CITY OF TORONTO 1981 ASSESSMENTS COMPLAINTS ACT (CONCLUDED)

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

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The House resumed at 8 p.m.

CITY OF TORONTO 1981 ASSESSMENTS COMPLAINTS ACT (CONCLUDED)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the motion for 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.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, while the members of the New Democratic Party are beating a hasty retreat out the door, I thought my good friend and colleague the member for Downsview (Mr. Di Santo) had the floor, but perhaps he is not available at the moment.

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak briefly about the bill. I have had other responsibilities that have kept me from attending the sessions during most of the debate, but I know my colleagues have put forward some constructive concepts and ideas. However, they may not have discussed the bill on quite the basis I have in mind. To be frank, I guess I am speaking as an individual in this context and not particularly on behalf of my party.

I look at the bill and see the pages and pages of all these great, significant municipal numbers at the back. They always throw me for a loop when I look at my assessment and the tax bills back home. I wonder what genius ever programmed the computer to put four zeros at the end of every blooming thing. The whole bill is just another tombstone in the cemetery of assessment chaos the minister and his colleagues have been responsible for in the last decade and more.

I always spoke rather highly of former Treasurer Darcy McKeough when I spoke about his work in this House both as a private member and as Treasurer, but if there is one thing he really made a mess of it was the assessment policy of the government. He decided that the local municipalities, regions and counties were not up to the responsibility of assessing the properties and that this should be centralized under some minister in Toronto. That was, in my view, one of the worst decisions taken by this government in the last decade; and there has been quite a list of bad decisions.

One of the things that brought this most strenuously to my attention was the mayor of Toronto coming with a group of his councillors to Queen's Park, hoping against hope to be able to speak to the Minister of Revenue himself, the Honourable George Ashe, who was sitting behind a bunch of potted palms in a luxurious office somewhere around one of these buildings, I do not know where, being a busy man. Of course, he found a few minutes for Mayor Eggleton.

It seems preposterous that some worthy gentleman from Whitby or somewhere should come here as Minister of Revenue and tell the people of Toronto how they should assess their properties and how they should evaluate the basis of an entirely municipal tax. No doubt when it comes to assessment procedures in Whitby or South Dumfries or anywhere else, the minister would know as much about it as most other people. But for our statutes to establish the font of all wisdom on assessment here at Queen's Park seems to me to be completely unacceptable.

After all, we realize that assessment, as far as we are concerned, is used only for the establishment of certain specialized equalization grants, probably designed to save the minister and his colleagues a little extra work, or even to save them from using a little special personal judgement on how equalization grants and allocations should be established. Instead, they have removed this responsibility entirely from the municipalities.

My own feeling -- I cannot persuade many of my colleagues to support me on this, although I have put it forward many times -- is that it surely would be a wise move if the minister, unlike all of his predecessors who tried to come to grips with this, would simply say, "The best thing is to give it back to the municipalities."

I come from a small municipality with a population of about 7,000. I am not at all sure it even wants the responsibility of local assessment. But the county of Brant, through an assessment commissioner, used to do a very good job of assessing locally. A commissioner basis could be used either in Metropolitan Toronto or in the various cities making up the Metro area. In that way if some of the citizens felt their assessments were incorrect, or if they objected to assessors driving by in a government car and assessing at 30 miles an hour, which is probably --

Interjection

Mr. Nixon: Pardon me, the minister is correcting me. I think he said "60 kilometres."

All they would have to do is go down to city hall, where the directly elected members of council and others are close by, and demand the kind of adjustments that democracy should be able to fulfill.

How can they approach the Honourable George Ashe, an enigmatic presence from Whitby, who comes in with his limousine and driver, and crawls in behind the potted palms in his luxurious office? How can they possibly deal with that in any kind of democratic way?

Mayor Eggleton goes through the motions; he comes up and pounds the table a little bit and goes home and asks: "What can I do? There is nothing I can do. This is out of my hands." I really feel that a situation of this sort, involving this special legislation, would be entirely redundant if the responsibility for assessment were returned to the municipalities.

I feel very strongly that if the minister ever thinks he is going to be Treasurer before this government finally fades out just from boredom and lack of initiative, if in the few months remaining he thinks he is going to be Treasurer, he is going to have to take some stands that are going to be seen by his government colleagues to be useful and not just time-serving.

I have said to him personally, as I have said to two or three of his predecessors in this strange ministry, which is always filled either by somebody upwardly mobile or downwardly mobile -- I do not know what he is; I know what I am -- that if he really wants to get to be Treasurer, he should do something useful about assessment. It is one of the worst problems we face across the province, and it is the Minister of Revenue's problem. Why does he not solve it? Why does he not recommend to his colleagues that they might as well recognize they made a disastrous mistake 10 or 11 years ago, or even longer, and return it to the municipalities, except for certain areas in the north?

8:10 p.m.

Interjections.

Mr. MacDonald: Watch those back-benchers, George.

Mr. Nixon: Listen, René has got his eye on your job.

Mr. Piché: Did you say "except for the north"?

Mr. Nixon: Maybe for you, René, Kapuskasing can look after their own assessment when we take over.

I would certainly say that the minister has not only the opportunity but also the great responsibility to deal with this problem once and for all. He should recognize that it has no place here at the provincial level, except to provide the kind of supervision that could give the only sort of uniformity that is possible. That is, without imposing market value assessment, which was the original concept some years ago, he should simply have the municipalities re-establish their assessment responsibility. It would mean the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars presently spent on assessment would be transferred back to the municipalities along with that responsibility, and it would be in an area where it could be adjusted to satisfy the local property owners.

This is the only legitimate solution. This minister and his successors can fiddle around with the present situation for a long time and never accomplish the kind of equity we are seeking. The old watchword back in Darcy McKeough's day and even afterwards was that market value assessment was going to provide equality and justice for all land owners across the province. Even the minister does not support that ridiculous concept now. It was politically unacceptable during all the years of minority government and now, of course, it is practically unacceptable, as it was then. The variations in the market values are such that an assessment based on market value would, I believe, be almost impossible to keep up with. It would be almost as meaningless as some of the assessments we have now.

Frankly, I am quite proud that a reassessment under section 86 in one of the townships in my constituency, Burford township, more or less led the way. The situation there, of course, is still far from perfect because that sort of reassessment does not permit any change in values or among the classes of assessment.

But the minister could become a hero to his colleagues in the cabinet, to his supporters in the Progressive Conservative Party and to the ratepayers across this province if he were to admit that a terrible mistake was made a decade ago and that he is just the man to set it straight, and he could do this by removing himself from a responsibility that should never have been his in the first place and that he should get out of at the first opportunity.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a couple of short comments on Bill 60. I guess it pertains basically to the city of Toronto. Some time ago, I believe it was during the estimates of the Ministry of Revenue, I brought several serious complaints concerning the assessment procedures in my riding to the attention of the House and to the attention of the minister, and we have had no response from the minister concerning those complaints. They had to do specifically with the Canard Valley golf course, situated in the township of Anderdon, which is paying probably $20,000 more in assessment --

Hon. Mr. Ashe: This has nothing to do with the bill.

Mr. Mancini: That is the minister's problem. He really does not care about how assessment affects real people out there.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: There are proper times to talk about proper things; this is not one of them.

Mr. Mancini: He does not really care about what his procedures are doing to real people, and that is his problem. These complaints have been brought to his attention and he keeps shuffling them off. He does not want to do anything about it. I am going to take every opportunity I can to remind the minister, who cannot even deliver cheques properly, that there are problems out there he is not addressing.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): I would only ask the honourable member to tie his remarks in to Bill 60 as it affects the city of Toronto and the institution of complaints.

Mr. Mancini: That basically was my point, Mr. Speaker. We have problems concerning assessment all across the province, and I wonder why we are not moving on a province-wide scale to tackle these problems. Why is the legislation of certain privileges going to be for only the city of Toronto? Why can it not be for my constituents, who are taxpayers, or for people who live outside this great city? No one is denying the fact that this is needed for Toronto. But the House has to be made aware that the province does not start and end at Toronto's city limits. We have severe problems concerning assessment in the Essex county area. We certainly do not like the way the minister has handled the problem of the golf courses that I mentioned some time ago. He ignored it then and he is trying to object to it now. Why does he not just spend his time trying to solve the problem?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, in listening to the 12 people who have addressed Bill 60, I have made quite a number of pages of notes. I must say a lot of them are duplicates of each other, but I will try to speak to at least the general pattern of comments and concerns that were raised by the honourable members last Tuesday, again this afternoon and, briefly, this evening.

