PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS
PLANNING AMENDMENT ACT
Mr. Spensieri moved second reading of Bill 53, An Act to amend the Planning Act, 1983.
Mr. Speaker: I remind the honourable member that he has up to 20 minutes to make his presentation. He may reserve any portion of that time for his windup.
Mr. Spensieri: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to begin my discussion on second reading of Bill 53 and I wish to state the perspective from which I present this bill.
I represent roughly the west portion of the city of North York, and more than 70 per cent of my constituents live in rental accommodation. Included in this number are numerous Ontario Housing Corp. projects. These are projects which this government, prior to my coming here, chose to build without much attention to recreational facilities that are necessary to ensure the health and welfare of its inhabitants. As a result, many of my constituents struggle daily in a poorly designed environment.
My riding also happens to contain the apartment complex known as University City. This community, along with 1,480 rental homes, constituted approximately 14 per cent of the 11,000 former Cadillac Fairview units. The sale of those units some 18 months ago rocked the soul of our community and seriously eroded the integrity of this government.
While being in regular contact with my constituents during that process, several very troublesome perceptions formed in my mind. The most important reaction experienced in my community is that the need for security of tenure in residential accommodation has become of paramount importance.
At the same time, the vacancy rates across this province remain at dismal levels, and neither the provincial government nor the federal government is taking sufficient measures to tackle the problem effectively. It is clear that both senior levels of government must take a double-pronged approach to achieving security of tenure so that tenants will be able to rest easy with the knowledge that their homes will remain standing and affordable.
The first prong -- and it is not one that I wish to dwell on unduly tonight -- entails the creation of new, affordable units. We know, and it has been stated many times in this House, that approximately 8,000 families and 6,000 senior citizens are on OHC waiting lists; yet the Ontario government abandoned its commitment to the construction of new public housing in 1976.
Given this dramatic and undeniable failure to come on stream with new rental units, the second prong of my argument, that of preserving and ensuring the continuance of affordable housing, remains the most important part of our battle for affordable accommodation. I propose to the members of this House that the vehicle through which this can be achieved is the legislation before us now, Bill 53.
In essence, my bill would give each municipal council in Ontario the power to prevent the demolition of our older, high-quality rental housing stock. The power is a discretionary one so that each application could be considered on its own merits.
Mr. Wildman: Where have I heard this before?
Mr. Spensieri: As many members will know, my bill contains many aspects that have been raised before by members of the third party, most recently in the legislation requested by the city of Toronto in 1982.
Mr. Kerrio: To give it credibility, we have to take the ball and run with it.
Mr. Spensieri: That is correct.
Others will extol the merits and virtues of their own legislation, but I am here to talk about my own proposal, which I believe is more sensible and has a more universal application.
The minister would have us believe that in the end the city of Toronto got what it was asking for, but nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that the bill presented by the member for St. George (Ms. Fish) in this House, and later somehow adopted by the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Shymko), had this Legislature see fit simply to grant a delay but not an outright prohibition against demolition.
Toronto city council was wrestled to the ground by the province, and its only choices were to accept a 12-month delay or completely abandon the critical needs of hundreds of tenants.
I would be remiss if I did not pause here to remind members about the Thom commission, which was set up by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) during the panic stemming from the great apartment sale. On November 16, 1982, the minister announced that Stuart Thom would examine the weaknesses of our laws and come up with comprehensive legislation.
It is my submission that there can be no comprehensive legislation regarding tenants until such time as we have addressed the question of demolition through such means as Bill 53. Demolition is just one further aspect of rent control and one further aspect of providing tenants the required measure of security.
Needless to say, the government has done virtually nothing with the Thom report. It will be some two years behind schedule, and I am sceptical as to whether its recommendations will even be favourably disposed towards tenants. In the meantime, tenants across the great city of North York, the city of Toronto, Etobicoke and elsewhere in our great urban centres live in fear and uncertainty.
8:10 p.m.
The New Democratic Party approach to the demolition problem, as was stated earlier, has been quite consistent with the government position in a sense. The NDP alderman in my city who suggested that there should be demolition control legislation suggested as recently as last March that North York council should be given merely the power to withhold demolition until building permits are granted.
In other words, what is sought is the ability to prevent demolition if it is intended to leave a vacant lot. Of course, that is not the issue, because in most instances a building permit is available and some alternative form of construction or improvement is going to take place. What is sought here is the ability to cancel and prohibit, on a more or less permanent basis, demolition that is intended to erode the affordable housing base.
The control that was suggested by the North York alderman, who shall remain nameless except for the fact that he has vague aspirations to succeed me in this House, obviously has not worked in North York and it is not going to work.
Hon. Mr. Eaton: Let us hear his name. Tell us who the next member for your riding will be.
Mr. Spensieri: The members may well yell that this is why the bill is being introduced, but I can say without equivocation that the bill is only a culmination of a concern on the part of the citizens in our residential areas that has been demonstrated over a period of time sufficient to dispel all innuendoes of that kind.
The problem has not been limited to North York or Toronto. More than 50 per cent of two-parent families in Ottawa under the age of 35 reside in rental homes. Since 1978, 40 per cent of the affordable housing stock and rooming houses in that community have left the market. One project alone in Ottawa, containing 488 units, has recently seen the granting of a demolition permit that will virtually wipe out an existing established residential community in that area.
It is with great pleasure that I inform those present today that we received a telephone call late this afternoon from the Association of Centretown Tenants of Ottawa, supported by a telegram, expressing their unequivocal support of Bill 53 and asking that their endorsement be relayed to this Legislature.
Members on the government side will say, of course, that each city can come forward and request its specific piece of legislation intended to give those summary and temporary reliefs that have been given to Toronto. Any sensible approach in this House would involve the approach of proceeding through a piece of general legislation of universal application to solve the problem across Ontario once and for all.
I remind members that this bill gives each local council the discretionary power to stop certain demolitions. It is therefore consistent with the principle of local autonomy and local democracy, which this party has always espoused. To proceed in a piecemeal fashion if, as and when requested by sometimes less than enlightened local councils is to put the tenants of this province in a secondary position.
Mr. Robinson: Tell us which are those less than enlightened local councils. Let us hear some names.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Spensieri: Mr. Speaker. I would like to reserve some time for rebuttal, for I am sure much will be needed. But I would like to share the wisdom of the late James Bryant Conant, a former president of Harvard University and ambassador to West Germany.
In an address to Harvard University, Mr. Conant stated; "Liberty, like charity, must begin at home. If one does not feel free and confident in one's own home, then society itself is not free." Whether that home is rented or owned is, and I submit must remain, an irrelevant consideration.
John Dryden, who was described by Dr. Samuel Johnson as the father of English criticism and who is considered to be the greatest English poet of the late 17th century, wrote; "My lodging, as long as I pay the rent, is my castle."
I ask the members of this Legislature to enshrine that principle, and that can only be done through the favourable reception of this bill. I would also suggest that members' specific concerns about the generality or the application of the bill could be very adroitly addressed before the appropriate committee.
Therefore, I urge the government and my friends in the New Democratic Party caucus to endorse the bill so tenants will know that all of us here are working to see their homes may be preserved.
Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join the debate and to make some remarks about the bill.
I have here a copy of An Act to amend the Planning Act. It is dated April 13, 1982, and was submitted by my colleague the member for Etobicoke (Mr. Philip). It is identical in every respect to the bill introduced here tonight by the member for Yorkview (Mr. Spensieri). It does exactly the same things. It is an amendment to the equivalent section of the old Planning Act and does exactly what the member for Yorkview is proposing once again tonight be done.
We will support the bill since it was obviously stolen by the member for Yorkview from the member for Etobicoke. We are happy. Plagiarism in the political arena is the sincerest form of flattery. I do not mean this in an unparliamentary sense. We are flattered that the member for Yorkview has seen fit to steal another idea from the New Democratic Party. I mean that only in the kindest way, of course.
There is one substantial difference.
Mr. Elston: It is not the same in every respect?
Mr. McClellan: No, it is not; it is slightly watered down, as we would expect from the Liberal Party. When its members get a good idea, they cannot let well enough alone; they have to water it down.
The member for Yorkview has put in the loophole of an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board. This may or may not be a problem; I do not know. In the absence of anything in Bill 53 setting out criteria for the exercise of a council's power, I suspect it may well be that the OMB will uphold appeals by owners against a municipality's exercise of its power.
I am not quite sure why the member for Yorkview has put in that section about the appeal to the board. Perhaps he will explain that to us when he comes to his windup.
The member was correct when he said demolition control is an essential measure if we are ever going to firmly establish security of tenure for tenants in Ontario. The phenomenon of demolition is a form of assault on security of tenure. It is a form of eviction, of economic eviction. None of the changes we have made in landlord-tenant laws in the last 10 years has dealt with the issue of economic eviction. In other words, landlords in Ontario are still perfectly free to throw tenants out of affordable rental units.
Mr. Kerrio: They can bang the rent up 99 per cent.
8:20 p.m.
Mr. McClellan: They can bang the rent up 99 per cent and throw the tenants out. There is no legal protection against demolition or conversion of apartments from affordable accommodation to luxury or high-priced accommodation. Virtually all the demolition that takes place in Ontario is done to turn low-priced rental units into high-priced rental units, to create luxury units where affordable rental accommodation once stood.
Material presented by the city of Toronto in its numerous pilgrimages to Queen's Park to plead for demolition control told us that in the city alone at the present time there are 1,448 units for which owners have applied to obtain demolition permits. The owners intend to convert virtually all 1,448 units on the hit list into luxury accommodation. That list consists of some 50 separate apartment buildings in the city of Toronto alone. This phenomenon is taking place all over the province.
Tenants in all our major urban centres, and in many small communities as well, have found that all the changes enacted since 1975 in landlord-tenant law and in rent review legislation are utterly meaningless in terms of their own security against this kind of economic eviction. Yet this government continues to put its head firmly in the sand and pretend there is no problem.
In the city of Toronto this year, more affordable housing units will be torn down through demolition than will be built under all the social housing programs for the years 1983, 1984 and 1985 together. We are tearing down more affordable housing through the uncontrolled issuance of demolition permits than government agencies are building to house low-income families, senior citizens or single people. It is an appalling situation and one this government simply must confront.
