CITY OF TORONTO 1981 ASSESSMENT COMPLAINTS ACT

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The House resumed at 8 p.m.

CITY OF TORONTO 1981 ASSESSMENT COMPLAINTS ACT

Hon. Mr. Ashe moved second reading of Bill 60, An Act to provide for the Institution of Complaints for Certain Assessments made in the Year 1981 in the City of Toronto.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, you will recall my statement of April 13 when I introduced this bill for first reading. I indicated I had developed a proposal respecting the city of Toronto 1981 residential assessment increases, which I presented to the Toronto city council for its consideration. My proposal was unanimously endorsed by the council on April 1, 1982, and the details of that proposal are embodied in this bill.

The proposed legislation would authorize me to provide the regional registrar of the assessment review court with the names and addresses of those ratepayers in the city of Toronto whose assessments were increased as a result of enlargements, alterations or renovations that added more than $2,500 market value to their properties, but who did not appeal their assessments within the time limit provided by subsection 39(3) of the Assessment Act.

Those who have been deemed by the bill to have appealed their assessments will be notified in writing by the city of Toronto regional assessment commissioner of their right to be heard before the assessment review court. Naturally, all subsequent avenues of appeal are also available to those ratepayers should they desire to pursue them.

I want to make it known to the honourable members that an assessor will contact each ratepayer involved and explain the reasons for the assessment increase. The assessor will also reinspect the property to verify assessment data currently on file and, where warranted and agreed to by both the assessor and the ratepayer, the assessor will make an adjustment to the assessment based on the additional information provided by the ratepayer and the reinspection of the property. Such an adjustment would be effected by the signing of minutes of settlement, which would be presented to the assessment review court by the assessor, thereby eliminating the need for the ratepayer to attend the court.

Mr. McClellan: There hasn't been any inspection.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: That's your view.

Mr. McClellan: That happens to be the truth.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: As usual the member is grossly inaccurate, but that is nothing new for those people.

If the ratepayer still feels he has been improperly assessed after the reinspection of the property and consideration of the reasons for the assessment increase, he may proceed with his appeal to the assessment review court in the usual manner. Of course, these ratepayers also have the option to withdraw their appeal if they so choose.

The proposed legislation also has provision to include by regulation any property inadvertently omitted from the schedule of properties held to be appealed.

Mr. Nixon: How could that happen?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It is highly unlikely but always possible.

This measure will ensure that all ratepayers eligible for the benefits afforded by this bill will have the occasion to have their assessments reviewed by an independent tribunal.

As I said when I first introduced this bill, I believe this measure will provide more than ample opportunity for the affected ratepayers in the city of Toronto to be made aware that their appeals have been registered, to have their assessments reviewed and explained by assessors and to take advantage of the appeal process if they so choose.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I might indicate from the outset that we obviously will support this bill because it is absolutely necessary, and it is necessary because of the incompetence and the bullheadedness of the Minister of Revenue.

The minister smiles; he thinks it is funny, but it is a serious matter. We would not have this bill before us now if he had listened to the city of Toronto and had consulted the city before sending assessors to the various areas in Toronto to do some assessment. The minister obviously did not do his job. He is getting $50,000 a year, and for that it is costing the taxpayers of this province hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions.

The province is responsible for assessment, and the bill was introduced because the people of various areas in Toronto, about 6,000 in all, were sent their assessment notices with certain increases in those assessments. There was no place on the assessment notice which indicated that there was an increase from the previous year's assessment -- no indication whatsoever. It is as if, like thieves in the dark, they come and take something from the people and do not tell them they have taken it.

The process they went through was that their assessors went through all of the various sales that had taken place in a particular area in Toronto and found a number of sales; in addition, they assessed other properties that did not have sales. Then, if they found that those properties had sold for more than about five or six per cent above what they had cost previously, they sent their assessors out to do windshield inspections. If they found that there was a new paint job on the house or it had new aluminium storm windows or something of that nature, or had other things improved, then they automatically increased those assessments.

8:10 p.m.

In some instances -- to give the minister due credit -- I think they went into the house to check what renovations had taken place. But in hundreds, maybe thousands, of cases they did not go inside so as to be able legitimately, honestly and accurately to determine what improvements had occurred.

They then used some kind of factor -- I am told it is 4.2 but I am not sure exactly where they got that factor, and neither do some of the experts -- to increase the assessments on average. Some of them were raised, some of them were lowered. Some of the assessments, I am told, were twice and three times as high as they should have been.

If we look at some of the newspaper articles written about this subject, we find that the people of Toronto, particularly those 6,000 residents referred to, were up in arms about the increases. In one article, Vicki Ziegler writes:

"Mr. A. F. Thompson, the Toronto assessment commissioner for the Ontario Ministry of Revenue, attempted to outline how property tax increases on renovated homes were calculated. He was repeatedly interrupted by the shouts and questions of angry ward 5 residents who wanted to know why they were being penalized, in effect, for keeping their homes in good shape."

In other words, they were trying to improve their property. These people were not told exactly what formula was being used to increase the assessment on their renovated properties.

"'This seems to be a Robin Hood situation in reverse, robbing from the poor to give to the rich' said Toronto Alderman Ronald Kanter", who happens to be very knowledgeable about the issues of assessment and was very interested in the plight of the property owners in that particular section of Toronto.

The article went on to say, "Another major problem with the approach the Ministry of Revenue has taken in assessing properties is there is no clear distinction between renovation and maintenance."

In other words, if one has a particular electrical system in the house and it is faulty and one improves it, even if it does not necessarily improve the value of one's home -- it might, but it might not -- one increases the value of the amount of the assessment and therefore one is taxed more heavily on that particular property. If, on the other hand, one puts in another bathroom or something of that nature which logically increases the value of the property, that is also assessed, as it should be.

One home owner said he felt as if he was being punished for replacing old wiring and plumbing, which were hazardous and illegal, because the assessor viewed those changes as renovations rather than maintenance. Apart from the removal of an upstairs sink, this person said there have been no major changes in his house in the eight years he has lived there. However, a similar house on the street, one that had been gutted -- according to Mr. Kressman in this case -- was only slightly higher in assessment.

So there was not a fair formula used with respect to the increase of assessment. One person gutted his house and completely renovated it and received only a minor increase in assessment. The person who merely changed an upstairs sink received a fairly major increase. We see from those examples that these assessments were not done on a clearly rational and fair basis.

Since the minister questions everybody who criticizes his policy, let me read one article here which quotes someone who is a good friend of the minister and who also wears a lot of blue. He happens to be the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto and the headline says: "Metro Chairman Assails System of Assessment." Despite the fact the minister says it is all very fair, let us see what the Metro chairman says. Metro Chairman Paul Godfrey says the property assessment system in Metro Toronto for municipal taxation purposes is "a total and absolute mess."

Let us see what the minister has to say about that. He will probably deny that Mr. Godfrey is a Tory or deny the fact that he ever said, "Metro council will be asked in March to seek the Ministry of Revenue's survey on the impact of assessing all property at market values." This was in March and they were trying very hard to get some reaction from the minister to introduce the aspect of assessment appeals for the 6,000 property owners.

In the Toronto Star on April 1, we find that a member of the bar, Mr. Barry Swadron, was hired by the property owners to take this case to the minister and to the court if necessary in order to have some kind of fairness with respect to property assessment in Toronto. Let us find out where exactly some of these places are that were assessed. We find, for instance, that --

Mr. Nixon: Pick out one of the numbers from the index.

Mr. Epp: Any one of them, there are 6,000 of them.

We find, for instance, that the people in the Beaches, in Cabbagetown and in the Annex were assessed, as well as some in Parkdale. Most of these families in the first three of those areas I mentioned are young families and professional people, but in the last one there is a much more cosmopolitan atmosphere.

In an article in the Globe and Mail on February 13,1982, we find a headline which says, "Ashe's Catchup Drive Spells Backdated Bill for Toronto Ratepayers." It says: "Up to now Toronto city council has been trying to persuade Revenue Minister, George Ashe, to rescind assessment increases imposed recently on 6,300 residents in the city. The increases mean many ratepayers will find their 1982 property bills doubled, or even triple last year's amount. 'Far from retreating, however, ministry officials are ploughing ahead with the reassessment program in the hopes of catching home owners who so far have escaped detection by the assessors,' Ronald Trbovich, director of the ministry's assessment policy branch, said at an interview yesterday."

Here is something very interesting. Yesterday we read that Housing Minister, Claude Bennett, has a house for sale for $300,000 to $400,000, a lower-class home. I understand he is now going to buy a house down the street for $365,000 or $465,000. It is a little more expensive than the one he is selling anyway; it is a lower middle- class home.

The article says, "Housing Minister, Claude Bennett, whose home on Poplar Plains Crescent in the area of Avenue and Davenport Roads was one of those which escaped reassessment last year, even though building permits have been issued for renovations three times since 1977, is on the list." He is on the list this year but for four or five years he was able to escape the ravages of new assessment on his renovations. He escaped most of the years while other people were taxed for their increases.

The particular method of reassessment was discriminatory in a number of ways. It was discriminatory because 5,000 to 6,300 homes, somewhere in that area, were pounced on, were raided by the various assessors, if you want to use that word, and their assessments were increased. I doubt if any were decreased. I dare the minister to tell me how many of those assessments were decreased. I presume that most if not all of them were increased, and yet there are 220,000 homes in Toronto. So about 6,000 out of 220,000 all of sudden had their assessments increased.

8:20 p.m.

Second, as I indicated, the method of assessment was not very fair or systematic. As we read, some of the renovations involved minor repairs and there were fairly steep increases; others involved major repairs and there were minor increases. We know, for instance, as I indicated earlier, that they did not always go into the house to find out; just as people sometimes do windshield appraisals of homes, these were windshield appraisals of renovations. Then they went down to their offices, wrote something out and the people had to pay the extra taxes.