The member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp) started the debate Tuesday last discussing the bill in question. Unfortunately, he is not here this evening, at least so far. He referred to the fact that we did not really listen to the city of Toronto on this bill. Obviously Bill 60 is contrary to that. We did not agree to some of the suggestions made by the city of Toronto, including the particular amendment put forth on the agenda by the third party. We do not agree to that either, because that was another alternative that, in all fairness, I do not think was acceptable.

Mr. Swart: Meaningful is the word.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Of course, it is easy for someone sitting over there to think of equity. Equity in a very narrow sense is very easy, but in its broader sense, when talking about the equity of hundreds of thousands of people, or better than two million people, then that narrowness seems to be out of perspective. That is exactly what the reasoned amendment on the Order Paper would do, not only for the citizens of Toronto but for the citizens of Metropolitan Toronto. It is obviously something not thought through by the members of the third party, who put it on the Order Paper and have spoken in support of that reasoned amendment.

Many comments have been made about there being very little internal inspection and that kind of thing. The Metro chairman is quoted as saying it is a "total and absolute mess." I will even endorse and subscribe to the comments made by the chairman of Metro Toronto that there are some problems in the Metro area, and particularly in the city of Toronto, in carrying forward a system that has been in effect, and was out of whack when we took it over some 12 years ago. But the process we underwent in 1981, not only in the city of Toronto, not only in Metro Toronto, but right across Ontario, was really one relatively small step to help put further equity into the assessment system -- a system and a process that was undertaken last year.

8:20 p.m.

I have to stress that on continuing and numerous occasions municipalities individually and collectively approached the government, Ministry of Revenue and Minister of Revenue to suggest to us that we should be doing the job as we are supposed to do under the Assessment Act and add to the tax rolls those properties that have had changes in their value because of additions, renovations and other items that have put them out of whack with the properties in and around their immediate areas. This is exactly what we addressed in a very conscious and planned effort in 1981.

It was not done, as many members have said, on a hit and miss basis, an irrational basis or an unfair basis within Toronto and more particularly within certain wards of Toronto. If anyone were to examine the facts they would see that the facts do not support this allegation. The facts do not support the position that is espoused by some in that regard, not at all.

Last year, we reassessed and added additional assessment to the roll on approximately 135,500 properties across Ontario, of which fewer than 7,000 were in the city of Toronto. If one compares the ratios in Toronto, the number of properties versus those which have had additional assessment, with numerous other municipalities within the province, one would see that many others would have reason to complain as to the inequity, the driving down the street, the windshield assessments that have been referred to. Of course, this is not the case at all.

For example, the honourable member opposite from somewhere in the area of the city of Windsor talks about equity. It just so happens that in the city of Windsor there were approximately 5,000 reassessments on a much smaller total property base than in the city of Toronto. I might say that the city of Windsor did not feel we had gone far enough in that regard. In fact, they are taking steps to appeal beyond the approximately 5,000 that were part of this process last year.

Some members were referring to the fact that we have picked on them. They say we have picked on their ridings. They say we have picked on their wards, as some aldermen are saying. Let me suggest that in two of my own municipalities within the great riding of Durham West, which encompasses three municipalities, one of those underwent a section 86 reassessment in 1981. In each of the other two municipalities there were approximately 1,000 reassessments to do with the program last year. As a percentage, this was considerably greater than those done within any municipality within Metropolitan Toronto, including the city of Toronto.

It was suggested that it has been done in only one or two wards within the city of Toronto. Let me point out that all 11 wards in the city of Toronto underwent some additional reassessments last year. It is very true that some of them had many more than others, but obviously many of the speakers who have been talking on this bill have no recognition or no understanding at all of the makeup of the city of Toronto. They do not know the geography of the city of Toronto. They do not know the geography and makeup of the wards that make up the city of Toronto.

They use the blanket statement "hit and miss," but they have not driven up and down the streets to see why it is obvious that certain sectors of the city, certain wards in the city have had more reassessments than others. It is because that is where the changes have taken place. That is where the massive renovations have happened. That is where the conversions have happened; and there are block upon block of them. Yes, there are more, particularly in wards five, seven and eight, than any of the other wards. There are, again, those who suggest that this was only because we were aiming at those areas. This was suggested by the member from Whitby, and it was also suggested that we are not familiar with the city of Toronto; by the way, I live in Pickering, albeit I also represent Whitby along with the great municipality of Ajax and Pickering, and I would suggest that people from that area, as well as the assessors within the city of Toronto, are much more aware of it than a certain member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk might be.

Mr. Nixon: This is a personal attack.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: I would suggest the job they did was probably a little more competent and less irrational than would have been done by many others.

Mr. Nixon: You just can't bring yourself to give up any of that power you have.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: In the opening remarks of the member for Waterloo North there was a reference to the bill he filed some time ago, vis-à-vis the appeal procedure, relating to fact versus law based on a lot of the municipal position and so on. That is exactly it. The bill he came forward with was practically written by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. As I indicated earlier today in question period, the government has been looking very closely at this process and this procedure and will be introducing legislation to enact that in the very near future.

The same honourable member made a rather snide comment on the fact that we do not even know the number of offices that are within the assessment system because we missed office number eight. I think that was the reference. He said we could not even count through from one to 31. Let me just point out that the office in question has been, for 10 years, a suboffice to one of our other offices.

All the way through the various deliberations there were constant suggestions about confusion. It may have been quite intentional; or perhaps there was in fact some misunderstanding, some fact of really not knowing what was going on. At any rate, there was reference to confusion about the reassessment study that is going on now, the impact study under the section 86 program in Metropolitan Toronto, trying to muddy the waters on the situation within Toronto, not only last year vis-à-vis this program, but this year.

I can assure the members, as I have said on many occasions in the past, the one program does not relate at all to the other. The procedure last year where we picked up the renovations and changes to the value of property was, again I have to stress, right across Ontario. It had nothing to do with bringing in, as others have used the quote, "the army of assessors from outside." It had nothing to do with the $2.6-million expenditure we are currently going through because this government and this ministry react to the requests of municipalities. When they ask for an impact study we do not say we will not give it to them because it is Toronto, or Metropolitan Toronto. We suggest and feel it is only fair that whichever municipality it may be, we offer the services as we would to any municipality within Ontario, and Metropolitan Toronto is no different in that regard.

There has been constant reference that the introduction of Bill 60 is a defeat, not only for the ministry and the government but also for me personally. I would like to turn that around and say it is just the opposite.

There has been a lot of criticism about the inaccuracies of the assessment, about people not getting in, and then, in another breath, questions as to why we should not let them in again and the concern that the reason they made the mistakes the first time was because they did not get into the property and have a visual internal inspection. In the very next breath they are saying they should not come back again, they should not re-inspect the property. It is exactly that which the procedure allows, again right across Ontario.

On an appeal, the assessor goes back to the property in question and looks at it again. Believe it or not, we do not necessarily think we are infallible. The assessors in this ministry, and the people within the ministry, and even the minister, acknowledge that we make an error from time to time.

It is one thing when the process acknowledges that one may have made a mistake and wants to have the opportunity to explore that, to correct the mistake if one is made, to talk to the other side, in this case the home owner, to show why something was done, and maybe come to a meeting of the minds even though it is still to disagree at the end. That is fine. That is what the process is there for.

But even to suggest that the assessor should not be allowed back into the house either because he was there in the first place or, as the other argument has it, because he was not there in the first place -- which are obviously complete opposites, but we did hear both arguments -- is to me beyond reason and beyond the capacity to understand the inconsistencies.

8:30 p.m.

Unless somebody has something to hide, he should have no fear in allowing an assessor access to his property. Everybody would agree, if he thinks with an objective and an open mind, that when the assessor goes to a door and does not gain access, when he goes back to that door, does not gain access and leaves a notice but is not contacted, and when there is another contact and the people find every reason why access should not take place, it is only human nature to suspect the person behind that door has something to hide.

There is no doubt at all that is when there is the greatest opportunity for a mistake -- a mistake not caused by the assessor. He was quite willing and quite capable of doing the job he was hired to do, but he is not being allowed to do it. I suggest in some cases there is no doubt the home owner is maybe not getting the benefit of the doubt, but if each and every member would put himself in that same position I think the conclusion he would reach probably would be about the same.

Coming to the last couple of points, there was some mention by the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) that there had been some reference made by me that this was a property tax reform bill. Obviously, I have never suggested that. There is no way this is a property tax reform bill. All it is is a bill that recognizes it could well have been that, because of the cosmopolitan nature of downtown Toronto and the holiday season from early December through January 12 past, a significant number of ratepayers, a significant number of home owners, for whatever reason, did not know the assessment had changed on their property and therefore did not take their legal and legitimate right to file an objection to present their cases to the assessment review court vis-à-vis the valuation placed on that property.