It remains a mystery to me how the government can continue year after year to refuse to allow municipalities to exercise control over demolitions on the grounds that it is unwilling to interfere in the property rights of landlords. This was the excuse given by the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg), the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett), that meaningful demolition control was an unwarranted interference in the property rights of landlords.
What about tenants? Do tenants not have the right to secure enjoyment of their own homes? Do tenants not have the right to protection from this kind of economic eviction? Simply because a man owns an apartment building, does that give him the right to throw people out of their homes? Obviously it does, in the view of this government.
Obviously nothing in the legislation that has been passed so far indicates this government has any understanding that the right of tenants to remain in their own homes supersedes the traditional property rights of people who are renting property. That element of law, which is feudal in origin, cries out in the middle of the 20th century for the same kinds of reforms enacted by this Legislature in the mid-1970s in other aspects of the landlord-tenant relationship.
The member for Yorkview indicated that security of tenure and protection of this kind requires more than simple demolition control, and he is correct. His bill deals with simply one aspect of the economic threat against tenants. I have introduced my own private member's legislation, Bill 78, An Act to Extend Security of Tenure for Tenants, which will be debated later in this session. It approaches the same issue from a slightly different perspective and in a much broader context. My bill deals with exactly the same set of concerns, but it deals with the issue in a different way.
It is not sufficient simply to control demolition; we must also be able to control conversion from affordable housing accommodation to luxury accommodation, which does not always involve demolition. We have to be in a position to end all the exemptions and loopholes in the present Landlord and Tenant Act and in the rent review legislation, including the $750 per month luxury exemption and the exemption for buildings constructed since 1976. We have to tighten up rent review so that all the pass-throughs that are allowed, which permit landlords to squeeze their tenants out on economic grounds, are closed.
Until we do that, tenants in this province will not have security of tenure. They will be vulnerable to any landlord who chooses to exercise his or her traditional property rights which, despite the passage of the Landlord and Tenant Act and the Residential Tenancies Act, are still as feudal in 1984 as they were in 1484.
Mr. Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I doubt it will come as much of a surprise to you that the views on this issue held on this side of the House are at more than small divergence from those held on the other side of the House.
Mr. Epp: Is the member speaking for himself or for his caucus?
Mr. Robinson: My friend from Waterloo North would engage us in early conversation that would erode the clock. I am not prepared to respond to his comments at this time.
Let me make two or three opening comments as a result not only of the bill offered but also, more curiously, of the remarks offered by our mutual colleague from the riding of Yorkview. I listened with great interest to his comments on the bill itself and, more specifically, on the intent of that bill. As somebody who came from a local council, as many of us in this House did, I challenge him, as I already did by interjection, to cite for me the councils in this province he considers under the Municipal Act to be less enlightened than some others.
As I recollect, he has seven or more minutes to wrap up his remarks on this bill. I hope he will take the opportunity at that point to tell us, especially my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, exactly which councils in this province he considers are more or less enlightened than others and for whom this legislation would be particularly necessary.
I note with some interest, since he represents a riding in a municipality adjoining mine, how he relates the issue of demolition to the particular issues I understand. I understand when the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) speaks about the kind of rental accommodation we are talking about. I understand the kind of units that are at issue here. While my friend from Bellwoods and I may not agree implicitly on the very best handling of the issue and of those units, I think he would allow that at least I understand what type of units we are talking about.
I have some difficulty with the member for Yorkview, however -- and I have no disagreement that he has a high consistency of rental accommodation in his riding -- when he gets up in this House and compares the type of rental accommodation he has in his riding to the issue presented before us by Bill Pr3 and Bill 53. I have some difficulty reconciling those very large differences.
I would like to take us back to the issue at hand, which is a private bill request from the city of Toronto seeking certain exemptions from the Planning Act to provide a measure of control in the overall planning process by way of demolition control. I would also take the member for Yorkview back to remind him, as he did cite, that in 1982 there was a request from that municipality to provide a blanket demolition control, a complete abrogation of the rights of private land owners.
8:30 p.m.
I am not going to be foolish enough or cavalier enough to stand in my place tonight and say there should be completely unlimited control of the rights of land owners. There is not now. There is already considerable planning and, as a byproduct of that, zoning controls over every land owner in this province. To stand up and say those controls are completely insufficient, completely without checks, and therefore there needs to be an ultimate act which, at the whim of a council, whether enlightened or not, or by what measure of enlightenment, will prevent demolition carte blanche under every circumstance, is hardly a reasonable request.
I have to also say, with regard to the ultimate Bill Pr3 that was considered by the standing committee on regulations and other statutory instruments some two or three weeks ago, that in conversation with the city of Toronto, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing and a variety of members on both sides of this House, it was well recognized that type of blanket demolition was not only inappropriate to the city of Toronto but was inappropriate to the entire planning process in this province.
As a result of that very clear perception on both sides, certain negotiations were entered into. Certain results came of that and members across the floor were supportive of it, albeit reluctantly. I remind the members there was agreement on both second and third readings of this bill in this House two weeks ago that complete demolition control was inappropriate. The city of Toronto, which sought that private bill, also realized it was inappropriate. There was unanimous support for a one-year delay --
Mr. Kerrio: They were railroaded into that and the member knows it.
Mr. Robinson: We will hear from across the way later. I will say to the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio) that I stood in my place on that day and the record will show I admitted that, with reluctance, both parties across the way supported that bill. I will not change that position tonight. It was agreed that the most practical way to proceed was with a 365-day moratorium on demolition, as requested by the city of Toronto in its bill presented before that committee. That is what it was prepared to accept.
The issue here is not whether there should be blanket demolition. It is not, I also suggest in the context of Bill 53, whether or not there should be some back-door approach by which demolition control can be achieved.
I would draw the members' attention in the remaining few minutes to clause 33a.(2)(c) of the bill which says in effect, yes, one can be exempted under the conditions of this bill from demolition providing one will not build more than 50 per cent of the already allowable and legal density of the property permitted under the municipal planning regulations that come into force in this way.
If there was ever a back-door approach, this is it. I say to the member for Yorkview, if he does not want them to build then come out and make it 10 per cent, make it five per cent, but do not try to kid around and say it is only half of what they are allowed to build. Do not say that if they will build less than half, we will not exempt them from demolition. That is a cowardly approach. It is a very backhanded approach indeed.
Interjections.
Mr. Epp: The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Robinson) must have got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.
Mr. Robinson: The issue here, I submit with respect, is affordable accommodation. During that committee hearing, I advanced a theory on behalf of demolition control that said to the representatives of developers, "Are you prepared to give a commitment in exchange that if you are going to tear down these affordable housing units at 10 units to the acre, or whatever the existing density may be, you will replace them -- not in kind, because one cannot replace in kind, but considering the quality in what is being replaced -- at an equitable density with the type of housing accommodation that might still well afford, in a 1984 economy, additional affordable housing but at a somewhat realistically different price for those people?"
I submit to the members that the development industry was not opposed to that concept. I also have to say there was no support for that idea from my friends from across the floor. I have great difficulty trying to understand why we should save -- I do not dispute the number offered by the member for Bellwoods; if he says 1,448 units here are to be sacrificed, I do not dispute that, but I say a pyramid theory also comes into effect.
If people move from a less expensive form of accommodation to a slightly more expensive one, there is a pyramid and at the bottom there continues to be room. Perhaps it is not the room as we know it now, perhaps not that exact type of accommodation, perhaps not that exact dollar value, but more affordable accommodation. Surely Bill 53 makes no provision for more of that and does not accommodate that issue.
Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak to the private member's bill my colleague the member for Yorkview has put forward. I commend him on grappling with an issue that has plagued the city and this metropolitan area for some years. Although it is particularly relevant to Metropolitan Toronto and the city of Toronto, it is also relevant to other parts of Ontario.
As my colleague has indicated, at the committee meeting only a few weeks ago the city of Ottawa indicated interest in a bill similar to that put forward by the city of Toronto. As the members to my left, philosophically and physically, have indicated, they have not grappled with the issue in the way the member for Yorkview has and now they are expressing their jealousy through harassing the member for Waterloo North. I can deal with that.
The question of why this bill is before us has to be raised. It is before us for two basic reasons. One is that we have in Ontario a tremendous lack of affordable rental units, verging on almost the impossibility of people getting rental units. The vacancy rate is around one or two per cent, which makes it almost impossible for people to get affordable rental units.
The other reason is that the government should have recognized that people are not able to get the units and that landlords and developers are buying these units and tearing them down in order to build luxury units and other forms of accommodation. It should have taken the reins and tried to prevent this from happening.
Rather than supporting the city of Toronto in its request for a two-year prohibition on destroying these affordable apartment units, the government harassed the city for a number of years and delayed any methods the city wanted to employ. Finally, the city of Toronto saw no end to this harassment unless it gave in; it acceded to the one-year postponement.
Mr. Robinson: The honourable member does not believe that; he knows better than that.
Mr. Epp: I know that for a fact.
Finally, the city of Toronto said, "It is better to take half a loaf than none at all." It agreed to a one-year postponement on demolition rather than demolition control.
Therefore, I commend my colleague the member for Yorkview for coming forth and saying, "We need local autonomy." We do not have in the municipalities what the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere calls "the whim of the council." Having been on municipal council for 10 years, I am very proud of having been one of those hundreds of councillors who represent their municipalities, whether it is the city of Toronto, Metropolitan Toronto, the city of Ottawa; it could even be Scarborough or a small municipality such as Wellesley township.
Irrespective of that, wherever it might be, they are honourable people and they try to do a good job for the people who elected them. Keeping that in mind, I do not think we should refer to the whim of council. That certainly does not shed light on the responsibility those councillors carry.
8:40 p.m.
I suggest what we need is the bill which is being proposed by my colleague. I know this has been raised in the Legislature before, but I want to reiterate a problem that arose. Perhaps someone from the government side of the House can shed some light on this today because we have not had any light on this aspect in the past month or so.
