying all the school taxes for over 60 per cent of Ontario's senior citizens and we are paying most of the taxes for most of Ontario's senior citizens, including municipal taxes.

Mr. Di Santo: The Treasurer chose not to answer the question about the imposition of the sales tax and the increase that will result even though, as he said, it will be negligible. But can the Treasurer explain why, if the Ontario scheme is the most generous in Canada, the grants for senior citizens have not been increased at all? At the present rate of inflation, that means they will be lower than they were last year and senior citizens will pay more than they used to pay last year.

Can the Treasurer also explain why there is no mention whatsoever in his budget of the reform of property taxes? These are totally based on fictitious value of the houses and have no relation at all to the ability of the citizens of Ontario to pay. Or has the Treasurer lumped all the home owners and tenants in the category of losers?

3:10 p.m.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have not, Mr. Speaker. I want to say that the percentage of family income in Ontario represented by municipal taxes has dropped from somewhere around 2.8 per cent to around 2 per cent over the last few years, because this province has generally maintained its grant structure such that the mill rate increases across this province were below inflation in most municipalities.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, how can the Treasurer, in the same breath, speak about what he calls the Bramalea charter and his budget, when one of the major promises of that charter was a balanced budget by 1981?

Has the Treasurer no shame? Is he not embarrassed that one of the major pillars or promises of that charter was a balanced budget? He comes forward this year with a $2.2 billion deficit. Is he not ashamed?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, one of the assumptions we made in the Bramalea charter was there would be a federal Conservative government. Because of that miscalculation, the economy of this country has gone to pot and I have had to take some pump priming actions.

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, I have a new question for the Treasurer.

In view of the fact that the overall requirement of the farming community is for low interest loans for consolidated debts or a system of subsidies to assist farmers over this period of high interest rates, why has he ignored this problem in his budget and instead brought in a farmstead improvement program? Why is the minister content to paint over the problem rather than getting to the root of the problem, which is high interest rates? Or is the minister's real concern that barns be painted for the auctioneer to get the best price he can for the farmer who is forced to go into bankruptcy?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I was thinking of the honourable member's old business, as a matter of fact. He surely should know about auctioneering.

I want to say that the Canadian Federation of Agriculture obviously knows where the responsibility for that kind of assistance lies, because right now, it is in Ottawa petitioning the federal government for that kind of change.

Mr. Riddell: I did not expect the Treasurer would be blaming the feds again. I thought maybe he would be alluding to the so-called farm adjustment assistance program.

Mr. Bradley: Bring back the constitution. Get back in bed with them.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Riddell: Is the Treasurer aware the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has stated that the inadequacies of his government's assistance program far outweigh any possible benefits? He is, no doubt, aware that their reaction to his budget has been that either the Treasurer does not believe there is a problem -- and I really feel he does not believe there is a problem -- or he simply does not care. Is his only answer to those farmers who are struggling to survive, a $5 million farmstead improvement program that will be wiped out by the Ontario health insurance plan premium increases that he predicts will cost the farmers about $5.5 million?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I do not know how farmers could be paying that OHIP premium if they are not making any money because they are eligible for assistance. Maybe they are the ones not applying. Why does the honourable member not go back and counsel some of them to apply? Obviously they would be eligible, would they not, if they are in that state?

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Surely, they would be. Surely the honourable member should go back and do his duty in the riding and tell them that.

I want to point out --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Always nice to see when it hurts. Since June of last year, this province, on its own, has paid or committed over $120 million of assistance. As recently as yesterday, I met with the president of the OFA at a meeting. I am sure my colleague the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) has very close relationships with them. We know there are major problems.

We know there are major problems. We know they are on several fronts. We are working with them and, if the member reads the budget carefully, he will see there were commitments to have more programs from that ministry.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, on the question of the burden of high interest rates and this government's reaction to that, is the minister aware that, in spite of the 5,000 farmers he said the farm adjustment assistance program was going to help, the latest figure after five months is that he has accepted applications from 530? Is he not kidding the public by suggesting that even his figure of farmers in trouble is going to be met when only 530 applications have been met after five months?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I do not handle the applications. I can assure him they are handled by others. I can assure him too that, as problems with the processing were made known early to the minister, he took steps at once to change them. I really have not heard, maybe he has, complaints of the nature the member is making about the program. What I do believe has happened is a number of farmers have received a good deal of financial advice as well as assistance once they got into this process.

BUDGET FIGURES

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the provincial Treasurer. On page 29 of budget paper C there is a tabulation of expenditures. It indicates that last year this government spent $298 million for Agriculture and Food. That is an estimated figure for the fiscal year that ended March 31. His figure for expenditures this year is $284 million.

In view of all of the rhetoric of the throne speech at the beginning of this session and the rhetoric of innumerable speeches from the new Minister of Agriculture and Food, how can the Treasurer reconcile that rhetoric with the fact he is planning to spend less for Agriculture and Food this year than he did last year?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I am basing it on figures from the minister because he is more familiar with his own budgetary figures than I am. I believe they can be corrected and I would be glad to put the right figures on the record when I have them.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: That these are not the right figures when they are quoted right out of page 29 of budget paper C in the provincial Treasurer's own budget statement is misrepresentation.

Hon. F. S. Miller: On that point, Mr. Speaker, I am pointing out there are some explanations because printed estimates were considerably less than actual spending last year.

Mr. Speaker: Petitions. Reports. Motions.

MOTIONS

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that private members' public business not be taken up on Thursday, May 20, and that the balloted items all be moved down one place accordingly.

Motion agreed to.

PRIVATE MEMBER'S BILL

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that, notwithstanding standing order 65(g), a private bill respecting the township of Moonbeam may be introduced and given first reading so the bill may be considered by a standing committee on Wednesday, June 9, 1982, by which time publication of the notice of application for a private bill will be completed.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: Motions. Introduction of bills.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, you did not say "Reports."

Mr. Speaker: Yes I did, with all respect.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am sorry. I did not hear you.

Mr. Speaker: Do we have unanimous consent to revert to reports?

Agreed to.

REPORT

FRENCH LANGUAGE SCHOOLS

Hon. Miss Stephenson presented the report of the Joint Committee on the Governance of French Language Elementary and Secondary Schools dated April 1982.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, this report is being distributed today to all members, organizations and interested individuals for comment.

3:20 p.m.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

PUBLIC REMUNERATION DISCLOSURE ACT

Hon. F. S. Miller moved, seconded by Hon. Mr. McCague, first reading of Bill 116, An Act to provide for the Publication of Remuneration paid to Officers and Employees of Public Agencies and of Public Bodies substantially supported by Public Funds.

Motion agreed to.

CALABOGIE ASBESTOS MINING COMPANY LIMITED ACT

Mr. Yakabuski moved, seconded by Mr. J. A. Taylor, first reading of Bill Pr19, An Act to revive the Calabogie Asbestos Mining Company Limited.

Motion agreed to.

MISSIONARY CHURCH CANADA EAST ACT

Mrs. Scrivener moved, seconded by Mr. Yakabuski, first reading of Bill Pr20, An Act respecting the Missionary Church Canada East.

Motion agreed to.

TOWNSHIP OF MOONBEAM ACT Mr. Piché moved, seconded by Mr. Harris, first reading of Bill Pr32, An Act to continue the Corporation of the Township of Fauquier under the name of the Corporation of the Township of Moonbeam.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, this one, interestingly enough, is on dog waste.

CITY OF ST. CATHARINES ACT

Mr. Bradley moved, seconded by Mr. Kerrio, first reading of Bill Pr30, An Act respecting the City of St. Catharines.

Motion agreed to.

UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO ACT

Mr. Van Horne moved, seconded by Mr. Roy, first reading of Bill Pr14, An Act respecting the University of Western Ontario.

Motion agreed to.

ONTARIO NEW HOME WARRANTIES PLAN AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Philip moved, seconded by Mr. Swart, first reading of Bill 117, An Act to amend the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, this bill provides that damages in respect of unfinished work not be excluded from the categories of damage for which compensation may be payable under the Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada guarantee fund. The bill also increases from 15 to 60 days the period during which a person seeking review of a decision about compensation made by HUDAC may require a hearing by the Commercial Registration Appeal Tribunal.

RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Philip moved, seconded by Mr. Swart, first reading of Bill 118, An Act to amend the Residential Tenancies Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, this bill would require that landlords of rental units which are exempt from rent review because they were not occupied before January 1, 1976, or because the monthly rental exceeds $750, provide prospective tenants with written notice of the exempt status. The consequence of failure to provide notice would subject the unit to rent review for a two-year period.

ANSWER TO QUESTION ON NOTICE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day I would like to table the interim answer to question 131 standing on the Notice Paper [see Hansard for Friday, May 21].

ORDERS OF THE DAY

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Pursuant to standing order 19(b) I move that the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. Cooke) be now heard.

3:47 p.m.

The House divided on Mr. McClellan's motion, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Breaugh, Bryden, Cassidy, Charlton, Cooke, Di Santo, Foulds, Gillies, Grande, Hodgson, Johnson, J. M., Johnston, R. F., Kolyn, Laughren, MacDonald, Mackenzie, McClellan, Philip, Piché, Renwick, Samis, Shymko, Stokes, Swart, Wildman.

Nays

Andrewes, Ashe, Baetz, Barlow, Bennett, Birch, Boudria, Bradley, Brandt, Breithaupt, Copps, Cousens, Cunningham, Cureatz, Davis, Dean, Drea, Eakins, Eaton, Edighoffer, Elgie, Elston, Epp, Eves, Fish, Gordon, Gregory, Haggerty, Harris, Havrot, Henderson;

Kells, Kennedy, Kerr, Kerrio, Lane, Leluk, MacQuarrie, Mancini, McCaffrey, McCague, McGuigan, McKessock, McLean, McNeil, Miller, F. S., Miller, G. I., Mitchell, Newman, Nixon, Norton, O'Neil, Peterson, Pope, Ramsay, Reed, J. A., Reid, T. P., Riddell, Robinson, Roy, Runciman, Ruprecht, Ruston;

Sargent, Scrivener, Sheppard, Snow, Stephenson, B. M., Sterling, Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, G. W., Taylor, J. A., Timbrell, Treleaven, Van Horne, Villeneuve, Walker, Watson, Welch, Wells, Williams, Wiseman, Worton, Wrye.

Ayes 25; nays 84.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the members for that overwhelming vote of confidence in my remarks. I presume they will vote the same way when I put our motion of no confidence in this budget.

