Journal des débats 1982-juin-21 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order. Last Thursday I asked my friend the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) a question with respect to urea formaldehyde. He indicated to me that he would respond on Friday.

Since that time, and I am not sure where one goes with it, the minister has sent an inspector in but that inspector has told the company it does not have to make the necessary changes with respect to the ventilation in that plant because of the layoffs.

The fact there is no statement from the minister either verifying or confirming that, leaves me wondering what we are supposed to do in this province to protect workers. Despite the fact there are ministerial orders saying improvements have to be made, inspectors go in and indicate those repairs do not have to be made in view of the layoffs.

Because of the 6,500 other workers in this province faced with having to work with urea formaldehyde, I would like to know what the Minister of Labour intends to do to protect those people.

The Deputy Speaker: I would say to the member for Sudbury East that his point would be more appropriate during question period and he should wait for that time.

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTION

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, a month ago today the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry), in response to an inquiry of the ministry, indicated that a reply to my question would be tabled on or about May 21. It is now June 21, and I trust the Attorney General will take notice that I have not as yet got the answer which was promised.

The Deputy Speaker: Would the government House leader acknowledge that?

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Yes.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

SOLAR ENERGY PROGRAM

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, may I take the opportunity this afternoon to inform honourable members that today is referred to as Sun Day in Canada.

Whereas the weather may not be totally in agreement, today is traditionally a day to celebrate the sun. For the first time in Canada, we also have the opportunity to express our support for Sun Day, a day set aside to recognize solar energy, other renewable energy sources and energy conservation in Canada.

Here in this province we not only celebrate but we also use these energy forms all year round. That most plentiful and benign energy source, the sun, is now being used here in the province to supplement and to supplant traditional forms of energy production in a range of applications from heating homes to supplying energy for industrial processes.

Impressive gains have been made in the province in the development and use of solar energy. The Ministry of Energy has committed approximately $4.4 million to the development of more than 100 solar energy projects in the past two years.

Our five-year, $10-million commercial-industrial solar demonstration program, started in 1981, is the first government attempt in Canada to encourage the private sector to find and prove its own markets for solar energy. In the first year of that program, $2 million was provided to 30 organizations. A total of 51 solar projects were designed and installed. This year we now have nearly 100 proposals under consideration. This year, also, the federal government has joined us in the program.

My ministry is working closely with other ministries to encourage the use of solar energy in provincial government buildings. We now have 30 completed solar projects in our own buildings. We are working in conjunction with Ontario Hydro on the installation of residential solar water heating systems, and we are cooperating with the Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada on the development and demonstration of passive solar heating and other low-energy building techniques.

We are also building the largest active solar project in Canada, in Hamilton. By the fall, Mohawk Hospital Services laundry will be preheating more than half a million litres of water a day using energy from the sun. By funding demonstration projects, we want to encourage Ontario's solar industry capabilities to improve technologies and make the contacts needed to promote product sales at home and abroad.

Our solar energy program is designed to ensure that, as solar energy becomes more cost-effective and as the demand for systems and related services increases in Ontario, Canada and the world, we will have the technology and an experienced solar industry ready to respond. Ontario's solar industries are already in the forefront in Canada and should be congratulated on this particular day. Of the 26 solar manufacturers in Canada, 18 are based in Ontario. In 1981, Ontario solar industries had cross-Canada sales of $7.2 million. This industry provides primary and secondary employment for about 900 people in Ontario.

As we reflect upon these developments, we cannot afford to overlook other alternatives such as energy from municipal waste, from forest and agriculture biomass, from microhydro installations, from wind and alternative transportation fuels. As well, energy conservation is and will remain a cornerstone of the Ministry of Energy's program. Together, these represent an enormous indigenous energy resource and we have really only begun to tap its potential. By 1995, at least five per cent of Ontario's energy will be obtained from renewable and recoverable resources. This is in addition to the 13 per cent of Ontario's primary energy currently being supplied by hydraulic power alone.

All these actions are intended to lessen our demand for oil and to encourage the development of our renewable energy resources. Sun Day offers a fine opportunity to focus on the energy mix of our future.

DEATH OF KIM ANNE POPEN

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: Two weeks ago, on June 7, I rose in the Legislature to raise my concern that the Kim Anne Popen report had still not been tabled in the House. Outside the House that day, the Attorney General indicated that the information would be made available to him from Judge Ward Allen by June 21, today, and that he would have the report to give by the end of this month. My information is that it is not ready. Only 15 of the 30 chapters are in anything like finished form. The recommendations have still not been completed and the minister is not here to make a statement to clarify the matter.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not a point of privilege, but I am sure the honourable House leader will take it under consideration.

ORAL QUESTIONS

TAX ON SOLAR ENERGY

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Energy's encomium on Sun Day leads me to put a question to him as to how he can justify the recently announced budgetary policy of his government, which puts a seven per cent additional tax on these facilities when that runs completely counter to the initiatives the Minister of Energy is undertaking and describing at such length and in such glowing terms to us today?

2:10 p.m.

In his position as Deputy Premier, could he not simply instruct the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) in the committee hearings to begin in a few days to withdraw those counterproductive taxes on solar energy and, once and for all, establish the Ministry of Energy as a ministry in which we can have some confidence in a situation which otherwise has not led us to take that decision?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I really feel the opposition House leader could almost guess what the answer is. I understand there will be some committee hearings following the passage of this bill at second reading stage. No doubt the Canadian solar industry and other groups will want to appear before that committee to make any representations they want in that regard.

Mr. Nixon: Since the Minister of Energy is so committed to the expansion of a solar concept and solar facilities, perhaps he might either appear at the committee hearings or, being the ranking minister in the cabinet vis-à-vis the Treasurer, simply instruct him to remove that tax once and for all so these various programs could go forward.

I would like to say to the minister we have all read the ads that have gone in the provincial dailies. I am informed the ads in Toronto alone cost $8,269. I wonder if he can explain why, in the ad which draws the attention of our grateful taxpayers to the fact this is Sun Day, he lists 15 grants to Ronald McDonald's superiors, McDonald's, and does he really feel this is the way to justify a program which is supposed to be in the best interests of all the energy consuming citizens, that is, adding the toast to the sesame seed buns?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I think the honourable member's research people could have been a bit more accurate. It is my understanding the advertisement with respect to Sun Day appeared in some 40 provincial papers.

Mr. Nixon: This was just the cost in Toronto.

Hon. Mr. Welch: If one adds about $1,000 to the figure the member used, that was the total cost of the entire program throughout the whole province, not just in Metropolitan Toronto.

The commercial enterprise to which reference is made in the supplementary was one of many applicants, along with the solar industries that made application under the commercial- industrial solar demonstration program. It was one of the successful applicants that wanted to demonstrate the utilization of this technology for heating water.

Many of those chains throughout the province have indeed been successful and I have been at a couple of the openings. They were part of the proposal. When one thinks in terms of the popularity of establishments such as that, it is a good indication from an educational point of view of demonstrating the use of solar energy for the purposes to which that company has put it.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, will the minister not give a commitment to make a presentation before the committee? It is his ministry alone that has access to the statistics which show all the tax breaks for oil, gas and electricity in excess of the tax breaks given to the conservation and solar industries of the province, so that the solar and conservation measures, because of the taxes imposed on them -- including the additional silly tax now imposed by the Treasurer on these commodities -- are not as competitive as they could and should be with conventional forms of energy from a cost point of view.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I hardly need to remind a person of the experience of the deputy leader of the third party that government policy has been embodied in the budgetary statement of the Treasurer. The Treasurer's budgetary statement represents the government's statement in that regard. That statement is going to the standing committee and we will have representation.

Mr. Foulds: These are just words then; words, nothing.

Hon. Mr. Welch: There is no question they are words. They represent accomplishments.

The advertisements represent accomplishments. There will be 100 more developments announced within a matter of a few days, all taking advantage of current government policy.

There is all sorts of government and taxpayers' money now in the system by way of incentives, which will continue to encourage this industry.

Mr. Nixon: Since the minister employs 38 people in his communications group and only 10 people in his solar section, would he not consider that members of the community at large are liable to think his commitment is more to publicity than to actually improving the use of solar energy? The Canadian Solar Industries Association has told us that the reintroduction of the tax, running counter to the initiatives of the minister, may well be the balancing factor in cutting off some solar programs now being considered.

What can we say to those people who tell us they feel the minister's commitment is one based on publicity rather than something that is going to give us a significant solar energy and alternative energy program, especially in view of the fact that the big voices in the government do not support him but have reintroduced a tax that is counterproductive to the energy policy?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I am quite satisfied that the people connected with that industry and in the trade, know of this government's commitment to this technology and are encouraged by the incentives that are made available.

TAX BURDEN

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer, but I would like to refer it to the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) as well, since once again her assistance with the taxes paid by school boards would be helpful. However, I will direct it to the Treasurer since I know the Minister of Education pays attention to these matters.

Does the Treasurer recall receiving a letter signed by the chairman of the Brant County Board of Education indicating that for the remainder of this year the imposition of additional taxes will cost our taxpayers in the county $177,382? Will the Treasurer respond in the House to the comments made by the chairman of the board, backed up by all the members?

In a community such as Brantford, and there are others such as Windsor, Chatham and so on, where there is a very high level of unemployment and increasing difficulty in meeting local taxes, there is a feeling that the Treasurer's decision, vis-à-vis the sales tax being applied to school boards, is really applying a cruel and unusual additional burden which is unwarranted and should be reconsidered.

Hon. F. S. Miller: That kind of question has been asked by a number of opposition members on a number of days, where they specifically referred to their ridings. In this case, the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk has done much the same thing. I can only say that the Minister of Education and I are meeting with the representative body tomorrow morning.

Mr. Nixon: I am not sure what the representative body is. Perhaps it is the trustees or perhaps it is some other group. Since the minister's additional taxes will be applied to building materials for construction contracts, classroom supplies and equipment, as well as an extra levy for the Ontario health insurance plan, there is a feeling that this amounts to double taxation.

Will the Treasurer indicate that when he attends the hearings of the standing committee beginning next week, he will be able to give us the results of his further discussions, not the ones that took place before the budget but the ones taking place after the budget, particularly with school boards who are feeling the weight of this additional unexpected measure, one that was applied well after their budgets were established, so he can personally contribute to the deliberations of that committee in a positive and constructive way?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I intend to do just that when I attend the meeting to look at the bills my colleague has in his name in the House. If I am not there all of the time, I will be there most of the time during those deliberations. I understand my responsibility in that area and do not intend to shirk it under the guise of not having the bill.

To choose any date in any year when everybody's budget is about to begin is impossible. That is why we cannot have the synchronization of all those times. It is very easy to say. The member has seen this kind of event in a number of previous budgets. OHIP fees have been raised a number of times. They are not put into the cost of a school board by this government but rather by agreement between the school boards and their employees.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, would the Treasurer admit that the lateness of this budget was intentional, not because he was waiting for Mr. MacEachen to do something at the federal level but because he wanted to ensure that municipal and school board budgets were already set so that the changes would not be reflected in this year's municipal and school board budgets but would mean increases next year?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Really, Mr. Speaker, I give my colleague from Algoma credit for a little more intelligence than that.

2:20 p.m.

Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister would care to comment on a clause in a letter that was just mailed to him by the Hastings County Board of Education in which it says his budget "has best been described as the child tax budget as you have managed to not only tax their school supplies and school meals but their soft drinks and candy bars as well. It is disheartening to find a provincial Treasurer who feels that children should bear the burden of increased provincial taxation."

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I predicted in advance I would hear from every school board and every municipality in the province. No one likes the imposition of any costs to them. The fact remains that if one looks at an education budget, and the total percentage attributed to anything to which tax is applied which is paid for by the school boards, it is a relatively small share of the total budget except where they may be having a specifically large capital project in a given year. The member knows that; he knows it quite well.

I would also point out that when property tax reform was talked about in the mid-1970s, one of the basic principles in the paper which came out was that governments should pay each other's taxes. It is as simple as that.

TAX ON CLOTHING REPAIRS

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I have a new question for the minister of confusion and Minister of Revenue. I would like to ask him about the implementation of the retail sales tax as it applies to dry cleaning repairs.

Can the minister confirm that when the budget was first announced, dry cleaning establishments were told that the tax on dry cleaning repairs was only on the labour? Can he then confirm that this was reinterpreted so that the tax was said to be on the final price: labour and cost of materials of the repair? Can he also confirm whether it is true that subsequently, Ministry of Revenue officials have told the Dry Cleaners and Launderers Institute of Ontario that, therefore, the materials purchased by the dry cleaners for repairs is tax exempt?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, frankly I am not aware of the great, grandiose problem as described by the deputy leader of the third party.

In my view there has been only one set of questions and that related to whether it was or was not taxable. Frankly, at any time I have ever seen a charge for a repair bill at a cleaner's, invariably it has just said, charge for repairs: $1 or $2 or $3 or $4. I do not know what all these grandiose supplies would be unless somebody is charging for a patch, or a button or whatever.

In any event, it is not significant in my view. Everything relating to the repair, including the labour for the repair, is taxable. It has nothing whatsoever to do with and never did have anything to do with the cleaning part of any bill; just the actual repair itself and anything that would go into that repair.

Although the member opposite likes to make a mountain out of a molehill, it is quite obvious that one does not pay the tax twice. So if a vendor is collecting tax, he in turn can have tax relief from anybody through whom he buys materials and that would be a matter of clarity and clarification if that question came up.

It has not been an issue. It may very well have been a question and I think it was answered just to clarify the issue.

Mr. Foulds: Can the minister then tell us, in the spirit of his statement that there is not double taxation, now that he has imposed this tax on repairs and materials for repairs, which of the materials will be exempted when they are purchased by the dry cleaner? Will it be the zippers, buttons and thread that go into the repairs, or will it be the zippers, buttons, thread and the hangers, polyethylene bags, tags and so on that the dry cleaner then uses to package the repaired article? Can he tell us whether those materials, which are used by many dry cleaners for free repairs as a courtesy to their customers, will be tax exempt?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: The only confusion in this whole issue is obviously that which has been contrived by the acting leader of the third party. He is the only one who thinks it is a big issue. Frankly, I have not seen or heard any representations on that contrived issue before.

The Deputy Speaker: Answering the question.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: We all know that when we are talking about hangers and the plastic bag the garment comes in, those would be taxable in the hands of the dry cleaner because they are not taxable then to the recipient, the customer at the retail level. There is nothing unclear about that. There is nothing changed about it.

On the other hand, in terms of repairs that are made to garments, in most instances these are done on a no-charge basis. If that is the policy of the particular cleaning establishment, the same thing would apply. Goods and materials that they buy they have to pay tax on because, in turn, they are not collecting it.

Mr. Cunningham: Mr. Speaker, it is one thing for the 400,000 people in this province who are unemployed not to be in the position to buy new clothing. Does the minister not find it just a bit mean-minded to tax repairs on the clothes they already have?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, as the honourable member is aware, this is a policy issue and one that was involved in the budget by the Treasurer. As he has indicated on numerous occasions in response to questions, he looked at the whole tax field and came up with a reasonable and equitable implication of tax changes. That happened to be one of them. One can rationalize any particular issue as to what side of the argument or as to why it should or should not be taxed. In the context of services, it is just as equitable and just as fair as any other.

Mr. Foulds: Will the minister not agree that he has just admitted the principle of double taxation because he will be taxing the hangers on which somebody puts a pair of pants that is not being cleaned but repaired at a dry cleaners? Can he not now admit that this tax is confused and it is an administrative nightmare?

Does he know that last week the firm that is owned and operated by Sid Chelsky, who is the past president of the Dry Cleaners and Launderers Institute of Ontario, had sales of $22,000; $120 of that amount was in the repair area and the minister will be implementing a tax of $8.40 on those gross sales?

If one projects that across the province, he will be gaining next year a tax of about $56,000 in this one area. Does he not realize that the cost of getting that $56,000, for his tax exemption that he is going to have to grant -- for the number of bulletins he is going to have to send out, for reinterpreting the legislation, the cost of enforcement, the cost of monitoring -- is going to far exceed that $56,000, and does he not think it is about time he simply withdrew it?