Part of this legislation was due to the problem that arose with 790, 800 and 840 Eglinton Avenue West. That has come before the courts and there has been an appeal and so forth launched with respect to that issue.
One of the interesting aspects was that an affidavit was filed by the developer of this piece of property, the person who wanted to destroy those units, which indicated he was going to buy some kind of control with the provincial cabinet and he was setting aside half a million dollars to persuade the cabinet to get the kind of demolition he wanted for those buildings.
I wish someone on the government side of the House could address this subject today because I think it is important for the subject that has come up. I want to go briefly through some of the history the city of Toronto had to go through to get its limited control for the postponement of demolition of buildings.
Going back to 1980, city council passed a bylaw to limit the depth of a new apartment building to 17 metres from the minimum front lot line setback of a lot. There was an Ontario Municipal Board hearing on this. The board reserved its decision and granted an exemption for the properties on Bathurst Street. Eventually, the units --
Mr. Shymko: What does that have to do --
Mr. Epp: I am referring to some of the important aspects the city of Toronto had to deal with. A little later they asked for some special legislation that was introduced by the member for St. George who is now a minister of the crown. That bill received first reading in March 1982. It was sent to committee where it was strangled by the government. It never received the kind of support it should have received.
The member for St. George eventually became a member of the cabinet. Then the member for High Park-Swansea introduced his bill, which received --
Mr. Shymko: It was an excellent bill. Thank you for your support.
Mr. Epp: I am glad the member for High Park-Swansea raised that. The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere mentioned that. We supported that bill reluctantly. I remind the members of the Legislature that we introduced an amendment to give the local council an option to extend it for another year. The members opposite, having got their marching orders from above, decided to vote against it.
I remember the whip hovering around the area to make sure they had all the right bodies out --
Mr. Robinson: He would love to hear from you.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order.
Mr. Epp: I notice the whip is not here because he has another member he is trying to whip into shape, a member who only appeared here for a short time this afternoon.
Mr. Shymko: You were just trying to sabotage an excellent bill; no sensitivity at all.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. Epp: I want to remind the House that the bill of the member for Yorkview is a very good bill. I hope the government side of the House does not decide to block the bill. It gives local councils a certain amount of autonomy. It is a general bill which is province-wide. Rather than dealing with one municipality out of 835, it --
Mr. Robinson: Tell it to him to his face.
Mr. Epp: I will tell him right away. I am glad the member is here. Where is the other member? He was whipping him into shape and he has failed. He came back by himself.
The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. He is being provoked and he is provoking.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I might suggest the short title of this act could be called the J. Earl McEwen memorial act, because it deals with demolition. We have just seen a bit of demolition of the Liberal Party. It is premature. It usually does not happen until part-way through an election campaign.
However, I am pleased to see the member for Yorkview has decided to support some rights for some tenants. I notice he has not always taken a position in support of tenants; and I notice some tenants, particularly tenants of group homes, are not included in this bill because they would not fall into the category of six units or more. Perhaps we might hear in his closing remarks what he has to say about tenants of group homes and whether they, too, are worthy of his support to have the right to a place to live. I think that would be an interesting addition.
This would not be my first preference as a way to proceed. If we were a municipal council, we would probably be sitting around tonight saying we cannot deal with providing tenants with the right to a place to live, security of tenure. That is beyond our jurisdiction. One of the things we might be able to do is have some kind of permission for demolition control.
If we were a municipal council anywhere in Ontario, we would be aware that one of the biggest problems municipalities face these days is in addressing themselves to housing. They do not have the luxury the province has of ignoring housing altogether. They have to look around in their community and see that about as fast as they are attempting to attract new development of affordable housing, more affordable housing is being torn down than is being constructed.
The scale might be quite different, and it certainly is more noticeable here in the city of Toronto. We should be mindful that Ontario consists of more than the city of Toronto. The same phenomenon on a different scale is happening in every major urban centre. It is also happening in smaller urban centres and even in some of our smaller towns, where smaller units are being taken off the marketplace. They are not used any more or are torn down and used for different purposes. Sometimes they are converted to what members have alluded to as being upper-class accommodation for the wealthy.
That is not always the case. Very often housing stock is demolished and the land is put back on the market for commercial purposes or for some other purpose. In many of our communities, old neighbourhoods which provide reasonable and sometimes even cheap housing for people at lower-income levels are disappearing because people who own the land want to make more money.
Normally, a provincial government would be somewhat sensitive to this problem and would be very active in working to provide a new supply of relatively reasonable rental accommodation. The unfortunate truth is this government decided about five years ago it was going out of the housing business. It did not want to participate in that any more so it turned to people at the municipal level and said they must deal with it because it was their problem, and it turned to people at the federal level and asked why they did not do something about it. That very trendy, fashionable aspect of providing housing for people in Ontario is no longer done by the Ontario government.
There are one or two exceptions. It still likes old people, so it participates a bit in seniors' housing. But single mothers are persona non grata with this government. It has not done a thing to provide accommodation for them in about a decade. People at the lower-income level also seem to be persona non grata with this government. It does not see their housing needs as being valid at all.
8:50 p.m.
There is a difficulty with this particular approach. Though I would be the first to say that at a municipal level they cannot pass legislation which says that landlords cannot kick people out on the street, they have to deal with somewhat more pragmatic matters about whether they will issue a building permit or whether they will attempt to get some kind of demolition control approved for use in their community. The difficulty is that this does not exactly provide a house for anybody. What it does is stop somebody from tearing something down.
As the member for Bellwoods mentioned previously, a more positive way to approach this is to try to see if we could work out a technique whereby province-wide we could address ourselves as a provincial Legislature to this matter, which is increasingly serious, of providing people with some security in the place where they live even though they do not actually own the property.
I think the harsh fact to which we have to address ourselves at some point is that in my municipality, for example, where young families used to come and buy what are known as single-family houses, virtually none of my young working families could afford to buy the houses built in Oshawa now. I just looked at statistics yesterday that tell me that about 80 per cent of the new housing starts in Durham region begin at a price around $80,000. Most of my young families and most of my older families or singles could not qualify for mortgages for that kind of house.
There have been some funny forces at work in the marketplace, a lot of them having to do mainly, developers tell me, with interest rates and with an uncertainty about how much return they can make on their dollar. One of the things we should recognize as legislators is that it is not the development industry's responsibility to provide housing for people; they are in business to make a buck, like every other businessman. When they can make that buck and provide somebody with a reasonable place to live, they are prepared to do it. But if they can make a larger buck by selling to someone else with a higher income, they are going to do so, and that is a natural choice for them. They are not in business to provide social housing; they are in business to make money. It is as simple as that.
Although the member for Yorkview very clearly simply plagiarized the bill that had been introduced by the member for Etobicoke, which does address itself to part of the problem, it would have been nice this evening, having gone through that exercise on previous occasions, if we could have addressed ourselves to the real issue, which people on the municipal council of Hamilton mentioned in some of their discussions last year.
A more positive thing would be simply to say that tenants have a right to have a place to live -- it is as simple and as straightforward as that -- and then perhaps to say that landlords have rights, too, and let us put these competing rights to work and put them on equal footing. This is an approach that some of our municipalities have taken. They have taken it, I think quite frankly, because they have no other choice; this is about all they can attempt to do. It is a measure that addresses itself to a municipal council deciding whether it will issue a building permit or whether it will be able to issue a demolition permit. It addresses that part of the problem.
In the long run I think there are better ways to go about this, more positive ways to state what the problem is. The difficulty, of course, is that in many of our municipalities, particularly in smaller municipalities, this is not really going to begin to address the problem that is there.
For example, in a little place such as Cobourg, last year there was a young single mother who could not find a place to live, so she set up a tent outside the town hall. A demolition control bylaw is not going to do that woman much good, is it? It is not going to provide her with any accommodation; it will not put a roof over her head or over her child's head. In that sense, it misses the target by a great deal.
In some of our other situations, a demolition control bylaw, or provincial legislation that would allow a demolition control bylaw, would address itself very nicely to part of the problem. But there is a larger problem out there that is growing, that gets bigger every day in many parts of Ontario, and that is that no one -- not this provincial government, not the municipalities for the most part, because they cannot afford to, and not the federal government -- is addressing what I would call social housing or reasonable rental accommodation.
That whole area has been neglected now for about a decade, and no one has really gone at that problem, perhaps because our early experiences with it were not very positive, perhaps because we ran into some problems with it, perhaps because our early designs were not quite what they might have been.
It would be wrong to say, as the member for Yorkview did in his opening remarks, that this is all the business of councillors who do not know what they are doing, who are not enlightened, whatever that means. That is a bad shake. When municipalities ask for demolition control bylaws, it is because it is about the only thing they can do. That is the one positive step they see within their jurisdiction, and they have asked for it.
I will support this bill because I believe that every little bit of born-again mentality that happens around here ought to be supported. We all ought to be pleased that the member for Yorkview believes some tenants should have some rights. It is unfortunate he took some cheap shots at members of councils across Ontario, mostly by not naming them when they are not here to defend themselves and participate in the debate. I wish he had not dragged it down to that level.
He could also have had the good grace to acknowledge he stole his private member's bill from another private member. That would have been a step in the right direction. However feeble the step, I will support him in his endeavour and hope his education in the subject of tenant rights continues.
Mr. Shymko: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this topic.
To follow up on the member's comments about stealing another private member's bill, in a manner I cannot understand: an excellent bill that was passed recently, Bill Pr3, the demolition controls bill, was supported by the members opposite, supported because of the sensitivity, humaneness and concern on this side of the House in regard to the unfortunate circumstances of tenants who are faced with the demolition of their homes.
Like the presenter of this bill and other speakers, I have in my constituency a fair number of buildings that have six or more dwelling units. It is these buildings that would be affected by this bill. While the bill and the notes to it do not indicate it, what is at issue is the continued availability of affordable housing units. On a number of occasions we have heard of so-called luxury apartment buildings and condominiums replacing existing buildings where rents were much lower. We have heard these stories in this chamber and in committee from local politicians and through the local media.
We know these events take place. The main question is how we should respond to them. The member for Yorkview obviously feels his amendment to the Planning Act is the best way to proceed. With respect, I disagree with him on this fundamental point.