Before getting into the substance of my remarks I want to thank the staff who assisted me in preparing these remarks. I would like to say in beginning that we in the Ontario Liberal Party appreciate the problems facing the Ontario economy today. We understand the international context and the problems that have been laid on Ontario and Canada by the situation, particularly in the United States. We also understand and appreciate the problems of the federal government.

We do believe, however, there are actions that can be taken by the province of Ontario to alleviate some of these problems facing our people and that this government has refused to address them in this budget. The budget of the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) has failed to deal with the problems facing the Ontario economy at the moment and has failed to prepare Ontario for the new opportunities that will be ours in the future if we plan for them now.

In that context this is a very disappointing budget. It is a pickpocket budget. It is picking the pockets of everyone in Ontario for nickels and pennies to put into the Treasurer's coffers. It is disappointing that when we have a cabinet over there of 27 people, a civil service of 82,000 people and a budget of $23 billion there could not have been more imagination and creativity shown. In fact, the only imagination shown in the entire budget was the jacket the Treasurer was wearing the night he delivered his budget speech.

We are disappointed along with the youth of this province, who see no hope for the future and for permanent jobs; we are disappointed along with those who are going to lose their houses, their small businesses and perhaps their farms because there is no assistance in the budget; we are disappointed along with those who live below the poverty line or close to it because of the regressive taxes the Treasurer has brought in.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask you where is the Premier (Mr. Davis) of the province that used to be the most prosperous in Canada, that used to be the leading manufacturing province in Canada, the most prosperous and the most dynamic province? Where is the Premier of the Bramalea charter, the Premier of "Davis can do it," the Premier who said in the election of 1981 that he wanted "a mandate to combat inflation through smaller and more efficient government, avoiding tax increases and supporting those on fixed incomes, particularly our senior citizens"? Where is that Premier and where is that Treasurer today?

I will tell members where they are. The Premier today is down at your local pet store slapping a seven per cent sales tax on puppy dogs and goldfish; he is down at the supermarkets and discount stores rifling through people's shopping bags to slap a seven per cent tax on personal hygiene products, toilet paper and underarm deodorants to pay for Suncor and his jet; he is busy down at the schoolyards taking seven per cent from school children for their binders, papers and school supplies and seven per cent at the cafeterias for their lunches.

4 p.m.

This budget not only is unfocused and undirected but also is extremely contradictory. There is no thrust in this budget for the future. There is no discussion of stagflation, the problem we are facing in this province. It is unfounded and undirected.

One gets the feeling that the ship of state is rudderless, that the captain is downstairs with the crew from the bridge trying to decide what he is going to do next year, what his future is, while the Treasurer, the navigator, is alone on the bridge with the iceberg of inflation on one side and the iceberg of unemployment on the other. He does not know exactly what to do, and he is heading for the rock of Suncor right in the middle.

We are talking about two things here. We are talking about the priorities of Ontario. Our priorities are, first of all, the survival of those who are already in our economy and, second, preparing for the future.

Our philosophy in the Liberal Party is to help those who through no fault of their own may find themselves in the position of losing their homes, their small businesses and their farms. We in this party believe the poor do not go out of fashion because the economic times get tough. Yet this budget does not help any of those people.

Our priorities are to keep people in their homes, in their small businesses and on their farms. We want to prepare a future for Ontario and to prepare Ontario for the future. In that regard, we want to see a new ministry of science, technology and productivity to deal with the future needs of Ontario. We want to see increased and expanded retraining and apprenticeship programs for our youth and our unemployed. We want to stimulate the auto and housing sectors. We want to see an expanded program for agriculture, tourism and small business. We want to see programs for northern Ontario. And we want all of these to be tied together by an industrial strategy for the province.

Finally, we want to see again investor confidence in Ontario, because investment must be the engine for growth and the engine that will create jobs. In this regard, we join with the Treasurer in his somewhat veiled and vague signal to Ottawa to provide some greater incentives so that the people of Ontario who do have money, who have cash in the bank on short-term deposits, will once again invest in the real productivity of Ontario.

We in this party want to see the elimination of waste and mismanagement. We do not want to see any tax increases, which at the best of times are inflationary but which in a period such as we are in now only add fuel to the flames of inflation. The Treasurer has already thrown a bucket of gasoline on the flames of inflation.

These taxes as well, as my colleagues have pointed out, are inflationary and regressive. They hurt those who can least afford it. The Treasurer stood in his place today and denied that he said, "Let them eat peanut butter." It is somewhat reminiscent of Marie Antoinette saying, "Let them eat cake." But if he did not use those exact words, the message was clear through the budget that this is exactly what he meant.

If one looks at the budget statement, there is no assistance for the poor and the near poor. There is no assistance for people on the guaranteed annual income system. In fact, if one looks at the budget statement at the back of the book, one will see that there are two cents less of the tax dollar being spent on social services in Ontario this year than last. Who is being hurt most by the economy today?

Our biggest problem with this budget, other than that, is all the contradictions that run through it. It makes one wonder what the Treasurer was wringing his hands about and worrying that he did not know what to do in these difficult economic times if this is the best budget he could come up with, a budget of $24 billion and a deficit of $2.2 billion. With a staff of 400 in the Ministry of Treasury and Economics, 82,000 civil servants, banks of computers -- all that expertise -- the best he could come up with was to hammer the poor.

I want to discuss the contradictions in the Treasurer's budget. If he is trying to regain investor and business confidence in this province he has done it in the worst possible way, because all the messages he has sent out, all the specifics in the budget, are contradictory.

Mr. Watson: Did you read the editorials today?

Mr. T. P. Reid: My friend opposite talks about editorials. I suggest that he read the editorial in Saturday's Globe and Mail, which usually has the best editorials of any paper in Toronto. If he reads those editorials, he will see that they agree with this party and the questions that I raised on Friday and that the budget is contradictory. I will run through some of those contradictions.

On the one hand, the Treasurer says there is going to be a nine per cent growth in Ontario in the last few months of this year. The Conference Board of Canada and others are suggesting there is going to be minus 2.1 per cent real growth over the year. The Royal Bank and others are predicting the same as the Conference Board. The Treasurer, with his head in the sand, is the only one who is being optimistic, and so his credibility is shot right there.

Here is another contradiction. The government has spent millions of dollars -- $6 million, as my friend the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio) said today -- to promote energy conservation; and now the Treasurer comes along and removes the incentive to purchase items such as storm doors, windows, thermal insulation and wind deflectors for trucks. He removes the sales tax on solar systems. What are businessmen out there supposed to do with these contradictions? What message are they supposed to get?

The Ontario government has criticized the federal government for cutting back on expenditures on health and post-secondary education, and then the budget blatantly states on page 17: "I now serve notice to all recipients of provincial funds that they should not count on future funding at or above inflation rates."

The Premier built his reputation partly on the fact that he was Mr. Transportation Man and was supporting public transit. Now, in the budget, he adds the sales tax to buses and to the labour on the servicing of most buses used for public transport across Ontario. On the one hand, he says he is trying to promote public transport; on the other hand, he adds the seven per cent sales tax. Again, that is a contradiction.

Is the government going to make up that difference in cost to the municipalities? If so, what is the purpose of adding the sales tax except to signal that public transit is no longer a priority with the Premier?

The budget announces a $133-million capital works acceleration program as a job creation program. At the same time, it will apply retail sales tax to "building materials and certain other items purchased by publicly funded bodies such as municipalities." On the one hand, he says he is going to accelerate public works in Ontario; on the other hand, he is going to slap seven per cent sales tax on those supplies.

Figures I have here indicate that the net deficit to municipalities because of this seven per cent increase is going to be something like $25 million, between $25 million and $27 million to school boards and $11.25 million to colleges and universities -- all going into the Treasurer's coffers. We know what a sad state of affairs they are in already. Based on figures from the Treasury, we calculate that there is going to be an increased burden of something like $61.25 million on those three levels of services to the public. The only way they are going to get that money is from higher taxes, and again we are going to have a higher rate of inflation in this province.

4:10 p.m.

Another contradiction is where the Treasurer talks about assisting the hospitality industry. What he has done is further confuse and muddy and add to the ranks of accountants and auditors employed. What he has done for the hospitality industry in this budget is increase taxes on liquor to 10 per cent and place a five per cent tax on rooms and a seven per cent tax on other things; so there are three levels of taxation in the hospitality industry.

Another thing I bring to members' attention is that the Treasurer says he is lowering the accommodation rate of tax, but he is adding the retail sales tax on things like soap and toilet paper. Obviously, the hotels, motels, and hospitality industry have to recapture those costs. All he has done is to lower the tax but broaden the base; so it is really a matter of horizontal revenues the Treasurer is going to reclaim. Again, this is a contradiction.

Also, the Treasurer alluded very vaguely to the hidden economy we are going through. When times get tough, people start bartering, cutting corners and, in Britain I think they call it, working fiddles. The net result in Britain was that taxes were not paid into government coffers because people were working fiddles to avoid them. What the Treasurer has done is add to that incentive to work fiddles by putting a tax on labour and on final consumer products, if one is having a car, outboard motor, etc., fixed. It really is a very mean, petty budget and the Treasurer is fiddling while the rest of us burn in the fires of inflation.

In the budget the government talks about job creation programs, saying there must be meaningful jobs. But then the budget dwells on and emphasizes temporary replacement programs, which do nothing to address the structural unemployment problems of the province.

The Treasurer did not deal with the structural problems in the Ontario economy, even though past budgets, his own studies on the auto sector and others, have indicated that we are not necessarily in a cyclical downturn but, rather, are facing long-term structural problems. The 55,000 jobs lost in manufacturing are not going to reappear when the business cycle starts on the upturn again -- those jobs are gone forever -- yet the budget emphasizes the short-term cyclical problems. Again, this is a contradiction.

Finally, I want to dwell on probably the greatest hypocrisy of all. The Treasurer talks about financial restraint and says everybody, in the words of someone else, should tighten their belts. First of all, we can draw to members' attention the fact that, in 1970-71, the budgetary deficit of the province was $569 million. Mr. Speaker, you will recall that this was when the present Premier (Mr. Davis) became Premier. Now, under his great leadership during a number of years in which the economy was good in Ontario, we are facing a deficit of $2.23 billion. The deficit we have today is not a creative deficit at all. It is not going to do anything either in short-term effects on the Ontario economy or in the longer term.