The Deputy Speaker: You may answer one of the questions.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: I am trying to figure out which ones were questions. The first answer was no, if the honourable member recalls what his first question was. He will have to read back in Hansard to see what was first perceived as being a question in itself.

There is no doubt, in terms of the issues raised by the member, that I am sure there will be many dissertations and otherwise at the hearings in front of the committee when it starts one week from today. Although the member refers to $56,000 here and $100,000 there, believe it or not, over on this side those dollars become millions of dollars and a very significant part of the budgetary responsibilities of this government.

2:30 p.m.

TAX ON MEALS

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I have a new question for the Minister of Revenue. The minister has justified the maladministration of the sales tax, the lack of interpretation, and the lack of clear details in his budget bulletins for more than six weeks by saying the regulations will be implemented "in the spirit of the budget."

Can the minister tell us if it is in the spirit of that budget to tax essential items? How does he justify the imposition and administration of sales tax on foodstuffs and groceries, particularly on university students? For example, how does he justify the taxation of university students in residence when they have no alternative to purchasing their food either at the residence or the cafeteria where the food will be taxed? In most cases they are not allowed to cook food in their university residences.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, that question should be directed to the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller).

Mr. Bradley: He wasn't listening.

The Deputy Speaker: Will the member for Port Arthur repeat the question?

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I hate to use the time of question period to repeat a question when all members, particularly the Treasurer, should have been paying attention to a budgetary question. However, I will ask the question very simply.

How does the Treasurer justify the imposition of a tax on foodstuffs to university students in residence who have no alternative except to buy that food with their meal plan at the university residence or at other restaurants where it will be taxed, since in most cases university students in residence are not allowed to cook food in their rooms?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact I was talking about a tax measure with the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch), while the honourable member was talking. I must admit that the member's statements, which allegedly are questions, can go on for some length and it is not too hard to lose the thread while one is listening to them. That has become one of the points.

By the way, I was curious to know whether this side should not have walked out today since neither official leader of the opposition parties was here to ask questions. It was one of those things that made us worry over here. Of course, the member would agree that his leader could be here if he had had the courage to run in Hamilton. He could have been here.

Mr. Foulds: The Premier is not here either. Where is he? Stop being so silly.

Hon. F. S. Miller: The leader could have been here today to ask the questions instead of having the deputy leader ask them.

One of the differences between policy and detail is to find out in the course of writing regulations where inconsistencies or unfair treatment occurs. It is not new this year. The member is making a lot more hype about it this year.

Mr. Foulds: It is a lot more obvious this year.

Hon. F. S. Miller: It is not. The member will be surprised to find that we have simply put back in the base things that previously were taxed. I am sure the committee, when it starts sitting next Monday, will want to see how many of these items have attracted tax in Ontario at some time. I do say this, though: Obviously the committee will be a useful exposure to all of us to see whenever --

Mr. T. P. Reid: You have a lot of nerve.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I ask the honourable member to sit down. I want to say that exposure was always there for the government. What I was going to point out was that, for a change, members will hear some of the conflicting reasons given by people in the same business about the same tax. They will discover these clear, cut-and-dried, easy-to-solve problems are not that easy, which is exactly why we have always listened and always will listen following the presentation of any budget.

Mr. Foulds: Can the Treasurer justify the additional cost of $65 to $75 the government has loaded on to a student at Queen's University, $100 in the University of Toronto, $90 in Lakehead University and $100 in the University of Western Ontario, when the government has already increased student fees by 12 per cent, which for a student in the University of Toronto, for example, means an additional $146 in fees? How does he justify the additional cost of $250 to the average student in Ontario today through this budget?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The member talks of dollars without referring them in any way to inflation. I think the fact that we pay five sixths of the cost of post-secondary education in Ontario through the tax system is not bad. I think we give our students in Ontario a very fine assistance program. I think the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Miss Stephenson) through the --

Mr. Foulds: Why are you taxing their food?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Stop roaring. You sound like a bull.

Mr. Foulds: You are discriminating against those in residence.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Just sit there. The fact is that not every student at every university is in a residence. There are those who do not pay that tax. If the member were to count them, I think he would find that there are as many not paying it as paying it.

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, is the minister in possession of data that would either confirm or deny the data just presented to the House by the deputy leader of the New Democratic Party? Can he confirm or deny that the impact for those students in residence with no choice, given the nature of most meal plans in our residences, is in the order of $50 per semester and $100 per school year?

Is the Treasurer prepared to indicate to the university students in residence in this province that he will entertain representations on their behalf to possibly alleviate a discrimination that is certainly going to add to their already significant financial difficulties?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, no, I cannot confirm the accuracy of the figures used by the deputy leader of the third party. I assume when a member of this House stands up and uses figures that they have been at least researched to some degree, sometimes coloured, but I am not taking any exception to his figures today. I will assume they are correct until I am shown they are not correct.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. Just answer the question.

Mr. Foulds: On a point of order, before I ask my supplementary: We have the notices being sent out by the universities that clearly itemize the tax the students are having to pay.

The Deputy Speaker: Question.

Mr. Foulds: Will the Treasurer not withdraw the sales tax on food purchased by students at university residences because it is discriminatory? Does he not realize it is discriminatory in two ways vis-à-vis other university students? He has already recognized the principle of unfairness by saying the prepared meals in nursing homes and homes for the aged, for example, should not be taxed, because the people in those institutions have no alternative but to purchase the food in those institutions. Similarly, university students have no alternative but to purchase food in those institutions, or at another institution where it is taxable, such as a restaurant. They do not have the option of buying groceries and preparing their own meals. Will he not now withdraw that tax on those students?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I hope the member realizes that I set out certain principles in my budget. The Minister of Revenue quite properly sent the member back to me for principles. I will be listening to all the details in the committee hearings. If I do not find some inconsistencies during the committee hearings, as I find every year --

Mr. Cooke: The tax went into effect on June 14.

Mr. Foulds: You are charging the tax to the students now.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Please listen and hear what I say. If I do not find some inconsistencies that should be corrected in those hearings, I will be surprised. I have, every year I have been Treasurer, as every other Treasurer has, and we have taken those steps. The idea that somehow the committee is doing something that has not occurred every previous year is wrong.

TAX ON FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Treasurer. Surely the Treasurer is aware that one of the most contentious issues that has come up with respect to the budget is the imposition of the tax on feminine hygiene products. I am going to ask the Treasurer two questions.

The Deputy Speaker: No. Ask him one, and you can have a supplementary on the other.

Mr. Epp: I have two simple questions. First, does he believe that tampons are not essential in today's modern society? Second, will he save the committee valuable time and his Tory colleagues further embarrassment by standing in his place today and announcing he will remove the tax on those products?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, we have made an agreement through the House leaders to sit next week. I am not changing anything until I sit next week.

The Deputy Speaker: I should not allow the member a supplementary, I know, but I will.

Mr. Epp: Since the Treasurer has indicated he is going to defer the decision to the committee, will he ask the whip not to apply the whip to his committee members and permit a free vote among the committee members so they can make a decision based on conscience and on the kind of support they are getting from the electorate out there to remove the tax on those products?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I would like to stress that (a) we will have a whipped vote and (b) it will reflect the conscience and problems of the people of Ontario.

2:40 p.m.

EMPLOYEE HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Labour. I am sure the minister is aware of the provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act which indicate that every precaution must be taken to ensure the health and safety of workers. The decision by Judge Nosanchuk last week indicates that those sections of the act will no longer apply, particularly when they deal with toxic substances.

There are two statements in his decision, "There was no medical evidence called at the hearing indicating any ill effects actually suffered by Mr. Milburn, although it was generally conceded that asbestos-related diseases, if they are contracted, would not develop for a period of 10 to 15 years." Secondly, the court pointed out, "The medical evidence is conflicting and the court is not prepared to find, having regard to the duration and intensity of the exposure, that risk to health has been demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt."

Does this decision not indicate that there is no protection for the workers and that there is a major flaw in the Occupational Health and Safety Act?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I believe I answered exactly the same question in response to the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) last week. I answered it in some detail and referred to the actual statement made by the judge. I also referred to the appropriate places in the Occupational Health and Safety Act that do protect the workers.

Mr. Martel: Obviously they did not protect the workers, because this is the ruling that came down. Let me ask the minister, does he intend to appeal the decision? Also, since there are thousands of chemicals coming on the market, approximately 1,000 each year, and in view of the fact that the minister does not have any regulations with respect to any of them, is he prepared to change the act so that it reads, "The onus is on the employer to prove the new substances are safe," rather than as it is at present, that workers must prove their health is at risk? Otherwise, there is no protection for the workers.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I do not agree with the honourable member, again referring to the content of the act. I have no plans at this time to change the act. I feel it adequately protects the rights and safety of the workers.

VISITOR

The Deputy Speaker: Before I recognize the member for Lakeshore (Mr. Kolyn), I think all members of the Legislature will want to welcome Mr. Russell Rowe, a former colleague and, of course, a former Speaker of the Legislature, along with his wife, Marjorie, and Mrs. Yvonne Carruthers, wife of a former, longstanding colleague of this House.

TEACHER-BOARD NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Kolyn: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Education. In the Toronto Sun this morning I read an article on Metro-wide bargaining written by Harvey Currell. Also, in the Toronto Star editorial section this afternoon, I read an article on the same subject. Can the minister say whether the facts stated in the article in the Toronto Star are accurate?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the simple answer to that question is no.

Mr. Kolyn: When do we hope to introduce Bill 127 for second reading?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: It is my understanding that it will be debated. Second reading will be some time this week, probably on Wednesday. I most certainly hope there will be an opportunity at that time to demonstrate clearly the flawed interpretation of Bill 127 which appears as an editorial in the Toronto Star. There is so much in that article, which is absolutely as far from the truth as it could possibly be, that I wonder how any responsible editorial board could have made those statements without ever talking to either the minister, the deputy minister, any of the assistant deputy ministers or any of the senior officials within the ministry.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, to clear up the confusion in the minds of many people in this province, particularly in Metropolitan Toronto, can the minister give an undertaking publicly that there will be full hearings in which the public can become involved during the month of September and even during the evenings? Is she prepared to give a firm commitment to the House right now that she will support this?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I think I have stated publicly on several occasions, certainly in estimates, that I would refer the bill to committee for hearings and that the suggestion that the committee should have hearings at night is perfectly acceptable to me.

I really only question whether it would not be sensible to have one half of the hearings during the additional time we will be spending as members of the Legislature in sittings within this Legislature. The first week of July, which I believe begins on the fourth or fifth, I think is an appropriate week for at least one week of the hearings on that bill. I can see no reason at all why we should not consider that seriously, since the vast majority of the people who have expressed concern are obviously not going to be very far from the city of Toronto at that point.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, is the minister not aware that the House leaders have agreed to have hearings in September? Is she repudiating the decision reached by the House leaders?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, as usual, the member for bell-ringing Bellwoods is obviously well off the track. He does not have any idea what he is saying. I am not repudiating anyone; I am asking a question about whether it would not be sensible to proceed with the initial hearings on Bill 127 during the first week in July.

Mr. McClellan: The answer is no. Talk to your whip.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I simply suggest that it is, I suppose, such a logical and rational request that it would be denied by the third party.

APPLICATION OF TAX

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Revenue. I would like him to help me clarify a matter that has come to my attention from several of my constituents who are concerned about it.

Since it is my understanding that when items are purchased outside the province, the Ontario sales tax must be paid -- and I am wondering whether it would apply to labour as well -- will the minister inform us whether sales tax will have to be paid on an item that is being worked on at present as far away as 2,000 miles, in the state of Texas, the $10.6-million jet? Will the extra items being placed in the jet at present and the labour that is being performed in Texas be subject to the Ontario sales tax? Or does the government exempt itself from that which it forces others in the province to pay?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, I understand that many of those same questions were addressed last week in the Ministry of Natural Resources estimates, but the honourable member who posed the question did not take advantage of the opportunity to be there and listen to the answers. That is par for the course, particularly for that member. In that regard he comes very close to a member two seats over from him.

The Deputy Speaker: All right. All right.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: He is here from time to time when it suits his purpose.

The Deputy Speaker: We all want to know.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: This question is unrealistic. The member knows darned well that in government, whether one is putting something into one pocket or another is neither here nor there, to start with; in fact, when one is talking about goods and services that are brought into the province for consumption within the province, they are taxable.

In the particular issue involved, I am not quite sure exactly what the member is talking about, whether it is the labour component that he is referring to or not; it is rather unclear. But it really does not matter whether it is taxable or not, because we would be paying it to ourselves.

2:50 p.m.

Mr. Bradley: I am pleased to have the minister tell the House that he is going to treat his own government differently from the boards of education and the municipalities.

Has the minister considered attempting to implore his fellow cabinet members to avoid some of the problems he has in administering this tax, the complications in the tax that are going to garner some smaller revenues for him? Has he indicated to the cabinet that much of this problem could be solved if the cabinet would make a decision to sell the jet?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: As usual, an irresponsible question from an irresponsible member, and not worth an answer.

Mr. Breaugh: I was interested, Mr. Speaker, in the minister's reply that it does not make sense for a government to tax itself. Would he care to apply that same principle with this whole sales tax provision to other levels of government, like school boards and municipalities? If it does not make sense for the minister to tax one pocket and take it out of the other, why does it make sense to apply that same principle the other way around to other levels of government, such as municipalities?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, that is not what I answered before. If the honourable member will check back in Hansard, he will find that I said that if we do pay tax it is transferring it from one pocket to the other; it is our own --

Mr. Foulds: Oh, you said it did not much matter.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Yes, because it is from our own pocket, one to the other. In this instance we are transferring it from one pocket to the other: we are paying tax to ourselves; so it really does not matter.

What the member is referring to is other levels of government, and I think that, as both my colleagues the Treasurer and the Minister of Education have already noted on more than one occasion, there are many other aspects of the funding regulations to municipalities and others within this province that have recognized their legitimate needs; and, in fact, the Treasurer similarly has legitimate needs of which they have to pay part.

NIAGARA ESCARPMENT COMMISSION

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development. Perhaps he will recall that last December 10 I questioned the Premier (Mr. Davis) about an order in council that prematurely terminated the appointments of four pro-conservationist members on the Niagara Escarpment Commission on August 31 of this year. They were, as the provincial secretary will recall, Bateman, Lowes, MacArthur and Brechin.

Perhaps he will also recall that the Premier said he would reconsider those terminations. That was six months ago, and it is now just some two months until those appointments run out. As the minister responsible for the Niagara Escarpment Commission, will he tell us now whether they are going to be reappointed for another year to fill out their terms so as to provide experience and balance while the Niagara Escarpment Commission is finalizing its plan for the escarpment?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Mr. Speaker, as the honourable member suggests, these appointments are not up for reappointment until August. They will be looked at and studied, and the appointments will be made in August. I am not ready at this moment to say who will be appointed.

Mr. Swart: Will the provincial secretary recall that the Premier himself, in a letter dated October 14, 1981, wrote to Mrs. Lyn MacMillan, the president of the Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment, saying: "One does not initiate a sudden change in the membership. I recognize that the commission has some tough decisions to face when the hearings are over and the hearing-officer reports are submitted. I would suggest that in those circumstances it is better to have a team which possesses knowledge and experience."

Would that not indicate to the provincial secretary that the Premier favours these reappointments? And is it not true that the provincial secretary is just stalling these reappointments until after the House adjourns, and then he is going to remove the pro-conservationist members and put on pro-development members in their place?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: It is easy to see that the member does not know what he is talking about. Yes, I am fully aware of the letter the Premier wrote and signed. I met with Mrs. MacMillan a few days ago, and we talked about these four appointees. What I have really said was that it has not been before the cabinet for any decision to be made.