There are two basic and major points I would like to make in participating in this debate. First, we should remember how important and sensitive the Planning Act is. The debate leading to our current act began as far back as 1975 when the then Minister of Housing appointed the Planning Act review committee. Any major change, such as is being proposed here tonight, would require a considerable number of public hearings and a considerable amount of time and the end result would still be quite predictable.
Some members will recall that the last review of the Planning Act began when many larger municipalities had developed their own local planning capabilities. The province's role at the time was becoming more and more one of ensuring provincial interests. Local debates at the municipal level were largely between growth and nongrowth factors, between the so-called pro-development and anti-development forces. As a Liberal mayor of this great city of Toronto pointed out, there was a pro-development shift sensitive to tenants. Certainly, this debate was very real for almost a decade in this city.
9 p.m.
While the Planning Act review committee did propose changes, it recognized that these changes should not make the system more complicated, nor should the changes interfere with established public and private interests.
This is exactly what this bill is doing. It would give the municipalities of Ontario control over the private property of certain individuals but not others, dependent on what could be entirely a political decision. For example, even if a property owner had a building permit to construct a dwelling that met every single municipal policy and bylaw, a council could decide not to let that person proceed. At the same time, another person with an identical proposal might be allowed to build by the same council.
This bill might seem like an easy, quick-fix solution, but it is just not fair. It is basically and fundamentally unfair. If we are going to address the problem of shortages of affordable housing in some municipalities, we must find a better solution.
The idea behind this bill is not even new. It was proposed and rejected when we debated the Planning Act. I believe it was in the standing committee on general government that the member for Etobicoke, who is not present here tonight -- I am surprised; he should be here -- moved a similar amendment to the proposed Planning Act.
Even though I rarely agree with the member for Etobicoke, I would say it was a much better amendment than the one we have here tonight. At least it acknowledged that demolition control should exist only as long as that municipality was under rent review. It made much more sense than the present bill. The bill before us tonight does not do that.
It can also be argued, and with some reason, that there is absolutely no need for every municipality in this province to have such discretionary powers. That is particularly true if it is the goal of the member for Yorkview to try to deal with the protection of affordable housing. With this bill, however, there is no way of telling what its powers would be used for and what they would accomplish in different municipalities across this province.
I believe it is much better to proceed as we did recently, a few weeks ago, with the city of Toronto. The member was present during the committee deliberations. His party supported that bill -- perhaps with hesitancy, but they did support it because of the quality of the bill. It was an intelligent bill, an intelligent approach to the issue, a realistic bill that protects the interests of tenants as well as trying realistically to protect property rights.
If a municipality feels there is a problem and believes demolition control is the best solution, then I see nothing wrong with that municipality proceeding with a private bill as in the case of Bill Pr3. Members opposite will remember I moved Bill Pr3, giving the city of Toronto power to refuse to issue a demolition permit for a period of one year.
Members might complain that this issue of demolition control for Toronto has been discussed here since 1981. That is true. It took almost three years to have it passed because of various negotiations. But we certainly had the support of the city of Toronto for this approach to demolition control.
We dealt with this in the standing committee on regulations and other statutory instruments earlier this month. Members opposite who followed it will readily recall the wide-ranging debate we had with the groups that participated. I will not go into the details, but if there is any indicator of the wisdom of our realistic approach let me quote the strong objections to Bill Pr3 from the representatives of the Toronto Real Estate Board.
The Acting Speaker: We thank the honourable member, whose time has expired.
Mr. Shymko: That in itself indicates the quality of our approach compared with that of the Liberal Party.
Mr. Spensieri: Mr. Speaker, I would like to use my few remaining moments to attempt to counter one by one what I believe to be the ineffectual arguments presented by both the member for High Park-Swansea and the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere.
As the parliamentary assistant, the member for Wilson Heights stated in the final days of those committee deliberations on Bill Pr3, the municipalities may be entrusted with the power to rezone and with the power to enact building codes and building bylaws, but under no circumstances are they to be entrusted with what is only a corollary of the rezoning power, namely, the power over demolition.
Mr. Robinson: Which city is it? Is it North York the member is talking about?
Mr. Spensieri: If that does not show the utter contempt and disregard the government has for municipal councils, never mind the feeble attempts to goad me into naming names, I know of no clearer proof that the Tory members have no respect for local autonomy.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. Spensieri: There is absolutely no reason to name enlightened or unenlightened councils, because we know the enlightened ones have come before this Legislature and have requested legislation that the government has denied.
Mr. Robinson: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I have to take exception to that. If the member for Yorkview is insulting duly elected councils --
The Acting Speaker: That is not a point of order.
Mr. Robinson: -- by saying only those that have come before us seeking demolition controls are the enlightened ones, I say he is offending everyone in Ontario.
The Acting Speaker: Would the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere please take his seat. The member for Yorkview has the floor.
Mr. Spensieri: In the standing committee on regulations and other statutory instruments, it was that same member who invited representatives of other municipalities to come before this Legislature requesting similar bills, should the need arise. How could he do that with a straight face, talking out of both sides of his mouth, knowing the kind of short shrift the government gave to the city of Toronto? It is something that amazes even those of us who have become very hardened by his cynicism.
There was some mention by the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) of my proposal for the treatment of demolition as it relates to the building of facilities such as group homes. If the young man from Oshawa would take two minutes and think this through, he would realize this is simply the other side of the gold medallion, in the sense that just as there should be as much local autonomy and local involvement in the creation and setting up of facilities, so by a necessary corollary there must be control over their demolition. They are part and parcel of the same consistent and coherent thinking for which his side is not known throughout Ontario.
At the same time, the member for Bellwoods questioned the appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board. In doing so, he indicated once again his lack of appreciation for procedure, for fairness and for the rule of law. Of course there could be situations arising in a municipality where extreme political considerations would block the granting of a demolition permit, and there should be a provision for a forum for a sober second look. It is in the act and it makes the act eminently supportable.
I would like to take a few moments to state that a member from the Ottawa council, Miss Diane Holmes, attended those deliberations of the committee and indicated that the city of Ottawa would soon be coming, cap in hand, with its own request. It does not seem sensible to me, when there is a procedure and an act of this Legislature that is of universal application and can be implemented at the will of councils throughout Ontario, that we should be imposing upon municipalities the duty to come and genuflect before that arrogant majority over there. We know how predictable the outcome is going to be, and we know how empty-handed they are going to be made to go away.
9:10 p.m.
It was more than 15 years ago that the federal Task Force on Housing and Urban Development stated that every Canadian should be entitled to clean, warm shelter as a matter of basic human rights. It is obvious that unless we support the right to prevent demolition holus-bolus across this great province of ours, there will be two kinds of Canadians, the ones whose municipal councils have genuflected before this Legislature and the ones whose councils have not.
For that reason, this bill must have speedy passage and, if necessary, committee consideration.
SYSTEM FOR MUNICIPAL FINANCE
Mr. Grande moved, seconded by Mr. Breaugh, resolution 19:
That in the opinion of this House, the government should create a new system for municipal finance which will reduce the burden of residential property taxes and phase out the present residential property tax system and replace it with a system which reflects ability to pay. In order to achieve these objectives, the government should phase in a series of reforms designed: (1) to reverse the process of shifting provincial spending obligations on to local taxpayers; (2) to shift the funding of education and social services from the residential property tax base to progressive sources of revenue; and (3) to restructure the financing of local hard services so that they reflect benefit and ability to pay. Specifically, the following phased-in program should be followed: (a) immediate increases in municipal grants to reflect the cost of providing municipal services; (b) immediate assumption by the provincial government of the full cost of welfare and related social services; (c) phased-in removal of the education portion of residential property taxes over a period of five years, thereby reducing property taxes by about 50 per cent; (d) replacement of the remainder of the present residential property tax with a tax system that reflects benefit and ability to pay; and (e) reform of the nonresidential property tax system to eliminate inequities particularly as they affect small businesses.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Cousens): I remind the honourable member that he has up to 20 minutes for his presentation and may reserve any portion thereof for a windup.
Mr. Grande: Mr. Chairman, I would like to reserve whatever portion of the time is available at the end to rebut whatever is required.
The resolution is yet another attempt to show to this government that a new system of municipal finance is required and is of immediate need. It is yet another way to tell the government that the burden of residential property taxes must be reduced.
The creation of a new system of municipal finance has to have as its foundation the principle of ability to pay, the principle without which any taxation system is fraught with injustice and unfairness. The present system of municipal finance should be phased out because it is regressive. This system militates against the low- and middle-income families in our province and favours and benefits the well-to-do and the privileged.
My leader speaks of two Ontarios, one for the rich and privileged and the other for the rest. The property tax structure in Ontario illustrates perfectly the two Ontarios, the discriminatory aspects that exist and the built-in institutionalized discriminations to maintain privilege. One Ontario benefits and the other Ontario pays.
The new system of which I speak in this resolution attempts to shift the property tax burden from low- and middle-income families and place it where it belongs, to end privilege and thereby create a system fit for the new Ontario, a system that has as its cornerstone justice and fairness.
This new system reverses the trend that this government has been following ever since I was elected to this place in 1975. The trend has been, and continues to be, to increase year after year the burden for education and social services on the shoulders of property taxpayers.
We know that in 1975 in Metropolitan Toronto the provincial government paid 34.5 per cent of the cost of education. Had the province not shirked its responsibility for education and put the burden on the local taxpayers of Metro Toronto and therefore maintained the 34.5 per cent provincial support for the last two years, 1983 and 1984, property taxpayers of Metro Toronto today would be paying $552 million less on their property taxes.
For the province as a whole, the shift since 1975 on to the shoulders of the local property taxpayers has been very expensive.
My resolution calls for a halt to this shifting of the burden to local taxpayers. As well, the resolution calls for the phased removal over a five-year period of the education portion of residential property taxes, reducing the property tax bill by about 50 per cent.
I want to make it clear that this resolution addresses itself to a shift in taxation away from property taxes, which everyone agrees are the most regressive form of taxation, to a more progressive form of taxation. It does not require the raising of taxes in this province by one cent. It is just collecting the same amount of taxes; however, we will collect it from different sources.