Again, the Treasurer talks about fiscal restraint. We in this party are obviously not happy -- nobody would be -- but we go along with the six per cent increase in members' salaries. But I should draw to the members' attention that at the same time this year -- not too long ago; we are still debating one of the bills -- the government has created a new cabinet post; out of 70 Tories over there, 62 are getting increased money; we have the chief government whip (Mr. Gregory), who is also a Minister without Portfolio, getting $8,800 in one job and $11,000 in another.

We have not only the symbols but also the actual pain of paying for Suncor at $62 million and for the Premier's jet at $10.8 million, and yet these are the signals and symbols that we in this government are undergoing restraint. I say that is not only untrue but also hypocritical.

Mr. Laughren: Does the member for Chatham-Kent (Mr. Watson) think he will ever get invited for a ride in the jet?

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order.

Mr. Laughren: They would not even allow him in the door, does he know that?

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Rainy River has the floor.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I want to deal with some of these themes in a little more detail.

In the budget, the Treasurer has eliminated a number of exemptions from the provincial sales tax that directly affect energy conservation and renewal energy technologies. Items such as thermal insulation, storm doors and windows, wood-burning stoves and solar cells are now taxable.

It seems the Treasurer is taking a big step backward from the policy begun by his predecessor in the 1978 budget, and continued and extended by this Treasurer in the budgets of 1979 and 1980, that exempted conservation materials and alternative energy equipment from the sales tax.

In his response to a question in the Legislature last Friday, the Treasurer made it clear that he felt the tax exemptions were no longer necessary, that people were undertaking the necessary conservation measures on their own. However, with the removal of the sales tax exemptions, the Treasurer has overnight increased the price of energy conservation improvements by seven per cent.

The imposition of this tax will tip the balance against many improvements that were cost-effective prior to the removal of the exemptions. It is likely that many solar and conservation projects that have been under consideration now no longer make economic sense and will be shelved.

The cancellation of the solar projects will mean not only a loss of jobs but also the loss of jobs in an industry where it is essential that we give builders the skills required if solar is to be a part of Ontario's energy future. What the removal of these exemptions clearly indicates is the lack of co-ordination between ministries and no overall direction in the cabinet.

On the one hand, the government makes numerous statements in many glossy brochures about its commitment to energy conservation and renewable energy. For example, a five-year, $50-million solar energy program was announced in October 1980 to meet the goal of solar providing two per cent of Ontario's energy needs by 1995. On the other hand, the exemptions for solar equipment are removed to capture more revenue.

Another example is that we are bombarded daily with "Preserve it, conserve it" ads which extol the virtues of conservation. Aside from the fact that this is one of the least subtle subliminal advertising ploys in history, the Ministry of Energy has spent more than $6 million on conservation advertising from the beginning of 1980 to March 31, 1981.

Funding for the Ministry of Energy's energy conservation program is estimated at $23.6 million for 1981-82, up 40 per cent from the 1980-81 estimates. Now, when the consumer goes to the local building supply store, he or she will find that this government, despite its constant rhetoric, has imposed a sales tax on materials and equipment that would help him or her to achieve the goal of conservation.

Need I say more about the contradictions in policies and actions that abound within this government?

The Treasurer is a devout believer in the use of the marketplace to guide consumers' decisions. Not only are tax exemptions effective and administratively simple, but they also give the consumer a clear signal that the government is serious about conservation. The Treasurer advocates more dependence on the marketplace, and using tax exemptions is clearly the best way to guide the marketplace towards the adoption of greater conservation and renewable technology.

4:20 p.m.

The Treasurer also announced the withdrawal of the sales tax exemption from buses and repair parts purchased by a municipality. Again, there is an immediate seven per cent increase in the cost of equipment to transit system operators, most of whom already operate in the red. It is highly unlikely that the province will be forthcoming with extra subsidies to cover the increased costs to municipal transit authorities. Municipalities already financially strapped will be forced to raise fares, reduce services or increase the municipal tax burden. It is likely to be one of the first two options.

The effect will be to discourage the use of transit because of either the increase in fares or the deterioration of the service provided. This is exactly the opposite of the strategy the government should be adopting if it is really serious about reducing our energy consumption. Decreased use of transit will result in increased levels of oil consumption, air pollution and traffic congestion. This is yet another example of the government's conflicting signals.

The Treasurer announced that all passenger vehicle registration fees in southern Ontario would be changed to a flat rate of $48, while those in the north would be increased to $24 from $10. The differential between registration fees for passenger vehicles of various cylinder sizes has been eliminated. Again, consumers receive conflicting signals from the government. If the government is concerned with a reduction in the use of oil, then why has it chosen to reduce the registration fees for gas-guzzling eight-cylinder vehicles while increasing the rates by 60 per cent for four-cylinder vehicles?

Probably one of the most blatant examples of the contradictory nature of this budget is the measures proposed for the province's hospitality sector. First, the retail sales tax on accommodation which was reimposed at the end of 1981 has been reduced from seven per cent to five per cent. At the same time, the Treasurer now will be imposing a tax on disposable items used in hotel and motel rooms, such as soap and toilet paper. It should be obvious to the Treasurer that the hotel owner will have no choice but to pass this added cost on to the consumer in the form of increased room rates. Therefore, the consumer winds up paying a smaller tax on a larger base, which in all probability will wind up coming out even. The Treasurer claims this is a $10-million incentive to tourism. I say that it will probably have no effect at all on the final price of the room paid for by the consumer.

There is another interesting side to this. The retail sales tax is supposed to be paid by the final consumer. I trust the Treasurer will listen to this. The sales tax on these disposable items is now to be borne by the hotel or motel operator, who is not the final consumer. Those items are taxed again when the consumer pays tax on the room. We have subjected these items, therefore, to double taxation. I have to question the legality of that move under the Retail Sales Tax Act.

With respect to the tax on prepared food and meals, the decrease from 10 per cent to seven per cent was something we have called for; but to wipe out the positive aspect of this by eliminating the $6 exemption is sheer hypocrisy. Restaurants were already going out of business in record numbers last year. What will this do to them?

The government is now taxing what they have referred to as essential meals -- and they are essential. The student away from home has no other place to eat but the school cafeteria. If that is not essential, I do not know what is. Believe me, a lot of restaurants used to provide specials at a price of $5.95 which groups like seniors could really take advantage of because of the tax break. Family-style restaurants like Ponderosa kept their prices just under the exemption level, and that was the only way some families could even think about enjoying a meal out. Those restaurants no longer have any incentive to keep those prices down. Any price level will be taxed; therefore, it will be increased accordingly when the consumer comes to pay the bill. If the price of the hamburger goes up from $1 to $1.07, in most cases it will go up to $1.10 just to keep it in round numbers. That is a reality of life I am sure the Treasurer knows about.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure you have heard about the new product on the market that is called the Miller frank.

Mr. Kolyn: The Miller what?

Mr. T. P. Reid: The Miller frank -- hot dog. The members are too slow over there. It is now seven per cent baloney in the Miller frank.

The sales tax on American plan accommodation, which includes meals and concerns primarily the tourist industry, has been reduced from seven per cent to five per cent. That means tourists staying in a luxury hotel and enjoying its dining facilities are taxed at only five per cent, while the family that can afford to eat at a fast-food outlet is being taxed at seven per cent. In his apparent attempt to bring some equity into this system, the Treasurer has still not done so. He has made it that much more inequitable in this budget.

To point out yet another interesting aspect of the legality of his move in this area of the retail sales tax, I have noted that if one purchases an item such as a container of yoghurt from a kiosk or take-out counter in a mall, one will pay seven per cent tax on it. If one goes next door to a Mac's Milk and purchases exactly the same item, one will not pay tax on it. Where is the equity in that? It appears the tax is being applied on the type of establishment and not on the product. I question the legality of that under the Retail Sales Tax Act.

Let us look for a moment at the forecast of the Treasurer. We have already talked about the fact that the Treasurer's forecast of what is going to happen does not compare with any other economic forecast by any reputable agency in Ontario. I would quote again from the Conference Board of Canada and the Bank of Montreal as well. The Bank of Montreal's business review of April 1 said that Ontario's 1982 growth rate will "fall below the national average of minus 2.1 per cent."

The Toronto-Dominion Bank also forecasts the gross provincial product will decline by more than one per cent in real terms over 1982. An official at the Toronto-Dominion Bank stated, "I wouldn't take the government's forecast of provincial growth too seriously."

We recall the Treasurer's forecast of his deficit last year. The reality of the situation was that the deficit went up 124 per cent over the year. We have no faith in the credibility of the figures the Treasurer uses. I will make a small wager that the budget deficit will be closer to $2.6 billion or $2.8 billion by the end of the fiscal year.

I want to talk again about the climate of confidence the Treasurer refers to in his budget. There is an entire budget paper devoted to patting the Ontario government on the back for supposedly holding the line on borrowing. It claims the need for discipline in this area was to maintain not only fiscal integrity but also the provincial credit rating, a consideration of the utmost importance when one contemplates the current and future borrowing requirements of Ontario Hydro.

The irony of the entire budget paper being devoted to such self-control in the field of borrowing is that it comes in the same budget in which we see interest on the public debt climb to more than $2 billion, making it close to 10 per cent of the entire budget. That is far too high for a nonproductive sector of a government budget. It is a budget that does nothing to stimulate the economy or create permanent jobs in Ontario.

Interest payments are also the largest single component increase in this year's budget: 18.2 per cent over the last year. It brings our interest payments to almost $6 million every single day of the year, the exact figure being $5.95 million.

The province's funded debt has soared from $4.2 billion at the beginning of the 1970s to its present level of $19.4 billion. The government has tried to defend this in recent budgets by illustrating that these funds are used for capital investments in the assets of the province and that therefore their costs should be amortized over a number of years rather than paid for by the taxpayers of any given year.

While there is some justification for spreading the cost of an asset over its years of useful life, rather than paying for it all in one shot, the down side to this is the enormous amount of debt the province is amassing, along with the interest costs which are becoming a larger part and crunch of the Ontario budget with every year. The obvious implications of that are the shifting of dollars away from the social service programs and more towards interest payments.

4:30 p.m.

The other unfortunate consequence of going into debt at such an unprecedented rate is that the day of reckoning will soon be upon the province to pay it back. We have stressed this aspect for the past few years in our budget responses and the government appears to be responding directly to that with a statement contained in this budget paper, from which I quote:" . . . relative to a growing revenue base, repayment or refinancing of maturing debt can be managed without significant financial strain." We doubt this will be the case.