One of the problems too, as I see it, is that although the minister has somewhat clarified the problem today, I am not sure it is absolutely clear as far as the bill is concerned. His statement indicates that people do not necessarily have to appeal. It says in the bill that they are deemed to have the right of appeal or to have appeal. Does this mean they have the right to appeal and they do not have to appeal? What does that really mean? Maybe we can get clarification of that later. In the instance that they have been deemed to appeal but cannot necessarily get away without appealing it, I have an amendment that I circulated to the minister earlier today that we can then take up in committee. Maybe he can clarify that part later on.

Some time ago I circulated a press release with respect to a private bill I introduced in this Legislature. It has to do with assessment and appeals of assessment. As you can appreciate, Mr. Speaker, when you appeal an assessment you go to the assessment review court. It may take you several months to get there, and it may tie up several days of hearings just waiting for your appeal to take place. For instance, I was in Kitchener about a year and a half ago when they were trying to hear 150-odd cases of appeals in two days. The lawyers were lined up, the various developers were lined up and individual citizens were lined up, and this particular judge was going to hear all those appeal cases in one day.

If you go to the review court and then you go to the various upper courts -- for instance, the divisional courts or the county or district courts -- then you might even go to the Ontario Municipal Board, which then overrules a judge on this particular matter. This has tended to upset some of the judges, who find that someone who is not a lawyer or judge is overruling a judge's decision.

As a result of this I have introduced a private member's bill that would expedite the various assessment cases. I do that in light of the fact that about 125,000 cases in 1978 went to the assessment review court, and in September of the same year there was a backlog of 15,000 cases. At the end of October 1981 there was a backlog of 48,000 appeals before the courts, and in 1982 we expect that about 165,000 complaints will come to the review court and maybe by next year, as someone projected, it will be around 175,000 cases.

That is a tremendous number of cases to come before the courts to be heard. To expedite the hearing of these cases, I introduced a bill which would separate the cases of fact and law. If, strictly on the basis of fact, a person wanted to have an appeal, that particular case would go before an assessment review board. If the person wanted to appeal beyond that, he would go to an assessment appeal board which would be an arm of the Ontario Municipal Board. That would be the final appeal; there would only be two steps to that appeal process.

On the other hand, if a person wanted to appeal a case which dealt with the question of law and fact, he would go to a county or district court, then the Supreme Court of Ontario and further appeals would be heard by the divisional court.

I have reason to believe this suggestion has a lot of support among the municipalities since it was based on a lot of their recommendations. I also know it has a lot of support from lawyers who deal with assessment cases. They feel something has to be done to expedite the hearing of the cases because it is costing clients a lot of money and it is costing the taxpayers of Ontario a lot of money both in waiting and in legal fees.

Sometimes when people pay too much money on assessment they have to wait several months or maybe even up to two or three years before they get that money back retroactively. As the minister knows, at 15 or 16 per cent or whatever one can get on one's money these days, that is worth a lot of money. Over two years they could overpay one-third of the actual amount. This suggestion would expedite the hearing of cases.

I want to draw to the minister's attention one further thing. It has to do with a question asked in the Legislature back in April when the minister was asked how many assessors were being used in the city of Toronto for these assessment cases. He said, "The question does allude to the 1982-83 estimates process which, of course, we are just getting into. There will be ample time to get into that in great detail."

He said further, "Regarding the responsibilities under the Assessment Act we are asked to carry forward, doubtless one of them is to respond to the request made by municipalities under section 86 of the old act, now section 63 of the Assessment Act."

The questioner asked how many people were used in Toronto. That person suggested there might be up to 200 in Toronto to deal with the reassessment, and they were being brought in from other parts of the province.

The minister said: "As usual, the facts in the possession of the honourable member are in error, but there is nothing new about that. We have no additional assessors in Metropolitan Toronto this week." That was on April 15. "There could be one here for a given reason, but there are no significant numbers here. Next week we will have somewhere in the area of 100 in total in Metropolitan Toronto. There is no doubt about that; that is an ongoing situation. We have done that in every sizeable area where a section 86 impact study has been requested by the duly elected representatives of municipal government. That is a fact that eludes the member."

In this case, it was a member of another party.

The other fact is I do not know that the city of Toronto asked for a section 86 increase. He was mixing apples and oranges because they were doing renovation assessments here and he is referring to section 86.

8:30 p.m.

He says, "As to whether the moneys are well spent, I do not agree with his conclusions as to the numbers, because as usual they are grossly overstated." This person was suggesting 200 people would be used in Toronto for the assessment, and the minister says that number is grossly overstated. "If we can give a service requested by duly elected representatives in municipal government, we are responsible for any reasonable amount of moneys that have to be dedicated for the delivery of the services we are asked to provide under the statutes." I do not understand. The city of Toronto has denied that it asked the minister to conduct all these reassessments, yet he implies here that he was asked to do so.

Let me draw the other part of this to your attention, Mr. Speaker. I put on the Order Paper back in April a question with respect to the number of assessors who were in Toronto for this period. On May 11, the minister responded to my question, giving the total number of property assessors in Ontario as of April 30, 1982, by regional assessment office. I might draw his attention to the fact he does not have a regional office number eight. The list reads one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine and goes on from there. Obviously, one of the regional assessment offices has been missed or he has deemed it not to exist or something of that nature. I am not quite sure. In his answer, there is no eighth regional office, but there is a total of 1,146 assessors in Ontario as of April 30, 1982.

The second question asked about the total number of property assessors seconded to Metropolitan Toronto. We have the number here. The total is 364. When we asked about 200, that was overstated, but there were 364 as of April 30, 1982. Will you tell me, Mr. Speaker, how 364 is less than 200 when 200 is an overstatement? By my mathematics, I cannot quite figure that one out. That is not all. The total is not even 364. It is more than that. In addition, eight managers have been seconded to Metropolitan Toronto, for a total of 372.

The number of resident Metro staff working in Toronto for maintenance purposes was 19 and for reassessment 69; for North York, 15 for maintenance and 34 for reassessment; for Scarborough and East York, 13 for maintenance and 31 for reassessment; and for Etobicoke and York, 13 for maintenance and 31 for reassessment. That is a total of 60 -- like this bill, Bill 60 -- for maintenance and 165 for reassessment. The total Metro staff, then, is 225, which is a considerable number.

Let us look at the expense of bringing these assessors into Toronto for this period. As we know, they brought them in for two weeks, sent them home for one week, brought them back for another two weeks, sent them home for one week, brought them back for two weeks, and so forth, until they got the job done, as I understand it.

Mr. Elston: Almost like a paid holiday in Toronto.

Mr. Epp: Almost a paid holiday.

The projected cost of the Metro-wide tax impact study is not $200, not $2,000, not $200,000, but $2,625,000. That is one quarter of the cost of the jet, and it is a far cry from Suncor with $650 million, but as the minister knows that is only a drop in the bucket. What is $1 million? What is $650 million as far as the government is concerned? What is $10 million for a jet? What is $2,625,000 for reassessment? It is only the taxpayers' money. I say that sarcastically, obviously.

Travel expenses were $330,000; meal allowances were projected to be $320,000; salary bonuses and advances, none; accommodation, $650,000. I guess they will have to pay that tax.

The Deputy Speaker: I guess this is on the bill.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It is not on the bill at all, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Epp: The amount for accommodation is $650,000 but personal calls to assessors' families were part of miscellaneous; and miscellaneous, which includes the personal calls, was not $4,000 but $40,000.

The Deputy Speaker: The member is testing my patience.

Mr. Epp: This is all part of the cost of this assessment bill. We are talking about seconding people to --

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It is not. It has nothing to do with it.

The Deputy Speaker: How about your private member's bill as part of this? Does that work in?

Mr. Epp: Yes, because it has to do with the process. Some time when you have a minute or two I will let you read it, Mr. Speaker. It is an excellent bill.

The average cost of non-Metro Toronto assessors is $350 a week. The breakdown is roughly 25 per cent travel, 25 per cent meals and 50 per cent accommodation.

We would not have to have this bill before us today if the minister had been more amenable to the wishes of 6,000 Toronto property owners. These people wanted the opportunity to appeal their reassessments. They did not know their increases had materialized or that the minister had sent these people to do a lot of windshield inspections, but all of a sudden they found they had to pay additional tax.

If the Minister of Revenue had acted quickly, as he is paid to do on behalf of the citizens of not only Toronto but of all Ontario -- he has taken a solemn oath to protect these people from being ill-treated and to fulfil his duties as Minister of Revenue -- if he had acted quickly and honourably and fairly, these people would have had the opportunity to have their appeals before the courts and we would not require this bill today.

I look forward to hearing from members on both sides of House on this very important bill concerning the 6,000 property owners.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, as I will not be here on Friday when the names of the pages are read into the record of the House, I want to make a relatively happy digression from the sad debate in which we are engaged tonight.

Some may now have noticed the magnificent front-page picture of one of the pages in the Toronto Star on Saturday. His name is Kenneth Ryan and he happens to come from the great riding of Riverdale. I hope all of the pages will recall the incident of the bells ringing. That particular picture may well be symbolic of the memories which they carry from this place.

I want to speak to this bill in a measured way and I trust not in an inflammatory way, although that will be difficult for me. About five weeks ago today, the minister introduced the bill into the House and it was about five months earlier that the iniquity he and his assessors were perpetrating on people in the city of Toronto proper began to surface in the central part of the city.

The extent and degree of the iniquity is very clear, because even with this stubborn minister it took about four months before he beat the retreat which led to this bill. We understand very clearly that it is but a minor retreat, but it is a defeat for the minister. The very fact that he had to introduce this bill indicated very clearly the inequity which has now surfaced with respect to the assessment of real property, not only in the city of Toronto, but across the whole of the province.