TAX ON NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Mr. Eakins: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Treasurer. Does he not realize that if he were to exempt nonprofit tourist organizations from paying retail sales tax on their promotional brochures rather than charging them tax on those, it would mean a difference of something like $40,000 annually for a group such as the Metropolitan Toronto Convention and Visitors Association and that this money could then go to further promote Ontario, bringing in more tourists, more revenue and more tax dollars for the Treasurer?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the words "nonprofit organizations" are sometimes hard to relate to the purpose of the organization. I find that if an organization representing profit-making entities is carrying out an advertising campaign, it should be just as taxable as if the component people did the same. I find it a bit difficult to assume that one should be able to form an association, allegedly nonprofit, for profitable interests and avoid the tax.

I would also argue, knowing the member's riding is similar to mine, that there are many groups calling themselves nonprofit camps, etc., which are very profitable. They charge the same prices and are avoiding not only my taxes at times but also the municipal taxes of some of the townships that can barely afford it.

Mr. Eakins: Does the Treasurer not see the irony here? Does he not see that it is the same tourist organizations he forces to pay retail sales tax on promotional literature to which he gives money in the form of provincial grants to promote Ontario? Does he not realize that he would permit such organizations to bring in even more tourists to the province if he did not tax them on some of their funding with his retail sales tax policies?

Hon. F. S. Miller: That is not inconsistent at all. Buses and all kinds of materials that are purchased by tax-paying organizations or grant-receiving organizations do attract tax. I would like to point out one thing. It is very often much easier, and this has been agreed by the federal and provincial governments in their own dealings, to charge each other taxes and have them in the prices rather than to have very complicated bureaucratic processes to either recover them or exempt them.

JOB CREATION

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Treasurer. Is he aware that in cities that now have been suffering from high unemployment for a long period -- such as the city of Windsor, which are reliant on one industry, namely the auto industry -- because of the deepness of the recession and depression in those areas, the number of people that are having to apply for welfare, and the types of cases, have switched?

For example, in March, 807 non-auto employees applied for welfare in the city of Windsor while only 40 auto workers applied. The industry and labour adjustment program, which is the federal program to help these hard-hit communities, assists only those in the auto industry.

I wonder whether the Treasurer will now reconsider his rejection of our proposal before the budget to set up a community adjustment program? Will he reconsider this and institute a community adjustment program to help job creation for these people?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, one of the questions I often get from the honourable member relating to this kind of problem is about the unfairness of multinationals working within our jurisdiction and the unemployment they create in the process. I think that is a similar problem. I have not noticed the member saying too much about that lately.

If it were not for the fact that we were exporting a lot of vehicles to the United States because their market has recovered and ours has not -- which, by the way, indicates the total inability of the Liberal government in Ottawa to govern the economy of this country -- we would have a lot more problems in the cities that depend on the auto industry. We are in that fortunate time right now of shipping out more than we are bringing in. We have a surplus, as the member knows. The fact is I am not currently reconsidering that.

Mr. Cooke: I would like to point out that I spoke with the welfare officer in Chatham. She explained to me that the same problem is occurring in Chatham, where most of the people who are having to go on welfare are non-auto workers, and it is not because of a recovery in the auto industry but because the depression has sunk through to the retail and service sectors.

I also wish to ask the Treasurer whether he is aware that for the city of Windsor to participate in his job creation program, whereby it got $1.5 million, the city would have to spend an additional $900,000 of its own money, according to both the mayor and the finance commissioner? Does the Treasurer not realize that this means a great number of municipalities will not be able to take up this money and jobs will not be created? Will he change the program now and indicate that both labour and capital costs will be included in his job creation program?

3 p.m.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I do not know the ratios in the various communities. The honourable member tried that once before asking did I fairly see there was an allocation, knowing my colleague had done it on the basis of general welfare assistance cases. That is what the allocation was, I understand, for that assistance program.

Projects can be chosen by the municipalities and submitted, I assume, to the minister for approval but 100-cent dollar grants do not necessarily make for efficient use of money. Obviously, municipalities can vary greatly in the material content in the various undertakings they could propose. I would suggest to the member that most municipalities would far rather see people out there doing necessary jobs in the municipality, earning some of our money, some of their money, than simply drawing GWA.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, surely the Treasurer realizes the point we are getting at is that the depression and the recession in cities such as Chatham, Windsor, Brantford and others has gone so far that every sector of those communities is now feeling the pinch. Surely he realizes that the renter-buy program is of absolutely no use in such communities as Windsor, where there are barely two dozen housing starts that even qualify, and that his tax forgiveness for small businesses is virtually useless in Windsor and Chatham because there are no businesses that are making money.

What specific programs does the Treasurer have for such communities as Windsor, Chatham, Brantford, and others which have been hardest hit by the recession and which will get so little help from even the so-called good aspects of the Treasurer's budget? What is he going to do to help them? Why does he not consider adding on capital as well as labour, at least in those communities, for short-term job creation?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I answered the last part a moment ago. There has to be some contribution from municipalities. They can design their projects but anything that gives away 100-cent dollars is abused.

Second, I question whether the member is accurate when he says no small businesses in those cities are making a taxable profit and no one is benefiting. I suggest to him that of the $2-million worth of undertakings -- if that is the amount in Windsor -- that is going on, being the sum total of our contribution and the chosen amount by the municipality -- if he tells me that is not helping people get back and earn a living, then I do not know what is.

HOUSING FOR EX-PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS

Mr. Ruprecht: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Community and Social Services. What is the minister's response to the recommendations of the report entitled The Housing Gap: Deficiencies in Appropriate Housing for Ex-psychiatric Patients; in particular, the recommendation that his ministry should increase the allowance rate for discharged psychiatric patients and that the shelter supplement be mandatory for this group?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I am very sympathetic. However, I am not too sure the solutions proposed by the member for Parkdale would not do anything more than create a welfare state for some of the landlords now.

Mr. Ruprecht: That really surprises me, but I will go on to the next supplementary before I break out and make another statement I would regret later.

Mr. Breaugh: Don't chicken out; say it.

Mr. Ruprecht: That member wants me to be thrown out, does he not? Yes, it is unbelievable.

As the minister knows, the maximum allowable benefits for a single, unemployable person on general welfare assistance and under the Family Benefits Act are $288 per month and $364 per month respectively. Is the minister aware that well over half of the patients discharged during a two-week period earlier this year from the Clarke Institute and from the Queen Street Mental Health Centre depended on either GWA or FBA as their only source of income?

Given that this must cover all their necessary expenses including housing, food, clothing and transportation, and in view of the fact that housing costs alone in Toronto can eat up half of that supplement at best and over 80 per cent of it at worst, how does the minister expect these people to live even at minimum standards? Could he provide himself with the necessities of life on $288 a month?

Hon. Mr. Drea: To put the matter into perspective, many months ago I met with the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, my good friend Paul Godfrey. This was long before the member for Parkdale discovered there were any ex-psychiatric patients having housing problems, by the way.

It was our concern that mere increases in allowances would not begin to meet the particular shelter demands of many of the more difficult of the discharged cases from the Queen Street Mental Health Centre and, to a lesser extent, from the Clarke Institute.

It is a matter of record that my ministry, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing have been working together for some time to come to grips with a program that would do two things; not merely provide shelter but provide a community support service for patients leaving either one of those institutions.

It is a matter of record that my colleague the Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) started to put that on the line --

Mr. Martel: Shout a little louder.

Hon. Mr. Drea: -- and the member's former friends on the Toronto council wanted no part of it. If the member wants to say there should be a new shelter arrangement for ex-psychiatric patients, then he should go to see his old council colleagues, particularly one of his friends, before he does so.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I found it difficult to hear the minister, but I think I see a supplementary here.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Oh, I don't believe you. You're deafened because you sit beside the member for Port Arthur; that's the problem.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: The problem is trying to catch the Minister of Education's interjections.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Community and Social Services says that just increasing the rates for people on general welfare assistance will not meet the social needs of ex-psychiatric patients of the Queen Street Mental Health Centre or the Clarke Institute. I could not agree more. However, would the minister not agree that it would go some distance to helping? There has not been an increase since January 1981 except for the shelter allowance of a maximum of $50.

Will the minister be recommending an increase to the cabinet of at least the cost of living and some catch-up? Will he be using in his argument the fact that the doctors got a great catch-up of $13,000 a year? Does the fact that the minister has put his glasses on indicate he is going to give me a negative answer?

Hon. Mr. Drea: I will take them off. As the honourable member knows, I have been reviewing all the aspects of the GWA rates.

Mr. Kerrio: Speak up.

Hon. Mr. Drea: It is a matter of knowledge to the member who asked the question and to the one who has difficulty comprehending the answer that we have been reviewing the GWA rates for some time. When I have finished reviewing them, they will know the answer.

MAYFAIR APARTMENTS

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Is the minister aware of the situation at the Mayfair Apartments, which is in my riding of Ottawa Centre? It is an apartment building in exceptionally sound condition where the tenants, many of them elderly, have been told they must get out by October in order that the plumbing may be replaced. The landlord proposes to create what he is calling "a co-operative ownership company" and the tenants will have to pay $60,000 in order to get back into the apartments they formerly occupied.

Since this is an obvious attempt to evade the condominium conversion bylaw of the city of Ottawa, what action is the minister prepared to take to stop this obvious abuse of provincial and local legislation?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: First, I am not aware of the situation. Second, I suspect it is a matter that comes under the Landlord and Tenant Act.

Mr. Cassidy: Is the minister prepared to intervene to stop the landlord from using the Landlord and Tenant Act in order to wrongfully evict tenants whose only sin is that they have been there for a very long time? They have been decent, ordinary tenants. Is the minister prepared to move to ensure that no landlord is allowed to make these renovations unless it can be proven they are required and unless the agreement about how they will be handled is negotiated with the tenants rather than it being imposed upon them?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: As I hope the member is aware, the Landlord and Tenant Act does not come under the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. However, I am sure the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) heard the member's comments.

3:10 p.m.

Mr. Cassidy: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: Since that question has been redirected, could we have a response from the Attorney General?

The Deputy Speaker: The minister never actually redirected the question. He said it could be asked of the Attorney General. I want to tell the member for Ottawa Centre I was stretching question period a little to get in his supplementary. With that consideration --

AUTOMOBILE PURCHASE

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I want to raise a point of privilege on your behalf. I know you cannot do it because you are in the chair, but you must consider it quite a slur that the Super Loto has announced a thousand domestically produced automobiles from every other major producer except General Motors. Those automobiles will be produced here in Ontario and for GM they will come from out of the province.

I know you regard that as a slur on your ability to represent the great area of Oshawa Mr. Speaker. I am sure you would want to have that on the record.

The Deputy Speaker: I am sure the minister in charge would like to respond.

Hon. Mr. Baetz: On the point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: The plan announced today is under the auspices of the Interprovincial Lottery Corp. which includes Loto-Québec. All of the other cars that are being given away, 1,000 of them, are being manufactured in Ontario, but the GM product is being manufactured in Ste. Thérèse, Quebec. Ontario will be manufacturing the lion's share of the cars being given away and it is no slur on you or anybody else, Mr. Speaker.

RESPONSE TO ORAL QUESTION

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: At the beginning of question period I rose on a point of order to indicate I had not received a reply from my friend the minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay). That has subsequently arrived. The reason I raise this matter is, when we place oral questions and the response is written, there is no opportunity to have a supplementary. I would have liked to have asked the minister why his inspectors have obviously told him that the ventilation has been cleaned up. We know that as of last night that has not occurred. I am bringing this up to indicate to ministers that maybe they should reply orally in the House so we can have supplementary questions in the appropriate way.

PETITIONS

TAX ON FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I have here a petition signed by at least 5,300 people from Ontario regarding feminine hygiene products. I regret very much that the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller), who was well aware this petition was going to be presented today, is not here right now. He slipped out a few minutes ago, obviously embarrassed that these signatures would be going to him.

Over a period of four weeks this petition has been gathered by some hardworking women of this province who work full-time on other matters; particularly Barbara Saunders who is from my home riding of Waterloo North. Together, they have assembled at least 5,300 signatures. They expect to get another thousand within the next week or so. They have had hundreds of phone calls and a lot of correspondence.

It is with some pleasure I present this to the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch). I hope the Deputy Premier will pay attention, take these signatures, give them directly to the Treasurer and refer them to the committee. There is a lot of concern here and these ladies hope to appear before the committee when it meets next week.

TAX ON FOOD PRODUCTS

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, today, I have two petitions to present: one with 2,100 signatures that was organized by the owner of One Maiden Lane Restaurant in the city of Windsor that reads as follows, "We, the undersigned, oppose the seven per cent retail sales tax on food products."

The second petition I have is one I put together myself in response to the hundreds of calls that have come in to all MPPs' offices. At this point we have 1,250 names returned and more will be coming. It reads as follows, "To the Lieutenant Governor in Council: We, the undersigned, oppose the extension of sales tax introduced by the Ontario government in the May 13, 1982, budget."

TAX ON CLOTHING REPAIRS

Mr. Worton: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table a petition addressed to the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller). It is against the sales tax that imposes charges on repairs and alterations to clothing. It says, literally, that this new tax is burning a hole in the people's pocket. I present this to him.

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table two petitions, one from the customers of Modern Dry Cleaners and Draperies Ltd. and the other from the Tawco Coin Laundry and Dry Cleaning Centre, in Oshawa, with 112 names in total, protesting the imposition of the sales tax on cleaning and repairs.

REPORT

ANNUAL REPORT, LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY

Mr. Cureatz, on behalf of Hon. Mr. Turner, presented the annual report of the legislative library research and information services for the year ended March 31, 1982.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGE RELIEF ACT

Mr. Renwick moved, seconded by Mr. Laughren, first reading of Bill 151, An Act to provide temporary relief to Mortgagors of Residential Property in Ontario.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill is to protect home owners in their homes by providing a moratorium until March 31, 1984, on court proceedings for foreclosure exercised for power of sale or recovery of payments for principle and interest under a residential mortgage, and by providing that any residential mortgage coming due before March 31, 1984, shall continue in effect with the same terms and conditions until that date if the mortgagor so requires.

This is an identical bill, updated, to a bill which I first introduced on March 13, 1980, and again on December 14, 1981. The reasons are that interest rates on residential mortgages are again reaching unprecedented levels. Pressure is continuing on the upward movement of interest rates.

Many mortgagors must refinance within the next nine months and this bill, if passed by this assembly, would provide relief during this period of uncertainty until appropriate economic policies can be put in place to alleviate the current emergency situation.

REPRESENTATION AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Breaugh moved, seconded by Mr. Swart, first reading of Bill 152, An Act to establish the electoral district of Queen's Park.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, the bill provides a special constituency, to be known as Queen's Park, for the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. The Speaker's term would continue through two successive Legislatures beginning and ending at mid-session. The total number of members would consequently be increased by one. I might say this may take a little while to simmer through the honourable members' minds, and it will be my next ballot item.

The Deputy Speaker: We will all take much interest in it.

3:20 p.m.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Before the orders of the day and on the order we are calling, Bill 115, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act, it was agreed by the House leaders and whips we would distribute the time among the parties so the government party would have approximately one hour and the balance of the time would be divided equally between the opposition parties.

Mr. Nixon: Two hours each.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: I assume that is still the agreement.

Mr. Nixon: That's agreed.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading on motion:

Bill 144, An Act to amend the Provincial Courts Act.

RETAIL SALES TAX AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Ashe moved second reading of Bill 115, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act.

The Deputy Speaker: For further clarification, I notice under the orders that the bill is going to continue this evening. Does that mean that this evening the time will also be split between 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.?

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Yes, Mr. Speaker, up until 10:15 p.m. I understand the vote will take place at 10:15 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker: Is it one hour for the government side and that is it? Is it at the end?

Mr. Nixon: At the end or whatever they want.

The Deputy Speaker: It is a total of one hour for my honourable colleagues on my right and the rest of the time is split between all those honourable colleagues on my left. The Minister of Revenue (Mr. Ashe) has a statement.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, I have an 80-page statement to use up some of that time.

This bill will amend the Retail Sales Tax Act to implement the proposals contained in the Treasurer's budget of May 13, 1982. The changes will result in a broadening of the tax base and a lowering of the tax rate as it applies to some prepared meals and transient accommodation. As well, the bill contains a number of amendments which are designed to improve the administration of the tax and to safeguard tax revenue for the province.

The Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller), in his budget speech a year ago on May 19, 1981, indicated something many members may have forgotten: the tax structure as at present constituted was not providing the revenue required to meet the needs of the province. One measure to be undertaken would be a review of the retail sales tax base.

This year, the need is even greater as the government responds to demands to help the people of this province cope with the difficult economic conditions facing all of us. As a result, a review of the retail sales tax base has been carried out. This review resulted in the elimination of a number of exemptions which currently exist, changing the application of certain other exemptions and extending the tax to some areas not previously taxed.

Trees, shrubs, bushes, seeds and plants, all exempted in 1973, will now be exempt only when they are purchased by someone engaged in the business of farming.

Certain exemptions are being removed: those for personal hygiene and household cleaning products which had been in effect since 1974; street flushers, street sweepers, classroom supplies, student supplies and household pets, exempted in 1973; clothing patterns, textiles and trimmings exempted in 1979; and smoke alarms which were also exempted in 1979. Magazines will only be exempt when purchased by subscription or when distributed without charge.

As well, materials used in the construction of hospitals, nurses' residences, schools, universities and capital works of municipalities and local boards will no longer be exempt, nor will buses or their repair parts purchased by municipalities. Such materials as storm doors, storm windows and thermal insulation will now be taxable.

The exemption threshold for candies, confections and soft drinks will revert to 20 cents from 49 cents, as was the case prior to 1979. All other snack foods will become taxable. Also, the $6 exemption level for prepared meals will be withdrawn and all prepared foods, including all meals with certain exceptions, will be taxable but at the lower rate of seven per cent. The previous rate, of course, for taxable prepared meals was 10 per cent.

The tax base will be expanded to include labour costs applicable to the installation, repair or maintenance of tangible personal property. However, the tax will not apply in those situations where the items on which the labour is performed become or are already a part of real property.

The tourist industry is an important part of the economy of this province. To assist the hospitality segment of that industry to remain competitive in attracting tourists to this province, the rate of tax on transient accommodation will be reduced from seven per cent to five per cent.

In another area, the existing exemption for licensed vehicles powered exclusively by fuels other than gasoline or diesel fuel, has been expanded to include licensed vehicles which can be fueled by both fossil and alternative fuels. The exemption will also apply to dual fuel conversion kits.

As well as those items that changed the application of the retail sales tax, this bill also contains a number of measures of an administrative nature. It is necessary to protect for the province those revenues that are rightfully due to it; therefore, measures have been provided that will ensure that purchasers who refuse to pay the retail sales tax owing at the time of a purchase may no longer complete the purchase. Additional measures will provide penalties for purchasers or vendors who wilfully complete a sale without collecting the tax.

As well, I have included an amendment to ensure that the tax content of accounts receivable assigned as collateral will be remitted to the province.

Other amendments will establish the conditions for tax on a deemed sale of tangible personal property from a corporation to its shareholders at the time of winding up or dissolution of the corporation, change the application of the tax in the case of chattels that are rented separately from the real property to which they are attached, and provide much broader conditions under which vendors may advertise or quote tax-included prices.

There are other administrative amendments of a minor housekeeping nature, which I will not elaborate on at this time, but which update terminology, give effect to metric conversion and remove redundant or expired exemption sections from the Retail Sales Tax Act.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I rise to represent the Liberal Party on this bill, and it will probably come as no surprise to the minister, who unfortunately has to carry this bill, that we intend to vote against it.

I do not intend to go over at any great length the arguments I made in my budget reply, and some of the arguments that may have slipped in, in reference to Bill 111. But I want to reiterate briefly why we insisted and fought so strongly for this particular bill to go to committee, a committee that will be allowed to hear people from the public and have them express their opinion on Bill 115.

It was interesting to hear the Treasurer stand in his place today and speak as if it was his idea, as if he had almost been pushing this since he had brought the budget down in May, and as if we, the recalcitrant opposition, had been stopping this bill from going before committee and before open public hearings.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the Treasurer is not here to hear this, but some of his colleagues are. I want to put it to you that we are in a state in our economy and in our society where it does none of us any good, when we as governments or administrations have embarked upon the wrong course of action at a particular time, to refuse to acknowledge we have made a mistake and to do anything, including committing political personal suicide, as the Treasurer has embarked upon, as long as we do not have to say, "Yes, we made a mistake and we will rectify that mistake." I give that advice also to my federal brethren who have the responsibility of the executive at that level.

3:30 p.m.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Why don't they pay attention to you? They don't listen to you.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: They are not listening.

Mr. T. P. Reid: If members opposite would just listen, I give this administration full marks for bending as far as it has done. Perhaps an onslaught of seven and a half hours might have had something to do with the government seeing the wisdom of following this course. It is interesting that some have been quoted in the press, particularly the Treasurer, as saying, "We will go to open hearings and we will hear what the public says but that is not going to change our minds or the budget one whit."

That is certainly democracy at its best. It is no wonder a lot of people are turned off by politicians and government when, before they even have a chance to express their opinions publicly, they are told that no matter what they say it is not going to effect any changes in the budget. I am a little more optimistic, although given the stonewalling we have had on this issue for so long, perhaps I should not be.

Mr. Stokes: What are you drinking?

Mr. T. P. Reid: Straight water today, so far.

We on this side objected to Bill 115 in regard to the retail sales tax, originally on four grounds. I would like to go over them briefly. I will not rehash everything.

First, obviously any increase in taxes at any time, but particularly in these economic times, is inflationary. That is almost the only thing all economists agree on. It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, if you look at the budget of Ontario in 1981, the Treasurer's main goal was to contain and hold down inflation. Yet he comes in with a bill in this budget that is not only inflationary across society as a whole, but is regressive in putting an inflationary burden on those least able to pay for it. I think even the Minister of Revenue nodded when I said it was inflationary. That is a given.

Second, I have already in my budget address, which I commend to you, Mr. Speaker, as probably one of the most analytical we have seen in years in the House, said that the aspects of Bill 115, bringing back or imposing the retail sales tax, are contradictory in many ways. For instance, we have talked about energy conservation. We have had questions in the House this afternoon about the solar industry that we hope is going to replace our dependence on oil and gas. This government, and I think rightly so, by not putting the seven per cent retail sales tax on those items provided an incentive for people, companies and corporations to get into other sources of energy such as solar energy. Now, especially when these companies are just starting to grow, it reimposes the sales tax. That is contradictory.

The seven per cent sales tax is also back on buses and public transportation. I do not know what happened to Mr. Transportation Man of the Year but again the government had been promoting public transport and had provided some incentive by keeping the sales tax off, but is replacing it in this year's budget. The second point, therefore, is that these measures are contradictory.

The third I have touched on already. The taxes are regressive. Most economists agree the retail sales tax is probably the most regressive tax there is, because it is not on a sliding scale. It is not taxation based on what your income is or what you can afford, but it hits the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, at the same level of tax, which is seven per cent. Since a senior citizen or person living on family benefits is very close or below the margin of poverty, this seven per cent tax obviously is going to impact more strongly on them than it will on Conrad Black.

Fourth, we are against this tax because of the people who are being taxed, the people who are going to feel it, such as students at the university level. Already today we have heard about the students at the university level who are going to have to pay increased living fees when they are boarding, but students will also have to pay this tax on their school binders and school supplies.

What we really object to is that they are being taxed to pay for the Premier's jet, Suncor, and the $40 million a year in advertising that is keeping this particular government in power. We object to the fact that those people in our society are having their pockets picked. We have now stooped so low as to tax children to pay for the baubles and symbols of this Tory government.

Those were the original four points we had made against the imposition of the expansion of this tax, but now there is a fifth one. The fifth point bothers me almost more than the others. It is that the Treasurer obviously had no idea -- absolutely none -- of the impact it was going to have on the taxpayers of Ontario and those whom he made taxpayers by this budget.

It boggles the mind that the Treasurer has stood up here daily since the introduction of the budget as I and other members of this party and my friends to the left have asked for the Treasurer's studies of the impact of the sales tax on these various segments of society -- school children, university students, the old, the people who are on family benefits, dry cleaners, the women who make dresses and do tailoring work at home, and the economy as a whole. There aren't any. There are no studies. The Treasurer had no idea of the impact these taxes were going to have on people.

Frankly, I cannot understand that. I studied economics a number of years ago. We were told at that time that governments always did impact studies so as to ameliorate the effect of any taxes, so they would know who the tax burden was falling on and so that when they did impose tax or increase a tax, they would know people would be able to afford it and would not be overly adversely affected, because every time there is a tax obviously somebody is adversely affected.

We had the prime example today during the question period when somebody asked the Treasurer if he realized that by imposing the tax on meals in cafeterias for university students that would cost them anywhere from $45 a semester to perhaps $100 over the eight-month term? The Treasurer shrugged his shoulders and said: "You have the figures. I presume you are right. No, I did not realize that."

How can we go about drawing up a budget in the province without having any idea of the impact these tax measures are going to have on different people in our society? It is not difficult to calculate. I will give a couple of examples that were easy enough for us to come by. St. Jerome's College at the University of Waterloo has said that the meal tax, let us call it that, will increase residence fees by about $40 a term; two terms, $80. Similarly, Wilfrid Laurier University has announced that residence fees will increase by $84 in the 1982-83 year to cover costs of the seven per cent tax on meals.

3:40 p.m.

What always dumfounds me is that the people over there have 82,000 civil servants, not counting the ones on contract and the consultants they hire. They are spending $103 million on some of the most sophisticated computer equipment in the world today. The Treasurer has something like 380 people on his staff, a number of them well paid indeed. Yet he has the temerity to come into this chamber and tell us he does not know what the expansion of this tax is going to mean to anybody in this society.

Quite frankly, I think if the people of Ontario knew how badly this budget was put together, how badly the administration is run, and how little those people over there know about what is going on, there would be clamouring in the streets for another election.

There is an additional point. We do not believe, particularly at this time in Ontario's history, in the economic times that we are in, that some of these essentials should be taxed. I will not deal with some of the offhand remarks the Treasurer has made, which indicates his insensitivity to women and others, but there comes a point when we have to sit down and ask are we so greedy for money, have we so mismanaged the economy of Ontario, have we so misspent the taxpayers' money on Suncor and jets and government advertising and so on, that we can really do this kind of thing.

It is interesting that the government spends about $680,000 on public opinion polls. One of their polls told them that people would rather see the expansion of the base of the retail sales tax than putting it up one per cent. For once, the government has been hoisted on its own polis, because obviously the polls were out of date and they were misread or they were poorly taken. I am sure that particular polling institution will not get any more of the government's business.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw your attention to a speech made by one of the finest gentlemen that ever graced this chamber in my time here. That was the Honourable J. N. Allan, who was then the Treasurer of Ontario, in a speech to the Legislature on March 1, 1962.

Mr. Allan said, in speaking about his budget, "By exempting food, fuel, rent, children's clothing, books, school supplies and medical expenses, we have avoided taxing most of the items that represent the greatest expense to families with small budgets. It bears lightly on low-income groups, and more heavily on high-income groups, in accordance with the principle of ability to pay."

Where did the progressive in the name Progressive Conservative disappear to between 1962 and 1982? If one looks at appendix A in the budget statement of the Treasurer for 1982, one will see all of these matters now listed: personal hygiene and household cleaning products; consumables such as soaps and tissues purchased for use in the provision of transient accommodation; classroom supplies; student supplies; materials incorporated in buildings and structures owned by schools, colleges, universities and public hospitals; clothing patterns; and smoke alarms. It really is incredible that the Treasurer should find himself in such a state that he would list all of these things, and stoop so low as to start taxing children.

I want to deal with some particular aspects. My leader and others have put well the arguments and problems related to the food and beverage industry. I would like to talk about some of the contradictions that I may have skipped over too lightly in my previous presentations.

This government has spent $6 million to promote energy conservation, yet Bill 115 and this budget remove the incentive to purchase items such as thermal insulation devices, storm windows and storm doors, heat pumps, heat recovery units, chillers for use in air conditioning systems, solar cells, solar furnaces, windmills and wind-powered generators, timer-controlled thermostats for heating systems, wood-burning stoves and furnaces and wind deflectors for trucks. All of these items would aid energy conservation and follow the government's own policy of shifting from our dependency on oil and gas.

The Premier has built his reputation partly on the fact that he was Mr. Transportation Man, supporting public transit. Now he adds the sales tax to buses and to labour on the servicing of most transport across Ontario.

The budget announced a $133-million capital works acceleration program as job creation. At the same time, the Treasurer is applying the seven per cent sales tax to building materials and certain other items purchased by publicly funded bodies such as municipalities.

The government is trying to promote the creation of jobs by accelerated capital development and, at the same time, it is saying, "By the way, if you do any of these good things we are recommending, we are going to nail you with seven per cent sales tax."

One can talk about the contradictions in the so-called assistance to the hospitality industry where the budget places a 10 per cent tax on liquor, a five per cent tax on rooms and a seven per cent tax on other things. There are three levels of taxation involved.

In the budget, the government talked about job creation programs and said they must be meaningful jobs. The budget dwells on and emphasizes temporary replacement programs which do nothing to address the structural unemployment problems of the province.

It is interesting that I have referred to the fact that the provisions under the budget are inflationary. I believe it was this Treasurer who said: "Inflation has no beginning. It is the cancer of modern civilization. As with all cancers, no one says when it begins or how fast it spreads." I suggest this budget of the Treasurer and the expansion of the retail sales tax are going to accelerate inflation in Ontario.

We talked briefly about who the impact of these budgetary measures would fall upon, particularly the retail sales tax. We sat around and drew up a list, which we call the Miller hit list or the Miller top 20. All of these groups and individuals in society are going to be hit with this tax at a time when they can least afford it.

The list covers pretty well everybody, but I will read it for the members. The restaurant and food service industry, retailers, the poor, municipalities, universities, schools, colleges, school boards and children are now to be taxed, as are women, those on fixed incomes, the solar industry and the commuter, who will have to pay more because buses and labour will cost more.

3:50 p.m.

Also paying more will be the conserver, who was getting a break and was following the dictates of the government; the property owners, whose taxes are going to go up as a result of the transfer of taxes to them from the provincial government to the municipal government, to the school board level, and the fact that school boards and municipalities will have to pay seven per cent tax on materials and labour, property owners will pay more.

Owner-operators of automobiles will pay more; and here taxing labour will obviously have two effects. One is that the cost of insurance will go up. Ontario's new budget, it is predicted, will add at least $27 million to car repairs this year and boost insurance premiums by two per cent or more, according to the automobile industry.

That is not all it is going to do. In my other budget speeches I have talked about the fiddles that are going to be pulled in the province because of this budget. I will finish running through the list of 20. I was at 16 with owner operators of automobiles; 17 is students, whom we have discussed; 18 is hotels and motels; 19 is babies, who are now having their baby powder taxed; and 20, of course, are pet lovers. If one wants to buy a cat or a dog or a budgie, we will now be paying tax on that.

Not only are these taxes ill advised at this time in this economy, but the Treasurer obviously has not considered what impact they are going to have, not only in a monetary and economic way but also in the effect they will have on society at large. Everybody's back is up against the wall. Everybody is having difficulty making ends meet. Everybody is extremely fearful for the future.

What these kinds of taxes lead to -- we have seen it particularly in Great Britain -- are things called fiddles, where people start a barter economy, or they start little fiddles and they salve their conscience by saying they are not really much, it is not really fraud, it is not really stealing. I have had people in business and individuals approach me and say: "What this tax on labour is going to do is, to try to keep costs in line, to try to keep the level of business we have, we will start to use cheaper parts and charge for the more expensive ones. We will start cutting corners. Quality is going to suffer and the consumer is not going to get what he thinks he is paying for."

Both the economy as a whole and the individual will suffer for that because they will be paying for what they think is quality and they will be paying seven per cent sales tax on top of that, yet they will not receive value for their money because everybody is going to try to hold personal costs down with those kinds of results.