We have long contended that one of the reasons the government borrowed so much was the availability of a relatively cheap source of funds in the provincial pension funds and the Canada pension plan. It was like catnip to the Treasurer, which he is now going to be taxing.

Interestingly enough, over the past decade, Ontario Treasurers have set the level of expenditures of their respective budgets at an amount equal to revenue, plus whatever amount was available that year from the pension funds. I would say that is slightly more than coincidence.

Research by the Ontario Economic Council has endorsed our view that the Treasurer has no incentive to balance his budget any closer than the level of provincial expenditures plus the amount available for borrowing from the pension funds. If members will recall, in last year's budget was there was a pause in our steps towards a balanced budget. This year it is a full-fledged retreat.

At the end of March this year the province owed $9.9 billion to the CPP, $4.75 billion to the teachers' superannuation fund, $1.3 billion to the Ontario municipal employees' retirement system and $2.96 billion to the public service superannuation fund for a total of $18.9 billion. This budget saw the Ontario deficit financed by a further $1.2 billion from the CPP and $748 million from the teachers' superannuation fund bringing the total owed to the pension funds to almost $21 billion.

In addition to this, the province is responsible for the unfunded liabilities of its pension funds which, according to the latest actuarial valuations, totals some $1.4 billion.

While we are on the subject of pensions, I would point out that after a royal commission appointed by this government in 1977 and a legislative select committee set up last year to study a report of the recommendations of that royal commission, there was not a word mentioned regarding this government's intentions in the field of much needed pension reform either in the throne speech or in this budget. It is an area that is far too important to the needs of our citizens today for this government to continue to drag its feet.

Let me just take this opportunity to remind this government of why we need to move in this area of pension reform.

First, on the subject of coverage, governments generally have not been able to include all of their residents in legislation. As a result, only about 40.7 per cent of the total work force is covered by employer-sponsored plans. About 98 per cent of the work force outside the home participates in CPP, but for those working in the home, generally women, CPP coverage is not available which is most unfair.

Portability is another major concern in the private sector. Generally there is a provision for portability among public sector plans and a plan has been put into effect by the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association for life insurance companies. The difficulty in establishing full portability in the private sector arises from the many differences in pension plan designs. Lack of portability is not only a deterrent to the much needed mobility of labour, it is also grossly unfair.

Vesting and portability provisions should be addressed simultaneously. Under current Ontario legislation full vesting is required only after age 45 plus 10 years of service. The Haley commission, our legislative select committee and now apparently even the provincial Treasurer have come out in favour of vesting and locking in after five years of service. With Canada's highly mobile work force this is much more appropriate.

Inflation has added another dimension to the problems of protecting incomes of the elderly. In 1978, 39 per cent of the elderly lived with incomes below the poverty line, but the cost of indexing is high and represents an open-ended and expensive commitment. Wise investment of pension funds into well diversified portfolios would best protect the purchasing power of the pension benefit while at the same time helping to stimulate the economy.

Better pension reforms are needed for the surviving spouse. In 1976, of all participants in private sector plans, two thirds were in plans that provided no widow's pension. The current pension system also discriminates against females, because they earn less and the Canada pension plan and private pension plans are based on earnings. Whatever decisions are made on future changes to Canada's pension system, our main concern is that any substantial alterations in the retirement income system will create new funds of money. I have already discussed the reaction of Ontario Treasurers to these pools of money.

Such funds available to governments also pose some potential difficulties, because they could drain off money that would otherwise go to finance investment in the private sector. With the enormous borrowing capacities of government bodies like Ontario Hydro, the potential impact on the Ontario economy could be crippling. Let us not forget that time is ticking away. Every day we delay makes it more difficult to evolve a responsible approach to a new retirement income system. How much longer can we afford to postpone a solution to this complex and vital question that was not addressed at all in this budget?

I want to speak now about the tax impact of the various budgetary measures.

Officials in the Treasurer's own ministry have assured Ontario taxpayers that the tax changes in the Treasurer's budget will cost the average taxpayer an estimated $150 this year. This amount breaks down to $108 for expanding the retail sales tax base, $10 for liquor, $10 for tobacco, $10 for fees and licences and $12 for the Ontario health insurance plan, assuming in most cases that the employer is paying the premium.

At first glance, a taxpayer would be only somewhat upset, but the Treasurer's figures do not tell the whole story. To determine how the impact was calculated, one of our researchers asked an official of the Ministry of Treasury and Economics to tell us how they arrived at their figures. To reiterate what he was told, the Treasury official said that the figure was calculated using the statistical breakdown contained in the family expenditures survey put out by Statistics Canada.

With this, we can divide the estimated $340 million in additional revenue by the nearly 3.1 million households across the province. My researcher asked what year the survey was prepared, and the official replied, "1978." He then asked if the $108 retail sales tax figure included the purchase of pets. The official replied, "That would not account for much because we have to adjust the figures, you know."

Closer examination of the 1978 family expenditures survey showed there was no such breakdown. So how is it possible to determine what the impact of this budget is going to be? The Treasurer's $150 estimate obviously falls short of the expected impact, not simply because his estimate does not account for the purchase of a household pet, but because he has not included some major hidden taxes.

Let me explain. First, the shift to an ad valorem gasoline tax last year allows the government to increase the revenue collected as the price at the pump goes up. Using the Ministry of Energy figures, we figure this will cost each person an extra $24 a year.

Second, although not announced in this budget, the personal income tax rate will automatically increase by two percentage points this year. If we suppose an average taxable family income is $16,870, which assumes a family with one income earner and two children, on average the total tax paid by this family will increase by nearly $30 in 1982.

Our own calculation of the effects of the elimination of the exemptions of certain items, including the hospitality tax, more closely approximates an increase for the average family of $162. Unfortunately, this figure does not include the additional tax that will be collected on the purchase of clothing patterns, textiles and trimmings, such as cloth and fabric, sold either by the metre or yard for domestic use. Do not forget smoke alarms which will now be taxed. These figures assume that the family hates pets.

4:40 p.m.

For the family which has to pay its own Ontario health insurance plan premiums, the budget means an additional $96 per year; liquor and cigarettes, an additional $20 tax per year, and $10 for fees and licences. Those are the Treasurer's figures.

The impact of this budget -- nearly $340,000 in additional and unnecessary tax if the employer pays the family OHIP premiums -- comes to nearly $245 per year; somewhat more than the Treasurer's figure.

This, unfortunately, is still not the whole story. The bulk of retail sales tax collected will not come from Ontario residents, but from municipalities. The elimination of the exemptions to municipalities for buses and repair parts, as well as those materials incorporated into buildings and structures owned by municipalities, schools, colleges, universities and public hospitals will add a significant burden to the costs of operating our cities and educational institutions. Obviously, there is only one person who is going to pay this. That tax burden will be shifted to the ratepayers and we find that unconscionable in these days of high inflation.

By the way, it is interesting to talk about the impact of the taxation. I would like to share with members some of the figures we have. In the income range in which most Ontario citizens find themselves -- those people in the $1,000 to $20,000 range -- less than one per cent avoid paying any tax. It is also interesting that if we look at those people whose income range is over $100,000, 2.4 per cent avoid tax and if we are talking about those with a $200,000 income and over, 3.12 per cent avoid tax.

The Treasurer is taxing the poor of this province, those on family benefits, those on social assistance and yet he has done nothing in this budget to ensure that those who are making those kinds of salaries and that kind of income pay for it.

Perhaps some of these taxes would be justifiable, as I say, if the people of Ontario could see that these funds would be productive, that they would create jobs and they could see something beneficial in their future. We do not see that in the budget; in fact, we see exactly the opposite. We see a government which continues to be wasteful and continues to mismanage the funds and the resources it already has.

Over the last decade, in particular, there has been an incredible waste in government spending in almost every policy area. Regardless of changing economic realities, the Conservative government has continued to pursue grandiose, unrealistic and irresponsible spending policies.

Ontario has had enormous budgetary deficits, leaving no room to manoeuvre financially and the government is now imposing drastic cutbacks on essential services. Since the beginning of the 1970s the provincial funded debt has soared from $4.2 billion to $19.4 billion. It costs almost $6 million every day just to pay the interest on this debt.

We have example after example. Time will not permit me to go into detail, but we will during the estimates. Members know about Minaki Lodge, where we are going to be spending something like $23.5 million. It is going to provide about 125 part-time jobs. That is job creation at the cost of $156,670 per job on a temporary basis. What kind of planning is that?

We could talk about the public opinion polls. It is interesting, as members know, that I have been trying to get those out of the government for some time. We spent millions of dollars on a freedom of information act. We are supporting a minister whose job seems to be to sit on the freedom of information act. It is interesting that in the 11 months preceding the 1981 election campaign, this government spent a further $609,737 of the taxpayers' money on 25 public opinion polls.

We have talked about land banking: over $500 million in land banking of no use whatsoever. We know about Townsend; we know about South Cayuga; we know about Edwardsburgh; and we know the great financial basis and planning on which the government made those commitments. Treasurer John White, with the imprimatur of the Premier (Mr. Davis), had a small surplus of over $500,000; he went out and spent it for no good reason, and the taxpayers are now having to pay for past mistakes as well as present ones.

We can talk about the hazards of borrowing money overseas, and the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) brought this to the attention of the government many times: the problem of devaluation. It is going to cost us thousands of dollars when these loans come to be paid back. We lost almost $10 million when the deutsche mark appreciated over the Canadian dollar. Ontario Hydro's foreign exchange losses in 1979 totalled something like $70.875 million. We already know they are paying Polysar $40 million a year, I believe it is, so we do not have to live up to the commitments we made with them. We know about the costs of regional government. We know about costs of the regional education system that was set up by the Premier.

We can talk about the various royal commissions. The one that always sticks in my mind is the $2.2 million of taxpayers' money wasted on the Royal Commission on Violence in the Communications Industry, a matter that this province and this government have absolutely no control over, a matter that comes under the aegis of the federal government, and yet we continue to spend money.

We still have the expenditure on the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment, which is a rapidly growing embarrassment to this government, and yet they cannot get out of that. To date they have spent almost $5 million: one of the most expensive royal commissions if not the most expensive, which everybody has lost faith in and which has no credibility and which will probably be ignored if and when we ever see a final report.

The government is wasting money on its advertising. It is interesting to note that the year before the election their advertising expenditures went from $12 million in Ontario to $24 million, a perversion of the public trust if I ever saw one. Yet again, the contradiction of "Preserve it, conserve it," and then the Treasurer takes off the seven per cent sales tax exemption. But most of that $24 million is simply to aggrandize the government, to use public funds to keep themselves in power.