8:40 p.m.

The bill speaks to that. Bill 60 has a couple of titles to it, one long one and one short one. Perhaps I can mention those titles a little later on. The point I want to make immediately is that the bill has three pages. Then attached to it is a schedule of some 34 pages of faceless numbers which indicates that the minister is saying to the people who happen to be represented on the assessment roll by those numbers: "I made a mistake. I served you with a notice of assessment on which there was no indication of any kind that it was an increase over the assessment for the previous year."

That in itself is a very significant admission by the minister. It does not particularly matter to me that he went through certain motions with Toronto city council to get its approbation for this minimal step on his part because it has no authority in this matter. This is a matter that the Minister of Revenue must deal with. It is not even one of those other bills related to taxes where he can simply front as the surrogate for the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) and bear no responsibility for it. This minister bears the responsibility for the assessment system in Ontario and in the city of Toronto and he has been found immensely wanting.

On December 14 I asked a question in the House of the minister and there has been no answer to that question. There have been a lot of words, but no answer to the question. Interestingly enough, I said at 3:10 p.m. on December 14, 1981:

"Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is not directed towards someone who is trying to evade the assessors coming around or to someone in an extreme situation. I am talking about Frizzell Avenue in the riding of Riverdale where the people are always home. When the assessor does not even come to the house what authority is the minister using to make an arbitrary assessment of those homes without any contact whatsoever by his ministry with the people concerned, or any justification? What is the specific authority under the Assessment Act that permits this kind of arbitrary action on his part?"

I am sure the minister can read his response into the record. It was a very wordy and a very lengthy response. It indicated quite clearly that he was prepared to dig his heels in, until he realized from the pressures that were brought to bear upon him the immense error which he had made in this connection.

I am going to look forward to the contributions to this debate by the members from the city of Toronto, regardless of party. I am particularly anxious to hear -- and I notice that she is not present this evening -- the member for St. David (Mrs. Scrivener) who was in her day the Minister of Revenue for the government of Ontario. I will be very anxious, with her experience as minister, to hear what she has to say about the reassessments which have taken place in the city of Toronto covering substantially all of that riding of St. David.

I also look forward to the contribution that will be made later on this evening by the member for St. George (Ms. Fish), who is in her place, on this same question. I notice the further west one goes in the city of Toronto the less immediate and direct concern there is, because I am told this particular hit list of the minister ended somewhere around Bathurst Street.

Mr. Ruprecht: That is not true.

Mr. Renwick: It probably is not true. In any event, I have a sense the targets of the ministry were concentrated a great deal in the area I represent, namely about one third of ward 7 in the city of Toronto, and, along with my colleague the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden), substantially all of ward 8. There does appear to be a significant concentration in that area.

The nature of the bill is very clear. It is an admission by the government that it was wrong in the initial instance. It took the government five months to understand that and then it beat a minor retreat. There are very few occasions in the House when I do not try to speak for the constituents I represent, but on this particular occasion I hope to speak as well to those constituents with respect to the trap involved for them if they believe this bill creates some correction to the iniquitous reassessments that have taken place in the city.

I want to make it very clear that among the points the minister made in his statement when he introduced the bill and that he repeated this evening when he opened the debate on second reading, there is not a single word that relates to the assessors making reassessments of each and every one of the homes listed in this schedule, and those he may have overlooked, with a view to reaching what he, in that delicious euphonious term, referred to as "minutes of settlements," so that the matter will not have to go before the assessment review board.

That in itself is an admission by the minister of a very serious defect in the methods of assessment he and his assessors have used. One does not have to be an expert in assessment to understand very clearly that the three qualities an assessor must have are broad experience, good judgement and common sense. I challenge the minister to indicate that the reassessments he made in the area of the city of Toronto I represent were made by assessors who had broad experience, good judgement and common sense.

The minister knows, as I know and as every politician in this assembly knows, that there is a potential minefield with respect to the real property tax in the province. I can well understand that some of his more cautious colleagues were pulling him back from the foolhardy course he was intent on following in the belligerent statements he made in this House to justify what is an iniquitous procedure.

I want to say to the minister that I and all the members from the city of Toronto who were affected by this matter received communications, letters and telephone calls about the concern of the people in our ridings. Although I am quite certain my constituents would not mind, I am certainly not going to put their names and addresses on the record. After all, why would I do that when the assessor is still going to come around and call on them? In any event, I want to read into the record a number of cases, seven in all, in the geographic spread of my riding, that I think illustrate the kinds of concerns that are expressed and the fears people have.

I may say I was fascinated by the statement of the Treasurer when he was asked about the spread of his retail sales tax. His response was a very interesting one. He asked, "Who would ever call any tax fair?" I am not interested in that intellectual game but I am interested in another one, that the people in the area I represent and in the city of Toronto know when an assessment procedure and the taxes based upon it are unfair. That is what is happening in this particular case.

Let me deal with the first situation I have. The assessment was $3,300 and it was raised to $6,070. The taxes last year were $550 and this year they are going to be $1,230 if the mill rate holds.

8:50 p.m.

The renovations made in 1975 consisted of the replacement of the plumbing, the wiring and the heating system. That is common in the area I represent because all the houses are structurally quite sound, but over the years those elements of the utilities have to be replaced. It is a home which is comparable to other homes. The woman who owns the home has been a widow for three years, although she and her husband lived in this home for 14 years. She has an income of about $10,000 a year. She is now being asked to bear an increase in taxes that is in the neighbourhood of $700 a year.

Regardless of the system, what is fair about that kind of reassessment? Some day when this particular fury is over and the minister begins to understand the nature of the assessment system in the city of Toronto and the fine tuning that has gone on over the years to make it work, I could take him and show him what he has done by tampering and tinkering with it in this way. That is the first instance.

I will simply read the second instance, as it speaks for itself. This is a letter which went to the treasurer of the city of Toronto with a copy to myself and my colleagues the aldermen for ward 8.

"Dear Sir:

"We are in receipt of the city of Toronto's realty tax bill for the first half of the current year. Our assessment has been increased from $3,775 in 1980 to $6,900 for the current year. To say the least, we are shocked, perturbed and depressed that such an indiscriminate assessment has been carried out on our property.

"We protest against this increase in the strongest possible way and we request that an immediate review be carried Out on our assessment based on the following facts:

"1. At no time has an assessment officer been inside our property.

"2. We are aware of many properties on our street which are comparable to our house in size and value and yet these houses are paying less than half the taxes we will be paying for the current year.

"3. Our tax bill for the current year will be in excess of $1,400, which means our tax bill from last year, $673, has increased by 110 per cent.

"The present rate of inflation is approximately 12 1/2 per cent. How can the government justify such a tremendous increase? We request that a realistic and fair assessment be carried out on our property."

The next instance I want to bring to the minister's attention was a phone call. I am going to use the familiar terms Mr. X and Mr. Y. Mr. X is my constituent and Mr. Y is a representative of the assessment department.

Mr. X asked Mr. Y of the assessment department for the figures of assessment on the houses in his neighbourhood. Mr. Y asked "Why?" Mr. X said he wanted to talk to his neighbours. Mr. Y said if they appealed their cases, more than likely he, Mr. Y, would revise completely and probably raise the assessments above the figures which were in dispute.

Mr. Y said the assessments would not come through until December 22, 1981, and they would only have until January 12 to appeal. Mr. X thought this was really unfair due to Christmas and the government closing down during most of that period. Mr. X felt that Mr. Y was trying to intimidate him by telling him his assessment probably would rise if he appealed.

The next letter reads:

"Dear Mr. Renwick:

"Enclosed is a copy of a letter written to Mr. Davis regarding assessments in general and our case in particular. We would ask you as our representative in ward 7 to try to find out how assessments are made and to petition the provincial government to do something to rectify the method, if indeed there is a method in existence.

"Along with hundreds of others in neighbouring wards, we think the provincial government should roll back these recent assessments until they can satisfy taxpayers that an equitable system is in operation.

"We would welcome your response to this letter.

"Yours sincerely."

The letter which they wrote to the Premier said:

"Dear Mr. Premier,

"Our house has been reassessed by provincial assessors and as a result our property taxes will be 28 per cent higher this year than they were last year.

"Our objection to this reassessment is based on several factors. In the first place, no assessor has been in our house and no one from the assessor's office has consulted us or contacted us in any way.

"Secondly, our house is probably the smallest on our street without a driveway or garage, with a lot size 21 feet by 56 feet. Yet it is one of the highest assessments on the street.

"There is surely something wrong here. If there is actually a method in operation for the assessment of property taxes, it is obviously lacking in logic and if there is no method, which the results would seem to indicate, then it is grossly unfair and inequitable.

"As taxpayers, we have a right to know how these figures are reached. So far, no one seems willing or able to tell us. We think the provincial government should roll back these reassessments or use an understandable method of doing them.

"We respectfully request an acknowledgement of this letter."

A further illustrative letter -- examples of many which I have received and which I am certain others have received -- is addressed to the regional registrar of the assessment review court with a copy to me and a copy to the minister.

"Dear Sir:

"I am protesting a 53 per cent raise in my assessment for the following reasons:

"1. It is unfair to have an increase arbitrarily set when no assessment has been made of my house. Other houses in my area have remained at the 1981 rate, even though repairs and renovations have been done.

"2. This is a small, 18 foot wide semi-detached two bedroom, one bathroom house with an unfinished basement in an industrial area.

"3. The amount of taxes at time of purchase was $480. With an inflation rate of roughly 10 per cent a year, I felt I could handle the combination of mortgage, interest and taxes by buying in this area.

"4. I am a separated, self-supporting woman and find this raise in assessment, without any precedent or warning, a terrible shock.

"Yours truly."