The reason we have come forward with this bill is not backing down on the basis that we think we are substantially wrong. On the contrary. Again I have to bring up what was brought forth by many suggesting that the assessment review court is just a charade, that we are just playing a sham in having assessments before the assessment review court. I find it incredible that speakers could make that pronouncement on a system that is set up as an unbiased, third-party organization to look at the facts. How can anybody be afraid of that system?

The assessor has to go forward and present and establish his case. What fairer process can one have? The tribunal sits there, hears the evidence of the assessor and asks, "Mr. Assessor, why did you put a $4,285 assessment on this property?" He has to make his case.

Interjection

Hon. Mr. Ashe: He presents his evidence as to valuation -- obviously many of the members have never been there -- based on his establishing the evaluation. Then the home owner can pull it apart if he can.

Mr. Mancini: It's a farce, and you know it.

Interjection

Hon. Mr. Ashe: The member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) is wrong. He obviously has not been there. That is the process.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order. The Minister of Revenue has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, maybe that was an inappropriate choice of words. Maybe the honourable member was in error as to how the process works. Is that better?

Mr. Renwick: Yes. Right.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Okay. The member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) gave me a couple of specific points. He referred to the assessment review court and said that most will not win. I agree; most probably will not win and, in my view, most probably should not win.

Mr. Swart: Ninety-five per cent.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Well, it proves the assessor did his job in 95 per cent of the cases.

Mr. Swart: It proves the bill is a farce.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: No. It proves the assessor did his job in 95 per cent of the cases. But, as I have already acknowledged, he is not perfect. So he made five per cent mistakes; that is not bad. I would be satisfied if any of my children graduated with 95 per cent -- very much so.

The member also asked what is going to be the stance of the assessor at the court and whether I will give any direction to the assessor. Yes, I will give the same direction to my assessor as they have all the time from within the Ministry of Revenue: that they do their job in a professional and fair way. And that is exactly what they will continue to do, as they have done in the past.

Mr. Swart: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I would just like to point out that in the case of the urea formaldehyde foam insulation reassessment, the assessors were instructed to take a neutral stance.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Minister of Revenue, please continue.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Of course, we are not talking about UFFI, and that is exactly right.

Mr. Swart: You are talking about assessment. Take a fair position --

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: That's right. We always take the fair position. We assisted the UFFI home owners as to exactly what they had to do; we did not oppose them in any way.

Mr. Swart: But even though they knew the assessment should be reduced they took a neutral stance.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: We assisted them, and that is our function on an issue such as UFFI. In any event, I will not get off on that tangent, as many speakers have been wont to do.

Two amendments have been proposed by the member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp) on behalf of the Liberal Party, which, in effect, suggests by these two amendments to sections 1(1) and 3 of the bill that those people who do not wish to proceed with their appeals should be allowed to withdraw them.

Let me just point out once again, as I think I did in my opening comments on second reading, that these amendments are not required. I think I made it clear, and I want to make it abundantly clear if I did not before, that the whole procedure established by Bill 60 deems those home owners in Metropolitan Toronto who did not appeal in the normal fashion on or before January 12 in effect to have appealed in the same way as if they had filed their appeals on or before January 12, 1982, and all of their rights, privileges and protections would be exactly the same as those who filed within the appropriate time. This includes the right to withdraw their appeals at any time in the process as well as the right to carry their objections and appeals to a higher court of justice if they still feel unfairly treated after their hearing before the assessment review court.

I would suggest that, although I have no problem with the spirit of the actual amendments because they do exactly what we are doing anyway, they are unnecessary because that protection is already there.

With regard to the reasoned amendment that is on the Order Paper in the name of the member for Riverdale from the New Democratic Party, needless to say, we oppose it. As we understand it, it is completely contrary to the bill. Of course, we support the bill and not the reasoned amendment that is on the Order Paper because once again, although it may be perceived by some to be giving some equity back to those 5,000 or so people in the city of Toronto, it would put an unbearable, unrealistic and unfair burden upon the rest of the ratepayers in the city of Toronto and in the total municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. It would be a precedent in nature that has never happened before. I can imagine the reason it did not happen before is the unfairness that is embodied therein.

The Acting Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 54(a), shall Bill 60 be now read the second time'?

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the ayes have it.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

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

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Who adjourned the debate?

Hon. Mr. Gregory: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I believe it was the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman). Is he available? I wonder if, with the agreement of the House, we could wait for a few moments until the member gets here.

The Acting Speaker: Is there agreement?

Agreed to.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, when I was addressing the budget on Friday last, I had established that it really makes no difference whether budgetary policy is determined by Liberals or by Tories since both of them are wedded to the concept of high interest rates and their disastrous effects on the economy of Canada and of this province.

I said that the New Democratic Party had proposed, prior to the budget of the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller), a number of measures that we felt should be taken to respond to the serious problems we have in the economy of this province. We did not really expect that the Treasurer would respond to those proposals in an affirmative and positive way by taking action. But we hoped the Treasurer would deal with the proposals in a serious way in his budget presentation, indicating he had at least considered taking action in the areas we had pointed to as needing a budgetary response. Instead, we found little in the budget presentation which dealt with the serious problems this economy faces.

I mentioned on Friday that the most serious difficulty we face with this economy is the high interest rate policy followed by Conservatives and Liberals at the federal level. Although at the provincial level those two parties have indicated they do not support that policy, neither one has proposed any positive measure to change it or to alleviate the difficulties resulting from it at the provincial level.

One of the major problems we are experiencing in this economy as a result of that interest rate policy is the downturn in housing starts in the real estate market and the difficulty faced by people who already own homes, who have to renegotiate mortgages and who find their payments are doubling.

At the same time, because of the general economic collapse we have experienced in the manufacturing sector, its spinoff into the resource sector and the serious unemployment that has produced, they find they cannot obtain extra jobs. They find they now have high mortgage payments they cannot meet if only one member of the married couple is working and the spouse is unable to find a job because it is just not available or, in even worse circumstances, the main breadwinner in the family has been laid off as a result of a lack of sales, particularly in manufactured products if that individual is involved in the manufacturing sector.

We expected and hoped this government would provide short-term measures that would alleviate the problems such people face.

We had hoped the government would seriously consider a mortgage foreclosure moratorium on a short-term basis. A Conservative government in the 1930s did impose a mortgage foreclosure moratorium; so it is not as if it were somehow philosophically opposed to that kind of intervention. It was done by a Tory government in this province in a very serious economic situation in the early 1930s. It can be done again.

However, when we heard the budget presentation by the Treasurer, we found there was no mention of this kind of short-term measure which would assist people who are in dire straits as a result of the high interest rate policy. The government just did not take any action. We have the old story of the provincial government arguing that interest rate policy is a federal jurisdiction and, therefore, it is up to the federal government to respond. It does not take any action on its own.

8:50 p.m.

It is unfortunate that the government did not at least listen to what some other Tory governments are doing in this country at the provincial level to deal with these difficulties. There was no attempt in the Treasurer's presentation to suggest any other kind of relief for people facing difficulties with mortgage payments. There was no subsidy program mentioned, such as has been introduced in Nova Scotia and proposed in other jurisdictions, by Manitoba and by the new government-elect in Saskatchewan. Of those three examples, two are Conservative governments.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. It has been indicated to me by the speaker that he is having trouble concentrating. In order to hear his learned words, we would appreciate it if all members of the House could be a little quieter.

Mr. Wildman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. I will not mention that the minister, with his back to me, is turning his back on Ontario. I would never suggest that to be the case. As a matter of fact, I appreciate that there are four ministers of the crown in the House tonight to listen to this debate. That is very encouraging, and I hope the chief government whip (Mr. Gregory) is able to keep the interest of the cabinet ministers in this important budget debate.

I hope the ministers present will be able to prevail upon the Treasurer, when and if he gets back to this country, to suggest that we cannot continue to go along with the attitude that it is up to the federal government to resolve the problems. I believe it is the federal government's responsibility to deal with interest rates, as I have said before. But in the interim, while we wait for Mr. MacEachen to determine what, if anything, he can or will do, it is the responsibility of this government to provide relief for the people who are suffering in this province.

The New Democratic Party suggested that measures be taken in this area, and we are very disappointed that the Treasurer chose not to respond in any way, with no action at all. We had hoped that, to deal not only with the cost of housing but also with the need to produce jobs, the government would have responded to our proposal for a construction program to provide low-cost housing, which is sorely needed in the province. This not only would deal with the problem of housing but also would be a job creation measure for workers in Ontario. Again, we find the budget presentation wanting. There is just nothing there.