The Ministry of the Environment has spent $500,000 telling us that our polluted lakes are clean. The Ministry of Health complains that it is short of funds, but it has an advertising budget of $1.5 million, and last year it took out enormous newspaper ads to wish Ontario happy hospital day. And $1 million has already been spent on a massive media campaign to advertise the new tax grant system for senior citizens.

In the year preceding the March 1981 election the Ontario government, as I have already said, had doubled their advertising expenditures -- not just bumped them up a little but doubled them from $12 million to $24 million. The money being wasted by the Ontario Lottery Corp. in advertising alone was $8.5 million. This pushes the total for government advertising up to $20.7 million in 1979-80 and $30.3 million in 1980-81, most, if not all of this, completely unproductive.

Mr. Speaker, I will now get to those matters that I am sure interest you particularly.

On August 11, 1981, the government announced its intention to purchase a 12-seat Canadian Challenger 600 executive jet aircraft for use by cabinet members and other senior government officials. The cost of the jet is $10.6 million. Because the budget is already in a deficit position the government will have to borrow to finance the purchase. Using a very conservative interest factor of 15 per cent, the annual interest cost alone will be about $1.6 million.

4:50 p.m.

In the fiscal year 1979-80, the total travel expenditures for transportation, accommodation and meals for all cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and parliamentary assistants, amounted to $483,153. This is less than half of one year's interest on this new jet and does not include its maintenance and servicing costs. Moreover, the government's executive jet will be able to fly into only about 18 of Ontario's 137 airports.

The purchase of a jet at this time is utterly unjustified. It is simply a symbol of the crazy, mixed-up priorities of this government.

Another example of the waste in this government is the three policy secretariats. Altogether they will spend $10 million in this coming fiscal year. Let me say what we are getting for that. Obviously we will not talk about resources policy, because there is not one, and we will not talk about the minister.

We know about social development policy. For years we on this side have tried to get some help for those who need orthotic devices, for those who need artificial arms and legs and so on. We know how powerful that minister is. For $5 million in that particular secretariat we are exposed about once a week to a song which says, "I am concerned"; and that is it.

We have a justice policy secretariat whose job is to bury and do away with the legislation dealing with public access to information. We will be talking about what constructive things we could do with their share of that $10 million.

I am glad to see the member for Leeds (Mr. Runciman) is here because I am coming to what I am sure is his favourite topic. The Treasurer referred in his budget to the need for restoring a climate of investment confidence in this province. I agree with him wholeheartedly. The businessmen in Ontario need a sense of renewed confidence. They need to feel that the government of Ontario is prepared to show leadership and direction. It is a sad and sorry failure of this government that they have lost that responsibility of leadership and that sense of direction.

I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what does it say of the economic judgement of this government when it makes so foolhardy and rash a decision as the purchase of a quarter interest in an Alberta oil company? What are businessmen, indeed all citizens of this province, to make of this government's misguided sense of priorities when it indulges in such a speculative venture? The Suncor purchase hangs like a cloud over this whole budget, and it speaks volumes about the lack of direction of this government.

Do we elect governments so that they may use public funds to speculate, like some stockbroker, on the open market? What does this say about the necessary functions of a government? It is interesting to contrast two statements made by the Treasurer within a span of five months to appreciate properly the impact of the Suncor purchase -- which, I remind you, Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer himself was, presumably, against.

On December 7, 1981, the Treasurer stated in the Legislature, "There has been no sacrifice of any government program spending deemed necessary by the cabinet of this province because of the Suncor deal." There is no conceivable justification to believe this comment, today, in light of the Treasurer's comment on page 17 of this budget speech, which I cite once again: "I now serve notice to all recipients of provincial funds that they should not count on future funding at or above inflation rates."

In my mind this says it all. On the one hand, there is to be no sacrifice of any government spending program, yet on the other hand, the Treasurer is serving notice that future funding, even at the rate of inflation, should not be counted on. This is hypocrisy in its highest form and it is due to one thing and one thing alone: Suncor.

Because I know the Treasurer is so delighted with the Suncor purchase, it is essential to highlight a number of points of the deal.

In his press conference on October 13, 1981, the Premier gave three energy-related reasons as to why Ontario made its investment in Suncor. These included: To assist the Canadianization of the petroleum industry, to provide for security of supply and to provide a window on the oil industry.

We know we have a federal government that is already in the oil business and can provide that window on the industry with a long-distance phone call on a wide area telephone service line to Ottawa. As to the question of security of supply, buying 25 per cent of an oil company does not provide security of supply. The fact of the matter is no such security is either enhanced or diminished by the purchase of Suncor. Furthermore, not one extra drop of oil will come to Ontario whether the citizens of Ontario own the company or not because it is the federal government and the federal government alone that controls the distribution and allocation of oil in Canada.

The Premier talked about a window on the oil industry. As Maclean's magazine pointed out, the only thing we are seeing out of our window is the sight of dividends flowing south to the United States. The Premier also states that the 25 per cent purchase of Suncor was a good investment. Let us examine this aspect to point out the fallaciousness of the Premier's comments.

The government purchased Suncor at a time when it already had a budget deficit estimated at $1 billion. Consequently, it had to borrow a full $325 million to finance the down payment. By borrowing, the government has further worsened its debt position to the extent that in 10 years the purchase price plus interest, assuming a 17 per cent cost for the first $325 million and 14.3 for the second $325 million, will cost the Ontario taxpayers well over $2 billion.

The government argued the deal would pay for itself since Suncor would declare dividends on profits and Ontario would collect 25 per cent of those dividends. Suncor never declared a dividend before. By declaring a dividend for the first time, Suncor will not be able to recycle profit dollars back into the company for reinvestment. Furthermore, since Sun Oil Co. still owns 75 per cent of Suncor, 75 per cent of all dividends will now flow south to the United States, thus worsening Canada's foreign exchange imbalance.

We have learned a lot about the Suncor dividend policy and its profitability. First, the Ontario government and Suncor formally ratified the agreement on December 23, 1981, one day after Suncor declared a dividend of $78 million. Second, it was reported on April 28, 1982, that Suncor's profits for the first quarter of 1982 fell to $1.1 million from $27.7 million for the similar period in 1981. In spite of the fact this equates to quarterly earnings of two cents per share, Suncor declared a quarterly dividend of 20 cents per share. In this way, the equity of the company is being stripped to assist Ontario to pay off its purchase.

Another aspect of the Suncor purchase is the fact that the deal only begins to make sense if Suncor is 51 per cent Canadian owned and therefore eligible for the national energy incentives. In January 1982, it was revealed that the final agreement excluded the provision allowing Ontario to acquire a further 26 per cent of Suncor's shares should other investors not be found.

The Premier, the Treasurer, the chairman of the Ontario Energy Corp. had told all Ontarians when the deal was announced that the final agreement would include this option. However, now the government faces a situation of having purchased a 25 per cent equity position in an oil company that may not be eligible for national energy program incentives.

5 p.m.

As to the soundness of the investment, the financial experts confirmed our worst fears. Unless a major Hibernia-sized oil discovery is made by Suncor, the forecasted dividend rate will not match the interest rate at which the government borrowed the $650 million, thereby creating an additional tax burden for Ontarians. Indeed, the financial advisers said the best Ontario can hope for, barring a major oil find, is to break even by the end of the century. Based on these comments, the Suncor purchase is not only an unwise investment, it is an act of blatant mismanagement of public funds.

Furthermore, we have learned just how wise an investment this is. I do not intend to go through the entire Globe and Mail article. But the conclusion was that Ontario paid probably 50 per cent more than it should have. Of course, we must never forget that it should not be investing in speculative propositions in the first place, particularly outside the borders of Ontario. We have also learned that an executive vice-president of Petro-Canada, Mr. Joel Bell, believes the government paid too much for the 25 per cent investment in Suncor. We have talked to Mr. Bell and his assertion is that the government's investment reflected Suncor's asset value at best, and not the worth of a 25 per cent silent minority interest.

Does the member for Burlington South (Mr. Kerr) support the purchase of Suncor?

Mr. Kerr: No, but that fellow --

Mr. T. P. Reid: No? Fine. Let the record show that the member for Burlington South said no. He always had good judgement, which is probably why he is out of the cabinet.

In looking at the actual budget document we can see clearly that the Ontario taxpayer is paying $62 million through the nose this year for this ill-advised purchase.

Table C3 in the budget document shows the expenditure of $325 million in interim 1981-82. A direct cash expenditure was made by the Ontario Energy Corp. and its czar Malcolm Rowan for half of the ill-fated Suncor investment. But immediately beside that figure we have an expenditure of $62 million in the estimated 1982-83 column. Of this, $47 million is the interest on the 10-year notes. The other $325 million is half of the investment held by Sun Co. Inc. of Radnor, Pennsylvania.

Already this ill-advised purchase is costing the taxpayer dearly, a purchase that adds not a job nor a drop of oil in this province but helps to increase the provincial deficit. Let me tell members how this compares with what we might have done. The $62 million may be just a drop in the bucket when compared to the total expenditure of $22.8 billion. But let us compare it to other commitments being made by this government in its pursuit of energy self-sufficiency.

As we see it, the best way to achieve energy self-sufficiency is to promote alternative fuels in the transportation sector where 47.8 per cent of our oil is now utilized. The government has made a commitment to invest $75 million over a five-year period to help promote the introduction of alternative fuels in the forms of electricity, hydrogen, propane, ethanol, methanol and synthetics. But this equates to an investment of only $15 million per year.

By comparison, the $47 million in interest being sent to Radnor, Pennsylvania, this year alone is more than three times the amount of money being spent by the province on developing alternative transportation fuels for Ontario. Where are the government's priorities? No doubt this misguided sense of priorities must continue because, in order for the government to help pay for its Suncor investment, it has to promote gasoline consumption and, specifically, gasoline purchases from Sunoco service stations around the province.

Let me tell the members what sort of message this ill-conceived purchase of Suncor sends out to the entrepreneurs and investors of this province. The Suncor fiasco tells them that the government of Ontario has lost its sense of priorities, has lost its sense of judgement, has lost its sense of direction and has lost its senses.

I want to address the subject of consumer and investor confidence. I want to talk about the job creation program and the lack of industrial strategy in this province. In this budget there is nothing but the suggestion that there will be temporary jobs created. There is nothing in the budget for the manufacturing sector. Not one of the Treasurer's job creation measures puts back to work some of the 55,000 manufacturing workers who have lost their jobs in the last year, 19,000 of them in the last month.