Here is a sixth instance that I draw to the attention of the minister:

"Dear Mr. Renwick:

"As you are aware, many houses in my neighbourhood have been reassessed. No one likes tax increases, but if equity requires a tax increase in my neighbourhood then I will accept it. However, the 1981 reassessment is not acceptable. I find that it was done unfairly and haphazardly

"You would best serve me and all your constituents by demanding that the Minister of Revenue takes immediate action to correct this intolerable situation."

My last illustrative letter is again a letter addressed to me:

"Attached is a copy of a letter which I have sent to Premier Davis on the subject of residential reassessments. I hope that you will be taking an interest in this situation which is affecting many Toronto property owners unfairly."

The letter which my constituent wrote to the Premier was:

"Dear Mr. Premier:

"I wish to object to the recent reassessments of homes in downtown Toronto which have included my own home at a 45 per cent increase and many of my neighbours' homes.

"These reassessments appear to have been totally arbitrary, inequitable and inconsistent. If we are to have a major reassessment of residential properties, then the reassessments ought to be based on some reasonably equitable system which has been determined by a democratic political process.

"It is my understanding that all recommendations made by Toronto city council in this regard have been completely ignored by the province. Now it seems that people on modest incomes who have kept neighbourhoods liveable by repairing and improving old houses will be driven out by higher taxes, while the well-to-do and developers will benefit by taking over these suddenly trendy areas.

"It appears that the provincial government, with the bureaucratic outlook that destroys everything it touches, is now bent on destroying the downtown neighbourhoods that have made Toronto the envy of many other North American cities.

9 p.m.

"I suggest that any system of reassessment should have some appearance of justice. Perhaps purchase price of a house and cost of major renovations after purchase, rather than present market value, should form the basis of reassessment. Whatever system is proposed and agreed to by the city should be applied to all city residences before any increased taxes are collected. In the meantime, I would like to see the provincial government roll back the reassessments until a fair and logical system of assessment is agreed upon by the city."

In accordance with that specific direct request of my constituents as reflected in that particular series of letters, and I had many more, and I am quite certain other Toronto members had similar letters of many kinds stating again and again the inequity of the situation, I would move my reasoned amendment.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Mr. Renwick moves, seconded by Ms. Bryden, that Bill 60, An Act to provide for the Institution of Complaints for Certain Assessments made in the Year 1981 in the City of Toronto, be not now read a second time but be referred back to the Minister of Revenue with instructions to amend the bill to restore the assessments shown on the assessment roll for the city of Toronto, returned on the 22nd day of December 1981: (a) for each assessment roll number set out in the schedule to the bill; and (b) under any other assessment roll number not set out in the schedule to the bill where the assessed value of the real property covered by the assessment meets the requirements set out in items (a), (b) and (c) of clause 7 of the bill; to the assessment as it was shown on the assessment roll for the city of Toronto on which the 1981 taxes were assessed by the city of Toronto.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier in my remarks, the riding I represent covers substantially all of ward 8 in the city of Toronto. The balance of ward 8 is part of the riding of my colleague the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden). I also have the honour to represent that part of Riverdale represented by about the easterly one third of ward 7.

Let me give some sense of the impact of the figures. I quote from the Ward 8 News of March 25, 1982, which was trying to --

The Acting Speaker: I am having trouble hearing the member who is participating, so would members try to reduce the cross-currents.

Mr. Renwick: I was not having any trouble listening to their conversation and speaking at the same time, Mr. Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: I was.

Mr. Renwick: The Ward 8 News, which is a remarkable newspaper -- I would recommend it to all of the members of the assembly, and I would be glad to make certain that they receive copies of it -- had an article headlined "Residents Lose -- 1,100 Ward 8 Homes Reassessed!" The newspaper had this to say:

"For several years, the province has been trying to convince the municipalities to use actual market value as the basis for property tax assessments. Most have already done so. In Toronto, however, it was felt such a move would change not only individual property taxes but the entire property tax structure so that commercial and industrial properties will pay less and home owners increasingly more. Toronto council has asked for a phase-in period for the program, and Metro council has asked the province to study the impact such a move would have.

"In 1981, however, 6,048 properties in Toronto were reassessed. Astonishingly, 1,108 of these (almost 20 per cent) were carried out in ward 8." It goes on to recite what I am quite certain other members have already drawn to their attention.

The point that is continuously made in this article and in another one to which I will refer in a moment is that these reassessments were haphazardly done, that the increase in value is not in line with the increase in value from renovation and that when the reassessments were done they were done in a sloppy and inconsistent way.

"None of those reassessed are against the idea of market value assessments. They are upset, though, that their properties are the only ones assessed in this way. In ward 8, the average increase in assessed value was 49 per cent."

The Seven News, the newspaper that is published in ward 7, repeated to an extent some of the information that was in Ward 8 News. It went on to talk about the numbers and again referred to ward 7. It stated:

"Here in ward 7 about 2,400 homes have been hit with higher assessments, some of them going up as much as 500 per cent." Their interpretation is simply that "the provincial authorities just sent out their assessors to hit a number of renovated houses without apparently consulting anyone." Suffice it to say that upwards of 1,500 to 2,000 homes have been reassessed by the minister under his hit list in the area that I represent.

Members will notice that in the comments that were made in the Ward 8 News and in the Seven News there was a reference to the concern of the city of Toronto and, indeed, the concern of Metro about what the impact would be if this latter-day device of the Tory government, section 86, were applied in the city of Toronto in an unthinking and arbitrary way.

I do not impute motives to many ministers, but this minister used the device of this hit-and- miss operation in this area of the city of Toronto to bring the city of Toronto to heel, and this is the political element that is involved in it. He was attempting to bring political pressure on the city of Toronto to introduce section 86 and to make the request to him to have section 86 implemented throughout the area.

He was not prepared to listen to the statements that were made by the city council and by the study that was done at the behest of the city council, the final report of the joint committee on property tax reform. That report had some very significant things to say about the way in which this next question of a fair and proper readjustment of the assessment situation in the city should be undertaken. It pointed out, however, a matter that is of immense concern to me, and that is that there is some specious sense that the minister, by giving the statutory right to appeal because the time had run against these assessments by the introduction of this bill, is conferring some right of value on the residents in the area whose homes have been reassessed.

I say as clearly as I can to this House and to my constituents that without being in any sense an expert on the matters related to assessment law, I think it is very clear that if you go near the assessment review board your chances of having your assessment adjusted in a way favourable to you are negligible. It is very clear that subsection 90(1) of the Assessment Act places the burden of justifying that the taxes are unfair squarely, solely and only on the taxpayer.

9:10 p.m.

I want to reiterate in as simple terms as I can that if you go near the assessment review board the assessor does not have to make his case for the change in the assessment; the taxpayer has to make his case as to what is wrong with the change which the assessor has made.

With great respect to my profession, I want to quote that particular clause. I am going to try to leave out the gobbledegook in the section, but subsection 90(1) states this very simply:

"The assessment review court, in determining the value at which any real property shall be assessed in any complaint, shall have reference to the value at which similar real property in the vicinity is assessed, and the amount of any assessment of real property shall not be altered unless the assessment review court is satisfied that the assessment is inequitable with respect to the assessment of similar real property in the vicinity, and in that event the assessment of the real property shall not be altered to any greater extent than is necessary to make the assessment equitable with the assessment of such similar real property."

Here is the latest case I could find reaffirming the principle set out in the Supreme Court of Canada on this next question of the onus which this minister perpetuates against the taxpayer in relation to his assessment. I am sorry to say the latest date I could find was January 15, 1982, when the Divisional Court of the High Court of Justice reaffirmed what the Supreme Court of Canada had said about that section, and said very clearly and distinctly in terms that are unequivocal:

"Under subsection 1 of section 90 the burden of proof is on the taxpayer to establish that the assessment is inequitable with respect to the assessment to similar real property in the vicinity. This principle is applicable to any situation where there is an assessment that is properly made in the sense that it is based on a procedure or method authorized by the Assessment Act."

I may say to anyone who is not a lawyer, and I say to any of the constituents who may happen to read what I have to say about that, it is extremely difficult to walk into any court and prove that one has been improperly assessed when the assessor does not have to open his mouth in that court. The assessor does not have to justify the change.

Someone will say to me, "Where are the factual statistics which indicate that if a residential property owner goes to appeal, he can perhaps get some relief from that tax?" I would refer anyone who is interested to this final report of the Joint Committee on Property Tax Reform on page 9, which sets out table 1. I want to get this as clear as I can.

For the 1975 assessment on which the 1976 taxation was based, the 1976 assessment on which the 1977 taxation was based and the 1977 assessment on which the 1978 taxation was based, the residential property was distinguished from the commercial and industrial property. One can see what happened to the aggregate assessment under the review system.

In 1975, the assessment for 1976 taxation for residential property in the city of Toronto was $1.114 million. The assessments after appeals were taken on the residential property were $1,144,000. The assessment which was gained by the city -- that is, on appeals by the taxpayers -- was $30.51 million. In other words, there was a percentage of total assessment gained of 1.19 per cent.

When one goes through the 1976 assessment for the 1977 year, one has the same situation; in those particular years they were about the same. But in 1977, on which the 1978 taxation was based, again, for the taxpayers who took their cases to appeal, the net effect was that the residential property assessment in Toronto showed an increase of $2,719,000. Of course, those in charge of the statistics got wise after that, and for the year 1978, on which the 1979 taxes were based, and for 1979, on which the 1980 taxes were based, they stopped distinguishing the commercial from the residential; so one cannot find that information.

From the same tables, it is interesting to note that in not one year were the commercial and residential aggregates increased, but in each and every one of those years I have illustrated, they were decreased. That shows very clearly that when my friend the member for Durham West (Mr. Ashe) comes to Toronto, an old community with an assessment system and all its inequities which had been attuned over the years to the needs of that community, and tries to introduce some blanket system, he is disrupting a system and producing immense inequities.