Another important provision in this resolution is that the provincial government has to assume the full cost of welfare and related social services. As members know, welfare and related social services are paid by a sharing system. The federal government provides 50 per cent of the cost, the province pays 30 per cent and the municipality picks up the remaining 20 per cent.
What this resolution states is that the welfare and related social services must be the responsibility of the federal and provincial governments. For the provincial Treasury to pick up the 20 per cent municipal share would have added $200 million to this year's budget for the cost of these services. I repeat, it is a shift and not a tax increase.
There are many reasons we feel the provincial government should bear the cost of education and share on a 50:50 basis with the federal government the cost of welfare and related social services. In general terms, property taxes should pay for services related to property and not for services related to people.
Despite its flaws, the income tax system is a more progressive system and represents, or with modification could represent, the ability-to-pay principle far more clearly than any tinkering with property taxes. Even this provincial government, with its totally inadequate property tax credit program, has used the nominal progressivity of the income tax system to offset the negative effects of the regressive property tax system.
In specific terms, education is a provincial responsibility. Per pupil expenditures should not be dependent upon the richness or lack of richness of a municipal tax base. Equality of educational opportunity for our children must not be dependent upon whether the student lives in northern Ontario, eastern Ontario or southwestern Ontario. Equality of educational opportunity must not be dependent upon imaginary lines across this province that divide municipality from municipality and school board from school board.
In terms of general welfare assistance and related services, we must remember that municipalities did not put policies in motion to create unemployment in this province. The Conservative provincial government, in partnership with the Liberal federal government, has done that.
Tories and Liberals have made a conscious, callous policy decision to lower inflation to protect the wealth of the rich and the privileged and to throw thousands of working people on the streets. Why should a municipality like the city of York, the municipality that I represent, pick up the tab to the tune of 20 per cent as a result of the inane and insane policies that the Ontario Conservative government and the Liberals in Ottawa are wedded to?
9:20 p.m.
The first-year cost shift of this program is $800 million. This may seem a great deal of money, but I want to emphasize to all members here tonight that it is not a question of additional revenues or of additional taxes, it is a fundamental issue of shifting existing taxes to more appropriate sources.
Furthermore, $800 million represents about the same amount this government provided last year in corporate tax incentives. That amount could also be generated, for instance, by a 12 per cent surtax on Ontario tax payable. In short, such a shift will leave low- and middle-income earners, such as the people in the great riding of Oakwood, better off than paying the bill through the property tax system. That is what tax reform is all about.
In the time remaining, I am going to deal with my local area, the city of York. I hope other members who speak on this resolution will do likewise. I want to give a picture of the people of the ridings of Oakwood and York South. This picture is a summary in a recent study entitled Poverty, Health and Health Education, done by Dr. P. M. Byrne, Dr. D. C. Cole and Dr. A. Donohue. This is what they found.
"The picture of the borough of York that we obtained from the profile is that of an inner-city suburb with a slowly declining population and increasing numbers of seniors and English-speaking Caribbean immigrants. Multi-family and lone-person households are significant in the borough. Substantial numbers of children have two working parents and live in apartments.
"The majority of industry is factory and warehouse. The labour force has low formal educational attainment and a low percentage of professional and managerial workers. Labour force participation is high among women, but so is unemployment among women and young adults.
"Income distribution shows proportionately more households with lower income than Metro. Substantial income assistance for health and nonhealth reasons is also given to residents of the borough. The borough residents have higher perinatal and infant morbidity and mortality, poorer child dental health and a greater increase in sexually transmissible diseases than Ontario residents.
"Although York residents experience fewer hospital admissions, mental diseases and limb and joint disorders show higher rates than Ontario. York also experiences higher mortality rates for several diseases linked with poverty and other diseases more clearly linked with age."
This profile shows that the people of the city of York are hardworking men and women who are struggling to make ends meet. Fifty per cent of households have both adults working at low-paying jobs. Unemployment is high; it has been estimated recently to be as high as 40 per cent among people who work in the trades related to the construction industry.
A high percentage of immigrant women suffer exploitation of the highest order in their jobs. They are being paid at the minimum wage, or just above the minimum wage, and must work 50 to 60 hours to bring home less than $200. These are the people whose family incomes, with both husband and wife working, will barely reach $20,000 to $25,000 per year. These are the people who understand how difficult it is to earn to provide the essentials for the family.
I am sure we can easily understand why these constituents of mine get angry when they feel they are being dealt with unjustly. They are angry when they learn they are paying the highest rate of property taxes in all Metro Toronto. They are angry, and rightly so, when they learn that in Ontario in 1981, 2,831 tax filers who earned more than $50,000 a year did not pay one cent in income tax.
They are angry when they find out they are the highest-taxed families in all Canada. A family earning $15,000 per year in 1983 paid $1,432 in provincial tax and that represents the highest provincial tax in all the land. Similarly, a family with a total income of $25,000 paid provincial tax of $2,748, which is the second-highest provincial tax in all the land. But for those families who earn $100,000 or more per year, the provincial tax levied is the third-lowest in all of Canada.
Is this just and fair? My constituents do not think it is, and I agree with them. My constituents got really upset when they learned that last year the Ontario government provided $800 million in tax incentives to corporations and at the same time forced my constituents to pay $800 million out of their pockets. Is this fair? Again, my constituents do not believe it is fair.
My constituents were also angry when a few years ago 3,500 of them signed a petition regarding the fact that we pay the highest level of property tax in Metro Toronto. I duly presented this to our Premier (Mr. Davis) and he promptly ignored it. My constituents are extremely upset when they know they are being discriminated against, when they know that for an average house assessed at $5,000 they are paying the highest property tax, as I said, in all of Metropolitan Toronto.
I just want to give some examples. In the city of York in 1978, a house assessed at $5,000 paid $817 and in North York a house assessed at $5,000 paid $739, for a difference of $78; in I979 York was $888 and North York was $793, for a difference of $95; in 1980 York was $940 and North York was $843, for a difference of $97; in 1983 York was $1,268 and North York was $1,128, for a difference of $140; and in 1984, on a house assessed at $6,000 this time, in York they pay $1,617 in property taxes and in North York $1,440, which is a difference of $177.
My constituents are basically asking. "Why are we being discriminated against in this fashion?" The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett) and the Premier pass the buck to the municipal level when we confront them on this issue.
The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, in an in-depth analysis of the problem, wrote a letter to me and to the member for York South (Mr. Rae) in answer to a letter we had written to the Premier. In it he says, "Undoubtedly the city's smaller commercial and industrial sector relative to other Metro municipalities means that the city's residential taxpayers have to bear a greater share of total municipal costs compared to their neighbours for comparable services."
Thank you very much, Minister. We knew that.
He ends the letter by saying, "Consequently, payment of a grant to the city for use in reducing property taxes does not seem warranted at this time." When is it warranted?
The minister is wrong. Both the member for York South and I know he is wrong. The mayor of York and the council of York know he is wrong. Most important, the residents of the city of York know he is wrong. They know because the city of York is an inner-core municipality. We know we have an ancient infrastructure which needs replacement. We know we have a sewer system that barely meets the standards of the 1930s. We know we have 42 kilometres of roads that are not paved. We know we have an ageing population in York, which therefore requires higher per capita expenditures to meet its needs.
9:30 p.m.
The minister should have known better than that. I say this because basically the minister is shirking his responsibilities here. He ought to have known, because a few years ago officials of his ministry worked for several months with officials of York applying what is called zero-base budgeting procedures, and those officials of his ministry were not able to suggest that any expenditure was unnecessary.
I hope tonight's resolution will be passed. I hope the principle of ability to pay is the principle we will all agree upon tonight. Those who will be voting for this resolution are voting for justice and fairness in a taxation system. They are voting for a new taxation system which will not put a burden on those who are least able to bear it. Those who will be voting for this resolution will be voting to replace a chaotic, unfair municipal tax system. I commend all members to vote positively for this resolution.
The Acting Speaker: Does the member wish to reserve his two minutes?
Mr. Grande: Yes, sir.
Mr. Eves: Mr. Speaker, while lowering everybody's property taxes would be a very popular measure, and I would be one of the first to benefit from any lowering of property taxes, I think we have to deal with reality and practicalities in the real world.
I see a very broadly worded, idealistic resolution before me. I do not see any concrete proposal as to exactly what system of taxation would replace it or where this new-found pool of taxation revenue is going to come from to take up the slack.
The fact of the matter is we live in a democracy and in a capitalistic society, at least in North America and most of western Europe. We are not a social welfare state and I hope we never become one. I think the right and ability to pay real property taxes is a characteristic of democracy and of capitalism, and one which we should really be proud of. We should not shirk our responsibility.
The right and privilege, or onerous burden if the member would like to put it that way, to pay real property taxes does not exist in Poland, or other communistic or less than democratic societies throughout the world.
Mr. McClellan: Is this the member's first speech?
Mr. Eves: No, it certainly is not.
Mr. McClellan: I think it is the first one that was not written for him.
Mr. Eves: I do not agree with that either, sir.
I go through the wording of the member's resolution and I see the reverse of the process of shifting provincial spending obligations on to local taxpayers. It seems to me the member feels there is some sinister plot by the provincial government to shift the burden of taxation from Ontario to local taxpayers. All taxpayers in Ontario are local taxpayers. I would like to know of the new pool of taxpayers that has not been tapped yet by the provincial, municipal or federal governments in this country and in this province.
The only shifts have been those that have, perhaps on occasion, been necessary from time to time in periods of fiscal restraint. I believe they have been in direct relation to the local authority's ability to pay. All taxpayers in Ontario pay taxes one way or another. As I have said before, there is no new, magical pool out there waiting to be taxed.
The federal government, for its part, has consistently reduced transfer payments to the provinces in the very important fields of health care and education spending. If you can believe John Turner, the shining white knight for the federal Liberal leadership, he says if he is elected Prime Minister, heaven forbid, he would shift the onus even more on to the provinces in order to reduce the federal deficit within the next seven years; that is unless he has changed his position 48 hours later on that issue as well.