Obviously there are communities in this province that are seriously suffering because of the current economic situation. They are suffering directly because of high interest rates and indirectly through the related downturn in the economy, the falloff in the auto industry and in the manufacturing sector generally. Those communities where there is a high percentage of unemployment, where people have difficulty making their payments and where the community in general is in serious trouble, need to have some sort of assistance.

We proposed a community adjustment fund that would assist those communities in the short term to provide employment and to get the additional funding they require to provide municipal government services for the communities. They are obviously facing serious additional costs in terms of welfare and a serious dropoff in the municipal revenues. We had hoped the provincial government would fill that void. Unfortunately, the provincial government did not respond in any way, and the Treasurer did not even mention the adjustment needed for communities such as Windsor, which I point to because of its most serious unemployment and economic difficulties.

We had also proposed that in the area of inflation, since the high interest rates are justified on the basis of inflation fighting, we do consider inflation to be a serious problem and the government should be taking action. It is obvious that high interest rates and tight money generally have failed to deal with the inflationary problem we have. Not only do we continue with serious high inflation rates but we now have, coupled with that, the increasing unemployment as a result of the general economic distress.

It is interesting that initially the Liberals and Tories said we had to have tight money and high interest rates to break the back of and bring down inflation. Now, when we have demands for the lowering of interest rates, which in themselves are inflationary and which have added seriously to the costs of housing and big-ticket consumer items, governments at both the federal and provincial levels are saying to us, "We cannot bring down interest rates until inflation comes down."

It is a circular argument. Initially we had to have high interest rates to bring down inflation. Now we have to bring down inflation to bring down high interest rates or we will continue to have those high interest rates. It is obviously an example of the bankruptcy of both the Liberals and the Tories. They do not really know what to do; so they just drift along with the Reaganomics that we have experienced and are causing serious problems not only in Ontario and in Canada but also throughout the economy of the western world.

We have had European meetings, meetings of economic ministers in Europe, in Canada and the United States and they have all said in varying degrees of intensity to the American government, "We have to have lower interest rates." It appears that, for some reason, the Americans will not respond. They are going to continue the high interest rate policy. Although just recently we have seen some possibility of a loosening money policy in the United States, it still appears that they will maintain high interest rates for some time.

The Minister of Finance at the federal level has said he wants to have that policy changed, but we do not yet have any indication that he and the Liberal government are finally going to realize they must act independently. They cannot just depend, as this Treasurer has said, on President Reagan to solve all our economic problems.

It is interesting to note that even a Liberal such as Walter Gordon has said it is about time we had an independent policy. He has been arguing that for some time -- unfortunately, I suppose, for him, to the deaf ears of the Liberal Party in this country -- we cannot wait for the Americans. I agree with Walter Gordon on that count. We cannot wait for the Americans to resolve our economic problems. It just will not work.

Just as we cannot wait for President Reagan to resolve the problems of this country and we must act independently, so must we act with compassion at the provincial level. Just as we cannot wait for President Reagan to resolve the problems of the national economy, we cannot wait for the Honourable Allan MacEachen to resolve the problems of the Ontario economy.

9 p.m.

We could wait and wait forever, but considering the paralysis of Mr. MacEachen and his policy advisers, he is not going to take any initiatives that are going to resolve those problems. We are just going to continue having Governor Bouey directing the monetarist policy that he has advocated for so long under both Conservative and Liberal administrations and we will continue to have the high unemployment and the economic dislocation that is related to those interest rates in this province above all, because we are so dependent on the manufacturing sector.

We suggested that we recognized inflation was a serious problem, but unlike Liberals and Tories, we do not believe that inflation is wage pushed at this stage in our economy.

It seems the Liberals and Tories, because of their inability to resolve the problems of inflation, are falling back on that old argument that somehow it is the workers of this country and this province who are at fault and that the only solution for inflation is somehow to have wage restraint or perhaps even wage controls.

It would be funny if it were not so tragic. It would be funny because obviously the workers of this country, in making demands for higher wages, are not causing inflation. They are reacting to it because it is becoming more and more expensive for them to meet their obligations: to put food on the table; to put shelter over their heads; to pay for the cost of fuel and clothing; to provide for their families.

Workers are understandably saying, "We have to have catch-up." But the only thing that Liberals and Tories can say is, "The only way to solve inflation is to have smaller and smaller wage increases."

As I said, I find it somewhat amusing when one realizes how Conservatives, and Liberals for that matter, respond to demands by those individuals who call themselves professionals, such as doctors, when they say they need to catch up. It is all right to say, "All right, since you are at the top of the heap you have to catch up." Catch up to whom I am not sure, but they have to catch up.

When doctors and the medical profession compare their incomes today very selectively to the early 1970s, the years when they had gone substantially farther ahead of the average industrial wage than they had been previously, and say, "We don't have the same differential between our incomes and the average industrial wage, therefore we need some catch-up to put us further ahead than we are now," this government says, "Well, we don't want to give you everything you are asking for, but yes, you do need some catch-up and we are going to give you some catch-up."

Mr. Treleaven: What about teachers?

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, the ironic thing about that interjection, "What about teachers?" is the very point that the honourable member who says that really does believe that inflation is wage pushed. He really does think we somehow have to have restraint and so, although they did not restrain doctors, they should somehow restrain other people who get public sector funding, whether it be teachers, lawyers in the legal aid plan, hospital workers, municipal employees, civil servants -- and MPPs for that matter. It is a completely bankrupt view of the economic situation.

The fact is that the inflation we have today is not wage pushed. The attempt to keep down wages is simply an attack on the victims of inflation rather than on the causes of it.

Mr. MacDonald: Drying up the purchasing power that can rev up the economy.

Mr. Wildman: Keeping down wages has the result my colleague indicates. Let us say the government is successful in maintaining wage restraint so the workers have less money to spend. They are already not spending enough to produce a market for the goods we were manufacturing in this country and so we make it worse.

One of the major problems we have in this economy is productivity and the differences in our productivity compared to the Japanese, the Americans, the Germans and other trading nations. Certainly, labour is one component in productivity; there is no question about that. But it is also true that, more and more in our technological society, productivity is determined by innovations in technology, by research and development and by innovations at the management level. It is true that in Canada and Ontario we are lagging behind. We have been unsuccessful in maintaining our position as a technological economy.

I suppose it would be unfair to say this government has not responded in any way to that problem. It has said it will set up technological centres. It has its Innovation Development for Employment Advancement Corp. It is encouraging research and development. But this government seems to have the attitude that it can somehow put up these centres to employ a few people, to try to bring industry together, to talk about research and development and opportunities, and that will resolve the problem.

The major problem we face in increasing our productivity through new technological innovation is the very fact that we are a branch plant economy. The multinationals that operate in this country do little research and development here and see little reason for their branch plants to compete with the parent firms in that sphere. This government is defeating the whole purpose of all the technological centres it is setting up by at the same time going to the United States, Japan and western Europe and saying, "We want more foreign investment."

Foreign investment is an example of Conservatives and Liberals being unable to respond independently and believe they themselves can deal with the problems in the economy. Instead, they depend on others to do it for them. Just as we depend on Reagan to resolve the overall economic situation, we depend on foreign investors to produce the innovations and improvements in productivity that will make our industry competitive. In our view, that is a self-defeating and small-minded approach.

I suppose I have been talking in terms of short-term assistance for interest rate relief and the need to improve our productivity and our economic competitive situation. However, in our proposals before the budget, we also talked about some immediate efforts the government should make. Specifically, we suggested the construction of 15,000 new rental units for low- and middle-income people who are finding it difficult to obtain housing.

We estimated such a program would cost $150 million. Again, we did not expect the government to respond by simply accepting our proposals, but we hoped we would see some move in that area. Unlike the other areas I have mentioned, there was some government action, some government proposal in the budget. The Treasurer said he would deal with the housing problem, get more housing construction going, get more houses sold and get more people into houses -- people who, at this stage, are not purchasing -- by offering interest-free loans for higher-income purchasers.

9:10 p.m.

Without dealing with the overall problem of what these people are going to face after they purchase a house with this assistance and have been in the home for two years and the mortgage payments then are renegotiated, I want to point out that, even if that program is as successful as the Treasurer argues it is going to be, it does not do a thing for those people at the low- and middle-income levels who cannot afford to get into housing even with the assistance this program provides.

We also proposed a residential energy conservation program, which would provide jobs and would assist people to make their homes more efficient and to "Preserve it, conserve it," as the slogan goes. In that area we saw no action from the Treasurer.