I am sure the city councillors of Toronto tried to tell the minister. The minister refused to listen. The minister does not understand the process that Toronto is anxious carefully and slowly to go through to make the readjustments come about in a fair and proper manner.

Our caucus and the submission we made at the general meeting held on this taxation report indicated our clear support for the position. Indeed, we were anxious in our own quiet way to complement the work that had been done by the city and the city council to try in an orderly, equitable, fair and reasonable way to deal with the vexed question of the readjustment of the total assessment of Toronto, but that is not going to happen now.

The distrust has occurred. They have broken faith with the city. There is no way a person in my riding will welcome an assessor at his door without immense suspicion. The minister will never, so long as he is this minister, restore that trust. I can say to him that people value their homes. People value the protection of their property. People feel and understand that if one tampers with or mucks about with the assessment on a person's home, the net effect to that residential taxpayer will be an increase. The minister has to understand that. As far as I am concerned, he has forfeited any confidence he may wish to have in the area I represent.

I have gone on at some length. I thought for a little while that there was some element of miscalculation or ignorance on the minister's part, or a lack of sensitivity -- any of those qualities -- until I had the privilege of talking to my colleague who is not here this evening and who is far more knowledgeable on assessment matters than the minister and all the other members of the House with perhaps one exception. I guess that he stands equal to, if not ahead of, everyone in the House; I refer to my colleague the member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Charlton).

My colleague, with his experience and knowledge, said to me that the minister was motivated by nothing but a political desire to force the city of Toronto into the mould he wants to make for the whole of the province.

Let us recount a bit of the history. It was the father of the present Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) who was charged with -- I do not think he ever willingly accepted it -- the responsibility of carrying out this so-called market value reassessment. At the end of the 1960s, the Conservative government shied away; we had a five-year freeze and then another five-year freeze. Then this minister or his immediate predecessor, I cannot remember which, introduced section 86. Finally, we heard, "Oh well, there is no problem about assessment adjustment across the province; just use section 86." I do not think that was dropped in by this minister; I think it was by his predecessor.

The hook in that was if they did not request the minister, the minister would punish them. That is what he did in the area I represent. I simply say to him that the inequity of this current system was in putting pressure on the city to accept the section 86 market value equalization.

9:20 p.m.

The system in Toronto was frozen for 12 years. Now he comes along in this so-called update of the system that will shift the totally inordinate increase to the properties updated and will provide for exaggerated situations that will make people very uneasy, set neighbour against neighbour, in order that he can get his Machiavellian and indeed malicious straitjacket imposed upon the city of Toronto.

He knows as well as I do that the houses that have not been touched are assessed with respect to a very old manual. He knows as well as I do that the moment he comes in on this hit-and-miss basis, he moves to some version of market value assessment, distorting the basic fundamental equilibrium throughout the area I represent and other areas in the city of Toronto.

I say to him in all humility that the assessment process of this government, the iceberg of which this was perhaps some minor tip in relation to the rest of the province, indicates that the assessment process in these instances was haphazard, inconsistent, unfair, sloppy, uneven and inequitable in its net effect.

The people in the area I represent have simply lost confidence in the minister. I know the last cabinet shift has taken place. There probably will not be one for a while. I suppose this bill will pass and there will be people who think the government has given them their right of appeal.

I say to the minister, as I began, the retreat he has beaten is a minor retreat. He will not admit that what he has done is wrong, unfair, improper and inequitable, and he will pay a price at the polls throughout the city of Toronto with respect to his party because of this problem.

One of these days the minister will move on to some other portfolio where perhaps he can do less damage. There are such portfolios in the government. He has two courses available to him now, as far as I am concerned: either to adopt the reasoned amendment I have proposed on behalf of our caucus or to resign his portfolio.

Ms. Fish: Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge members in the House to support second reading of this bill. I do so not because I believe this bill deals with some of the very deeply rooted problems with the assessment base in the city of Toronto, but rather because the bill provides for the exercise of a right of appeal that had been available to all the property owners whose homes were reassessed in the city of Toronto, had they chosen to exercise it by the expiry date of appeals on January 12 or thereabouts.

We are aware, partly from this evening's debate, partly from consideration of discussions in the media and partly from contact that has come to some of us whose areas have been involved in the reassessment or who know others as colleagues who have been involved, that the notices came without a suggestion on the notice about the increase or the change from the previous year. They came, as often they do when the rolls are returned towards the close of the year, over the Christmas holidays. Many of the people who were receiving the notices had concerns about understanding the fairly specific, but none the less fairly technical, English that is used in the notice.

What is being proposed in this bill is a response to what has already been agreed was a catch-up reassessment. It differs from the annual reassessments that had been done in the 10 years or so that preceded this reassessment by virtue of its size. Individual residential properties have always been reassessed in the city of Toronto as indeed they have across the province.

It is not the case that only new residential construction was added to the roll. Normally, when the reassessment had been done previously, it had been done on a much more limited scale. As time went by, and most particularly in urban centres like Toronto, with the return of people to the downtown and the rate and the pace of changes, particularly renovation, it was clear that the slower-paced reassessment that would pick up the occasionally renovated property was obviously not responding to the changes that had occurred in the city of Toronto and, I suggest, that have occurred and now are occurring in many municipalities within Metropolitan Toronto and across this province.

It is fair to say that in considering the question of whether there should be what I might describe as a greater effort to catch up reassessment on renovated properties, the minister and the Ministry of Revenue dealt at some length with the requests, discussions and opinions of municipalities and their representatives.

On the matter of reassessment or assessment, as on a number of other items of concern and interest to municipalities in this province, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and its several subcommittees and subgroups make repeated and frequent briefs, representations and deputations to this government, individual ministries and ministers.

One of the areas that has been under discussion for some considerable period of time has been the entire question of property tax reform, the assessment base, part of it being the reassessment question.

It is clear that the matter of a general reassessment effort that would catch up those renovated homes was discussed at one such meeting. It is also clear that a member of the staff of the city of Toronto finance department was in attendance and participated in that meeting. For whatever reason, the fact that one of the results of that discussion, which involved expressions by several municipal representatives that the ministry should step up its program of reassessment, apparently was not conveyed back either to the commissioner of finance in the city of Toronto, to the mayor or to any member of council.

I am not sure whether I should describe that circumstance as a failure to report back; perhaps I should simply say the fact that it did not happen led, among other things, to a situation where the council was not aware of a desire on the part of the ministry to respond to what were clearly requests from the municipal association to deal with reassessments. Those requests did not specifically single out the city of Toronto but looked to a broad, province-wide program of reassessment. What the minister and the ministry engaged in was a broad, province-wide program of reassessment.

The areas of concern that I would speak to and that I think are dealt with in this --

Mr. Cassidy: If you bungle it, you pass the buck. That's what you're doing.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: You should know. You tried to do it first.

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for St. George has the floor. Order.

Mr. Cassidy: Why don't you say you were wrong?

The Acting Speaker: Order. You will have an opportunity to speak if you have not spoken already.

Mr. Cassidy: She's trying to pass the buck.

The Acting Speaker: I am telling you to keep order.

9:30 p.m.

Mr. Cassidy: I am. She is saying things that defy reason.

The Acting Speaker: Then be quiet.

Ms. Fish: Mr. Speaker, I am quite pleased to proceed. Those who care to hear me can do so; if others do not wish to, obviously that is their choice.

I was simply moving to say that the area of impact on the reassessment that particularly concerned me, and that is addressed in this bill, is the impact on the ground in Toronto. It is distinguished from the general experience across this province for a number of reasons.

One of those reasons deals with the historic inequities in the assessment base that have existed in Toronto for better than two generations. The inequities derive from a number of well-intentioned efforts on the part of those who were then responsible for assessment. They were municipal councillors and municipal assessors. They were no more and no less correct in their efforts to provide for a reasonable assessment base in Toronto than anyone else as the responsibilities have shifted through Metropolitan Toronto and then to the province.

With good intentions over time, perhaps because they were not re-examined after a period of time, perhaps because they were not fine-tuned, perhaps because a generation or two later the city had changed, the living patterns of people in the city had changed and neighbourhoods themselves had altered, the council did not step back and examine whether its decisions of a generation past were still appropriate for the property tax base and assessment in the city.

None the less, those inequities that flowed from good intentions were there and are there today. They include things like partially graded exemptions which were given initially to veterans of the Great War who returned to Toronto and were seeking housing. The council of the day quite reasonably sought to provide some assistance to those who were coming back to enable them to own and maintain their own homes. One of the forms was to provide, as the title suggests, a partially graded exemption on assessment.

Partially graded exemption attached to the structure, not to the occupant. As a consequence, when a generation passed, most of those occupants for whom that partially graded exemption was initially designed had moved away or passed on. But the exemption remained with the home, notwithstanding that the home may have changed hands, the neighbourhood may have changed dramatically and the needs of those occupying the housing may no longer have had any particular correlation to the original purpose in providing the exemption.

Equally, there have been a number of studies that have documented rather graphically and clearly the very serious inequities that were instituted and perpetuated between other classes of residential property. I refer to the very serious bias that was built into the assessment system within Toronto against tenants. I think it is worth noting that when rental accommodation was first developed in Toronto in a significant way the rates of assessment against market value were set at approximately 40 per cent.

In those days, very specific and clear policy was established that set the assessment on ownership accommodation varying between approximately 12 per cent of market value to a high of 25 per cent, which has rarely been seen again.

The assessment system and base was brought in informally, in spite of very clear legislation indicating that all property should be assessed at market value. None the less, it was brought in by the council of the day, presumably in an effort to respond to its citizens' perceptions of the needs and demands with which the city of Toronto was confronted at that time. Fortunately, the question of the ratio that is carried between owners in the city of Toronto and those who are in rental accommodation has, like the partially graded exemption, not been reviewed by the council, not been reconsidered, not been re-examined.