We have talked about almost everybody. We could go through the list of the municipalities which have contacted us and told us about the impact of the budget on them. The Treasurer has pooh-poohed that. He says, "We figure it will be only one half of one per cent across the board for all municipalities and school boards." I suppose when one deals in percentages like that it does not mean much, but when one is talking about $500 million or better and start applying the retail sales tax to that, it can get to be quite a substantial amount.

The mayor of Sudbury, for instance, has stated that the imposition of a seven per cent sales tax may result in layoffs and cutbacks in a city that is already undergoing a severe strike. The city of Sault Ste. Marie's purchasing agent has said the removal of these items from the exemption list will have a very significant impact on the Sault's budget and taxpayers as far as purchasing is concerned.

The average North Bay ratepayer will fork out about $64 in additional municipal taxes because of the budget. The mayor of Hamilton, who is obviously a very perceptive fellow, said the provincial government is "raising taxes to pay for its past mistakes." The Kingston public utilities commissioner said the 1982 budget will cost an additional $90,000 over the next two years.

Because of the budget all municipal governments will be forced to rework their budgets, revise their tax levies and abandon projects because of this unforeseen tax.

Mr. Mitchell: Someone wants to know what you are drinking today.

Mr. T. P. Reid: This water is a bit of a disappointment.

We could go through every municipality, every school board, every college and every university, but I will name just a few. The sales tax has affected the Fort Frances-Rainy River Board of Education and other places, obviously, as well. The tax will cost the Sudbury Board of Education another third of a million dollars, the Etobicoke Board of Education an additional $405,000 and the Ancaster Board of Education an additional $222,000. One of those trustees called this portion of the budget asinine. Probably no better word can be found.

It will cost the University of Waterloo an additional $1.6 million, the Brant County Board of Education an additional $177,000, Trent University an additional $200,000, the Lakehead Board of Education an additional $160,000, the Niagara South Board of Education an additional $300,000 and the Lincoln County Board of Education an additional $200,000. The list is endless, and it fuels the inflationary spiral in Ontario.

We could talk about children and the removal of the exemption on the purchase of candy, confections and soft drinks below 49 cents, which hits the children of this province just that much harder. The removal of the $6 exemption on essential meals means that hamburgers from McDonald's cost seven per cent more.

For women, of course, the removal of certain personal hygiene items makes one question whether the Treasurer really understands what is meant by the term "essential." Pensioners and those on fixed incomes are obviously affected by the expansion on these essential items which make up a large part of their monthly expenditures. The budget undermines the ability to pay principle.

I could go on and on and on, and there are those who will say that I have in the past. But I want to reiterate that I am glad my stand in this House for seven and a half hours has at least led to the public being able to participate in this process. I hope it will lead to a more open budget-making process. Obviously, given this budget, the Treasurer and the government need all the help they can get from anyone who will give it.

As I said at the outset, we will oppose this bill because we believe it is poor economics, regressive, inflationary, wrong-headed and asinine, to use someone else's quote. We think we have reached the depths when we have to start taxing children and essential products in our society to pay for the past mistakes and misdeeds of this Tory government. So we will vote against this bill, and we will continue the good fight in the committee hearings when they commence next week.

4 p.m.

I almost feel sorry for the Minister of Revenue, because he is sort of in the position of somebody beating the monkey over the head instead of the organ grinder. The Treasurer is the organ grinder and the Minister of Revenue is the monkey. If one does not like the music, one should not be beating the monkey over the head with a stick, which is what has been happening here, because he is only the messenger boy and the collector.

We would have felt sorrier for him if he had got up and said, to use that immortal phrase, "Yes, Mr. Speaker, this budget sure has screwed up everything." Since he did not have the integrity to do that, we temper our mercy somewhat. We look forward to the public hearings, and we will continue to press upon the government the wisdom of withdrawing the expansion of the retail sales tax to the essential items we have talked about and the ones that are going to have such an obvious deleterious economic impact on Ontario.

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak in opposition to the bill.

Mr. T. P. Reid: No.

Mr. Ruston: We're glad to hear that.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: No, no.

Mr. Breaugh: The minister should not act shocked. I think that is taxable these days.

The bill does some strange things indeed. One would have to think that if, somewhere in the bowels of Queen's Park, there is a Tory who was designated to prepare this part of the budget and was paid actual cash money to help this government put forward legislation of this nature, that person really ought to be put out to pasture.

It is the most asinine piece of legislation we have seen in quite some time. The difficulty is that it is not just silly legislation and that there are not just mean taxation proposals in this bill. This bill inflicts cruelty and hardship on people who are often least able to afford it. This is not a fair taxation process. I think we all agree that no one really likes taxes and that no one likes to have the government impose on his personal paycheque, but there are fair ways to do it; this bill, however, deals with almost every unfair way to do it that one could conceive.

The other thing I want to begin with is that right now, while we finally debate this bill -- it is the first time we have had an opportunity to speak on the principle of this particular legislation -- people out there in uncertain numbers, not sure of themselves, not sure of the rules, not sure of what is fair, unfair, legal, illegal or what, are supposedly collecting these tax moneys. That seems to me to be a ridiculous situation.

Perhaps it might not be quite so ridiculous, and I am sure the members opposite will quote all the precedents, if it were clear what it was the government wanted to tax. But it is not yet clear. And although there have been directives back and forth from ministry staff upwards to the minister, it seems they get waylaid somewhere between the Treasurer, who speaks on certain kinds of taxation measures included in this bill, and the Minister of Revenue, who does not seem too sure from day to day exactly what it is he wants to tax. There seem to be a multitude of ridiculous items in here.

It seems that if one buys a bun in a bake shop it may or may not be a taxable item. If the guy who sells the bun has the temerity to split the bun open or put some butter it, it changes the taxable situation. Worse yet, should one offer the affront of actually taking a bite out of the bun, that might change it another way.

The bill is, in a word, nuts. It does not provide a fair measure of taxation. It does not even provide a clear picture of the rules of the game. It seems to me that as we go through the principle of the bill, as we will this afternoon, we will find more and more confusion coming out of it.

I guess the most ridiculous situation is that it happens at this time of year, when a number of groups in various municipalities are sponsoring festivals, and it was not precisely clear until last Thursday afternoon whether any of those groups were covered under this bill. While they sell some goods, for the most part they sell food and beverages to people in Windsor, in Oshawa and here in Toronto under different names -- they are great cultural organizations that do much work, and people are out there enjoying themselves, we hope -- but they did not know whether the tax applied.

To my knowledge, nobody anywhere in Ontario to this date has a written directive from anybody in the government as to whether they are or are not to be collecting sales tax. There have been some verbal exchanges, and we attempted last Thursday afternoon to get the Minister of Revenue to nail down at least exactly what is covered, what is not and for how long. We have some words in Hansard, but none of the people who are working in the field, who are running villages or pavilions in Fiesta Week in Oshawa, Caravan here in Toronto or Carousel in Windsor, has a clear direction as to precisely what is supposed to be going on.

The irony is that we are just beginning to debate the bill; off it will go to committee and perhaps things will change again. Confusion is reigning supreme, and there are a lot of really perverse notions in here about whether a chicken is a taxable item or not; we need some answers from the Minister of Revenue, who failed only one half of the questions in the first sales tax quiz last week.

What is clear is that an unusual thing is happening. Business people, those who normally like to argue in the quiet of a committee room without a lot of exposure, are saying, "This government is nuts." Business people are spending their money to advertise publicly, to demonstrate that this whole process is crazy. They are getting a little personal about the Treasurer's bite getting bigger and they are putting out little advertisements about the Miller tax. Part of that has a humorous side to it; part of it is the feeling that the Treasurer really did not think through this process very well. And the Minister of Revenue did not do very much to clarify the situation.

The hardships are beginning to become apparent. The students are in difficult economic times and some are going to have trouble with their university expenses next year, but it appears the Treasurer and the Minister of Revenue also want to get at them, for whatever reason I do not know. It is clear that most students in residence will be forced to pay this retail sales tax on the food they eat. Whether they do that in the residence or outside, at some local restaurant that is a little cheaper than the ones the ministers attend, is another question, but they will get hit by a tax on the very food they eat.

Living in residence in many cases is a requirement of the university they attend, at least for the first part of their university education; so there is considerable unfairness there, although they tried to spread the unfairness over as many people as possible.

I find that it is a strange thing. I have had an opportunity to discuss this now with several people who run dry-cleaning establishments and with people who run small restaurants. They are unclear about what is going on; they do not know what their status is right now, and no one has bothered to provide them with that clarification.

We have attempted to get that clarification through the question period, but I think it is asking a bit much of someone who is running a small business in Ontario to follow the Hansards for the daily answers about who will or will not collect the retail sales tax. At the end of it all, having been conscripted as tax collectors, they are then supposed to turn that money over to the province. All this speaks to the number of problems the government has created by this.

I noticed today when the Minister of Revenue was responding to a question, he said it was kind of silly for government to take money from one pocket and stick it into the other, that it was silly for government to tax itself. Yet he has no qualms about taxing what is supposedly an extension of the province, the second level of government, which is the municipalities.

Why did the government decide, specifically in the Retail Sales Tax Act, that it wanted to get at municipalities in as many ways as possible? If it makes no sense, and I agree that it does not, to have the ministry slapping taxes on another ministry, how is it fair to slap it on a second level of government, the municipal level? I do not understand that.

If they are going to be making arguments, and I imagine they will, that they are now prepared, perhaps even as early as next week, to begin the process of changing the grant structure to meet that additional expenditure for licence fees, Ontario health insurance plan increases and the sales tax that is required for municipalities as they carry on their work, how is it sensible to begin the process initially? It seems to me it makes no sense.

4:10 p.m.

We could read into the record, and will if we get an opportunity during the course of the committee meetings, some of the specifics of individual municipalities and school boards that are now going to be faced with a substantial expenditure of money because of an action of this government.

What many people at the local level of government are most irate about, quite frankly, is that the Treasurer has gone on at some length complaining about the federal government unilaterally changing its funding agreements with the provinces with very little or no consultation, changing the rules of the game in midstream, making substantial policy changes that put a level of indebtedness and a cash requirement on the provinces without really properly consulting with them. Yet that same person did the exact same thing to every school board, every public utilities commission and every municipality in Ontario. I do not think that is fair way to proceed. If the government were to proceed in that way, some consultation should be necessary, but it appears there was none.

It is true that we are going to get something unusual in regard to this particular bill, in that it will go for public hearings. That does not normally happen with budget bills. It will be a test of the government to see whether it is really prepared to deal with changes of a substantive nature when we go into committee and do clause-by-clause, when various people have an opportunity to come before that committee and present the very real problems caused by this bill.

I want to deal with the principle that is in this bill, the concept that the Treasurer can stand in his place on budget night and change things without there being any law in place, without there being clear regulations written, without there being clear direction given.

On several occasions in question period we have had an opportunity to raise briefly this rather vexing matter, which other jurisdictions of a parliamentary nature have dealt with. For example, in Canadian law, in Ontario law, these pieces of legislation basically proceed on tradition, precedent, consensus.

More specifically, with a majority government, it seems reasonably clear that opposition parties will raise questions, will certainly raise objections and will vote against them. The trend, the tradition, the precedent will be that eventually a government will be able to pass its legislation. On that is built the whole concept of majority government. On that is built much of the tradition of anybody's parliament. But again it goes back to practice, to precedent, to consensus; there is an agreement among all members of a parliament that it is an acceptable way to proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I put it to you that there is no such consensus in this Legislature, either on this specific bill or on the practice the government is hanging its hat on. I certainly do not sense any consensus on this side of the House that it is inevitable. As we go further and further through the debate on the bill and in question period each day, I sense no clear consensus on the government side as to exactly what is contained in this bill, exactly what this bill means. There is a distinction between what the Treasurer says and what the Minister of Revenue says, and those distinctions continue to change day by day during question period; so it is not clear what this legislation does propose.

The principle that the Treasurer can announce his intentions on budget night and subsequently develop them without any interference from the other side clearly was broken when it was decided the legislation now before us will go out to committee for hearing. The purpose of a hearing is always to provide for amendments. The Treasurer seemed to indicate today that he is prepared to make further changes.

Current law still exempts items from taxation and provides for an individual the right to refuse to pay this tax to a vendor and the right to take that dispute to the Minister of Revenue. The British Parliament has dealt with this aspect of the legality of tax laws before they are finally passed. The British Parliament has clarified the legal status by passing an act, the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, in 1968. We have no such act in this Legislature, nor is the matter covered in the precedents of Canadian Parliaments.

I took the time to go over several sources of information on this and was able to get some research provided to me which perhaps nails down some of what this legal argument is all about, the bare bones being that there is not yet a law in place; nor are there licensed vendors collecting, because not all of them have their licences to collect the retail sales tax; nor are there regulations published; nor has there been proper notice provided to people who are supposedly going to operate under this act.

Erskine May, generally regarded to be a reasonable source of precedents here, sets down the following on page 702 of Parliamentary Practice:

"1. General Rules of Financial Procedure of the Commons: Rule 1. Legislative authorization and appropriation of charges -- A charge does not acquire full validity until authorized by legislation; it must originate in the House of Commons and, if it constitutes a service paid for out of moneys provided by Parliament, must be appropriated in the same session as that in which the relevant estimate has been laid before the House."

On page 717:

"It is the resolution in its final form, which is held to provide the necessary authorization both for the financial provisions of the related bill, as introduced, and also for any amendments which may be offered to it at a later stage."

On page 787:

"Provision has to be made, however, for giving immediate provisional validity to those proposals which are to come into force (many of them on budget day itself) before statutory authority can be obtained. This is done under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968, as amended ... in 1972.

Regarding retrospectivity, which is not presumed, S. G. G. Edgar, on page 389 of Craies on Statute Law, says:

"The Acts of Parliament (Commencement) Act 1973 in no way prevents Parliament from making an act retrospective if the intention to do so is apparent. 'It is obviously competent for the legislature, in its wisdom, to make the provisions of an act of Parliament retrospective,' said Lord Ashbourne in Smith v Callander; and 'No one denies,' said Dr. Lushington in the The Ironsides, 'the competency of the legislature to pass retrospective statutes if they think fit, and many times they have done so,' but, said Lord Ashbourne, 'Before giving such a construction to an act of Parliament one would require that it should either appear very clearly in the terms of the act or arise by necessary and distinct interpretation,' and perhaps no rule of construction is more firmly established than this -- that a retrospective operation is not to be given to a statute so as to impair an existing right or obligation otherwise than as regards matter of procedure ... "

I also want to quote the Honourable Allan Grossman in the Legislature of Ontario debates of May 4, 1973, when this question was previously raised, I believe, as a ruling from the Speaker:

"If this question is considered, having regard only for the existing Retail Sales Act, the answer of course has to be no." That is to say, it was not legal. "However, Mr. Speaker, we cannot ignore the long-standing precedent of this Legislature -- which, incidentally, has been referred to you -- which has recognized the retrospective nature of many of our taxing statutes."

That, I think, clarifies the situation that it is that precedence which the government uses. Mr. Grossman, I believe it would be reasonable to say, was admitting there that it is not legal but that it has been done and is considered to be precedent.

The following appears on page 294 of a paper J. Harvey Perry, called Taxation in Canada and published by the University of Toronto Press:

"In Canada, as in England, any tax changes proposed by the budget speech are brought into effect immediately. Changes in commodity taxes and the tariff are usually effective from midnight, despite the fact that many weeks will elapse before legislation therefor is enacted. This practice is followed to prevent any avoidance of the new rates, particularly when these are higher. Delay would allow taxpayers to forestall the effect of the proposed increases by heavy buying during the period between the speech and the enactment of the law. The statutory vacuum thus created is filled eventually by having the legislation, when enacted, apply retroactively to the date of the budget speech."

Again, the Canadian Study of Parliament Group held a seminar on the budgetary processes on November 18, 1977. Under a section called "Structural amendments effective only when enacted," they said this:

"A possible answer to the problem of uncertainty is to change the practice under which tax amendments become effective as of budget night, regardless of the date upon which royal assent is given to the amending legislation. If amendments became effective only on royal assent, taxpayers would at least be able to proceed during the legislative process with some assurance as to the state of the law.