Obviously one of the areas of our economy that is experiencing serious difficulty as a result of the high interest rate policy of the Liberals and the Tories is the small business sector. It is argued that the bankruptcy rate in the small business sector has historically always been high in the first two or three years of operation, and I suppose that is true. But the bankruptcy rate has climbed significantly since the interest rates shot up. We proposed some relief in that area for the small business sector, and we estimated this program would cost about $50 million.

The Treasurer has been very proud of his proposal in this area. He suggested the way to resolve the problems faced by small business in our present economic climate was by a tax holiday, which would cost the taxpayers $200 million more than the proposal we made. There is no question that small business men and women who are doing well and are making a profit will certainly welcome a tax holiday for two years. Who would not? I notice that Mr. Bulloch of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has welcomed this proposal and has congratulated the Treasurer on what he considers a very progressive budget.

Mr. Samis: He did not call it progressive. He said favourable.

Mr. Wildman: A favourable Progressive Conservative budget.

The ironic thing about the Treasurer's comments and Mr. Bulloch's comments is that a tax holiday does not do a thing for the businesses that are in trouble. The problems businesses have in carrying inventory and dealing with high interest rates, in paying off their capital loans and their operational loans, in meeting their obligations, have led to such a rate of bankruptcy that many businesses in this small business area are in such trouble that not only are they not paying taxes, but they are going out of business.

If a business is in such a state that it is going into receivership, forced sale, closing down, a tax holiday does absolutely nothing for it. Obviously a tax holiday is going to benefit those businesses that are doing well and making a profit; no one can deny that. But it does nothing to respond to what we perceive to be a major problem, that a number of small enterprises are going out of business because they cannot meet the high interest payments of the current situation.

Small businesses are of the utmost importance in our economy since they employ more than any other sector of the economy. There are more jobs in that sector than there are in big business. They do not have the dramatic layoffs we see when a large corporation shuts down or curtails production. But each time a small business goes out of operation more and more people are put out of work and go on unemployment or welfare. The budget proposal for a tax holiday does absolutely nothing to get those businesses into a more viable situation and to preserve jobs.

The other area of our economy that is experiencing serious problems as a result of the interest rates is the agricultural sector. We proposed an interest rate relief program for farmers which we estimated would have cost about $25 million. The need for assistance to farmers is immediate and urgent. This primary industry, which is of the greatest importance to our economy, is in serious difficulty as a result of the lack of concern shown by Liberals and Tories in successive federal and provincial budgets.

We all know that on a per capita basis, this provincial government spends far less for farmers than does our neighbour, Quebec.

Mr. Kerr: They are in great shape.

Mr. Wildman: I heard the member for Burlington South say they are in great shape. I do not know how many farmers there are in Burlington South but there are some farmers in Algoma, and the majority of them are in anything but great shape.

I do not have to point to the farmers in the Algoma district. One just has to look at the issues of Farm and Country that the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) has been reading, or at the brief from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and to discuss the problems its members are experiencing with the federation's executives, to know that established farmers, those farmers who perhaps are in great shape or are not doing too badly in the present situation, have a serious concern about the future of agriculture in this province because of the very difficult problems the young and new farmers are facing in this situation of tight money and high interest rates.

Provincial governments across the country have provided low-interest loans for interest rate relief to the farmers in their provinces. Quebec, as I mentioned, has a very high proportion of spending for its farmers compared to Ontario. They provide low interest loans at favourable interest rates which make it difficult for the farmers in eastern Ontario to compete. The previous government of Saskatchewan also had favourable interest rate policies to assist farmers.

We had hoped that this government would respond to the needs of the agricultural sector, since the federal Minister of Agriculture is apparently unable or unwilling to persuade the Liberals to respond. But all we got was an $11-million program for cosmetic improvements to farmsteads, which would help farmers paint the barns, improve the fences, I suppose --

9:20 p.m.

Mr. Epp: He owns a share in a paint company.

Mr. Wildman: I don't know, Mr. Speaker, perhaps he does own a share in a paint company or perhaps the reason is somehow to make the farmsteads look more attractive so that foreign investors will buy more Ontario farms. I cannot see what other purpose there would be. No one could argue it would not be nice as one drives along our concession roads to see attractively painted barns and nice fences. There is no question about that.

Mr. Nixon: I thought there was only $5 million in that fund.

Mr. Wildman: My figure is $11 million.

Mr. Epp: It is only a subsidy on blue paint.

Mr. Wildman: Only on blue paint.

I know the government has argued that this is over and above the assistance it has already proposed in the past, prior to the budget, but that assistance --

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: It far exceeds your $25 million.

Mr. Wildman: The minister says the previous program exceeds $25 million. We understand that. He will also understand that our $25-million proposal was in addition to what they had already come up with and which has helped a very small number of farmers in the province.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Seven hundred, so far.

Mr. Wildman: Seven hundred. Out of a total of how many farmers?

I would like to know what the minister expects me to say to two young farmers, one a beef producer and one a dairyman, who came to me recently and said: "We got into the business just at the wrong time. We bought just as the interest rates were shooting up, and even with farm credit it is very difficult." The farm credit loans are somewhat less than prime but not very much less.

To make the payments on the farms they purchased, to buy the feed and seed and to meet the other operational costs is very difficult. It is so difficult that not only is it the beef producer who is in trouble, one of two who recently talked to me, but we have that group that is traditionally in a more stable cash-flow situation, the dairymen, facing serious problems.

I have had a note given to me by the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) who has left the House. He says he agrees with much of what I have said but feels that perhaps this speech should be made in the federal House.

I suppose that is typical of the Conservative approach, to say the federal government needs to respond. I do not disagree with that. It does need to respond and to deal with the interest rates, but that is not enough. I cannot say to those two young farmers who came to talk to me: "Go talk to the federal member. It is his problem. It is not my problem. The fact you are going out of business or facing bankruptcy is not my problem. Go talk to the federal member." That does not help them one bit.

The lack of response to agricultural problems in this budget is an insult to the agricultural community in Ontario. The fact that the executive of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture could meet with the cabinet not too many weeks before the budget was presented in this House and have hints dropped to them that help was on the way, that they just had to wait a little longer, that there would be a response to the serious problems they face, and then for them to be told they could paint their barns and improve their fences and that would resolve all the problems, is ridiculous.

I find it not only disappointing but, as I said, insulting that a government which claims, and has claimed for so many years, to be the friend of the farmer, responds to farm needs by coming up with this small amount of assistance that does not really even deal with the major problem the farmers face. It is really incredible.

As we have said on other occasions, and will continue to say, we see the major problem in the economy as being the control of the Ontario economy by multinationals. As a result of that, we have seen serious dislocation in every area. We said in our proposals on the budget that we needed a major restructuring of the economy to deal with the branch plant nature of our economy, and to provide a stimulus in those parts of the manufacturing and other sectors that are import dominated.

We believe there is a tremendous opportunity for the production of jobs and the revitalizing of our economy if we move in an aggressive, positive way to intervene in those parts of the economy in which we import large numbers of products and, in doing so, export jobs. We propose that serious measures should be taken in a number of areas.

We have suggested the government should invest directly through crown corporations and joint ventures with the private sector to provide jobs and development in the auto industry, in resource machinery, in energy investments and in food processing. We have proposed the spending of $200 million in the auto sector, $150 million in the resource machinery sector, $50 million in energy investments and $50 million in the food processing industry.

We believe we have to intervene in a positive way in the automotive sector, especially in the area of parts manufacturing. I have pointed out before in this House the difference in the experience of the Mexican auto industry as opposed to the Ontario auto industry. The government of Mexico has intervened in a direct and positive way to produce jobs in Mexico. Basically, what that jurisdiction has said to the auto manufacturers is, "If you are going to sell automobiles in Mexico, you must also submit to our content regulations and to our ownership regulations."

In Ontario, this government has said it is in favour of content regulations. I believe the Premier (Mr. Davis) went to New York and said we needed 85 per cent content in any cars sold in Canada. We do not disagree with that. We would like to see an even higher content, but we will accept that.

It is not enough to say we need content regulations for the Japanese auto manufacturers. We also have to deal with the $150-million deficit with the Big Three auto manufacturers in Detroit. Our deficit with the Big Three is as large as it is with the Japanese manufacturers, but this government talks only about Japan.

9:30 p.m.

Mr. Lumley of the federal Liberals goes to Japan, talks to them and gets absolutely nowhere. But no one has dealt with the important need to restructure auto manufacturing in North America as well as to deal with the international field. As long as we have a situation where the Big Three auto manufacturers are moving towards what they call the world car, where many of the parts and engines will be produced elsewhere in Japan, Germany, Mexico, Brazil and South Korea and where we do not have any content regulation, then we are going to be in serious trouble. To talk about content regulation only for Japanese manufacturers is not enough.