I note that, notwithstanding the report my colleague the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) referred to a few minutes ago, and notwithstanding the very dire shortage of rental accommodation in the city of Toronto and the real concern that has been expressed in many quarters, including the council itself, at the cost of rental accommodation that is currently being provided, one of those costs is, of course, property tax. Finally, I note that the city of Toronto council was involved in supporting applications a few short years ago by private, nonprofit co-operatives in the city that had previously been assessed at the higher ratio that private rental accommodation was assessed at.

The request and the subsequent adjustment in the schedules provided that co-operatives would be assessed as single-family homes. That provided a real benefit to members of the co-operatives and those living in co-operative housing. I do not argue against that, but I note that, at the same time, the city of Toronto was building nonprofit rental accommodation. Because of the policies respecting rental, the city was quite reasonably being assessed in its nonprofit rental program at the higher rates that the city itself had established some two generations ago on rental accommodation.

It is interesting to note that the city had the matter of its assessment at that higher rate in rental under appeal. It is equally interesting to note that this mayor and this council sat on a report for more than a year. They recommended additional filings and advancement on that appeal that would enable further consideration that would conceivably have moved us closer to a circumstance where, with the active support of the city council in discussions with the province, the city of Toronto nonprofit rental accommodation and the tenants who live therein might reasonably be assessed at the same rates as the nonprofit co-operatives and the tenants who live therein.

It is also interesting to note that no decision has yet been taken on that matter. The city has not spoken on the question of whether it intends to bring in some reasonable equity between the renters and owners across the city. I go over some of that history, not to suggest that this bill is a panacea that will deal with it. It will not. Nor do I go over it to suggest that a simple waving of the wand, a simple bringing-in, for example, of market value assessment across the board, will answer the problems.

Clearly, it will not. It will not, because the extent to which the historical inequities have been stratified, if I can phrase it that way, or have hardened, has created a circumstance where a general bringing-in of market value reassessment or any other such perfectly constant approach in ratio of assessment to market value across the board will very clearly result in some very sharp and very severe dislocations. There will be some who will have their assessments, and consequently their taxes, reduced and there will be others who will have their assessments, and consequently their taxes, increased.

Within the residential categories, the greatest likelihood is that if a constancy of ratio between assessed value and market value is brought in, the people who are likely to benefit most are those in rental accommodation. That is to say the assessments are most likely to be maintained evenly or reduced. Those in ownership are most likely to have them increased. Those problems are problems for the long term. They did not develop in the city of Toronto over the life of only one or two councils; they developed over the life of more than two generations of councils at the city of Toronto level.

9:40 p.m.

The matter of considering whether changes should be made to the assessment system, the assessment base, has been raised repeatedly and almost annually in the city of Toronto throughout that entire two-generation period. It is only in the very recent years that the city has sat up and taken note of the inequities in its system and of the fact that at this point, notwithstanding the good intentions of the past, the system and the base that are there are in themselves creating problems for many of the residents. They are themselves, in this time of concern about very low vacancy rates in rental accommodation and the high cost of it, creating an additional burden on tenants; they themselves have built inequities into neighbourhoods, where some have been assessed at something like two per cent assessment to market value and others have been assessed higher at five, six, seven or eight. It seems to me I recall seeing a set of statistics about two years ago which suggested that some neighbourhoods were at 12 per cent.

Very clearly, those differences that had been built into the neighbourhoods even within a single class, even for houses that for all intents and purposes appear identical -- they are single family, they are not tenanted; they are detached, semis or rows -- those differences that occur between neighbourhoods did not happen overnight.

Particularly in this economic climate of inflation rates -- the problems with mortgage renewals, which are a burden for home owners as well as for tenants because of refinancing for landlords; the circumstance of the very great shortage of rental accommodation that we know in the city; the downturn in the construction industry on new homes, which we hope will receive a spur by virtue of some recent government action, but none the less this has been stagnant for the last year and a half -- these times make it even more important for us to consider with very real care the changes that might be made as we come into the future to build the equity into the assessment system in the city of Toronto that the council, for very good reasons of the day, chose not to have.

It seems to me that part of this process will be dealing with the report that was referred to earlier, which the council has recently issued and circulated for discussion. That report is no more a panacea than the other programs that have been suggested. It is not, because among other things it calls for a mechanism to soften the impact of the phased-in market value by having Toronto, and the residents of Toronto, reach out to the residents of the rest of Ontario and ask them to contribute through the provincial tax base to cushion the impact of the changes in assessment within the city of Toronto.

I am not certain about the appropriateness of softening the impact in this way. Clearly, a system and a mechanism must be found to improve the assessment base in the city; equally clearly, attention must be given to the degree of dislocation that will occur when any such system comes forward, because obviously with the kind of entrenchment of inequities that has occurred now in the city of Toronto, the changes will be painful in some areas. I do not think the answer is for the wealthiest city in this province to look to the residents of other municipalities to offset and cushion a change from an assessment system which the council of that wealthiest of all cities in Ontario brought forward in the first instance.

This bill provides for the appeals to carry forward on those 6,000-odd homes in the city of Toronto that were reassessed as part of the province-wide effort to catch up on renovations throughout Ontario. I realize that it singles out the city of Toronto, and some may question why, as has been suggested, the city of Toronto should receive special treatment.

I would simply reply by saying the scale of change in the city of Toronto has been much greater than it has been, in general, in other municipalities, for the very good and sufficient reason that other municipalities across this province did not follow the lead that the city of Toronto created two generations ago, and through which was succeeding, in ensuing actions on its part, in bringing in the kinds of differentials that existed in its assessment system and which were most likely to be highlighted and, indeed, were highlighted, with the changes that were brought forward under the reassessment program for 1981.

I hope, as we look at this bill, that we will consider it as an opportunity to appeal on the individual properties, an opportunity which is being made specifically available to the people who were reassessed in the city of Toronto because of the numbers, the timing and the concern. It is an appeal procedure that has been available and has been taken advantage of by all of the other home owners in the city of Toronto who have been reassessed over the last decade and earlier for renovations on their homes, and who felt aggrieved with that reassessment.

The reassessment that has occurred this year differs predominantly in scale. Following a course that would provide for appeals to be aired, strikes me as a reasonable mechanism and approach, but it does not and it should not deflect us from dealing in the longer term with the problem of an improvement to, as a correcting of, a malformed assessment based in the city of Toronto, because malformed it is. That work will take us a long time.

The impact study which is under way and which has been already been referred to in this debate will provide some of the information that will be helpful. The dialogue and discussion around the city of Toronto council's white paper dealing with property tax reforms, provide some other opportunity for discussion. The decisions the council will take with respect to its nonprofit housing, by way of example, will be other opportunities not merely for discussion, but to give us all an insight into the direction that the council wishes to take, at this point in the course of its review, on the assessment base.

I hope we will all join together in some reasonably co-operative way to assist in that review because it will not be a short review. It will not be easy to find solutions that are equitable in the city of Toronto and also for a municipality that rests within this great province, with sister municipalities right across its breadth.

Mr. Ruprecht: Mr. Speaker, the minister has been called stubborn, insensitive, irresponsible and unreasonable. I will not call him any of these names because I think that in this instance he has taken one small step in the right direction. But he does not go far enough.

The question should be asked, how many of these appeals that the minister is now permitting to take place will be successful? Is it not true, as the member for Riverdale said, that the onus is on the appellant? That means the suspicion is probably correct that the inspectors who are redirecting their efforts to check out these reassessments will now simply go back into these homes, or go into them for the first time, and try to justify their first assessment.

9:50 p.m.

Let me throw some light on the question that was raised earlier by the member for Riverdale. He said the assessments were done on a very spotty basis. I have some very interesting information here, and I will share it with the member. When we look at the areas of Toronto, especially in the west end, we find a very strange occurrence taking place, and I think this is very serious. How is it that in this article written by Alderman Bill Boytchuk, whom I am sure most of the members, including --

Mr. Kolyn: I know who he is.

Mr. Ruprecht: Yes, you know who he is; most of the people across the aisle are very familiar with him. This man says that in ward 1, which is mainly represented by our friend the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Shymko), "Property reassessment passes over ward 1."

If this document is not in itself indicating the very irresponsibility and the very inequity of how this assessment was done, then I do not know what further proof we need. A fellow Conservative simply says: "You have left my area out. Why have you left my area out of the new reassessment?" I want to know why the minister has centred on certain sections of the city of Toronto, including the area of Parkdale, and has left other areas out totally.

Interjections.

Mr. Ruprecht: He certainly has. I will tell the minister how he can find out. He can simply ask the city of Toronto. They will produce for him the labels, ward by ward, which will indicate beyond a shadow of a doubt which ones were overassessed and which ones were simply passed by.

This article -- and I address this to the minister -- really speaks for itself. The answer here is, "Yes, we have been overlooked," and this indicates that these assessments were not done equitably. I simply pass this on as an item of information because it is certainly questionable why certain sections of Toronto were picked out and others were simply overlooked. I will not begin to doubt and question why some of the houses of the people on the other side have been overlooked.

I do not even want to get into that, but I do want to indicate to this House what the city of Toronto's position is and why I think this bill, although it is one small step in the right direction, does not go far enough. I want to indicate what my feelings are and what should have been done in this specific instance.

In its consideration of the property tax reassessment the city of Toronto adopted the following resolution on January 28, 1982:

"Whereas over 9,000 Toronto property owners have been subjected to sharp and unexpected increases in property tax assessment for the 1982 tax year, whereas the increase has resulted from a policy decision of the Ontario Ministry of Revenue which was not debated at Queen's Park, whereas the assessment process was carried out in a manner which resulted in numerous inequities across the city and whereas the city has been working diligently on a comprehensive and equitable method of property tax reform with the knowledge and involvement of provincial staff, therefore be it resolved that city council again request the Minister of Revenue to rescind the assessment increases for the 1982 tax year resulting from renovations."