4:20 p.m.

Those are the precedents we could find, and it is clear that it has been the practice to do this. It is also clear that the legality has been challenged and thought about, and at the very least there seems to be a bottom line there: if the minister wants to proceed in this manner, he had better be pretty clear as to exactly what he is trying to do in a piece of legislation of this nature.

I want to point out that in subsection 5(3) of the Regulations Act for Ontario it seems to be fairly clear. It says: "A regulation that is not published is not effective against a person who has not had actual notice of it." It seems to me that is unequivocal. That is what Ontario law says when dealing with the matter of regulations. Members may notice the Regulations Act is pretty clear and straightforward as to what the government is trying to do with regulations.

I also want to read into the record a small portion from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which this government supported: Paragraph 11(g) reads, "Any person charged with an offence has the right not to be found guilty on account of any act or omission unless, at the time of the act or omission, it constituted an offence under Canadian or international law or was criminal according to the general principles of the law recognized by the community of nations."

In summary, I think we now have a Canadian Constitution that says this practice no longer can be carried on. The practice has been in place for some time. The legality of it has also been in question for some time. The British Parliament passed an act that covers that part of it. The Canadian Parliament and this Legislature have never done so. We now have in place a Canadian Charter of Rights, which seems to me to take precedence over any practices of this House.

I think it clarifies that this tax, which is not yet law but supposedly now is being collected out there, is, to be polite about it, being collected on very questionable grounds. There may well be a legal challenge about it, and the principles in this act may well be ones that are subject to litigation subsequently. I believe the right of a citizen to refuse to pay the sales tax, as the current law still exists, and the obligation on the part of vendors to collect the sales tax, are certainly not yet clear.

We will now go to committee where we will get an opportunity to do something that is unusual in a Canadian legislature or parliament; that is, have public hearings on a taxation measure. I believe that is a sensible way to proceed when one devises these taxation measures. I even hazard a guess that the Treasurer would prefer at this time to have an opportunity to seek the advice of members of this Legislature and the public in a way different from what he has done until now.

This technique of putting together a budget, where one single human being in the entire province understands the budgetary process before it is announced, is quite a wrong-headed notion. It has got this government into a simply untenable situation with an act of the Legislature not yet passed and regulations not clearly thought out, causing immense problems to individuals, small children and elderly citizens. It is causing problems for businesses, municipal governments and boards of education. All this has happened because the principles laid out in this bill are not sound principles and the appendages that go with any piece of legislation have not even been clearly thought out.

We will oppose this bill. We look forward to the opportunity in committee to give people a chance at least to state the problems from their point of view. I hope the Treasurer and the minister who carries the bill will have the wisdom, fortitude and guts to admit there are serious errors being made now. The legality is certainly open to question, and they are proposing tax measures in this legislation that are unfair. It imposes a real burden on people who do not deserve that kind of burden, and it needs to be substantially altered.

We will see, when this bill does go to committee and when it comes back into this Legislature, whether we have a government that is prepared to be mature enough to admit that there were errors and to make some changes to put into place some fair taxation measures. That will be difficult in this bill, but it is a challenge for the government.

Mr. Cunningham: Mr. Speaker, as is often the case, the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) raised some interesting procedural matters which, quite frankly, really caught my attention while he was making his remarks. One was the suggestion that, inherent in the bill, we might fault some civil servant.

While it is a rare occasion for me to take exception to a remark made by my friend the member for Oshawa, I think it would be inherently unfair to blame this item of legislation on one civil servant or even on a collection of civil servants in the Ministry of Revenue. Frankly, I think the employees working in the Ministry of Revenue are only doing their master's bidding; simply put, it is a rather blatant tax grab from the people of Ontario to accommodate and pay for a litany of financial mistakes that are only coming home to roost now. Lest I be the bearer of bad news, I think that, if anything, the next budget and even the budget after that may be even more arbitrary and unfair in the context of taxation.

The member for Oshawa also made a general point about the traditional imposition of a budget immediately after it is read on budget night. I have no aversion to that practice or tradition, which really has become accepted practice in Canada and Ontario -- as long as the taxes are well conceived; as long as there has been an element of consultation, if not of understanding, in advance; and as long as they are generally accepted to be fair. As long as those practices are followed, the immediate imposition of budgetary measures is not unfair.

This budget, unfortunately, is at variance with that kind of phenomenon. I look in my own constituency and in my area at the hardship this budget has already imposed. I think immediately, of course, of the food industry and the food service industry. It was only last week that I had the pleasure of meeting with a gentleman in Westdale who has put $250,000 of his own money, that and the bank's, into the operation of a burger place in Hamilton. Because of the bad economy, that person has already been forced to lay off three or four people, and he expects that as sales in his facility drop he will have to lay off more people. These people are students who are earning tuition money to go to university so that, by virtue of their education, they will probably find a better job and will thereafter, for the next 35 or 40 years of their lives, pay taxes.

The individual in question is going to find himself in a situation where he is going to have to invest money he does not have for the purchase of a new cash register to accommodate the new tax on meals. Previously not one meal in his facility could be purchased over the price of $4. Now he finds that he must charge a tax; a patron must now pay anywhere from 25 cents to 50 cents to the government in tax even on a modest lunch, and this may not be a luxury for people who are on the road, must travel and must eat in restaurants.

The people in the corner stores are finding the same kind of situation. I met with a lady in a corner store not very long ago who indicated that the daily sales tax in her tiny variety store had already increased from somewhere in the area of $8 to something like $21 or $22. Little people are having to pay for this.

Mr. Stokes: What are little people?

Mr. Cunningham: People under five feet six inches, sir.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Like the member for Went- worth North.

Mr. Cunningham: I am five feet six and a half inches.

People on fixed incomes. In my own community we are looking at somewhere in the area of a 10 per cent unemployment rate, and it is really unfair to ask those people to pay more at the supermarket or restaurant. Even if they are in the fortunate position where they can save up and go out to a McDonald's restaurant for a hamburger or coffee, it is inherently unfair.

4:30 p.m.

When one looks at the impact on the retail industry, it is apparent that even with this industry suffering as it is, many people are going to be laid off, maybe for the first time ever, because of the decline in the economy and the imposition of the new retail sales tax.

This afternoon, through a supplementary question, I raised some concerns I had about the cost of the tax on repairing clothes at dry cleaners. I have recently had a petition sent to me from a dry cleaner in my own area. I should maybe profess my conflict of interest because Herb Bowes Cleaners of 25 King Street West, Dundas, is occasionally inclined to provide that service for me. Like many of their confreres in that line of work, they object to that tax.

The Minister of Revenue is fully entitled to bring in measures which would affect the tax on that, just as the government, with its majority, is basically entitled to bring in a tax on just about anything it wants. However, that makes it neither right nor fair. Once one has paid a tax on something, whether it is a jacket or any kind of article, it is inherently unfair to charge another tax on that to repair it on a future occasion.

If someone were to come home and find out that the washing machine or the dryer or some other piece of vital equipment in the modern home had gone wrong and it was going to have to be repaired; first, one is probably looking at a $25 service call on top of which tax must be paid; second, one must pay tax on top of any of the parts and the balance of the labour that would be charged. Certainly, that is unfair.

I reflect on the tax the minister is going to put on items like soap, sanitary products and deodorants. We should establish a better order of spending priorities so these very real necessities would not need to be taxed.

There are the municipalities. I have had the occasion to meet with several, if not all, of the mayors in my community since the budget has become a reality. I believe each and every one of them has been striving to keep expenditures down in his local community, not just because it is an election year or because they are endeavouring to curry favour with the public, but because they realize, perhaps more than the Treasurer and the Minister of Revenue, the serious effects of high mortgages, inflation and unemployment on people who are working hard to keep their houses.

In the town of Dundas in my own constituency, there are senior citizens who are working hard, cutting corners and doing everything they possibly can to stay in their own homes, who have perhaps watched their pensions dissipate year by year, percentage point by percentage point, to a point where they can hardly stay in their own homes. We have few or no openings in senior citizens homes or apartments. There is literally nowhere for them to go. The same thing applies in other parts of my constituency, yet their taxes on an annual basis are going up and up.

One should contemplate the dilemma people with mortgage renewals are facing. I do not think there is a member of the Legislature who has not had someone come to his constituency office or write to him, probably very eloquently, about the pain being suffered as a result of the high interest rates and the high cost of mortgages we see today.

If anything, the task of this government and of the municipalities is to keep their tax increases to an absolute minimum so we are not contributing to putting people out on the street. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever by which we could justify significant increases in municipal taxes. Quite clearly, this budget, in the most invidious way, has been a massive attack on the municipalities.

There are major capital projects in my own municipality that we really need, such as the new transit garage, the arena, a myriad of projects that are going on. We are now in a situation where, as the Mayor of Hamilton said very clearly, we are raising taxes, taxing these things, to pay for the previous mistakes of this administration.

I have a lot of faith in Mayor Powell. He has done a wonderful job in the time he has been mayor. I believe that he and every mayor in the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth have worked hard with their councils and with their staff to keep their taxes down. They see a budget that will require taxes to go up, which will throw their budgets entirely out of whack, not only, as the regional chairman said, this year but every year thereafter. It will do nothing to create jobs, it will do everything to put people out of their houses.

I had the privilege of meeting with the president of McMaster University. I want to tell the members, Dr. Alvin Lee has done a marvellous job in bringing the spending under control, bringing it into line and endeavouring to do what he can to ensure the university continues to offer the very high standard for which it has had a fine reputation. But it is going through very difficult times and this budget has been a blatant attack on its annual budget. It is, unfortunately, looking at even higher deficits.

I am not, by any means, necessarily attracted to the philosophies of President Reagan of the United States, but in commenting on budgets and deficit financing he said, when talking about who would pay these things off: "If not now; when?" and "If not us, who?" Frankly, I think that kind of logic has a great deal of merit.

We are going to see taxes on almost every area of activity within our educational system. That, in conjunction with the implementation of Bill 82, which I thoroughly endorse, is going to put the school boards behind the eight-ball. Again, I think it is inherently unfair.

There is the tax on candy. I guess we can sit back and say that children should not eat candy, or that children should not drink pop, or that they could have a glass of water. But these are the kinds of things that each and every one of us, when we were children, looked forward to, whether the price was four cents, five cents or 10 cents.

When I was a child they did not have a McDonald's in my area. Of necessity, I occasionally find myself rushing for an evening meal through the lineup at McDonald's. I see the Speaker nodding. I think he knows the pleasure personally derived from taking his children to, not necessarily a McDonald's, but any similar type of outlet and the kind of joy and fun his children obtain from such a visit. Frankly, as an individual who is not a parent, when I go to such a facility I take a great deal of interest in the smiles on the faces, the laughter and joy of the children.

The tax on those kinds of items, such as French fries, a glass of Coke, a Big Mac or an ice cream cone, is an inducement for parents to make that trip either not as often or not at all. Ultimately, in the long term, it will result in the reduction of employment in those facilities and in my view such tax is ill-conceived.

I have had some letters, as I am sure all the members have had, from women in our community who really find the imposition of tax on certain hygiene items mean-minded and unfair. Frankly, there is absolutely nothing the Treasurer or the Minister of Revenue can say that will persuade me of the equity of that kind of taxation. It is inherently unfair, and must be an embarrassment to every member of the government who would be inclined to support that facet of this legislation and that facet of the budget. It must be exceedingly difficult for a Conservative back-bencher to justify that imposition of the tax.

I had to chuckle to myself this afternoon in question period when the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch), for whom, frankly, I have a great deal of respect, commented with regard to today being Sun Day and the recognition of the solar industry. Yet, at the same time, this very government would impose new levels of taxation on solar heating devices. That taxation is poorly conceived and in the long term will not help us in any way.

4:40 p.m.

As Transportation and Communications critic for my party, I want the Minister of Revenue to know he is taking a very backward step in the imposition of taxes on repairs for public transit vehicles and on the cost of those vehicles in the first instance. I am mindful the provincial government pays a large majority of the cost. It would probably be in the public interest sometimes if it paid all of the cost.

We should be doing everything we possibly can to get people to use public transit. In this community, with the Toronto Transit Commission, which is a fine system, we are moving in the right direction. The decision to impose these taxes which ultimately will have to be paid by the consumer is in my view poorly conceived.

In my own area, there are contractual arrangements. I mentioned this to the minister in a private conversation. There are contractual and customary arrangements with the regional and local municipalities on certain matters, such as the repairing of vehicles here and there, and even the casual repair of these things in the public interest and in the interest of keeping taxes down.

Those matters will have to be recorded and will invariably require all sorts of trading of paper, bureaucracy, red tape, the payment of taxes and the sending of money back and forth. The municipalities might start hiring more people on staff as opposed to sending their vehicles out. In smaller municipalities, because of the imposition of the tax, it may be prudent to hire more repair staff.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Another job creation incentive.

Mr. Cunningham: Job creation, yes, and the minister is taking it away from the private sector. I would have thought philosophically that would be what this government is all about, but increasingly I am being persuaded from the predisposition I had when I came here in 1975.

There are the students. I do not know if the Minister of Revenue has been favoured with visits from students in his constituency office or health centre. Many students in my community cannot find meaningful employment now. I understand that for the first year in a long time Stelco is not hiring summer students.

In my day, it used to mean a great deal if one could somehow wangle one's way into Stelco or Dofasco. The jobs were sometimes interesting. It was hard work but the cheques were good and the hourly rate was just fine. Unfortunately, because of the economy and the entire economic situation, there are not a lot of student jobs in that area. Indeed, people who have been on permanent staff have not been called back.

The situation in the fall probably will be that many students will not obtain the student loans they require and will find themselves in a position where they will not be able to pay for the increase in tuition, room and board, the cost of residences and the cost of books. That is a step backwards in a province that has prided itself on equality of access to education at its higher-learning institutions. We are making a bad mistake.

The lowering of our dollar should be an incentive to people to respond to the massive, slick advertising campaign, part of a $50-million expenditure last year, for people to come to Ontario and enjoy the great benefits of this province. But those financial benefits, that lure, that attraction, abate quickly when one must pay the reimposed tax on meals and accommodation.

Finally, there is the role of the Legislature in this regard. We are long overdue for some serious re-evaluation of the entire legislative process. In these difficult times, it simply is not good enough for members to involve themselves in what could be characterized as partisan rhetoric on this side, partisan response from the government side, and a lot of bashing away over those 25 feet that separate us. I really think the time has come for us to have far more consultation in the budget-making process.

If anything, I would have expected that the fiasco attendant on the federal budget in Ottawa would have been a lesson for the cabinet, and particularly for the Treasurer, who, I understand from reading current journals, has some further ambition with regard to public life. I would have thought that we would have had far more consultation and a far greater effort to develop a better-conceived and more sensible approach to our budgetary process. We have not had that.

I would think that members of the Conservative back bench would be hard pressed, really and truly, to defend some of these budgetary measures: the loss of jobs in their own constituencies through increases in taxation, or the increases that are ultimately going to result in greater municipal taxes because of these budgetary measures.

I do not make these comments in a partisan manner because I really sense that we in this country and in this province are on the wrong course. I would sincerely urge the Treasurer, if he is inclined to read these remarks, and more important the Minister of Revenue, to re-evaluate some of these taxation measures and take a long look at possibly cutting expenditures and putting a moratorium on taxes for a year or two.

We are probably one of the most overgoverned, overtaxed jurisdictions in the western world. I really doubt that we are going to be able to come up with the revenue to continue to fuel our health care and education systems, and I believe we are going to be in very difficult shape if we do not endeavour to shed some of the unnecessary expenditures we see and that many members in all parties could identify quite readily.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I also will be voting against this bill because I think it is a thoroughly bad bill. It is a retrogressive step towards a more regressive sales tax. We should be moving in the opposite direction and reducing our reliance on regressive sales and commodity taxes. Instead, through this bill the Treasurer will be getting an estimated $800 million more in revenue from the retail sales tax in the next fiscal year. Some of the $800 million is due to inflation, which this government is also doing nothing to stop; in fact, by this bill they are adding to it. But a great deal of it is due to the extension of the sales tax base.