The second part of the member's resolution refers to shifting the funding of education and social services from the residential property tax base to more progressive sources of revenue -- but he fails to tell us what those are -- to restructure the financing of local hard services, so they reflect benefit and ability to pay.
Surely local services that are paid for by the local community and benefit it should be partly funded by the local community through local tax bases. After all, those people are receiving those services.
To eliminate residential property taxation, which represents some $3.5 billion a year, the province would either have to increase provincial income tax by 57 per cent or increase retail sales tax by 80 per cent to achieve that monetary goal in 1984. Social services throughout Ontario are already subsidized by the province to an amount in excess of 80 per cent.
With regard to the education system funding referred to in the resolution, one should note some $1.8 billion a year is obtained from real property tax. This year the province will contribute more than $3 billion to local school boards for education spending. Where would this new pool of $1.8 billion for education alone come from if this money were not obtained from or absorbed by the local property tax system?
I also feel there is something to be said here for local autonomy. Does the member not feel local school boards and local municipal councils will lose some local autonomy if they lose their primary, and in some cases their only, source of taxation revenue? Will they be responsible or accountable to the people they are elected to serve if they do so?
The member says the province should be willing to assume some $2 million a year, as he states it, to originally provide social service moneys to local budgets, yet he sloughs off the real property tax grants given by the province every year. In 1983, $232 million was given back to 1.5 million individuals in Ontario.
Last year, the senior property tax credit returned some $267 million to just shy of 600,000 senior citizens in Ontario. The senior citizens' rebate constituted an average of 54 per cent of a particular senior's property taxes in Ontario.
The New Democratic Party of Ontario does not have a monopoly on concern for low-income earners or senior citizens. Residential properties are now taxed at a lower rate, by about 15 per cent, than commercial properties in Ontario. As a percentage value of one's home, property tax has actually decreased from a two per cent average 10 years ago to just under one per cent now.
The member refers to tax incentives to small corporations as a dirty word. It might interest members to know that most of the people in Ontario are employed directly or indirectly by both large and small corporations. Without incentives and without methods of keeping those businesses operating, there will be no employment for any individual resident in Ontario.
I notice the member did not bother to refer to the Martin proposal or to the proposed review of sources of taxation and more equitable distribution of commercial and industrial assessment across the province which is currently under way at the Ministry of Education. I am sure he is well aware of it.
He seems to be at odds with the concerns expressed by the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen), with whom I had the pleasure of participating in a debate in a medium sponsored by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation several months ago. In that debate, the member for Hamilton West indicated he was concerned about the middle-income earners with respect to taxation and property taxation in Ontario -- those earning $20,000 to $35,000 a year. Was it just mere coincidence he was addressing the OSSTF on that occasion so that became his concern that day?
The concerns of the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande) for low-income earners seem to be in direct conflict with the concerns of the member for Hamilton West. They apparently do not agree.
The resolution ignores two important principles of local school boards and municipal governments in Ontario, those of accountability and autonomy. Both are very important principles when looking at real property and the entire taxation system in the province. For those reasons, I cannot support the resolution.
9:40 p.m.
Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the resolution the member for Oakwood has put forward. In speaking on it, I do not for a moment question the sincerity with which he put it forward, nor do I question the fact that reform is required in the area of municipal finance. I have had the opportunity of going about the province during the last month or two, speaking to a number of residents with respect to property assessment. I am heading a task force that is looking at assessment and transfer payments to municipalities from the province.
In reflecting on some of the hearings we have had, I am reminded of the cases yesterday in North Bay where we had ratepayer after ratepayer come before us. There were some from one of the rural areas who said they were paying for urban services, for water and fire services, for garbage collection and for a number of other hard services. The services were not available to them or were available only sparsely.
They felt in those cases it was up to the province to rectify the situation and that the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Gregory) was doing nothing to rectify their situation of paying taxes for services they were not receiving. I do not deny that some clarification and reform have to take place in that respect.
I am reminded of a case in Hamilton where three or four ratepayers came before us. There was one in particular who cited a case where he appealed his assessment. He felt he was paying too much and he cited a number of comparable properties. In doing so, he felt he had a good case.
He waited for the verdict. He was in a subdivision with 49 other property owners. He thought he had a good case, but what happened was that to intimidate and penalize him, rather than lowering this one property, the province increased the properties of his 49 neighbours. I see the former Minister of Revenue, the member for St. David (Mrs. Scrivener), coming in. I am glad to see she is joining us today. She may want to speak in this debate. I can imagine how popular this person was with his neighbours when they found out all their properties were increased just because he had appealed his. I dare say he will not appeal it again because of the punishment they inflicted on his neighbours.
I am reminded of the case of Marineland and Game Farm in Niagara Falls where an entrepreneur, a person who has built up a successful business, wants to expand his business by at least $20 million, which would mean many more permanent jobs. He is employing at least 75 people on a permanent basis now and about 400 people on a part-time basis. He would like to have the assessment on his property changed as a result of subsection 63(3) of the Assessment Act, which equalizes assessment within classes but not between classes.
Suddenly, his entertainment areas are not assessed as implements as they are in the manufacturing or industrial area; they are assessed as buildings. He can have a Ferris wheel or a rollercoaster. They are not buildings, but the province chooses to tax them as buildings.
Hon. Mr. Baetz: It is not the province; it is the municipality.
Mr. Boudria: That is nonsense. You know better than that.
Mr. Epp: It is not up to the municipality. It is up to the minister.
Hon. Mr. Baetz: You are talking about John Holer.
Mr. Epp: Sure I am talking about John Holer.
Granted, the Minister of Tourism and Recreation (Mr. Baetz) is right to that extent. The municipality asked for subsection 63(3), which equalizes assessment within classes, but the various categories are determined by the province.
Second, the province does not give out full information on the impact of subsection 63(3) on various property holders; it gives the information in the form of groups. One person can have an increase in property tax of 500 per cent and another person a decrease of 500 per cent, and the information the municipality gets is that it is even. It is an average of zero, and they figure there is no shift.
When they get the computerized information, which comes after they pass the resolution, they find out there are massive shifts up and down for some people. The people who are down are not going to complain, but the people who are up are finding it very difficult.
Mr. Holer has two options. He has two offers from the United States, and the provincial government is going to see him move his establishment to the United States rather than save those jobs for Ontario. Yet the former Minister of Industry and Trade went all the way to Europe and Japan and brought one job back to the municipality of Elmira.
The Minister of Tourism and Recreation will recall the municipality of Elmira because his dad was a Lutheran minister in that municipality, a fine gentleman indeed. The former Minister of Industry and Trade brought one job back to my riding. He stood up in the Legislature and made a grand announcement that there were nine jobs. He went all the way to Europe and Japan and found one job; yet those people will not go to Niagara Falls to save 75 full-time jobs and 400 part-time jobs.
Hon. Mr. Baetz: We will see.
Mr. Epp: We will see, but do not act too late.
I am not arguing that property tax reform is not required in Ontario and I am not arguing that transfer payments are required, but I cannot support the resolution for a number of reasons, and I want to go into them.
First of all, it is indicated here that the province should take over all the payments as far as education is concerned. That means the 50 per cent or 48 per cent or 47 per cent, on average, of the money that is now being distributed to municipalities by the province will be increased to 100 per cent. It means the amount of local autonomy we have at the local school level will completely disappear because whoever is going to pay the piper is going to call the tune.
If the member for Oakwood is going to stand in his place as a responsible member of this Legislature and suggest in this resolution that the province is going to pay 100 per cent of education costs and still expect local autonomy in education, he is dreaming. This government would not do it, and his government would not do it if he found himself a member of it. In order to protect local autonomy, some kind of input as far as financial responsibility is concerned has to be assumed at the local level.
The other point I want to make is that the member is suggesting the province assume 100 per cent of education costs. I am not suggesting it should not assume more education costs; I am not suggesting that at all. But he is also suggesting the province increase its grants to municipalities. It should increase by 50 per cent the amount of money going for education costs and give additional grants to municipalities. That means a real windfall as far as the municipalities are concerned, and I do not think the province, despite the strength of its economy, can afford it.
What the member is suggesting is a real break as far as commercial and industrial properties are concerned. If it is based on ability to pay -- and that is what he is suggesting here -- various commercial and industrial properties are going to benefit significantly.
I notice that my time is almost up, Mr. Speaker. I wish I could speak longer.
9:50 p.m.
I want to make one quick point. The member for Parry Sound (Mr. Eves) has indicated that the shifts to the municipal level are necessary, whether it be added incentives. I notice the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) just a few days ago indicated to the municipalities in his budget that they had to assume the new responsibilities for seniors not having to pay for improvements to their properties. I do not disagree with the principle; I think the principle is good. But the fact is that not one cent comes out of the provincial Treasury for that; every cent is going to come out of the municipal treasury. I would have thought that at least he should have consulted with the municipalities before he announced that change.
Mr. Speaker: Time.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak in favour of the resolution because I think it addresses itself to and makes us take a look at what I believe is a very substantial problem. I think there is a rather alarming trend in how things are paid for by different levels of government.
In the last decade or so a pattern has been set whereby Ontario has decided to institute new programs in a number of areas. In doing this or in changing existing programs, they retain virtually a stranglehold on how the program is delivered. In other words, in a number of fields such as social services and education, the province says:
"Here is the benchmark you must meet. These are the rules under which someone must get, for example, social assistance." It has said just recently to local school boards, "These are the kinds of educational opportunities you must provide by law for your students."
In a very straightforward way the province has retained total control over the kinds of services that are provided, total regulation over how day care spaces are provided, educational opportunities are provided, housing opportunities are provided and social services programs are run. Having done that, it then says, 'We will now take a declining share of the responsibility for paying for those services." As a result, municipal governments from one end of Ontario to the other are faced with a very difficult dichotomy to try to sort out.
The old belief that local control is important and local autonomy ought to be respected has really gone by the boards. Local autonomy does not exist in Bill 82, for example, where the province, by legislation, said to school boards around Ontario: "It is no longer a matter of choice for you to provide educational opportunities for children who have special needs. By provincial statute and regulation, you must now see that each child gets that opportunity through a local school board."