There is no stimulus here for the auto sector. There is no help for the steel industry which has laid off thousands of workers in the last four months. There is no direct help for the appliance and furniture manufacturers who are overstocked with inventory and who are unlikely to be able to clear it now that the Treasurer has further cut into consumer purchasing power with all the new tax increases. He asks Ottawa to recognize the importance of the manufacturing sector. I ask the Treasurer why he does not do the same.

When we talk about strategy, all we hear about is the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program, the cornerstone of the government's industrial development strategy. We all know, however, that it is really the bilge strategy which is nothing more than recycled programs. It will be recalled that we had something called the employment development fund. Now it is called BILD. There was $164 million in that fund, presumably to help the manufacturing sector. With all the great advertising expertise, with all the public relations that we saw just before the election, there was an additional $36 million put into that program as the basis of the industrial strategy of the province.

It will be recalled that on January 27, 1981, after all these years of drifting, the Premier, with all the foofaraw and all the public relations that he could muster, announced the BILD program. Even then everybody knew it was bilge. Even then everybody knew it was simply a recycling of old programs that had been announced over and over again.

The Premier is obviously a fan of the American style of politics. Because my riding abuts on the state of Minnesota I see a lot of the American press. The American system to a great extent is based on smoke and mirrors, on unreality, on press conferences and all the public relations matters that go with it. There is the appearance of action and the reality of doing nothing. The Premier has adopted that style of government here in Ontario. The bilge program is nothing but the appearance of action. It is nothing but a mirage. It is nothing but smoke and mirrors. He had to dig so far into the bag for BILD that he even said building arterial roads around Highways 400 and 401 was part of the grand strategy of industrial development for Ontario.

Members do not have to take my word for it. When the Ontario Economic Council quotes the chairman of Leigh Instruments in Ottawa and says that the financial commitment of $750 million over five years for BILD is only 9/10th of one per cent of the provincial budget and that this commitment is "not of heroic proportions," it is obvious that even business executives and academics view BILD with some contempt.

5:10 p.m.

There is more criticism. In a pre-budget submission to the Treasurer, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce said it was somewhat sceptical -- quite an admission and hardly radical, but reading between the lines that is fairly blunt for that organization -- about the need for some of the BILD projects that have been initiated, and no wonder. Does anyone believe that radial road improvements would not have been done by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications had BILD not suddenly and valiantly rescued the program?

Let us not forget the BILD commitment to intermediate capacity transit system in Hamilton which Hamilton city council rejected, programs like tourism redevelopment incentive programs I and II, and yes, these are all extensions of already functional programs in various government ministries. Programs like the convention centre, the biotechnology centre and the Bruce Energy Centre were all planned prior to BILD and have been merely redirected to fall under the BILD logo.

We still do not know about the status of projects such as King Mountain and the shipyards upgrading. We have no idea what the IDEA Corp. is supposed to be doing. Since new ideas require moneys to reach and function, BILD does not provide enough of either. I warn the Treasurer here and now that as a cornerstone of economic policy, the BILD program is beginning to more and more resemble the walls of Jericho than a pillar of strength.

Again we have the Treasurer's glossy public relations gimmick put out to celebrate the first year of BILD. It is a great public relations document but there is little substance in it. I want to show how little commitment there is to an industrial strategy in this province and how little co-ordination there is in cabinet. This is page 3 of the document BILD -- "This is What was Done in the First Year".

We can see Frank Miller smiling his "I am going to tax your whoopee cushion" smile and one Larry Grossman sitting there right beside him. Poor old Frank is not smiling as much as he might because Larry was digging him in the stomach and in the ribs to get him out of the picture so that he could be front and centre. That is why the painful expression on the Treasurer's face and that is why Larry is not in that particular ministry any more. We wondered why he went to Health.

You don't have to take my word for that, Mr. Speaker. Let us talk about the IDEA Corp., an idea that we think had a great deal of merit. First of all, we had Ian Macdonald put in charge of it. On this side we have a great deal of respect for Mr. Macdonald, but something as important as this needs full-time people working full time.

The idea of marrying research and development and scientific research in the colleges and universities to a practical application was good.

What happened under BILD? What happened in the infighting in that cabinet between the Treasurer and the Minister of Industry and Tourism? Let me read what happened:

"IDEA Corp. got its start from the former Minister of Industry and Tourism when it was decided the government should take a more active role in promoting industrial innovation. High-technology research centres in several sectors were to be established and a coordinating body of outside advisers with an industrial development focus was to identify and marry academic and scientific expertise to commercial applications." Grossman was to be in charge.

"The package which became the cornerstone of the government's BILD program soon became the subject of an intense turf war and ongoing feud between Grossman and Treasurer Frank Miller, who as BILD chairman believed IDEA Corp. should report to him.

"The solution of Premier William Davis was to split the two apart: Miller got IDEA Corp. and Grossman was left with the technology centres. In other words, the head was severed from the body, said one observer. IDEA Corp. lurched along in Treasury while Grossman moved unilaterally to set up seven tech centres with their own advisory board."

That is the industrial strategy and that is what it is based on in Ontario, two ministers feuding over who is going to get what and who is going to do what. That speaks well of their commitment to an industrial strategy for Ontario.

We know the intention presumably of the Treasurer was to restore investment confidence and we believe it to be a worthy one. It is too bad the budget has destroyed that confidence. At a time when consumers are trying to cope with inflation and high interest rates, the Treasurer only further fuels inflation with his myriad of taxation changes.

He also says that Ontarians are savers, that is, they have a high proportion of savings to disposable income, and that encouraging the savers of this province to spend some of this money will spur investment. What the Treasurer fails to realize, however, is that the majority of people in this province are having a hard enough time as it is meeting inflation, and with the exorbitant sales tax increases he has now imposed they will be reluctant to invest in anything. Furthermore, public investment confidence is very much dependent on government example. What kind of an example has been set by a government that goes out and purchases an oil company for $650 million in a time of restraint? The Treasurer should give the people of this province a little more credit for their intelligence.

We are reasonably happy with the assistance to small business. Some years ago, after a great deal of work by my colleague the member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. Eakins), this party presented a comprehensive policy to assist small business in Ontario. We are glad to see some assistance in this budget, but we repeat that our priority is to help those facing tough times, because of inflation and high interest rates, to survive. We think that is where the emphasis should have been in this budget. The House knows about our program of interest assistance to small business, home owners and farmers.

I have a great deal more on the manufacturing sector and job creation. More than two years ago, the federal Department of Regional and Economic Expansion published a document entitled Economic Prospects for Ontario. That report said quite clearly: "The future of Ontario is up for review. No longer can Ontario's continued growth be taken for granted by any level of government."

The Treasurer and the government of this province have ignored this claim. They continue to sing false praises of a province which is experiencing a severe economic decline. They continue to pass off this decline as temporary or beyond their control when clearly it is their mandate to arrest this trend and to rebuild the economy of the province into a semblance of its former self. Until the government realizes that Ontario's economic problems are structural, Band-Aid solutions such as the 1982 budget will do little to revitalize the economy of this province.

Various statistics accurately reflect Ontario's poor economic health. For example, in the 1960s the province ranked first among all the provinces in every indicator marking economic performance. In the 1970s Ontario dropped to last place in average annual percentage growth, in gross provincial product, in per capita gross provincial product, in per capita income, in per capita disposable income, in the rate of public investment, in residential construction and, very importantly for a province in which manufacturing is predominant, to last place in value-added per capita.

The decline did not stop at the end of the 1970s. Again, in 1982 Ontario is expected to be last among all the provinces in percentage growth and GPP, and leading only Prince Edward Island in percentage growth in retail sales. In fact, the Conference Board of Canada has recently stated that Ontario is in an economic slump that is unmatched in the 21 years it has been compiling provincial economic data.

5:20 p.m.

Although Ontario's economic decline has been spread over many sectors it is the manufacturing sector of this province that is leading the downward slide of the economy. A healthy manufacturing sector is crucial to Ontario, yet this government has allowed it to slowly erode. For example, between 1970 and 1979 Ontario placed eighth in Canada in annual average percentage growth of manufacturing investment and eighth between 1970 and 1978 in average annual percentage growth in the value of manufacturing shipments by origin.

In 1980, Ontario was home to over half of all Canada's manufacturing. It accounted for 30 per cent of this province's real output and directly employed 23 per cent of the provincial labour force. By the end of 1981, however, the province's share of total Canadian manufacturing dropped to 49 per cent. Manufacturing output as a proportion of gross provincial product fell to 28 per cent, approximately a $2.19-billion loss. That may be because some of our friends opposite buy foreign cars. In the last year 55,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost.

In order for Ontario's manufacturing sector to recover, a coherent provincial industrial strategy will be needed. Although the government may claim that such a strategy already exists with the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program, we have already discussed how it is lacking, what confusion and contradictions there are in the cabinet and how few real resources are being put into it.

I wish now to discuss our program, what we would have done and where our priorities lie. Mr. Speaker, for a number of years you have heard those of us in this party talk about an industrial strategy.

Mr. Cooke: Now let's talk about the federal government.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Why don't we talk about the Saskatchewan election?

Mr. Ruston: Yes.

An hon. Member: How many Liberals have you got west of Manitoba?

Interjections.

Mr. T. P. Reid: West of Rainy River we have quality out there.

In April 1979, the Ontario Liberal Party released a paper entitled An Industrial Strategy for Ontario. This document dealt with some of the problems I have just mentioned. It faced the reality of Ontario's declining manufacturing sector and proposed a comprehensive package of incentives and programs that would encourage Ontario's manufacturing sector. Specifically, the Ontario Liberal Party's industrial strategy proposes:

1. A procurement policy requiring the government of Ontario to undertake its purchasing wherever possible and reasonable from Canadian-controlled firms or from foreign-controlled firms that comply with a provincial code of corporate behaviour.

2. Two new arrangements to encourage equity investment by individuals in Canadian business.

3. New incentives for research and development enabling all firms in Ontario to deduct a total of 150 per cent of the value of their research and development related expenses from provincial corporation tax payable, and special assistance for Canadian-controlled small business in the form of a cash rebate equivalent to 15 per cent of their research and development expenditures.