We believe a crown corporation in the auto sector could provide investment to produce parts for use by the auto industry that should be produced here instead of imported, and that it would also produce many jobs in areas in which we are facing serious difficulties.

In the resource machinery sector we are not just talking about some kind of resource machinery research centre, as has been proposed for Sudbury. We believe many jobs could be produced if we were to manufacture more of the mining and forestry machinery that we now import. We have talked about this in the House in the past, and I will not go on at length about it.

We have also talked about food processing. The new Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food has said we need to get a large operator involved to deal with the domination of the food processing industry in Ontario by Del Monte, that it could be a co-operative but that we have to have some big organization which will be able to get involved in a big way.

We believe that in order to do this the government must be ready to invest directly with the co-operative sector to try to produce this kind of competition. When we heard the deputy minister say this we thought perhaps this was the direction the government was going. Instead, there was nothing in the budget to deal with any of these areas except a rehash of the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development; and BILD, as we have seen, has had very little effect of any kind overall.

The only proposal BILD had for my riding was the King Mountain project north of Sault Ste. Marie. The government said they were going to invest over $19 million in that project over a number of years, with $9 million of it up front for infrastructure. But that was dependent on private sector financing and, as has been the problem with so much of our economy, the high interest rate policy that the bank has pursued has made it very difficult for the private sector to come up with the kind of capital required for such a project, so we have seen very little progress in that area.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) stated in Sault Ste. Marie that he regrets the project seems to be on hold. Many of us regret that. I do not think the King Mountain project is out of the ordinary with regard to what has happened with BILD generally. There seems to have been very little progress throughout that whole election program -- and in my view that is what it was.

We hope there will also be assistance for those people who are at the bottom of the income scale. We estimate, unfortunately, that the cost of bringing those people on provincial assistance, whether they be senior citizens, single-mother families or whoever, up to the poverty level would be something like $500 million. That is the result of neglect by the Conservative government over so many years for people at the bottom of the income scale.

There does not seem to be any reticence on the part of the government to help doctors to catch up, but for some reason there is a great deal of reluctance to assist people in great and serious need to be able to meet their expenses and catch up. For the life of me, I do not understand why it is so important for someone who makes between $60,000 and $80,000 a year to catch up so he can maintain his lifestyle but when one deals with someone who makes less than $8,000 a year it is not as important for him to catch up. It does not make any sense. Obviously, people who are making less than $8,000 require catch-up far more than those who make $80,000, but we get no response from this government.

In terms of the working poor, we had proposed a change in the minimum wage regulation. Right now in this country, Ontario has one of the lowest minimum-wage scales of any province. We have a situation where a person who is at the minimum wage can work for a full year and end up at the end of the year making even less than some people make on assistance programs. Even in Conservative terms, I do not understand that. What incentive is there to work in that kind of situation?

Instead, there is no response at all. We had suggested that, to phase in the increases that are necessary in the minimum wage, assistance should be given to the small business sector which, in the serious economic squeeze it finds itself, might be hurt by increases in that wage scale. There is nothing in the budget speech that even deals with that.

Instead of assisting the people who are in serious trouble economically, the budget turned around and increased their payments. We had a tremendous increase in the Ontario health insurance plan premiums, again to help the doctors catch up.

We should be going in the opposite direction. We should not be increasing OHIP premiums. We have seen a federal study that just came out. The Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) has gone off to a meeting with the other ministers from across the country and we understand the federal Minister of National Health and Welfare, Mme Bégin, is going to say to that meeting that the three provinces plus the Yukon Territory which still have medicare premiums should be moving to eliminate them. We also understand the federal minister is going to say that the provinces which allow extra billing should eliminate it.

We know from the attitudes expressed by the Treasurer, the Minister of Health and other members of the government that this government is not going to respond in any way. It believes that right now the system it has is in some way equitable.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how any right-thinking person, capital "R" or small "r," will be able to explain that a premium which is unrelated to income can somehow be equitable. Obviously, the more our health care system is paid out of premiums the greater the shift in the burden to the low-income people to pay for it. So we have the regressive approach to raising revenue through premiums.

9:40 p.m.

We also have an increase in other regressive taxes by the expansion of the retail sales tax. Other members have talked about the articles which were previously exempt and are now taxed, so I will not go on at length about that. But it is incomprehensible to me how this government can argue that by widening the sales tax base they are providing equitable taxation.

I think the budget overall is a tribute to the inability of this government to respond to the serious problems in the economy in general and specifically to people living at lower income levels. We regret that this government has failed to respond to the needs of the province and therefore we cannot support this budget. In our view this budget ignores the plight of the poor and is, in fact, an attack on them.

Mr. Jones: It doesn't support small business, right, Bud?

Mr. Wildman: The honourable member obviously was not here earlier when I talked about small business. I said very clearly that the tax holiday for small businesses which are making a profit does indeed help them, but it does not do a damned thing for those which are facing bankruptcy.

No doubt the member who interjected looked for one straw he could pull out and say, "Look, this is something we did that was positive." I agree that a tax holiday for small business is positive. But ask the small businessman who is facing bankruptcy if it helps him. It does not.

It is interesting also that one has to be incorporated in order to benefit from the small business tax holiday. I suppose the overall result of that provision in the budget will be a bonanza for the lawyers who will be helping unincorporated small businesses become incorporated so that they may benefit from this tax holiday. In the long run the lawyers will win, as they always do, and the ordinary small business person will not gain a great deal.

We in the New Democratic Party proposed some positive alternatives to Liberal-Tory economic bungling. We had hoped there would be a response from this Conservative government since we have realized over the years that we cannot expect a response in any serious way from the federal Liberal government. We thought there might be some small hope that the Conservatives would respond when they saw that the Liberals refused to respond, but we find, as I said, there is no difference between Liberals and Tories.

The Liberals when they are in opposition are opposed to high interest rates. The Tories when they are out of power do not like high interest rates. But when the Liberals are in power they are in favour of high interest rates and when the Tories are in power they are in favour of high interest rates.

The Tories at Queen's Park are opposed to the Liberals and the Tories federally. The Liberals at Queen's Park are opposed to the Liberals and the Tories federally. In fact, neither has any proposals that are going to do a darned thing for the people of this province. We believe it is time for a change. The people of this province have had enough of Liberal-Tory bafflegab and they are now ready to move to the New Democratic Party.

We are going to continue pressing for Liberals and Tories to see the light, to provide for positive intervention in the economy and an independent approach to our economy. If they do not respond, we will see at the polls that people have had enough of Trudeau-Clark and Miller-Peterson. We are going to have Bob Rae as the Premier of this province.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wentworth.

Mr. Bradley: I remember when the member for Wentworth was a Liberal.

Mr. Dean: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member is older than I thought he was.

I think one could say about the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) what was said about a famous person in literature: "Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it." The last paragraph was the best part of his speech, although I thoroughly disagree with it. If the people of Ontario, by some complete abandonment of their good sense, ever put in a New Democratic government it would be the absolute end of any hope of recovery from any kind of economic disaster. It would be an invitation to the complete black hole of economic uncertainty.

I do not think anybody on either side of the House will dispute that times are tougher now than they were a few years ago. We are in troubled economic times.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Dean: The current economic climate, where we have continuing inflation and mounting unemployment, is taking its toll on many Ontarians.

Mr. Mancini: That's restraint.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Piché: Mr. Speaker, it's Remo.

Mr. Dean: I do not know whether the member for Cochrane North wants to hear this or not. The comments of the member for Algoma earlier in the evening about inflation not being wage pushed were really rather infantile because there is no section of our economy these days that does not have an effect on inflation.

It is only marginally true to say that one factor does not influence it. Every aspect of the economy will have an effect on inflation. It is fuelled by any segment of our provincial population that is trying to get more out of the system. I want to emphasize that. It is fuelled by any section that tries to get more out of the system than we are putting into it.

9:50 p.m.

That applies not only to people who are so-called wage earners, it applies to people who call themselves entrepreneurs, to people who call themselves civil servants, to people who call themselves members of any legislature or any other government.

Mr. Swart: What about doctors?

Mr. Dean: Yes, any profession. If they are trying to get more out of it than they put into it, there certainly is an inflationary effect. I emphasize it is not realistic and it is certainly a jingoistic whitewash to say that inflation is not wage pushed.

Mr. Jones: Jingoism. Whitewash.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: There's a definition problem here, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. McClellan: We need a dictionary.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Dean: It would be equally true to say that inflation is not pushed by profits, because profits are what the person who supplies the capital gets profits for his efforts in the same way that wages are what a working person gets for his. If any of those groups attempt to take more out of the system than they are putting into it, they are a cause of inflation.