It did its usual number in providing some sweeteners to get boards to begin the process and run pilot projects. It is now beginning to flatten out that financing. By next year when this program, in theory anyway, is to be in operation from one end of Ontario to the other, the reality without question will emerge.
The obligation to provide the service has been set by provincial statute. It is followed up by provincial regulation. The obligation to finance those kinds of services is funded on a declining basis by the province and on an inclining basis by the local area school boards. In virtually every kind of program, that has been the trend. A necessary program is defined; the province then says, "These are the rules under which you must provide this kind of service in your community, but we will assume less and less of the financing."
It has produced at the municipal level some rather startling and difficult choices that have to be made. At the municipal level, unlike those at the provincial and federal levels, the budgetary process is a very open one. It is usually done in open committee of council and finalized at an open council meeting. Members of council are submitted to the reality of people in their community coming to them and saying: "Here is something we ought to do, a road which ought to be built, a school which ought to be put up, a service which should be provided in our community. These are the children who require this service."
Members on a local council do not deal in theoretical ideas. They very often deal with a council chamber full of people demanding that something be done. It is very difficult for them to look those people straight in the eye and say, "Theoretically, it is a nice idea to provide education for children with special needs, but your child is not going to get it because we do not have the money." That makes these budgetary choices very difficult to make. It also supplies a measure of balance in the democratic process that is sadly lacking at the higher levels of government.
This resolution tries to address itself to a major funding problem, one that is complicated by the very devious fact that very few people understand how municipalities are financed. They do not understand government is so complicated these days that almost anything a municipality does has a component of funding in it from probably at least three levels of government and perhaps four in areas such as mine which have a regional government.
It is a very difficult subject to try to deal with. but it is incredibly important, because for about the last four or five years municipal councils have been out there dealing with a kind of bare-to-the-bone budget. They have made the sharp cuts that were demanded of them. They are feeling the pinch of an economy in a recession. This year more councils dealt with things they have never before seen.
Municipal councils are looking at people who need to run an unemployment centre in their community because their friends and neighbours are out of work. It is their friends and neighbours who need counselling on how to fill out all the forms this government sends out to the population. It is their neighbours who need to be counselled on what kind of assistance programs for the unemployed are available, because this government does a great job of advertising assistance programs when it wants to, but it does an even better job of hiding programs it does not want to pay out money to, such as Ontario health insurance plan assistance.
Here in Toronto, for example, a centre for Hispanic-speaking people needs to be funded. Very few people would say that is a responsibility of the city of Toronto, but the fact is there is no other level of government that will provide any funding. Out of desperation the city of Toronto must address itself to that problem. It is a very real problem for constituents in the city of Toronto. Those Hispanic-speaking people are there standing in front of a committee of Toronto city council saying: "Here is something we need to do. Here is something that ought to be done and no other level of government will help us. Will you?" To its credit, the city of Toronto has helped that centre.
My community and communities from one end of Ontario to the other are looking at funding health programs, hospitals, distress centres, centres for battered women and centres to advise people in rape crisis situations, none of which they ever did before. Twenty years ago, none of these things was seen to be the responsibility of a municipal council.
Councils are in this situation through no fault of their own. They are dependent on the province in large measure for funding, so this resolution makes us think about what is a major problem out there. If one is like the member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp), all hepped up about assessment, one thing that must be obvious is that if some relief is not provided for funding of municipalities and school boards, one will never get to implement any major change in assessment programs across Ontario. That is the truth.
I believe the government cannot bring in things such as market value assessment, no matter how great the theory might be, in a situation where that is going to produce dramatic increases in property tax, as it does in Newcastle, Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake. I believe the government cannot provide the kinds of services that municipalities have traditionally provided in Ontario as long as it keeps loading on their backs programs that have never been their responsibility. The municipalities are funding them now because no other level will, and they must be funded.
10 p.m.
In all areas laid out in this resolution, we must begin to address ourselves to a major taxation problem that is unfair, unseen by most of the people in Ontario, getting worse instead of better and having added to its despair so many components that have no responsibility at a municipal level. They are there out of desperation. They are there because the municipal people are vulnerable to the people in that community, as they ought to be, not sheltered as are people in this Legislature are or as is the federal Parliament in Ottawa. It is a front-line, doorstep operation where they have to look people in the eye and say: "We do not want your kids to have day care. We do not want your kids with special needs to get a decent education."
In this House it is pretty easy for people to say that in an obtuse way, because the kids are not standing in front of them. At the municipal level and at the board of education level, people are saying to their friends and neighbours what the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) does not have to say. She does not have to look them straight in the eye and say, "There is no money in the kitty to build a school for your kids."
This resolution addresses itself to that problem. I hope all members will have the integrity to address the issue and at least to give consideration to support this resolution.
Mr. Cousens: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased in our private members' hour that we have an opportunity to discuss the fundamentals of what our province is all about, what democracy is all about and what the free enterprise system is all about. When we have a motion like this it gives us a chance to see what colour we really are: Are we blue? Are we red? What are we?
When we look at the suggestions implicit in this motion, we begin to see that there is a significant difference between the Conservatives and the third party. I am pleased to see the second party is coming around. There is some hope there, and there is a chance we may begin to see more of those people come across the floor and join us over here. We will welcome any other honourable members who wish to come and join the true cause of presenting a balanced approach, not only to taxes but also to good government, which this government certainly tries to provide.
There is one thing that should be explicitly clear. I would like to make a point that might surprise the member for Oakwood. We on this side of the House do not like any kind of taxation. We are opposed to it and, if we could, we would abolish all forms of taxation in this province and in this country and go back 200 years to when this province was opened up by the early pioneers. They came because of the opportunities. If we could return to that sense of freedom where people do not have to have taxation of any kind, that would be a good life to have.
I would like to see taxation done away with. I would like to see us not having to provide the services we do have to provide. We have an education system, a health care system and police forces, and we have to deliver these and other services to provide for the needs of our people today. We have come a long way in 200 years, and the members on the other side of the House have a long way to come to reach the level we are at and the understanding we are able to provide.
I wish the member for Oakwood had some sense of understanding of fiscal responsibility. Maybe, along with other members, he should move to Markham or Richmond Hill. In Markham, we have not had a tax increase by the municipality in the last nine years --
Mr. Nixon: Yes, but they have the highest income in Canada.
Mr. Cousens: None the less, we have good management, good direction and good control.
Mr. Nixon: They are just fat cats up there.
Mr. Cousens: No, we are not. Talking about fat cats, if we put the Liberal members against some of us, there is a lot more weight physically.
We see something beautiful happening in municipalities that have good management. Possibly, when we look at the problems of the inner city and see the number of people who are moving north of Steeles where they are able to find some of the services at reduced costs --
Mr. Stokes: Is the member calling the other municipalities in the province poor managers?
Mr. Cousens: No. I just want to say that at least in these two municipalities we have made progress. The kind of thinking the honourable member is supporting does not really have to happen.
I find a tremendous parallel between the member's suggestion and the proposal that was brought to Toronto city council by the Toronto neighbourhoods committee. In fact, the mayor of Toronto, Arthur Eggleton, was quoted in an article in the Toronto Star in April as calling it a wild goose chase. He had quite a lot to say about it. What he was really saying was that when one starts suggesting a proposal that says "ability to pay" rather than looking at market value assessment, one is not really addressing the problem that is there, because there is a delicate balance that has to be maintained.
There is an understanding that if a person has a house and that for whatever he is going to have for it, he has to pay a certain amount, which depends on the size of the property and the size of the services. What we have in this province is a progressive form of taxation. It is not regressive; it is a sense of people sharing proportionally in the costs of the services that are provided.
We know that no system is perfect. Any system developed by man still needs improvement. Certainly our Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has gone out and asked the municipalities for suggestions, and he keeps on looking for ways of refining and improving it. The last thing we want to do is to see people within our society suffer or be pushed down or be pushed to do something beyond their means.
Mr. Kerrio: Somebody has already done that.
Mr. Cousens: Oh my, the member for Niagara Falls does not know or understand when he starts saying that. Certainly when one starts seeing some of the existing programs that our government has introduced, they are programs that understand there is a need in society and we cannot come along and have one set of rules that satisfies all. There are some people who have to have special attention, so within our own taxation system our government has brought in enhancements and improvements to the way we collect taxes and to the way we help those who are not able to meet the full costs with which they are being faced.
I would like to point to two of them. I know the member for Parry Sound addressed in general the effect of the taxation, but I would like to touch on the two significant government programs that do a great deal for those people whom the member is concerned about. May I suggest to the member for Oakwood that we too are concerned about the poor people; we are concerned about all the people in this province, and we want to see that they all have a fair chance.
One of the great systems we have in this province is the property tax credit system, and this is done through the income tax system. In 1983 alone these credits totalled $232 million and were paid to 1.5 million individuals. The average credit was 25 per cent of property taxes. Therefore, those people who had an income problem and did not have high incomes had a program initiated, supported and endorsed by our province that helped them out.
There is a second program -- and I notice the member does not refer to these in his speech, his comments or his motion; maybe he could build this second suggestion into his thinking and tell the people in his riding just how much the province is doing for them. It has to do with the Ontario pensioners property tax grant program, which grants pensioners a rebate of up to $500. Last year alone it provided $260 million in assistance to 592,000 households.
Our province is already doing something for the people he is concerned about. His passionate pleas that something should be done to help those who do not have enough resources to do it for themselves is already being genuinely, sincerely and well addressed by our government's programs.
Mr. Charlton: That is why the government's credit rating has not gone up in 10 years but inflationary values have gone up 100 per cent.
Mr. Cousens: May the honourable member realize that the people who are taking this money are then able to put it back into other services.
Mr. Charlton: We realize that property taxes have tripled and inflation has gone up by 100 per cent.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Cousens: The balance of the whole thing is that so has health care, and those people who are over 65 have their Ontario health insurance plan premiums paid for them; they also have a drug delivery service. The member is looking at a delicate balancing act in which our government is doing significant things to help people in this province so that everything is within their means to enjoy.