That is precisely the kind of stand that should have come out of the minister's office but has not. This is the crux, and this would have addressed itself to the injustices that have been committed under this new system. I want to outline where we think some of these injustices have taken place.

Is it true that some residents were subjected to sharp increases? Of course it is. We have proof that some residential properties have increased their tax base over 300 per cent.

If that had taken place with the minister's house, what would he have done in that specific case? Can he afford to live in a property that is suddenly subjected to triple the amount asked last year? Could he in good conscience produce an assessment system that indeed kicks people out?

The question should be asked, why is it that government is wreaking economic chaos -- I repeat myself -- wreaking economic chaos throughout the province? This is only one way this is being accomplished.

We can look at the Treasurer and his budget. Why is he grabbing after taxes? He is grabbing after taxes left, right and centre. Now, as though it is not necessary to understand why there have been bankruptcies after bankruptcies in this community of ours, we have a Treasurer who says he wants to continue with these increases and we have a Minister of Revenue who is continually going after those properties and after those people in the city, south of Bloor Street specifically, who can least afford it.

It is clear what has happened because this government, it seems to me, is after the poor to get them into deeper trouble and to throw even more people out of work.

Why should we in this House subject ourselves to a system that is not only inequitable but is really unjust? Why? Is the minister also adding his two cents worth in throwing the economic system of Ontario into total chaos? Why is the minister doing that? Does he have an answer? What has he come up with? He simply says to us, "We are going to give those people the right to appeal because they simply did not understand their tax notices."

Giving them the right to appeal, as I said earlier, may be one step but it is not an equitable and just step. It can never be a just step. Why? Because the system in itself is stacked against the appellant.

I would like to see the figures as to how many of those people will be successful after these appeals have been heard. Only then will I stand here and say: "Congratulations. The minister has been reasonable because those people have not only had the right to appeal, but some of them have been successful in their appeals."

We ask the minister today to let us see those figures later because I for one do not believe this process is right and just. What should have taken place, and what would have been the common-sense position, is very simple. These tax increases on a renovation basis should simply have been withdrawn and that would have been the most common-sense approach to this situation. I think most people would agree.

Why do I say this? When the city of Toronto sends out its tax notices, what does it do? It advertises in the ethnic press. In fact, every tax notice will include in different languages what the tax situation is so people can understand it. That is the reality of it.

We ask the minister today if he has even contemplated the complex nature of this tax base. Has he even contemplated the very complex nature of the fabric of the ethnic communities in the city of Toronto? Has he even contemplated that over 60 per cent of those who inhabit those properties do not speak the language to a point where they can understand everything that is being dished out to them? Has he tried to comprehend that the citizens of Toronto, especially those south of Bloor Street, will not be able to understand totally what his new policies are?

The minister has not done the right thing, although I give him credit in that he has listened to some pressure and perhaps he has listened to some of his caucus members in giving in with one small, minor concession.

10 p.m.

Have these increases been unexpected? They sure have. Suddenly, without announcements, without notices that properties would increase, bang, there is a slap, a knock on the door, and a few weeks later that slap translates into a new tax notice with the real slap on taxes. That is really a pernicious system the minister has introduced.

The minister has slapped the people of Toronto in their faces twice. He has slapped them in their faces. Why? Because he has failed to produce adequate notice, which is a must in a democratic system. He has failed to do that. That is why it is very important that we try to produce some of the changes that are necessary for the people to understand what we are trying to do.

What is very essential is the reasonable thing the minister should have done -- to simply sit down with the city of Toronto, not getting into a confrontationist attitude in which he would say: "No, I am not going to listen to you for one minute. You can talk sense to me. You can talk nonsense to me, but do not ask me to sit down with you and work out an equitable solution."

The papers are full of reports that the minister has not tried to sit down and work out some solution with the city of Toronto that would have been equitable. I think he should have done that. Further, he should have had a phase-in program so that people would not be thrown out of their homes.

Has the minister thought of what the impact would be on some people on fixed incomes when he slaps on them 300 and even in some instances 350 per cent increases in taxes? What is the impact of that? If the Speaker cannot afford it with his salary, if I cannot afford it with my salary, what are we going to say to the people who are unemployed, who do not have jobs, who are on fixed incomes, and that certainly includes a lot of people south of Bloor Street? What are we going to say to them when they call our offices and say --

Mr. Shymko: What about north of Bloor Street?

Mr. Ruprecht: Do not aggravate me. That member's ward has been passed over. I do not know why it has been passed over, but his friend Bill Boytchuk says it has. He wants to know why.

Mr. Speaker: And now back to the bill.

Mr. Ruprecht: To make a long story short, what should have been done -- it would have been the most reasonable position -- was to sit down with the city of Toronto and say, "Not only am I going to produce some information dates that are well advertised, we are going to phase in the increases." Phasing in increases over a period of five years would have been right and would have been equitable.

What is wrong with phasing in increases? Why go in and punch people in the face, why be aggressive and unreasonable? Why is it? Is it that bad that we have to pay for Suncor in half a year? Is that what we are trying to do? Is the real reason that we finally have to sit down and come to grips with the fact that we have to pay for the Premier's jet, is that why suddenly we are squeezing the people? We are squeezing the people. That member does not believe we are squeezing the people. He has not been south of Bloor Street.

Mr. Brandt: Oh yes I have.

Mr. Ruprecht: He certainly has not. He can walk three blocks over here and he will find out how the government is squeezing the people. In fact, they are squeezing to the point where we are paying taxes now on personal hygiene items. We want to keep people and Toronto clean and what is happening? The exact opposite. Anyone who does renovations is now being penalized, penalized by someone who is unfair and unjust and does not understand the system that has evolved over the last 50 years.

Interjections

Mr. Speaker: Now back to the bill, please.

Mr. Ruprecht: I am back to the bill. I can speak to the bill because the comments I hear across this House come from some very comfortable faces, the faces of people who are taxing our Ontario population to death. That is where those remarks are coming from and I would be ashamed to sit there in the back row and talk like that because those people have no idea how this bill and these tax increases are affecting the citizens of Toronto. They have no idea how these tax increases --

Mr. Gillies: I wish we could tax people like the Liberals do. Let's have some justice. Let's do it like the Liberals do it.

Mr. Eakins: Shop Canadian. Sell that Mazda, Phil.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Back to the bill.

An hon. member: He was right on it.

Mr. Speaker: No, he was not.

Mr. Ruprecht: My last point was, what should have taken place here was a phased-in program over a period --

Interjection.

Mr. Ruprecht: Did I do that? Did I really do that to him? I do not think I did that. I simply asked why his friend Mr. Boytchuk asked why it was passed over --

Mr. Speaker: This is not oral questions.

Mr. Ruprecht: It was part and parcel of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Let us concentrate on the bill, please.

Mr. Ruprecht: If he wants to answer, if he wants to make a comment on that, I would be very happy to find out why the minister has overlooked his area. I would like to find out.

Mr. Shymko: He is quite happy.

Mr. Ruprecht: He is happy because his whole area was overlooked and the member is representing that area. Our area has not been overlooked. In fact, the whole theme, the whole tone of these increases has been one of punishment. What comes out of there is: "Punish the citizens of Toronto, especially the poor. Punish them more. Increase the taxes. Increase the properties."

Mr. Gillies: He is getting carried away again.

Mr. Ruprecht: No, I am not getting carried away, but when I hear comments coming out of very comfortable faces, and out of areas where there is no understanding of what really takes place with working people, women and men in this city, I get very aggravated.

What should have taken place is a phasing-in program over a period of five years. I think that is where I stopped. Is that not correct? We would have done that. We would have given people a chance. The member for Durham West (Mr. Ashe) will understand that I really mean this. We would have phased in these sometimes triple and quadruple increases. People would have been able to have a chance to maintain their homes. I am sure I am speaking from a position of authority. I will tell the members why. I had a meeting with over 400 people about the tax assessment on renovations. Four hundred people came to the meeting.

The assessment commissioner for this region was present and his name is Thompson. The minister knows him well. He was there. The minister can ask him. He can find out the facts. He can testify to the truth of what I am saying here.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Not likely.

Mr. Ruprecht: The minister can ask him tomorrow. In fact, he can ask him today. He is sitting right there, if that is the case. He can answer. We had 400 people there. We had the mayor there. We had some lawyers from the city and the minister should have heard the people.

An hon. member: Was Yuri there?

Mr. Ruprecht: No, he was not there. He should have heard the people. They were upset.

To be quite straightforward, what would have been wrong with phasing in these increases? Why did the minister do that? Can he give me a reason? Why bang people like that and throw them out of their houses? That is the impact. He wants to bring in market value assessments by the back door. Do an impact study on what is happening to these people who have received these increases. A lot of them cannot afford it.

We can go over case after case. I do not want to take another hour or two or talk into the next day because I want to try to wrap up soon, but it is true that there is case after case of people in terrible conditions because they have been taxed and overtaxed.

I do not mind saying that when we put it all together we can see there is some kind of theme running through here of "Let's tax the people." I cannot figure out why the government wants to tax them so badly. What is going on over there to create such great chaos and confusion in our whole system here? I still cannot figure it out. Maybe I will be able to do that a year from now in retrospect and see what is really going on.

10:10 p.m.

To continue: Has this new policy been discussed at Queen's Park? It has not been discussed. There was a unilateral decision. The city of Toronto was simply pushed into the situation without discussion. I think that is not the case. I am not imputing different motives to the minister, but the real reason he could have given in might have been that these property tax hikes are not really legal. I would like to address myself in the next few minutes to the question of whether these increases are really legal. These are my facts, Mr. Speaker.