Let us face it, we are all guilty of that to some extent. The people on that side of the House, we people on this side of the House, their constituents, my constituents -- if we are trying to get more out of the system than we put it into it, we are part of the problem; we are not part of the cure.

Mr. Mancini: Absolutely. I have said that for seven years. You are part of the problem. You have been the problem. Your cure is coming. Just hang around.

Mr. Dean: Why is the honourable member not cured yet? Why is he not cured then?

I think in this House we have the clear responsibility to show some leadership in this kind of matter. I do not know whether the members opposite know what leadership involves; I sometimes wonder.

We have to remember that one of the things this government is and has been concerned about is the necessity for somewhat stringent measures in this kind of opportunity, both in the short term and the long term. We have to have some supportive, stimulating efforts and some where we pull our punches to some extent because we do not have the resources to cover them.

Mr. Mancini: Show restraint. Turn in your salary. Give it to the Boy Scouts.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Dean: The revenue sources have been broadened by this budget so we will have some of the means to support the services our people have come to expect.

Our strong tradition of sound financial management is being continued, and the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) has really crystallized the feeling of the members here to the extent that he has shown leadership in restraining growth in the public sector, which is very important.

Not only has the Treasurer redrafted our tax structure to stimulate our economic climate and indirectly provide a broader base for employment growth, but also he has proposed immediate measures to create jobs. It is that part of the budget in particular I wish to comment on tonight, the job creation aspects of the budget. These are very positive steps, not some pie in the sky approaches, but something practical that has an opportunity to come to fruition within the lifetime of the Legislature.

There is a new four-point program to create 31,000 jobs on a temporary basis.

Mr. Wildman: Temporary?

Mr. Dean: Exactly. That is when it is needed, and to stimulate the development on a longer-term basis.

Mr. Wildman: How?

Mr. Dean: How? How-um, squaw.

Mr. Wildman: Come on.

Mr. Di Santo: Withdraw.

Mr. Dean: I want to indicate that these are short-term. The cost is $171 million. That is tax money; it is not something that comes out of the air. They are designed to provide the much-needed relief to certain sectors of our economy that are harder hit than others.

Measures have been carefully designed by this government in a responsive way to soften the blow and enable individuals who badly want to work to really work.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I have no objection to the honourable member calling me a jingoist or saying that I whitewash things, but I sincerely reject his comment of "How, you squaw." In my view, that is a racist comment and should be withdrawn.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the member for Algoma for drawing my attention to that. I did not notice it. I am sure that, if he did say that, the member for Wentworth will indeed withdraw.

Mr. Dean: Mr. Speaker, if there is anything that has offended the honourable member, I am pleased to withdraw it.

Mr. Wildman: Thank you.

Mr. Dean: I wish to call attention particularly, Mr. Speaker, to a co-operative projects employment fund that is established in the new budget and contains $15 million that is designated in programs to employ laid-off workers. Our government has worked out a cost-sharing arrangement with the federal government to create about 6,000 jobs. This is an example of how governments can work together if there is a will and desire to do so and if there is a reasonable program about which we can make co-operative arrangements. We think this kind of approach will give the best possible returns for our investment and for the money that is put up by the federal government -- which, after all, is still our money; it comes from our pockets.

Another example of the employment-creating measures is the accelerated forest improvement program, which is of particular interest to the areas of our province where forestry is a major industry. This was announced earlier this year and is another program in co-operation with the federal government. Under this arrangement, laid-off forestry workers are paid $240 a week from unemployment insurance benefits plus a $60-per-week provincial supplement to work on forest management projects. We not only think this is a good arrangement but are also proposing an expansion of the program.

A comparable one is the recently announced mining special employment program to assist laid-off miners. This also will be financed out of the fund and again should be of particular interest to people from northern Ontario, but not only to northern Ontario, of course, because whatever benefits one part of the province benefits all parts.

Mr. Wildman: The wealth of the south is built on the north.

Mr. Dean: That is right.

I am confident that co-operative measures like those will give the communities where resources are the main base for the economy a great boost by providing employment for laid-off forestry and mining workers. I think it makes good sense to give our workers with proven skills the opportunity to keep on utilizing them.

The benefits of broadening the base of these proven projects are greater, in fact, than just simply the statistics of the jobs that will be created. They will benefit the local communities involved there by providing important activities in forest culture and management, nursery development, forest access road construction, fire hazard reduction and the protection of our precious resources, the forests.

A third segment of the job creation program is the acceleration of investment in public projects.

Mr. Bradley: If only Mac Chown could hear you tonight, Gordon.

Mr. Dean: I wish Mac were here. He would be almost tempted, I think, to become a Conservative.

Mr. Bradley: He was almost here.

Mr. Dean: That is right. However, he went back to something that some members wish they had not left, apparently; that is, the practice of law.

The Treasurer has allocated $133 million in the budget for this acceleration program. It will create 14,500 temporary jobs, stepping them up from the time frame when they were originally proposed to fill in the blanks in this time of great need.

Programs in this segment are outlined very succinctly in the small blue book, which I think many members have seen: the highlights from the budget. They include things such as road projects, repairs to university and college buildings, and water and sewage projects. These have all been announced since the budget announcement by the ministers who are responsible for them.

Renovations and repairs to public buildings, repairs to schools, local government projects, the upgrading of forest and fisheries resources -- these are all multimillion-dollar projects on their own, and they certainly demonstrate the determination of our government to put some of the hard-earned tax dollars of our people into jobs that will help stimulate the economy at this time of need. There is a total of $171 million among the co-operative projects, these accelerated ones and two others I have yet to discuss.

10 p.m.

The programs that are stepped up in this way, these initiatives, will enhance facilities such as bridges, buildings, roads, whatever, which are already in existence and will beautify many of them for a long time to come. These benefits will be much appreciated by the residents of the areas where the construction and the upgrading will be performed.

We want to ensure that the people of this province have the best service and facilities available in accordance with our budgetary means. We remain committed to making sure that Ontarians enjoy the highest possible standard of services available.

The government is not only concerned with seeing our unemployed get back to work, although it is certainly important that they have the opportunity to polish their skills and again be able to pay their own way and earn their own living, which I guess 95 per cent of us want to do. In addition to that concern, we want to see our young people develop the skills that will enable them to participate fully in the life of this province. We know that young people are the group hardest hit across Canada by the recession we are in now.

Mr. Nixon: The member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) is in charge of that. Where is he?

Mr. Dean: I think he is off looking for jobs for young people.

Mr. Nixon: Is he going first class in his quest?

Mr. Dean: I did not know he had a quest. I thought it was a jet.

In March and April, respectively, the actual youth employment rates in Ontario were at 17.3 per cent and 16.2 per cent, while national rates were higher at 18.4 per cent and 18 per cent. That is almost a full percentage point in March and almost two percentage points higher on the average, in April, than in Ontario; which means we are not quite as hard hit as some, but we still have nothing to brag about. As a result, our government is not content to sit back and compare our more favourable statistical situation with the national average. We do not want to do that. We do not place all the blame on the federal government. We must work hard to correct this situation.

About half of the unemployed in Ontario today are in the 15-to-24 age group. We know it is necessary to take all available action and make sure that as many students as possible are given the opportunity to work at the occupation of their choice. This year's budget, this budget we are now debating, gives our existing youth employment program a big shot in the arm. Funding has been increased by $12 million to total $91 million. That is 14.2 per cent over last year. Some 8,400 new jobs will be created, bringing a total of 93,000 jobs to the youth employment sector. This is a very significant factor.

The popular Ontario youth employment program, which had already allocated most of its funds at the time the budget was prepared, will now receive, through the budget, an additional $7 million this year. OYEP's $30 million will allow us to subsidize 57,000 jobs. Just think about that for a minute -- 57,000. Those are for young people who otherwise might not have got a job.

Mr. Nixon: How can the parliamentary assistant in charge operate that when he is in Paris?

Mr. Dean: I think the machinery has already been established -- to respond to that interjection. After all, everything is not dependent on the activities of one particular person.

Mr. Nixon: You mean you can get along without him?

Mr. Dean: Temporarily; after all, some of these are temporary jobs.

The Ontario youth employment program gives eligible farms and businesses a subsidy of $1.25 an hour per employee taken on during this project to create new jobs of up to 20 weeks in length, particularly for people in the summer period between courses. The target group again is young people between 15 and 24 years of age.

Mr. Haggerty: How many jobs in the peninsula?

Mr. Dean: Fifty-seven thousand jobs throughout the province are available this way. Presumably they are spread throughout the province wherever employers are willing to assume their part of it.