I appreciate the fact that the member has brought this whole subject up. I think he has an interesting proposal. I do not think he thought for a moment it would carry or that members across this House would want to support it. I think if he comes along and makes such a proposal to people within his riding and possibly leads them to believe it is the kind of proposal he would implement, he might well not win. He might win votes from a few people, but the province as a whole will not respect the kind of thinking that has gone into this kind of proposal because they will see the holes in it.
One cannot come along and make something new out of a system that is already good and working and think the new system he is going to develop is going to be any better than the one we have already; it just cannot happen that easily. We in this province have carefully developed over a period of time a good assessment system that is working. All I can hope for is that we will continue to monitor it, work on it and refine it so that as time comes along and as the needs increase we will do more to recognize people who have special needs.
I thank the honourable member for giving us this chance to consider this motion. It is one of those motions about which one can say it is not going to fly, and neither is the member.
10:10 p.m.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to participate in the debate on resolution 19 by the member for Oakwood. This is a somewhat confusing resolution. It is very lengthy and it took the member almost five minutes to read it in this Legislature earlier tonight.
As we look at the resolution, we find it has a whole variety of things in it, some of which are acceptable, some of which are acceptable in principle and some of which are totally unacceptable, all mixed together in order to --
An hon member: Confuse us.
Mr. Boudria: I do not know if it is deliberately to confuse us, but it certainly does a good job of confusing everybody in my view.
The member is probably going to say it does a good job of confusing me, but nobody else. Perhaps that is the case. However, I want to bring to the attention of the members some of the things in this resolution.
In the first part, it talks about reducing the burden of residential property taxes. Of course, everybody is in favour of that, and I am the first. However, when we talk about phasing out the present residential property tax system, what do we have then: advisory committees instead of municipal councils?
Are we going to retain the authority of the municipal councils by giving them another fiscal responsibility such as municipal income taxes as they have them in the United States? I do not want municipal income taxes. If that is the member's proposal, I think he should explain it to this Legislature more fully. In my view, the way it is currently written is very confusing.
I know I should be addressing you, Mr. Speaker. I apologize for that. We know the Solicitor General (Mr. G. W. Taylor) talks to the television, but the rest of us talk to you, Mr. Speaker.
I see in the resolution under (c) what is referred to as "phased-in removal of the education portion of residential property taxes." What this means is the abolition of municipal councils. There is a reverse side to the formula of no taxation without representation.
If we removed all fiscal authority from municipal councils, we would have advisory bodies. I know of certain educational advisory bodies right now. The member for Parry Sound knows all about the French-language advisory committees and so does the Minister of Education. They do not work at all.
If we are going to have the whole education system run at the local level by advisory bodies with no power at all over money matters, I suggest we are in deep trouble with this kind of resolution. It needs to be clarified a lot more before I can find myself in support of such a resolution.
I will give some examples of why we need to retain local autonomy. In one municipality in my constituency, the town of Plantagenet, the good folks across the way helped to assist in the construction of a municipal water system. They have grandiose views across the way, as we know, and they built so big a municipal water system in Plantagenet that it could probably take on half the constituency of Prescott-Russell by itself.
They have debt-ridden that structure and passed it on to the municipality to administer. It has resulted in a situation where the water bill for those living in Plantagenet is $1,000 per year per household. For a three-unit apartment building, the water taxes are $3,000 a year, courtesy of the people across the floor who instituted a ridiculous plan such as that one a number of years ago. That goes to show how we must retain local autonomy to avoid that kind of thing.
Mr. Mancini: I would not let them manage my doghouse.
Mr. Boudria: The member for Essex South has said they should not manage a doghouse and he is quite correct. I think it is high time this government was replaced with a more reasonable one, a more liberal one.
I want to give another example of how this government currently holds too much of the purse-strings and leaves too little authority to boards of education. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that I raised in this Legislature the issue of the famous memorandum B-9. The Minister of Education, who is over there, will recall that she cut off the grants in my constituency to the Prescott and Russell County Board of Education, retroactively shortchanging it of $650,000 a year of educational financing that was used for adult retraining in my riding. The local board of education had no authority. Somebody else was holding the purse-strings.
As far as I can see, the member for Oakwood wants to establish a system where the province holds all the purse-strings and no decisions are made at the local level. I see that as being very dangerous. Of course, each and every one of us wants a greater proportion of the educational and municipal taxes to be shifted to the provincial level. However, I, for one, do not want to abolish a system in this province that --
Mr. McClellan: Works so well.
Mr. Boudria: -- does not necessarily work so well, as the member says, but to give any more authority to the people across the way, who cannot manage, is wrong. If anything, they should be having less authority. They cannot manage what they have going now. They should not be managing any more.
I see the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh), who wants the member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. McEwen) to sit in his caucus. I am sure that when he finishes the full circle he will probably end up over there, because he is as far from their views as he was from ours. However, I think I have generated some attention on the part of the members to our left -- far left.
I want to refer to one other example of how municipalities in my constituency need to have more tax dollars, more of an ability to generate them on their own and to be less on their knees to that government. I want to remind members of the situation faced right now by the town of Hawkesbury in my riding. The town officials have been practically on their hands and knees in front of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Brandt), but they are not forthcoming with assistance. It is a disgrace to have a government like that, and we do not want to give it any more authority than it has now.
Mr. Speaker: The member for Lake Nipigon.
Mr. Stokes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker --
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Stokes: He is giving it to me.
Mr. Speaker: I am told we cannot do that.
Mr. Martel: We have two minutes and 17 seconds left. Can he not give it to one of his colleagues?
Mr. Speaker: No, he cannot.
Mr. Martel: Since when?
Mr. Speaker: With all respect, the member should take the time to read the standing orders. The member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) had up to 10 minutes to make his presentation. Because of the time that was reserved, he was cut back to seven minutes and whatever seconds. Okay? The member for Oakwood.
10:20 p.m.
Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the members who participated in this debate. However, I noted that the Tories obviously know what this is all about and the Liberals are confused; so what is new?
One of the things the resolution talks about is the residential property tax system. It does not talk about commercial and industrial assessment; that is still maintained. We are talking about the residential property tax system.
The other thing is that the honourable member who spoke first for the Conservative government on this issue was asking where this new, magical pool was. He obviously did not understand what I was talking about. I am talking about a shift. In other words, if we want to raise $6 billion in the province, there are different ways of doing it. We do not have to have a new pool. We can tax the people who can afford to be taxed instead of taxing the people who do not have enough to make ends meet.
I want to point out to all the members who are here that right now a family earning $30,000 in this province pays more in property tax than it pays in personal income tax. I am talking about a shift away from property tax. Basically, the government is saying: "We will get it in property tax instead of getting it in personal income tax. What is the difference?" I am saying transfer the amounts of money that need to be raised for the social services and education from regressive sources of tax.
10:27 p.m.
PLANNING AMENDMENT ACT
The House divided on Mr. Spensieri's motion for second reading of Bill 53, which was negatived on the following vote:
Ayes
Allen, Boudria, Breaugh, Bryden, Cassidy, Charlton, Copps, Eakins, Edighoffer, Elston, Epp, Grande, Johnston, R. F., Kerrio, Laughren, Lupusella, Mackenzie, Martel, McClellan, McGuigan, Miller, G. I., Newman, Nixon, Reed, J. A., Riddell, Ruston, Spensieri, Stokes, Swart, Wildman, Wrye.
Nays
Andrewes, Ashe, Baetz, Barlow, Bennett, Bernier, Brandt, Cousens, Dean, Drea, Eaton, Elgie, Eves, Gillies, Harris, Havrot, Hennessy, Hodgson, Johnson, J. M., Kells, Kerr, Kolyn, MacQuarrie, McLean, McNeil, Miller, F. S., Mitchell;
Norton, Pollock, Pope, Ramsay, Robinson, Scrivener, Sheppard, Shymko, Snow, Stephenson, B. M.. Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, G. W., Timbrell, Villeneuve, Walker, Watson, Wells, Williams, Wiseman.
Ayes 31; nays 46.
SYSTEM FOR MUNICIPAL FINANCE
The House divided on Mr. Grande's motion of resolution 19, which was negatived on the following vote:
Ayes
Allen, Breaugh, Bryden, Cassidy, Charlton, Copps, Grande, Johnston, R. F., Laughren, Lupusella, Mackenzie, Martel, McClellan, Stokes, Swart, Wildman, Wrye.
Nays
Andrewes, Ashe, Baetz, Barlow, Bennett, Bernier, Boudria, Brandt, Cousens, Dean, Drea, Eakins, Eaton, Edighoffer, Elgie, Elston, Epp, Eves, Gillies, Harris, Havrot, Hennessy, Hodgson, Johnson, J. M., Kells, Kerr, Kerrio, Kolyn, MacQuarrie, McGuigan, McLean, McNeil, Miller, F. S., Miller, G. I., Mitchell;
Newman, Nixon, Norton, Pollock, Pope, Ramsay, Reed, J. A., Riddell, Robinson, Ruston, Scrivener, Sheppard, Shymko, Snow, Spensieri, Stephenson, B. M., Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, G. W., Timbrell, Villeneuve, Walker, Watson, Wells, Williams, Wiseman.
Ayes 17; nays 60.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, before the adjournment, I would like to indicate the forthcoming business of the House.
Tomorrow morning we will deal first with third readings of government bills in Orders and Notices and second and third readings of private bills in Orders and Notices. Then we will deal with Bills 54, 57, 67, 68 and 69.
On Monday, May 28, in the afternoon, there will be the estimates of the Ministry of Revenue. In the evening, we will resume the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 28, the Young Offenders Implementation Act.
On Tuesday, May 29, in the afternoon and evening, we will deal with Bills 59, 61, 141, 62 and, if time permits, Bills 41 and 45.
On Thursday, May 31, in the afternoon, there will be ballot items in the names of Mr. Sheppard and Mr. Edighoffer, and in the evening, second readings of Bills 71, 72 and 73. On Friday, June 1, we will deal with second reading of Bill 65 and, if they have not been done, Bills 41 and 45.
The House adjourned at 10:36 p.m.