4. An entrepreneurial advisory service and education program for small business.

5. An improved apprenticeship program. We cannot lay too much stress on this. We know from the government's own reports that 50 per cent of apprentices drop out, that the Ontario youth secretariat is creating few jobs and that there will be only approximately 10,000 new jobs in 1982, most of which will be temporary. We have had studies in 1963, 1968, 1972, 1973 and 1976. We had the June 1978 Skills for Jobs conference with Darcy McKeough. Members will remember him. In June 1980, the chairman of the Ontario Manpower Commission said, "We need legislation to require industry to train." It goes on and on.

In December 1972, the Commission on Post-Secondary Education in Ontario said, "The government of Ontario should articulate clear manpower policy." In the March 1981 election, Stuart Smith, then Liberal leader, made eight recommendations. It goes on.

Now is the time for an enlarged and expanded apprenticeship program. We have to increase guidance for students in the high schools to allow them to know what is available. We have to do the same at the secondary level. We have to ensure we are training our young people for the jobs that are going to be available tomorrow. At this time in the economy, with plants and industries not operating at 100 per cent capacity, we should be training and apprenticing people. While there is some slack in the economy, there will be time to train and use the equipment that is available rather than when everything is running at capacity and there is no time because the production has to be got out.

After all these years we still have no coherent program from this government on skills training and apprenticeship. We still continue to import skilled tradespeople from overseas to fill the jobs that are required in Ontario.

Part of our industrial strategy was the expansion of training and business programs by providing grants or loans to employers to retrain workers whose skills have been made obsolete by new technology, and a special program to assist Canadian-owned auto parts manufacturers by providing loans at subsidized interest rates for capital expansion, research and development. As well, in the auto sector, we believe we have to have 85 per cent made-in-Canada content. We support that.

Mr. Cooke: You switched your position.

Mr. T. P. Reid: No, we did not switch any position at all. We support that position.

We have to realize there are other economies that are using various tax measures and subsidies to compete in international trade and we obviously must do the same.

A Liberal industrial strategy would also key into those areas which are or can be the source of Ontario's manufacturing strength. We suggest these are, among others, the aerospace industry, telecommunications, computers, systems electronics, industrial machinery -- especially that related to resource processing and pollution -- the auto parts industry, transportation equipment, the petrochemical industry and biotechnology.

As we stated, we would also include a code of behaviour for foreign-controlled firms to comply with so as to be eligible for government incentives in this province. The Liberal Party's industrial strategy has job creation as its primary objective, something this government has either blatantly ignored or shunned altogether. True, the Treasurer has argued before that the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development creates jobs but, strangely, he cannot tell us where or how many actual jobs have been created due to the program.

The Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) stood in the House and proclaimed the virtues of putting laid-off mining and forestry employees back to work in conjunction with the federal government. That is meritorious but the minister failed to mention these projects are temporary in nature and there is little likelihood these workers will ever have permanent jobs to return to.

Just a brief examination of the latest labour force survey is ample evidence of this government's failure to address the employment issue. Can the Treasurer and the government ignore the fact that there are 89,000 more Ontarians unemployed this April than last April, that we now have an unemployment rate of 8.8 per cent compared to 6.8 per cent at the same time last year and that there are 31,000 fewer people employed in this province than last year?

5:30 p.m.

Who can take the Treasurer's word when he says, in this budget, that 125,000 more jobs will be created in 1982? He predicted in the 1981 budget that 106,000 jobs would be created. In fact, only 68,000 jobs were created in this province between December 1980 and December 1981, or 35 per cent below the 1981 budget prediction.

We can talk about where those jobs are lost: in the transportation sector, 12,000; in agriculture, 16,000; in manufacturing, 55,000; and in primary industries, 15,000. While failing to address job creation as a means of meeting the current oversupply of workers in the province, the government has also neglected to mention in this budget that even more critical area of employment, manpower requirements.

Recently the Ontario Manpower Commission estimated that by 1986 the province would have a shortfall of 38,000 to 48,000 highly skilled workers and 20,000 to 47,000 workers with lesser skills. At the same time the manpower commission predicted there would be an oversupply of 148,500 to 186,500 white-collar workers by 1986.

Clearly, there is something wrong with government policy when its own advisory commission on labour requirements draws this conclusion from its investigations; yet the budget makes no mention of what new policies the government will undertake to assure that Ontario has an adequate labour supply for the future. All we know is that the Treasurer has served notice to all recipients of government funds that they should not expect the government to give them financial support at or above the inflation rate.

I ask the Treasurer to tell that to the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph and to the faculties of engineering in the province, all of which are in jeopardy of losing their ability to turn out quality students who can be professionally accredited because they do not have adequate equipment on which to train. Tell it to the dentistry students at the University of Toronto who have to use 25-year-old equipment or to the botany students who have to conduct experiments in washrooms.

Unless this government starts some serious planning for the future, it may be a bleak one in this province. It is a cliché, but the greatest resource we have is our brainpower, and we are not providing the background, the equipment, the guidance or the resources to expand that brainpower. That is where our ideas and our new jobs and our creativity are going to come from.

The Ontario Liberal Party has given high priority to our future manpower needs. In our industrial strategy we have provided for improved apprenticeship programs. We would expand the training in business programs by providing grants or loans to employers to retrain workers whose skills are made obsolete by new technology. Most important, we would not, as this government has done, financially starve our community colleges and universities whose job it is to produce a quality skilled labour force.

I wish to discuss other matters to which we also have to give high priority and attention and which are not addressed or are, at best, lost in the miasma of programs put forward by the present government.

Mr. Laughren: Miasma?

Mr. T. P. Reid: It is like transmogrify.

I want to talk about new ministries. We believe there are already too many ministers over there, all running for the leadership of the Ontario Tory party and more interested in their leadership campaigns than they are in providing jobs in Ontario.

We believe, and we have said so, that we would do away with the three provincial secretariats, because the Premier has turned them into his own Ontario senate, where he has shipped the incompetent, the tired, the weak and the unknowing.

Obviously, Ontario's future is going to continue to be tied to our ability to compete in world markets, producing a reliable product at a reasonable price. To do this, we must emphasize research and development. We must emphasize practical scientific research, research into new technologies and a concentration on increasing our productivity. This budget has completely omitted any discussion of these matters.

We said that we must increase our capacity in this regard. At present, we are spending less than one per cent of our gross revenues on research and development in Ontario, while the Japanese, for instance, are spending almost three per cent. Little wonder that they are ahead of us in technologies such as robotics and biotechnology. We should be endeavouring to make Ontario the research centre of Canada, if not of North America.

Second, we must promote scientific research, and we must underline the importance of science to our future. It is interesting to note that the University of Toronto is in a bad position because of underfunding. Their engineering faculty, which is presumably going to turn out those who can design a better computer, those who can design the robotics, those who are going to deal with the technology of tomorrow, is under a cloud because of underfunding by this government. The very things that we should be emphasizing are being downgraded by this administration.

The importance of science and technology is obvious. We see it all around us, particularly in the computer explosion. We must be training people to take advantage of these new technologies. The standing committee on public accounts heard only last week that the government itself suffers from a lack of skilled, knowledgeable people in this area. It is obvious that we do not have enough educated and trained people even to deal with the present situation, nor do we seem to be doing anything to deal with the future demands in this regard.

Productivity is obviously the key to increasing our standard of living in Ontario. Our productivity has been declining lately, and with declining productivity goes a decline in our living standards. Productivity, as we know, is generally measured by the output per person, which is the easiest way to measure it. Obviously, managerial abilities, raw materials and capital are the other matters involved in productivity. Incidentally, it is interesting to note the Japanese feel that when there is a problem in productivity it is a management problem and not that of the workers.

I am therefore proposing that we abolish the three provincial secretariats and that we set up a new ministry that will be called the ministry of science, technology and productivity. This will show our commitment and emphasis on those matters that are going to prepare us and the people for the future. The mandate of this ministry will be to ensure that science receives the emphasis that it requires, not only in our educational institutions but throughout our economy as well.

The technology aspect will deal with the good idea that the government did have in the Innovation Development for Employment Advancement Corp., but without the attendant problems and the bickering between ministers. It was a farce to have the then Minister of Industry and Tourism, now the Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) and the Treasurer fighting over who was responsible for what. And when one section, i.e. the technology centres, went to the Minister of Industry and Tourism and the other section went to the Treasurer, it was like severing the head from the body. We want to put the body back together again for the benefit of the people of Ontario.

Third, because productivity is so important to our entire economy and to the future prosperity of Ontario, there should be a minister who is responsible for productivity in our manufacturing and service sectors. There should be incentives set up and well understood guidelines to reward those who do improve the productivity of their operations, either through tax incentives or outright grants -- rewards of some kind. These could be monitored by this ministry.

5:40 p.m.

As well, it would be the job of this ministry to bring together government, labour and management in a new partnership. We can no longer afford long and costly strikes in our economy. We can no longer afford the tension and hostility between management and labour. It is time for a new era of labour-management relations in Ontario. If our economy is to continue to grow and expand and to provide a better standard of living, we must have better co-operation and government must take the lead in this new era in labour, management and government relations.

I want to speak briefly about agriculture. We have 85,000 farmers in Ontario, another 73,000 people in the food processing industry and another 10,400 people in farm machinery production. These 170,000 jobs in those three closely interdependent areas are gradually being eroded because of this government's inaction. At a time when farmers are looking for some sort of meaningful relief for their financial problems, all they get is whitewash. This budget merely pays lipservice to the farming community, completely ignoring the real problem that farmers are facing, and that is survival. Farm bankruptcies are up 70 per cent over last year. What does the government suggest? "Go paint your barn."

Again we emphasize that our first priority is to provide interest assistance to farmers so they can survive this economic inflationary aspect. What hope does this budget hold for the farmers of Ontario? This year it is offering to spend $14 million less on agriculture than it did last year. In fact, agricultural budgetary expenditures will decline to 1.1 per cent of total budgetary expenditures. That is down from 1.36 per cent last year and down from 1.83 per cent in 1971. It does not offer enough in terms of tile drainage loans. We would put something like $50 million in that program to make it worthwhile and to keep the interest rate at a reasonable price.

We would also like to provide measures for the long term to keep the farmers on the farm. We are losing them at a great rate. We see this as our primary industry in Ontario, and yet our young people cannot afford to go into it. We would set up a long-term interest rate subsidy program to allow the young farmers on to the land. If we erode our agricultural base, as we continue to do, not only will we lose that basis of our society but also in the future the cost of importing food will be astronomical and completely inflationary so that we will not be able to afford it.