Mr. Haggerty: How many offshore workers are coming in to work on the farms in the Niagara region?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Dean: As you have often requested, Mr. Speaker, I will ignore the interjections, especially if they are irrelevant.

The target group for the Ontario youth employment program is obviously our young people between 15 and 24 years of age. As well, the Ontario career action program is being subsidized with a $2-million boost. The new level of funding, now $16.8 million, will result in the creation of more than 15,000 training positions across Ontario. That is 15,000 more than we would have had without this program.

I am not suggesting that this is anything magical. The funds certainly come from the tax base, as all our other funds do, but it takes the initiative and imagination of someone who looks at the picture clearly to apply these funds directly.

The other youth-oriented initiatives of this government, such as Experience '82, the junior rangers, summer replacement, co-op students and similar special programs, with a combined funding of $39.7 million, will provide 18,000 more jobs.

These programs are the result of the pooling of efforts by all of the ministries of the government. By combining this wide variety of resources and creating these many opportunities, this government is actively demonstrating our commitment to provide the youth of the province with the opportunities to develop their skills and to get practice by on-the-job training.

In addition, the Ontario youth secretariat has carried out extensive information programs to assist young people in actually finding a job. Through the Ontario youth employment program, the secretariat has produced many informative booklets and slide-tape programs to show young people in many parts of the province how to go about looking for a job or starting a small business.

This again is done partly in co-operation with the federal government, which is the way in which governments should be operating their employment programs and services for youth. A KWIC index to the many youth employment initiatives and services sponsored by both levels has been published and distributed.

It is important to improve the public's awareness of the many government programs and services available in Ontario. We are trying to do this by encouraging young people to take the initiative and by showing them how to do that.

A very important component of this is the youth employment counselling centres sponsored by the youth secretariat of the Provincial Secretariat for Social Development which serve youths between the ages of 15 and 24 who are disadvantaged for social, economic or educational reasons. They are initiated in the local centres which help reduce youth unemployment by preparing young people to actively look for a job and to meet the demands of it when they get one.

The members would be surprised -- or perhaps not, not if they looked into this -- to know how many young people actually lack the skill to go and find a job. They hardly know where to start. They are baffled by the bigness or strangeness of it all. The youth employment counselling centres are providing a real function here.

I am acquainted with the youth employment counselling centre that is operating in the city of Hamilton with the Citizen Action Group. I believe it is an excellent example of what is done, in the beginning on a volunteer basis and now with considerable funding from this government, to set up a program on an informal and homelike basis where the young people who have dropped out of school for some reason or other and who have not had a history of successful job application or work can come.

10:10 p.m.

It is getting a fantastic response from the young people in the community, not because they advertise but because of the word-of-mouth recommendation of other young folks who have had the experience. The dedication of the full-time staff and the volunteers is something to behold, and it is something one could not buy. To help them in this very worthy program our government, yours and mine, is supporting an expansion of this centre to respond to the demand.

I emphasize the word "respond." Our government is a responsive government, responding to the needs of our young people for the chance to earn an honest living, building tomorrow's citizens as well as finding jobs for them.

Mr. McClellan: Temporary jobs.

Mr. Dean: Temporary jobs sometimes turn into full-time jobs.

A program is also in place which encourages students 15 years of age and over to create their own jobs by learning to develop and operate their own small businesses. This is called the student venture capital program. Through it students may receive up to $2,000 to start up their own business. That is an interest-free loan and helps them to start their summer enterprise. The work is done in connection with the financial services of a bank and with local chambers of commerce to get practical, helpful advice.

I am sure it is apparent to members that this is an important component in giving young people the experience of starting and running a business to see what some of the challenges and pitfalls are so that, as they get older, they will be prepared to enter the great crop of small businesses in our province which, as all members agree, are the backbone of our economy.

All members present tonight will recognize that the government is sponsoring a great variety of initiatives which will enable our youth to live to the fullest of their potential and learn and to realize their skills. In short, job creation for our youth is receiving top priority in this budget by this government.

Another sector that has been badly hurt by the inflationary pressures of the last few years is our agricultural community. This government is committed to ensuring that this very important base of our economy weathers the extraordinarily harsh economic climate as well. I need not draw members' attention to the various programs that have been initiated in the past year.

I wish to draw attention to the fact that this year the Treasurer's budget provides $11 million in additional measures to create 2,100 jobs in our farming communities. These include an increase in the funds for tile drainage by over 26 per cent compared with last year, creating a new $5 million farmstead improvement program and making sure those funds are properly allocated to people who truly need them.

Because many of our farmers were having problems due to economic conditions, a number of programs had been put into place before the budget came out; for instance, the farm adjustment assistance program announced in December for those farmers hit hardest by high interest rates. We heard earlier this evening from the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) that to date 700 have taken advantage of this initiative and have received help from the government's funds.

It is expected that the $60 million of assistance will be provided to as many as 5,000 farmers in order to enable those who have been hit where it hurts to weather some of the toughest part of the recession.

I am also informed that details will soon be announced of a new program, mentioned in the throne speech, which will provide young farmers with assistance.

I have called the attention of the members of this House to these many job creation programs to make a single point. The government of Ontario is vitally concerned with the unemployment problem that faces our people. We know unemployment hurts everybody. It stultifies the growth of our economy on a large scale and it is an overwhelming burden on the people who are most intimately affected.

This government is doing all it can to confront the problem and to rectify it, not by throwing money at the people but by trying to stimulate the economy through partnership with private enterprise.

That is the final point I would like to make, that although government has many resources available -- all of them, of course, raised from the citizens -- and can institute well-planned programs -- and we are trying to do that -- it does not have all the resources necessary to improve the business climate all by itself. In fact, this government does not want to take on the management of the economy all by itself. We believe in government encouragement, in government stimulation of the economy. We do not believe in government meddling, in government taking over the economy.

To redress the current situation, where the economic situation is not all that rosy, all levels of government and private industry must work together. As I stated earlier, tough conditions call for tough measures. Much has to be left up to the businesses, to the labour unions, to individuals in the private sector to share the responsibility, to manage their operations in such a way as to promote the public good, to work towards building an economy that will sustain full employment.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the government of Ontario has laid out a reasoned, moderate budgetary plan to do the several things I have spoken about, to keep up our services to our own people, to restrain the growth of our own government sector.

Again, I would like to point out to anybody who missed it, and I do not think any members of the House could have missed it, that on page 19 of the budget document reference is made to the necessity for the public sector to restrain its wages and salaries. The Treasurer has indicated that, beginning with the top level of the civil service, the maximum salary increase this year would be six per cent. He has also indicated that the same thing would fall into place for members of this Legislature, that any increase would be a maximum of six per cent.

Mr. Nixon: He just made a recommendation.

Mr. Dean: That is correct. That is a recommendation.

Mr. Nixon: We never follow those here.

Mr. Dean: I hope, just in line with the very penetrating comment of the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk -- and please notice that I got the name right --

Mr. Nixon: You certainly did. Nobody ever said you were a slow learner.

Mr. Dean: In concert with what the member has said, I think six per cent is too much of an increase for the people in this House. I think we are the ones who, above all, should show leadership and demonstrate that we can do without an increase for a year because of the situation. I think this would be viewed in a very positive way by all our constituents, and it might bring home to those who still have some lingering doubts about where responsibility lies, that it lies with each one of us to try to lick the inflationary bug.

We cannot wait for George to do it. I do not mean the Chairman of the Management Board (Mr. McCague), although he might try hard. The member for Burlington South (Mr. Kerr) does not want to do it alone either, though I think he could. The reasoned program of the government, besides including those things, also has a plan to create new jobs in the world of business and industry in co-operation with private entrepreneurs -- I have outlined them during most of the evening -- and, finally, to provide training for our young people who can bring their enthusiasm and new ideas into our work force.

The many positive features of this budget are designed to keep Ontario strong. All honourable members will serve their constituents well by supporting it.

10:20 p.m.

Mr. Ruston: Mr. Speaker, the member for London North (Mr. Van Horne) was prepared to speak but he is in committee. I did not know when he was going to speak or how long the former speaker was going to talk. I could go down and get him if it is agreeable or we could adjourn.

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

Mr. Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 28, the member for Essex North has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer to his question by the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton). I now call upon the honourable member, who may speak for five minutes.

Mr. Ruston: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: There is a problem in that the minister with whom I wish to raise the question is in committee as well. We have a slight problem. I am sure the minister would be willing to come in at 10:30 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, with the agreement of the House we could recess until 10:30 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: We could do this on Thursday night.

The House adjourned at 10:22 p.m.