A retail sales tax is considered regressive if it applies to all purchases because it hits the low-income people with the same percentage as it hits the high-income people. The low-income people have to spend all their income on food, clothing and shelter and have very little to save; the high-income people do not pay sales tax on their savings.

Our retail sales tax in Ontario had become roughly proportional through the exemptions that were built into it over the years. These exemptions were for food, household cleaning supplies, personal hygiene supplies and children's clothing. With those exemptions a sales tax can be less regressive and roughly proportional. It could actually be made a progressive tax if there were a proper sales tax credit available, but the sales tax credit the Treasurer now has in effect benefits very few people except senior citizens, who get it automatically. Other people may get it depending on their level of income; in most cases inflation has cut people out from receiving that particular tax credit.

4:50 p.m.

This bill is a savage and merciless attack on a number of groups in our society. It is a savage attack on women, particularly women with low incomes and those who are single parents. These women often have to use prepared-food outlets. Their children have to use them. They do not always have the time to pack lunches for themselves and the youngsters. The children will pay sales tax in the school cafeterias. If the women work in factories, they may have to pay sales tax on the food they buy from catering trucks. In effect, because women are low-income earners and because they rely on prepared foods, they will be paying a disproportionate share of that extra tax on the prepared food.

In the field of personal hygiene products, women will be paying on the essentials they must have, which have been exempt in the past and which should continue to be exempt. As we all know, they require particular products which men do not need. It is discriminatory to tax those particular products.

Women are the ones who usually do sewing in the home and clothe their children by buying patterns and textiles to produce many of the clothes the children need. Tax is going to be put on that endeavour by women to save money.

Women are the ones who are employed by dry cleaning establishments doing repairs and alterations. Because of the tax being imposed on those repairs and alterations, the amount of work will probably go down to some extent since people will do their own repairs and alterations at home and those women will be receiving less money and may even lose their jobs.

Women, particularly pensioners and those with low incomes, are more likely to be using public transit than men, and they will be paying more in transit fares because of the tax being applied to new buses and streetcars.

We can see this is a budget discriminatory against women. It is also a budget discriminatory against a number of other groups in our society. Children and students who eat in school and university cafeterias are now expected to pay for the excesses of the government: the $650 million for Suncor, the $10.6 million for the executive jet, and other waste such as the $25,000 spent last week on a single banquet for several hundred people to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Human Rights Code. We are glad we have a Human Rights Code. We think it could be improved but we do not think this is a way of improving it.

Other people who are being seriously discriminated against in this budget are the operators of the catering truck businesses. Most of them do not have cash registers or, if they do, they are not the up-to-date ones which can take account of the new taxes they will have to collect. It will probably reduce their sales. It may put some of them out of business. It will certainly be a great inconvenience when they are serving people who have a short lunch hour and who will be resisting the additional cost. Most of the people they serve are not very highly paid or are not able to bring their own lunches.

Small businesses are also being discriminated against, because most of the new tax on prepared foods and meals under $6 will be imposed in restaurants run by small businessmen rather than by large chains. In those restaurants, the volume of sales will likely go down because of the additional tax. Some of them also may go out of business.

Home owners and tenants are also going to pay additional tax as a result of this budget, because of the huge increases that are being loaded on to municipalities and school boards; therefore, property taxes will have to go up or services will have to be cut. In many cases, the budgets and the mill rates have already been set and the municipalities just do not have the additional money for these sales taxes which will be applied to all their construction activities, to repair work they send out and to classroom supplies.

Last week, I visited Windsor with the New Democratic Party task force which is trying to get opinions on the budget. We learned that the city of Windsor expected the budget would cost it an additional $1.2 million in taxes. It had not allowed for this in its own budget because it came too late.

The Windsor Board of Education said the new taxes on classroom supplies and building materials would cost $400,000. This pattern is being repeated across the province in all municipalities. They will either have to raise taxes next year or have to cut back and postpone the services and maintenance on buildings which had been planned for this year. If they go in for cutbacks we know that is simply going to add to our unemployment situation and will put further burdens on our welfare services and raise municipal taxes.

The people in Windsor also told me that the government's incentive program, through accelerated capital works, was simply not going to produce any employment, because the municipalities could not find the extra money needed to cover the nonlabour costs. Most of those accelerated capital programs for which the government is offering money cover labour costs only. Where are the municipalities supposed to get the additional money, not only for the materials themselves, but for the seven per cent sales tax on top of the cost of materials?

All these groups -- women, senior citizens, children, students, small businesses, truck catering people, restaurants, home owners -- are being savagely attacked by this budget, which is trying to get the funds from people with low incomes and from poor people to cover the reduction in the tax from 10 per cent to seven per cent on meals for the people who eat in pricey restaurants. It is trying to get the money from these people to cover the government's wasteful spending and the large investments that are not producing jobs, such as the Suncor purchase.

5 p.m.

If one looks at the effect of the sales tax extension, it really amounts to a 7.7 per cent tax for a family. They are almost up to the point of paying eight per cent, but not everybody is going to have that kind of an increase because some buy a smaller proportion of the commodities to which the sales tax has been extended.

A year ago the Treasurer put a $600-million tax increase on ordinary people and nothing on the corporations. This year he has put approximately $300 million on the average family. In addition, he has raised Ontario health insurance plan premiums by 17 per cent this year; they went up 18 per cent last year. With those increases, our tax system is becoming less and less a fair tax system and more and more a tax system that favours the rich. That is why we are voting against this bill.

Mr. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I rise to make a few comments on Bill 115, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act. I hope to bring to the attention of the minister some of the problems my own municipality has confronted as a result of the new tax measures.

Windsor happens to be an area of high unemployment. The minister can see it would adversely affect that community much more than it would communities where the employment index is substantially higher and where people have the money to spend in paying the additional taxes he is imposing as a result of Bill 115.

The city of Windsor has been disadvantaged in the past as a result of resource equalization grants, police grants and education grants, simply because of the change in the assessment in the city as compared to the city of London.

I would hope the minister, in his wisdom, would take into consideration some of the comments made by members in this House, including myself, and reconsider some of the taxes he is imposing. I am sure the minister is aware of the problems, but for some unknown reason the government refuses to act when it sees a municipality being disadvantaged by not getting its fair share.

Again, when economic conditions reverse themselves, the tax burden becomes so heavy on municipal property taxpayers that in my own community we have almost had a taxpayers' revolt. If the taxation continues and if the budget remains as it is, there may be taxpayers' revolts in other municipalities.

In the coming municipal elections this fall there may be dramatic changes. The "ins" are going to be "outs" and those who have spoken quite strongly against the tax policies of this government are going to find themselves elected to public office.

Windsor was so concerned about the adverse effects of the budget that on May 28 it adopted the following resolution at a council meeting. I would like to read the resolution because it has been unanimously adopted by the council. They passed the resolution because they really believe what they are saying is true. They are not coming along and proverbially snowing the minister. The city is suffering. It is asking for reconsideration of some of the government's tax policies.

The following resolution was adopted at its meeting on May 25, 1982: "Whereas the 1982 Ontario budget presented by the Treasurer in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on May 13, 1982, contained changes which will have a severe adverse fiscal impact on municipalities; and whereas, more particularly, the budget makes tax base changes which will withdraw exemptions from the seven per cent tax under the Retail Sales Tax Act for the following items which are essential to the operation of a municipality: trees, shrubs, bushes, seeds, seedlings, plants, bulbs, street flushers and street sweepers, buses and repair parts purchased by municipalities, materials incorporated into buildings or structures owned by municipalities and local boards;

"And whereas the removal of the above exemptions and other exemptions will also have a serious impact on the budgets of local boards and, in particular, school boards; and whereas this results in a shift of the burden of taxation to the real property tax, which is a regressive tax already overburdened; and whereas the conditional and unconditional grants provided municipalities and local boards made no provision for the financial burden; and whereas most municipalities and school boards have approved their budgets and established a mill rate for 1982 prior to the province's decision to revise the Retail Sales Tax Act;

"Be it therefore resolved that council of the corporation of the city of Windsor hereby protests in strongest terms the tax base changes in the Retail Sales Tax Act and urges the province to rescind these changes and extend exemptions previously enjoyed by municipalities" -- or if the minister refuses to extend those exemptions, there is an alternative -- "or provide relief in the form of offsetting conditional and/or unconditional grant payments; and further, a copy of this resolution be sent to the leaders of the opposition parties and local members of the Legislative Assembly for their support and to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario for support and/or intervention directly to the government or through its ministers and committees."

That is the position the city of Windsor has taken concerning Bill 115, in addition to some other areas in which the government can come along and be of assistance to municipalities. Not only did the city of Windsor adopt a resolution, but so also did the Windsor Board of Education. The board generally is not one that passes resolutions unless it is very sincerely being hurt by government changes. This is a letter addressed to the Minister of Education, who was in the House earlier:

"Dear Dr. Stephenson: The Windsor Board of Education wishes to express its disapproval of the recent action of the Ontario government to impose a seven per cent sales tax on all supplies, equipment and materials that are used in and for the educational process. Fundamentally, the board is of the opinion that this additional burden should not be carried by property taxpayers who are already, in our opinion, carrying an unfair proportion of the educational costs.

"Second, the board wishes to express its concern regarding the timing of the announcement and the effective dates of the changes in the budget, which will have impact on the board's operations.

"Having completed our budget for 1982, we are now in the dilemma where we may be required to reduce the level of services that we had intended to provide or to enter into deficit spending. Both alternatives are undesirable."

5:10 p.m.

In this letter to the minister they also add, "On behalf of the board may I state our appreciation for your consideration of our position." I hope the Minister of Education will intercede with the Treasurer so he will reconsider some of the budget changes that are adversely affecting boards of education -- not the Windsor Board of Education only but boards of education all across the province at the public, the separate and the secondary school levels, the community college and the post-secondary and university levels.

I am pleased the Liberal Party has been able to convince the government to refer this bill to committee for input by interested individuals, municipalities and other bodies or agencies. It is only through a consultative process that one can arrive at something which is fair to all concerned. I know the responsibility of members on the opposite side of the House is to govern, but it is also to govern and to be fair to all the people.

Now that this is going to committee, I hope the minister and his majority across the floor will accept some of the recommendations and suggestions that will be made by those who are being very seriously hurt by these tax changes, and implement reasonable suggestions so that the imposition of these taxes will be substantially lessened on us and, more so, on those who can least afford these dramatic changes.

Although it took the minister so long to realize that the proper procedure was to go to the people and let them make input, I know that now he has accepted our suggestion he will co-operate and the majority across the House will not come along and use that iron fist to prevent the passage of something that is reasonable and appropriate.

Tax changes generally affect the elderly, the poor and the low-income people more than anyone else. If the Treasurer does not intend to consider the changes for one reason, we should at least consider them for those who are disadvantaged, soften up that heart a bit and let him put himself in the position of a lot of those people who are going to have to pay these additional taxes, people who in many instances cannot afford to pay them.

I presented a petition that was given to me by one dry cleaner from the Windsor area. Every cleaner in the Windsor area could have presented a petition in the House, but they thought a typical one would be sufficient to have the ministry reconsider the imposition of a sales tax on labour in dry cleaning. The individual who has to have a button sewn on a garment has to pay a sales tax on the button in the first place, and then the minister charges an additional sales tax after that because it goes in with labour also. So there is double taxation when it comes to just that small item, and a lot of other items could be mentioned.

Likewise, the police commission in the community expressed great concern over the adverse effects of this new budget. I do not happen to have the communication from them with me, but as I mentioned earlier, the city of Windsor is directly across from a municipality that at one time was called Murder City simply because of the number of crimes that were committed in the city of Detroit. The policing costs in a community like mine naturally have to be higher than those in a similar community in a different location. As a result, there should have been some consideration of that by the minister when it came to police grants. Municipalities should have been considered the same as a regional area when it came to providing financial assistance to that community.

There is one other item that I would like to raise concerning an organization known as the Goodfellows in the Windsor area. They are similar to organizations with different names throughout the length and breadth of our province who provide assistance to handicapped or financially disadvantaged individuals who have limited resources or no resources whatsoever. This assistance is generally provided during the Christmas season but they also provide it through the whole of the year.

By the way, their funds are raised by a newspaper sale. The local Windsor Star provides approximately 50,000 copies of the paper free of charge and they are sold door to door throughout industry and the community. The funds raised by the community are quite substantial but the needs of the community are more substantial than the funds raised. As a result, they are always looking for some way of saving money, getting the goods and food at a cheaper price or having it donated by the various producers, packers and so forth in the Windsor-Essex-county area and others who would make a contribution to them.

They did point out one item for which I thought the minister could grant them a sales tax exemption. They buy turkeys in the off season and fast-freeze them. They can buy them in wholesale lots at certain times of the year because of the surpluses. So that they are not charged for keep in one of the freezer warehouses in the community, they bought four fairly substantial food freezers where they will keep a certain quantity of turkeys. They are being asked to pay a sales tax on those items. No one receives a single penny working for the Goodfellows. There are no administration costs whatsoever.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): If I could interrupt for just a moment and bring in an announcement that has been made in the world news, I will then allow you to regain the floor. Her Majesty the Queen is now the proud grandmother of a baby boy, who was born a short time ago, weighing seven pounds some ounces, to Princess Diana.

Mr. Newman: May I be the first member in the House to extend my personal congratulations and best wishes and certainly hope --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: You cannot do it singly, you must do it for all of us.

Mr. Newman: On behalf of all of us, yes, I will wish that on behalf of all us, even though you, Mr. Speaker, have done that before me.

5:20 p.m.

I would ask the minister to consider the situation of the Goodfellows in the city of Windsor when it comes to refunding the sales tax on the four freezers that are going to provide food at a cheaper cost than if they had to pay for storage in a warehouse.

As I said earlier, no one receives a single cent in pay working for the Goodfellows. Everything is donated free of charge to the needy in the community and the amount of sales tax on that item is really small in relation to the minister's budget. He would be doing the Goodfellows in the community a real favour by refunding the sales tax on the food freezers I mentioned.

I could make other comments concerning the regressive nature of the sales tax items, but I would be even more repetitive than I have been in making these comments. I do not think the comments I made were unique or different from those made by other individuals, but unless we on this side of the House point out to members on that side the regressive nature and the difficulty they are putting a lot of people to throughout the length and breadth of the province by the imposition of this sales tax, they may not consider rescinding that tax.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, I do not know of anything this government, this cabinet and this minister could have done in imposing a measure, even if they were deliberate, that would have impacted as greatly as this one does at a time when we are in economic recession, or one that would have impacted so harshly, so regressively and so unfairly on people in northern Ontario.

As the minister and all members of the House know, a sales tax is based on the retail price of any taxable item. If an article sells for $1 in Metropolitan Toronto, this government gets seven cents. If an article sells for $1.50 in Sudbury, North Bay or Thunder Bay, this government gets 11 cents, though it is the same article. If that same article costs $2 in Pickle Lake, Moosonee or Red Lake, this government gets 14 cents.

It has been said by everyone who has spoken on this bill, because it has all been from this side of the House, that the retail sales tax is indeed and in fact the most regressive form of taxation any heinous mind could devise. But they have not said what the impact was on residents of northern Ontario where, almost without exception, that base price is much higher than it is south of the French River.

I see the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) standing there. I wonder what he had to say when this measure was foisted upon the people of Ontario and, in particular, on the people he has the responsibility for representing. I wonder what the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier), the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Ramsay) and the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope) have to say. Was it just as much of a surprise to them as it was to us? Was the budget discussed behind the closed doors of cabinet? If not, why not? If it was, I wonder what those three honourable gentlemen had to say on behalf of people who, for whatever reason, choose to live in northern Ontario.