As I said, the overriding need is for low-interest loans for consolidated debt purposes. In 1975, the Farm Credit Corp. supplied 72 per cent of long-term farm credit; today it is down to 30 per cent. The Ontario Liberal Party would eliminate the government's ad hoc, Band-Aid programs and introduce a provincial interest subsidy program on operating and long-term debt which would bring interest rates down to an affordable 12 per cent. Such a program would be based on a sliding scale depending on the immediate need of the farmer and a percentage of his assets to his liabilities. Assistance would be based on helping to pay operating expenses rather than expansion.

As I have already indicated, we would also fund the Ontario Veterinary College so that there would be no possibility of its losing its licence to teach. We would also introduce legislation that would prohibit unfair discounting trade practices in the food industry, similar to legislation in the United States under the Robinson-Patman Act.

To replace the $2.3 billion worth of agriculture and fine food products imported into Ontario each year, to create new jobs and expand markets for farm products, we would create a special food strategy fund to support such projects as well-situated storage facilities, more processing plants, improved market intelligence and increased research in food storage. The government's Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program is supposed to address this problem, but the amount of imported food brought into Ontario clearly demonstrates that very little is being done.

We have other matters as well in that regard, but time is not going to allow me to cover everything as thoroughly as I would have liked.

I wish to speak for a moment about alternative fuels, given their importance to the future of Ontario. Let us talk about some of the alternatives to Suncor. Had the $650 million been invested in fuel alcohol plants, six 1,000-metric-ton-per-day plants could have been constructed with a capacity to produce 430 million gallons of fuel alcohol per year. By 1990, these plants would have replaced 15 per cent of Ontario's gasoline requirements. In addition, such a project would have created nearly 7,000 direct and continuous jobs as well as more than 1,000 jobs during the construction of these plants. Such a venture would have secured these fuel supplies for the province, would have kept the capital in Ontario, would have created badly needed jobs and would have helped to revitalize our provincial economy.

Back in 1978, our party commissioned and completed a study on fuel alcohol utilizing only wood wastes which are available in the province. This study indicated there was enough wood waste in this province to supply all the transportation requirements for liquid fuels in 1990 at a cost competitive with that of gasoline. With this report we have shown that the potential for the development of alternative liquid fuels is there. However, investment goes begging in this province while we elect to spend $650 million and ship it to our American neighbours.

As another alternative energy investment, particularly one that would help northern Ontario, I want to briefly discuss the potential of peat as an energy source in this province. In late October 1981, the government released a report entitled Evaluation of the Potential of Peat in Ontario. The report highlights the fact that there are approximately 26 million hectares of peat land in Ontario, which has the energy equivalence of 72 billion barrels of oil. These facts confirm that the money invested in Suncor should have been spent in Ontario and that if it were to be spent on energy-related use, then the energy potential of peat would have been one place to start. As I say, a large part of that would have been spent in northern Ontario.

It is obvious from the examples I have given on alternative energy investment in the areas of fuel alcohol and peat land potential that the money invested in Suncor could have been more wisely invested in Ontario's economy, developing Ontario's resources for all Ontarians.

I have already referred to the auto industry. We want to see 85 per cent Canadian content. We want to see more research and development. We want to see a retraining of the people who have been laid off. We want to see more interest from this government relating to its own study which showed the state of the auto industry in 1978.

5:50 p.m.

There are a couple of interesting articles that I read in relation to the auto industry, one in the magazine of the Ontario Board of Trade and a somewhat similar article in Forum magazine. In the one from the Metropolitan Toronto Business Journal there is a brief article by Sherwood L. Fawcett, president and chief executive of the Battelle Memorial Institute, who states in this article that it is not only possible but also practical to build a car that gets 100 miles per gallon.

Mr. Fawcett goes on in this article to suggest that there should be incentives for the auto industry to produce such a fuel-efficient car and to sell it for about US$6,600, which would make it somewhere around C$8,000. He suggests we should subsidize whatever auto company produces such a car, a four-passenger automobile, at that price. Subsidizing that car to the tune of $22,000 for the first 10,000 cars produced would be worthwhile economically. That seems to make sense. Let us be creative. Let us be imaginative. Let us use the tools we have to get the auto industry going again and be the engine of prosperity it has been in Ontario.

I want to mention the tourist industry as well. Tourism is one of the province's largest employers, providing jobs for 542,000 Ontarians or 14.1 per cent of our employed labour force. The participation of the government in this sector is crucial since the industry is made up of some 42,000 firms, most of which are small. It is interesting that people in the business have to deal with as many as 14 provincial ministries.

We want to cut through the bureaucratic red tape. We want to end that system. We want to see funds being made available, perhaps through small business bonds, for the tourism industry so that it can expand and upgrade its facilities.

One of the biggest multiplier effects on the economy is in the tourism sector. The Treasurer stated on page 5 of his budget statement that his job creation program is "to be targeted on those sectors of the economy where there is the highest potential for both direct and indirect job creation in our province." Given the multiplier effect of tourism spending on the provincial economy and the impact of this sector on employment, any stimulation of this industry can have profoundly beneficial effects, and we will continue to press for such measures in this sector.

I want to bring something to the attention of my friend the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) and the other northern members. These figures are somewhat outdated, but in 1978 almost $1.3 billion was spent in northern Ontario on tourism. Members have heard me say this before, and I will be brief. This government has continued to give away the resources of the province by allowing visitors to Ontario to camp on crown land free, without paying a penny. The pork-and-beaners, as we call them, are invited to the province and then they do not spend any money because we are giving the whole larder away. This has been going on for the 40 years those people have been in business.

I used to work with Canada Customs when I went to university. We used to do surveys and found that almost four out of five people coming across that border were not staying at licensed tourist facilities. They were camping out and taking advantage of our resources of fish and wildlife. If we forced those four out of five people into licensed tourist establishments in northern Ontario, the economy would go up by $4 billion to $5 billion in the tourist industry in northern Ontario alone. Think of all the jobs created. Think of the investment. That is our policy, no more free lunches, particularly to our American friends. Let us regulate and use in the wisest way the natural resources we have in this province in the wisest way.

Mr. Bradley: Give them a Wintario grant.

Mr. Nixon: Make them go to Minaki.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Wind it down.

Interjections.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I am getting there. The Progressive Conservative government of this province found it easy to manage prosperity, but anyone can manage prosperity. Even the Premier himself in a recent speech said it is easy to run Ontario when things are good, but obviously he and the Treasurer have no ideas when things are bad.

We are now in the midst of a recession and we are facing a crisis in Ontario. We are facing a crisis of confidence in this government's ability to manage the province. The Treasurer's piecemeal, short-term approach, first with the retail sales tax, then in the auto industry and now in the housing sector, clearly demonstrates the lack of skilful, long-term planning that will provide the people of the province with a system that allows the market to function as it should.

The Ontario builders' Band-Aid program is a case in point. The Treasurer claims he wants to encourage tenants to move into homes and therefore tries to entice them with an inadequate loan. In the same budget, he slaps the sales tax on to energy conservation materials which not only increases the cost of building homes but also makes it more costly for home owners to be energy-efficient. As the Treasurer's right arm is stretched out offering to give, his left hand is in every pocket taking away.

The budget does not address the problems in the housing industry at all. It does not address the problems of bureaucratic red tape through his own Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing and through the municipalities. The cost of holding land is what is driving up a lot of the prices and people are being discouraged from building and buying because of those associated costs.

It should be up to the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Ashe) and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett) to look at the situation in regard to lot levies in the municipalities, because they are loading all the costs of the municipalities on those areas which are driving up the cost of housing. What are the Treasurer and the ministry doing about the fundamental problems? All we get in response are Band-Aid solutions.

We should be encouraging cutting the red tape. We should be cutting through the lot levy program, which is driving up the cost of housing. As we have said time and time again, we should be providing a mortgage interest rate subsidy to keep people in their homes -- not the speculators but those who bought homes at nine, 10, and 11 per cent interest rates and who are going to lose them simply because of the high rate of interest.

That is our program: Survival, first of all, and then to attack the root of the problem. This government should be encouraging the design and building of energy-efficient houses, smaller houses on smaller lots that are affordable to the people of Ontario.

I also have some things to say about northern development, fiscal management in Ontario, the problems with the established programs financing of the federal government and so on. I have covered most of the matters I wanted to cover. It is drawing close to six o'clock. I will deal with these other matters during the estimates of the Treasurer.

We will continue to press in this House as vigorously as we can, particularly during question period but during the estimates as well, the unfair inequities of this budget, the fact that it is doing nothing for long-term job creation and that it is hitting the very people who can least afford it.

The Acting Speaker: Mr. T. P. Reid moves, seconded by Mr. Nixon, that the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government be amended by deleting the words following "that" and adding thereto the following:

"This House deeply regrets the 1982 budget fails to recognize the most serious and fundamental problems facing Ontario today and condemns the government for:

"Ignoring the plight of the many home owners whose mortgages come up for renewal this year, by refusing to introduce specific interest rate relief programs;

"Ignoring the plight of the many small businessmen who are operating at, very near or below the break-even point, by refusing to introduce interest rate relief programs;

"Ignoring the plight of the farmers who face modern-day record numbers of bankruptcies, by refusing to introduce specific interest rate relief programs;

"Ignoring the plight of the unemployed, by refusing to introduce serious long-term job creation programs;

"Punishing the citizens of this province who are at the lower end of the income scale, the poor, the elderly on fixed incomes, by removing a large number of sales tax exemptions and thereby forcing these individuals, more than any other class, to pay a larger portion of their incomes to this government;

"Further punishing low-income earners by increasing OHIP premiums;

"Jeopardizing the operations of the municipalities and school boards of this province, by removing their exemption from various sales taxes and increasing their OHIP group plan costs, thereby placing them in a deficit position or forcing them to cut back on programs;

"Threatening the quality of Ontario's hospitals, universities, colleges and other institutions by warning them that this government will continue to underfund their basic requirements;

"Refusing to recognize Ontario's industrial decline and the need for a definitive industrial strategy as well as massive retraining programs for Ontario workers;

"Refusing to recognize the impact on the provincial deficit of such wasteful and ill-advised expenditures as the purchase of a one quarter interest in Suncor, the assemblage of land banks and the extravagance of a luxury jet;

"Producing a budget which is unfocused, without direction, lacking long-term vision, regressive in its tax impact and contradictory to what had hitherto been announced government policies;

"Therefore, this government lacks the confidence of this House."

On motion by Mr. Cooke, the debate was adjourned.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.

18 mai 1982