First, subsection 63(1) of the Assessment Act requires the assessor to alter the assessment "to the extent necessary to make the assessment equitable" compared to other properties in the vicinity. When we look at the concentrations of where these assessments took place, can we really say these assessments have been done equitably? I think the case is made very clearly and very graphically that the assessments have not been done on an equitable basis. That is what the act says must be done. Consequently, the minister's action was clearly discriminatory.

Second, subsection 63(2) of the act requires reassessment with a value of an improvement of at least 52,500. We know that Mayor Eggleton's office is aware of cases where the minister imposed higher assessments and the improvement was less than $2,500. That is a second point where the illegality might be proven.

Third, in law it is forbidden to do indirectly what is prohibited from being done directly. Subsection 63(3) of the act permits the minister to institute market value assessment at the request of the municipal council. Toronto city council has not requested market value assessment, The minister's campaign is aimed at forcing the city to opt for market value assessment now. His staff based the new assessment on market value. The minister is trying to do indirectly what he cannot do directly. That again opens up the whole question of the legality of these procedures.

Fourth, the actual assessments were done sloppily. I quote my friend the member for Waterloo North, who indicated earlier how sloppily these assessments have been done. He talked about windshield assessments. Is it not right, when we ask the minister what windshield assessments are, that he might tell us that some of them have taken place when the inspector in his car drove through the neighbourhood, looked left, right, backwards and up, and decided that somehow the houses were simply renovated when there was not even a building permit in these houses? That is how some of the assessments were done.

I talked earlier about a knock on the door and a slap on the face. There was, in many instances, no such knock on the door but only a slap in the face. What has happened here, as the minister will agree, is that some of these assessments have been done in a very slipshod, sloppy way. I have never used this word in this Legislature, but it seems to me pretty asinine to carry out assessments on that kind of basis. If the member checks the word "asinine" he will find that it simply means "not right," so I am okay to use that word here.

But you yourself would admit, Mr. Speaker, that when a person has a car, drives through a neighbourhood, looks out the window and makes an assessment on that basis, this kind of assessment certainly can never be correct. Now what is happening? We are simply asking people to go back in and redo the inspection. I will make the prophecy that for very strange reasons we will find that the windshield assessments will be exactly the assessments that will be done on reinspection.

Mr. Mancini: Curbside assessment.

Mr. Ruprecht: You and I both know what that means, Mr. Speaker, and we had better keep that a secret.

Interjections.

Mr. Ruprecht: Mr. Speaker, let me caution you that that was not an obscene gesture; it was simply our mutual understanding of trying to get push-button telephones in this place. I am not sure whether you saw it, because otherwise you might have asked the honourable member to stand up and apologize. But only he and I know what we are talking about.

Mr. Speaker: I was watching you.

Mr. Ruprecht: I was talking about my colleague the member for Waterloo North telling us about windshield assessments, and that is what I was saying.

It is clearly possible that a court would find that the minister and his staff have failed to carry out properly their responsibilities under the act. In this case the court could void the assessments. These are some of the legal arguments, and I think that if we asked lawyers who are very knowledgeable in this field they might even indicate to the minister that the new assessments really have been illegal.

The next point would be simply to try to determine whether these assessments had been done justly and fairly or whether they were done on an inequitable basis across the city. I think I have mentioned that already; I do not need to address myself to that. Basically, I want to indicate here that we know it has been done on a very uneven basis and that I know, to be reasonable with the minister, that he will agree it has been done unevenly, because the facts speak for themselves.

We understand that 372 inspectors have been coming in from outside the Toronto area to do the assessments here. This in itself would indicate to me that these assessments have been done very unevenly and that whole sections of the city have been left out for whatever reason. We do not know; the reason might be known only to the minister himself.

I will not even address myself to the cost of this, because my colleague has already done so, but it is quite considerable. In fact, the statement perhaps could be made that the cost of bringing in 372 assessors from outside might equal the cost of increased assessments. I do not know that at this point; but I do know one thing for sure, and that is that the increased cost of bringing in 372 people to do assessments and consequently fall behind in their own areas back home must be very high.

I produced a letter previously indicating that every person who comes in from outside Toronto, every person who helps in the reassessments, gets at a minimum a relocation allowance of $1,000. That is only the relocation allowance and, according to my calculation, that would put the minimum of the relocation allowance alone, without paying anybody wages, at more than $250,000. Is it worth that $250,000 plus? It might be more; it might be as much as $374,000, because there are additional costs that have not even been added here but that could be made on a reasonable basis. We might even argue that the total cost to do these reassessments could be more than $300,000 and even $400,000. I think members would agree with me that this cost sounds pretty prohibitive to us today.

10:20

The other question raised by the city of Toronto was, "Is it not true that the city had been working diligently on a comprehensive and equitable method of property tax reform with the knowledge and involvement of the provincial staff?"

Is it true that the province knew the city of Toronto had been working on a new system of market value assessments? I say that is true; I happen to know that at first hand. That committee was established in 1979; the city had been working on it previously, but it was a formal committee established by city council in 1979. The question remained, why did the minister push the city which had been trying in good faith to work out --

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Dawdling along.

Mr. Ruprecht: The minister has just answered the question. That really speaks for itself. He just said, "Dawdling along." Does he want to make people suffer, to punish the citizens of this great city, because, in his view, they have been "dawdling along"?

Surely that cannot be the reason the minister has produced such mean-spirited taxation of our people. I give him credit that he is at least honest; so it seems to me his major justification for increasing these taxes is that they have been "dawdling along."

The members and I know that from 1979 until now, the city has produced resolutions and recommendations. They were in the midst of the process, in 1982, of coming to some type of agreement. But then comes an arrow shot out of the dark without any warning.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: That's poetic.

Mr. Ruprecht: That is right. It is poetic justice that the minister shall reap the reward of this kind of action. It will be more than poetic justice when he finds out what a shot in the dark is all about, when he hears the people out there screaming.

I have met not only with 400 residents in the Parkdale area but also with the presidents of some of the associations who came to this very building because they were upset. They also indicated to me that while they had requested a meeting with the minister, he would not meet with them.

They came to our office and spoke out in very loud and clear terms. Some of our members on this side of the House were present when that took place. It took place in this very institution.

At this meeting we had people speak for the Swansea Area Ratepayers' Association, because they were concerned along with the rest of Toronto. We had people here from SARA, an organization concerned about taxes. The ward 2 ratepayers' association came and spoke, as did TRAP, Tax Reform Action for the People, which is an organization that was established because people felt the minister had trapped them into an increase of taxation.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Did you say "T" or "C"?

Mr. Ruprecht: TRAP; the minister knows them and they know him. They have retained a lawyer to fight these unjust and inequitable increases. TRAP came and spoke to us. They wanted to speak to the minister. The minister knows that.

The Winchester Park Residents' Association came from across the city to address themselves to this point. The High Park Home Owners' Association came even though, as I told the minister earlier, they were not affected that much. So did the Parkdale Business Association and a lot of other associations because they were very upset with what they termed a very inequitable system. They came and they spoke.

The problem is that the city of Toronto had introduced recommendations to the city council and those recommendations were not deemed to be fair by this minister. That is why he has introduced a different system to tax people even more.

I want to raise one final point. I know the minister will not like this, but I will bring it up anyway. We want to know today in this very chamber, at this very hour, whether the minister will in good faith rescind his specific order to his inspectors to increase and produce what are called "supplementary notices." That is the epitome of perniciousness.

Does this House realize what supplementary notices are? I will tell members what they are. If an assessor decides that more than $2,500 worth of improvements have been done to a house since it was last assessed, the ministry will issue a supplementary assessment notice to raise the assessment used to calculate this year's taxes. If the tax bill has already been sent out, the city is compelled by provincial law to issue a new 1982 tax bill for the increase the inspector indicates. That is what I call pernicious.

Not only are the people going to be taxed, but also we find at a later time that all those inspectors are coming in from all over the province, from as far away as Thunder Bay and Rainy River. When they come down here, what will they find? They will try to justify the very system that this minister has instituted, and that system is unfair and unjust.

We know the justification used to bring all these people down here. The minister would not want to pay them because they are on holiday. I want to say what the truth is. The truth is that this minister wants to justify what he has so perniciously done in the city of Toronto. He wants to justify what he has produced here that cannot be justified, and he is using the mechanism and the apparatus of this great province and of all those people who have given their faith, the bureaucrats, to this government. He is using all those people to justify a political decision that is unfair and not right.

Here we have a situation where we can use our bureaucratic machinery to justify a political decision. I think that is not the way it ought to be in this Legislature and, above all, that is not the way it ought to be, I say to the minister, in 1982 in a democratic, freely elected system.

We want to know whether the minister intends to rescind the order to supply supplementary notices. Will he do it? I am looking into his eyes at this point. Will he do it? Will he say to this House that he will rescind that order to produce supplementary notices to increase taxes even more to the citizens of this city? Will he rescind the order to produce supplementary notices? What is his answer?

Let me assure members that simply to ask "What is the answer?" does not produce the correct answer to this question.

If I can finish, I think what has been instituted here is really the production of a wonderful, intricate smokescreen by this resolution, which we will have to support because it is one minor step in the right direction. But -- I want to be absolutely clear -- it is a smokescreen to shut up a lot of people who want to speak out against the injustices committed here.

Mr. Speaker, let me finally indicate to you, personally, that it is the tone set by the way in which this whole new system was brought into effect that I would want to tell you, that I would want to put in quotes and write across the wall so that every resident in this great city understands what has been done: It is, "Let's punish the people of Toronto." And we do not agree with that.

On motion by Ms. Bryden, the debate was adjourned.

The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.