Why is it that whenever there is an increase in the sale price of an article, whenever there is an increase in taxes, this government does not have the wit or the will to do something to ameliorate the impact of something as regressive as the retail sales tax in this province? I introduced a resolution in this House a few months back. Not one member on the government side from northern Ontario chose to speak on it. There were two southern members who said, "We have to have the same rate of taxation right throughout Ontario." If those members feel we should have the same rate throughout Ontario, why can we not have the same dollar-and-cent value throughout Ontario?

I want to put a question to the Minister of Revenue and to the member for Cochrane North, who is the only northern member here. What do they say to their supporters in northern Ontario when they are reminded, as I remind them now, that the retail sales tax at seven per cent impacts so much more regressively upon people in northern Ontario on any item which, for whatever reason -- distance, lack of volume sales or transportation cost -- costs more in northern Ontario? What do the members say to those people?

I am sure there are a good many concerned Tories in northern Ontario who will be reminding the minister of that. I am sure all his caucus colleagues who have the responsibility for representing people in northern Ontario, if they are doing their jobs, must remind him that he could not have devised a more unfair method of raising funds for all the legitimate reasons that governments need to raise funds.

5:30 p.m.

When the government put a seven per cent sales tax on everything across the board and added insult to injury by applying it to household plants, and cabbage, tomato and cauliflower plants -- and the seeds, if one wanted to start the plants in the house -- and to local governments and school boards, storm doors and storm windows, all meals and labour costs, the government knew that the measure's regressive impact would be much more heavily felt by people in northern Ontario.

Why is it that we have beer and liquor at uniform prices right across the province?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: What about licence plates?

Mr. Stokes: What about licence plates? The minister knows the genesis of the differential in the registration costs. This is not part of the bill but, since it was raised by the minister, I am going to react to it. So do not bother to call me out of order, Mr. Speaker.

At one point the price was uniform at $10 for private automobiles north of the French River. That was done because the government at that time recognized that gasoline was more expensive in the north and --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: It was more expensive in parts of eastern Ontario. You know that.

Mr. Stokes: No, I do not know that.

Mr. Wildman: It was a Tory election gimmick, and the member opposite know it.

Mr. Stokes: I cannot ask the member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. J. A. Taylor) how much he pays for a gallon of number two gasoline but maybe he could interject and tell me.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Forty-five cents a litre.

Mr. Stokes: Forty-five cents a litre? How would you like to pay 48.2 cents a litre?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I don't like paying anything, but you and I know something about pricing systems: you charge what you can get from the marketplace.

Mr. Stokes: Isn't free enterprise wonderful?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I'm not defending any system. I'm saying that you are working in a marketplace system, and in a marketplace system --

The Deputy Speaker: The comments of both of you are interesting. Order.

Mr. Stokes: It is called grabbing everything one can get. It is called charging all the market will bear. If that is what the member for Prince Edward-Lennox wants to tell this assembly, let it be on his head.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: If you don't recognize the system, then you are more naïve than I thought you were.

Mr. Stokes: I know the impact the system is having on the people I was sent here to represent.

The minister was the one who brought up the question of the registration fee. Now that he has raised it, I can say they even screwed that up in this budget. It was $10 for a very valid reason, and he increased it by 140 per cent for people in the north, from $10 to $24, and he reduced it for people like himself, who run around in Cadillacs and Lincoln Continentals, from $80 to $40.

Mr. Breaugh: Jim Taylor drives a Lada. He should admit it.

Mr. Stokes: Yes, let us talk about registration. Do not tell me about vehicle registration. How would the member opposite like it if he were living in Pickle Lake, he had a toothache and he had to drive 350 miles to the nearest dentist?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Why do you want to bad-mouth the north? It is a great place to live.

Mr. Stokes: We in the north cannot afford fellows like you any more.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: It is a great place to live.

Mr. Stokes: It is a great place to live but, boy, is the government screwing it up.

Mr. .J. A. Taylor: Do not bad-mouth your own riding.

Mr. Stokes: When I was coming down on the plane today somebody asked me: "When are we ever going to get rid of those rascals in Queen's Park? How long have they been in there?" I said, "I think they have been in there" --

Mr. Piché: You had better tell us who said that. It was not your wife, was it?

Mr. Stokes: No, it was not.

Mr. Piché: In all fairness, you have got to tell us the name of the person who said that.

Mr. Breaugh: Okay. It was Leo Bernier.

Mr. Piché: I travel to my riding every weekend, and I have yet to hear that.

Mr. Breaugh: Alan Pope.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Lake Nipigon has the floor.

Mr. Stokes: I wish I could remember his name, because I know he was a Tory.

Mr. Piché: I think you owe it to this House to come up with the name.

The Deputy Speaker: All right. Order.

Mr. Stokes: I will think of it and I will share it with the member as soon as it comes to mind.

Mr. Piché: I want to talk to this rascal myself.

Mr. Stokes: He said, "How much longer can we afford those fellows in Queen's Park?" I said: "I really cannot answer that. I do not know when they are going to be turfed out. But I can tell you that every day that passes is one day closer to that event."

I do not know of any way in which the members opposite could have alienated the people living in northern Ontario more than with this regressive sales tax.

Mr. Boudria: It will make them vote Liberal next time.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: In the north? You've got to be kidding.

Mr. Breaugh: Liberals are illegal north of Bloor Street.

Mr. Wildman: These Liberals went to Sudbury, and none of them went to the picket line.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: They tried it in Sudbury -- and that is not really very far north -- and only half of them turned up today.

Mr. Stokes: It is the jet lag that is getting to them.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, let the record show that the New Democratic Party members are not exactly that numerous today either -- not to mention the Tories.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Lake Nipigon.

Mr. Stokes: I want to find out whether the member for Cochrane North is going to have the courage of his convictions to stand up in this House and justify the level of retail sales tax that we have in Ontario as it affects his constituents, based on the selling price of an article in Kapuskasing, Moonbeam, Fauquier or any of those communities it is his pleasure to represent. I would just like to know.

Let me tell members the final indignity. Before the imposition of this travesty on the people of northern Ontario, do members know what used to prevail? Our good buddy the Minister of Revenue used to say to the collectors, literally hundreds and hundreds of collectors of his tax in northern Ontario, "If you have your remittance postmarked on the 23rd of the month following the month in which you collected the tax, that will be fine. As long as it is postmarked on the 23rd of May for all the tax you collected in the month of April, that is fine and dandy." Frankie boy was happy, Georgie was happy and the Premier (Mr. Davis) was happy, and all the tax collectors, that is, all the retail vendors in northern Ontario, put up with it.

5:40 p.m.

But what happened? They wanted to add insult to injury; so they said: "It is no longer adequate for you to have it postmarked on that date. You must have it in our hands by that date." I have a constituent who mailed his remittance for April on May 19. It did not arrive down here in Toronto on the magic date of May 23. It was a little bit later than that. So Georgie baby, flunky in the Ministry of Revenue --

The Deputy Speaker: You mean the Minister of Revenue.

Mr. Stokes: No, Georgie baby.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. May I bring it to all honourable members' attention --

Mr. Stokes: Well, if you fellows did not even know who they were, you could call them anything you want.

The Deputy Speaker: That is not the point. Under standing orders, need I remind of all people the member for Lake Nipigon --

Mr. Stokes: They change when it is convenient for you.

The Deputy Speaker: Should I remind the member for Lake Nipigon?

Mr. Stokes: That fellow over there --

Mr. Breaugh: Not little anonymous Normie? Not him?

Mr. Stokes: The Minister of Revenue. He had his people write to my constituent, who happens to own the Woodlands Inn in Longlac, a very fine establishment, and say, "You have been a bad boy." They wrote him on June 4, and the letter arrived one week later, on June 11, in Longlac. It said, "Because you were late sending your money in, you are penalized $156." Not because he did not mail it on time, but because Canada Post could not deliver it. It took a full week for the letter of penalty to be sent. If the minister expects Canada Post to deliver it in four days southbound, why can it not deliver it in four days northbound?

I am told by people who know a lot more about it than I do, and who I suspect know a lot more about it than the minister does, that that is illegal. If he says to them that the remittance must be in by the 23rd, in law all he has to do is to be able to prove it was in the mail by that date. What Canada Post does about it, or what the people in the Ministry of Revenue do about it, is the minister's responsibility.

I want to know, and I asked the minister this last week -- I have sent him two letters, two notes across the floor -- what he is going to do to rectify what I think is one of the gravest injustices ever perpetrated on one of his collectors, and he cannot tell me.

Mr. Elston: Did he complain about it not being delivered on time?

Mr. Stokes: He cannot tell me.

Mr. Boudria: Was he concerned?

Mr. Stokes: He is getting conflicting information.

Mr. Foulds: He is giving conflicting information.

Mr. Stokes: No, he is getting conflicting information. My constituent has to carry the can for this ministry in northern Ontario in terms of the collection of this iniquitous retail sales tax and, because Canada Post cannot deliver, he is the one who suffers. It is yet another injustice against the north.

Will somebody across the street here be subject to that same kind of penalty? It hardly takes a week. I have a little more confidence in Canada Post's ability to deliver something across the street here in Metropolitan Toronto than in northern Ontario. That is the ultimate injustice, the ultimate indignity.

I am wondering where the people over there are coming from. Surely, when they impose something such as this, they must look to see how it impacts on those who are on limited fixed incomes. They must see how it impacts on the farm community or the small business community or somebody living in southern Ontario, in more moderate climates, as opposed to somebody living in the far north.

The government has even gone against the proposals it threw at us after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries 2, where they were going to do something to cut down on energy consumption. They did it by budgetary measures, by removing the sales tax on something that is as essential as storm doors and storm windows. They know that in the north, where the temperatures can be so much more severe, there should be some little incentive for people to be able to preserve and conserve it. They have even taken that away.

Frankly, I do not know where these people are coming from. I really do not know what the member for Kenora, the member for Cochrane North and the member for Cochrane South, the member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane), the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Havrot) and the member for Fort William (Mr. Hennessy) do? What do they do? What do they say to the Treasurer? What do they say to the Minister of Revenue? They are not coming from the same place I am coming from, because not only do I get complaints on a continuous basis from my traditional supporters, and a lot of them are Tory, but even the ones who do not --

Hon. Mr. Gregory: That's only because they think you are a Conservative.

5:50 p.m.

Mr. Stokes: I want to know how the government can justify the iniquitous impact of this Bill 115 so that I can tell all my constituents in northern Ontario and all the other residents of northern Ontario whom I have to speak for in the absence of any voice over there or of any notion of concern. I want to know --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: You presume too much.

Mr. Stokes: Oh no, I do not presume too much. Tell me what they say on behalf of northerners around the cabinet table. Tell me what they say on behalf of northerners when these measures are discussed in caucus.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: They say lots; it's privileged.

Mr. Stokes: No attention is paid to them. That is why I say that every day that government sits over there is one day closer to the time when those fellows should be tossed out on their ears, and the sooner the better.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, and it really is a point of privilege: I am not a fellow.

Mr. Stokes: I will accept that admonition, Mr. Speaker, but there should be one left over there and I think it should be her.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, as much as I hate to start a speech and then after five minutes --

Interjection.

Mr. Boudria: I will gladly give up the floor to the member for Cochrane North if he wishes to speak in favour of this tax measure. If he wishes to speak against the tax measure, I will gladly give him some of our own time, because I feel the people of this province should listen to what the Tory members have to say about this document.

We remember the budget of last year when many of us spoke on the ad valorem gasoline tax. At that time, I believe only one member of the government party spoke in favour of that tax. If my memory serves me right, it was the member for York Centre (Mr. Cousens). Maybe this year the lone member speaking in favour of this tax bill could be the member for Cochrane North.

The Deputy Speaker: Back to the bill.

Mr. Boudria: Pardon me?

The Deputy Speaker: Back to the bill.

Mr. Boudria: Yes, that is what I said: in favour of this tax bill.

Prior to commencing my remarks, I would like to read a letter to the editor of the Toronto Sun, which I am sure the members read thoroughly every day. This letter was sent to the editor on May 25.

I will read what it says: "The Ontario Human Rights Commission should invoke the provisions of.. . Bill 7 as they apply to the. . . budget recently presented by the provincial Treasurer. Frank Miller's proposals are discriminatory! They discriminate against women, children, the poor and the elderly. If Miller thinks that the whole thing will be forgotten by the time the next election rolls around, he is mistaken. Every time I use a sheet of toilet tissue, I will remember."

It is signed by a Mr. Bud Roberts.

I think this is important, because it tells us clearly that the people of this province are not ready to forget the provisions proposed in this bill. They will remember them all the way to the next election. In the next election, of course, they will do what they should have done last time had they not been led to believe the government would "keep the promise." They will vote Liberal.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Ho, ho.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Just like Hamilton West: from first to third. At least we came second.

Mr. Piché: They sure proved it last Thursday.

Mr. Boudria: The minister and some of the members talk about Hamilton. This is a very interesting issue, because some of the members across the floor talked about the federal budget while the members to my left fought a provincial by-election on the federal budget and the provincial budget simultaneously and won the seat. Now they have an overnight guest in this Legislature who will disappear after the next election as quickly as he came on the scene.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: You are only an overnight guest too.

Mr. Boudria: I realize I am a new member, and I do not intend to apologize for that, but time will tell just how long a member who was elected by speaking against the federal budget in a provincial election can hang on in this Legislature.

Mr. Foulds: That is what your leader was doing in Sudbury.

Mr. Boudria: Meanwhile, I will ignore the interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you, and speak to the bill.

Mr. Boudria: I feel that is what you would want me to do.

The Deputy Speaker: Yes. But you cannot have it both ways. You cannot respond to some of the interjections and then just speak to the bill when you want to. So why don't you speak to the bill?

Mr. Piché: Do it properly, as the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) does.

Mr. Foulds: You are Liberal-bashing.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I do not engage in bashing federal politicians. We have enough problems in this province caused by this government that we do not need to address other levels of government. I will not bash the federal government. I will not bash the municipal government or the school boards. I will concentrate my time in this debate to try to illustrate to this government just how iniquitous its particular taxation is.

Mr. Bradley: The tax on tiepins.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: There are certain NDP members who wouldn't be bothered by that, since they don't wear ties.

The Deputy Speaker: Speaking to the bill.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I will gladly speak to the bill.

I have in my hand a letter from a constituent of Cochrane North riding. I would like to read it, because it deals with this bill. It says:

"Dear Mr. Miller:

"Taxing the common people and the poor for the benefit of the rich is a very old tactic that really works to create a climate of 'bleeding for the cause.'

"In the latest provincial budget, you cleverly avoided taxing the multinationals, internationals, banks and insurance companies, many of whose origin and transferability of expenses and incomes it is impossible to follow. Subsidizing the functions of multinationals, banks and insurance companies at the expense of common people is unfair, detrimental, inflationary and increases unemployment at the expense of directing the multiplier effect towards and for the benefit of the corporations, banks and insurance companies. Certainly you must see the statistics and observe that it is a transaction of the above parties and not the expenses of the common people that are responsible for the provincial deficit and loss of revenue.

"Are there many fringe benefits to the members and key supporters of the 'blue machine' that caused you to take the extreme position that was hinted at for a good number of years? The basic law of life, economically and socially, 'Do unto others as you would like them to do to you,' also applies to finance ministers and leaders of multinational banks and insurance companies, whether they be foreign or Canadian.

"What control the multinational banks and insurance companies did not already have over the people, the provincial government gave to them by taxing labour costs. This is a devious move to perpetuate the throwaway society mentality as well as to make us (the people of Ontario) even more dependent on corporations for goods and services we could be doing for and by ourselves.

"We want real growth, not apparent growth, and that means dealing with root causes and not playing around with symptoms.

"Your tax-paying citizen, Dan Kucheran."

This very fine gentleman is a constituent of the electoral district represented by the member for Cochrane North, a member of the government party. I hope he has responded to this letter and I hope later on, when he makes his contribution, he will read to us his reply to that letter, because we will be very much interested in seeing what he has to say.

I do believe we are at six o'clock. Can I move the adjournment?

The Deputy Speaker: No. The member will speak again at eight.

Mr. Boudria: Yes, exactly.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.

21 juin 1982