Journal des débats 1985-oct-29 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I would like to take this moment to table copies of public opinion polls dealing with teleconferencing and commercial promotion of the Great Lakes-Seaway system.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

PHOTO DRIVER LICENSING PROGRAM

Hon. Mr. Fulton: Copies of my statement are being delivered at this moment.

I am pleased to provide members of the House with an update on Ontario's photo driver licensing program, which will be implemented on February 3, 1986.

For many years, community and special interest groups across Ontario recommended photo licensing, urging the government to take action, and for some very good reasons. It is the best way we know to prevent suspended drivers from using someone else's licence to enable them to continue driving. Under the current system, if stopped by police, they have only to produce another person's licence and the police have no way of knowing positively whether it is theirs or not. Often such drivers have been suspended for the nonpayment of fines or for drinking and driving. Without photo driver licence identification, officers have no way of knowing or ensuring that they have the right driver.

Mr. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I do not appear to have a copy of the statement.

Mr. Speaker: I understood they were sent.

Mr. F. S. Miller: It is not on my desk.

Hon. Mr. Fulton: They were distributed to the Speaker's office.

Mr. Speaker: Would the minister see whether a copy is available?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: The member for Cambridge (Mr. Barlow) has a copy, and there is a copy on the desk of the member for Essex North (Mr. Hayes).

Mr. F. S. Miller: There has to be one for the leader also.

Mr. Speaker: I believe the standing orders say there must be copies for the critic and the leader.

Hon. Mr. Fulton: They were delivered to the Speaker's office.

Mr. F. S. Miller: I have to wait until I get it.

Mr. Speaker: It has been suggested that we wait until the statement is delivered.

Hon. Mr. Fulton: At your pleasure.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Are there extra copies to be delivered, or are we just going to wait here in silence?

Mr. Speaker: Time will tell.

Interjections.

Mr. Rae: We could have a singsong. We could sing Everything's Coming Up Roses in Kansas City. We could have a good time.

Mr. Speaker: Does the Leader of the Opposition have a copy?

Mr. F. S. Miller: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Transportation and Communications will please continue.

Hon. Mr. Fulton: Such people deliberately flout the law and endanger the lives of all safety-conscious drivers. It comes as no surprise that photo licensing has the support of concerned community groups. The police have long advocated this program, not merely as a law enforcement aid but as a means of positive, secure identification.

We are proposing a two-part licence consisting of a laminated photo card and a licence card. Once we have the system in place, we plan to offer the best possible photo licensing service to the motoring public with a minimum of inconvenience, by making the three-year transition period as simple and easy as possible. Every ministry driver examination centre and every driver and vehicle licence office in our province -- almost 400 of them -- will be equipped to take colour photographs.

I am convinced the advantages of safety and security are very much in the public interest. The people of Ontario have a right to expect their government to act responsibly on their behalf. Therefore, I feel photo driver licensing constitutes a responsible action on our part and a major step forward in combating the flagrant abuse of the law under the Highway Traffic Act. It is a progressive move, which will provide our police with a better means of proper identification and make for safer roads in Ontario.

Mr. Eves: Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order with respect to the budget of the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon). The Treasurer's promise to exempt meals under $1 from sales tax is an insult to Ontarians. I would like to deliver to the Treasurer an example of --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the honourable member take his seat?

FILM VIEWING

Mr. Sargent: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I would like to advise all members of the House that tomorrow, Wednesday, October 30, at 2 p.m. in the government caucus room, arrangements have been made for members of the Legislature and the press to view a film called Stop Star Wars, featuring Dr. Helen Caldicott.

This film is one of the most important documentaries available in the world today, a revelation of the time frame, etc., and the total disaster facing the world today. This showing is very timely in view of the fact that the select committee on energy will be meeting on Thursday to draft its first report to the House. I realize many members have committees to sit on; so we will try to accommodate those who cannot be there tomorrow at another time.

Mr. Speaker: It is hardly a point of privilege. I remember receiving notice from the member, and I am sure all members have received notice.

Mr. Runciman: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I respectfully request that you carry out an investigation to determine whether, during question period yesterday, the privileges of assembly members were violated by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Kwinter) in denying statements attributed to him by five senior officials of the Ontario Liquor Boards Employees' Union.

Mr. Speaker: I do not believe that is a point of privilege. It is a request that the Speaker carry out a matter. However, I am quite positive the Speaker does not have the authority to carry out such an investigation.

2:10 p.m.

Mr. McFadden: On a point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker: Last Thursday during question period, I asked the Minister of Housing (Mr. Curling) whether he had stated on radio station CKFM that key charges were being charged with regard to prospective tenants and whether he had said they would go on for two years. Since asking that question, I have had the opportunity to review the transcript and to listen to the tape, and it would appear the minister's memory failed him on that point.

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not a point of privilege; it is a point of view. I have to say the member is out of order.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ACCESS TO MINISTERS

Mr. F. S. Miller: I have a question for my friend the Premier. I have here a copy of LEAF 2, the sequel to LEAF 1. LEAF, even though this is autumn and they may be falling, is the group called the Liberal Economic Advisory Forum, which sells access to the Prime Minister's office at $1,000 a crack.

I recall not too long ago, on October 15, the Premier answered some questions in this House in this way:

"I have told Mr. Smith, and would tell anyone else raising money in our party, that there is no suggestion and there is to be no suggestion anywhere of any favours for any amount of money. We are clearly and absolutely against that."

Eight days after he said that, the letter came out with one tiny change, which did not change the import of the letter at all; it continued to rent his services to people who paid his party for access to him. Is he aware that they ignored him?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Nobody ignores me. If that is the question, the answer is that they do not ignore me. However, if the Leader of the Opposition wants me to address the question he should have put, I will be very happy to do that; I know his sensitivity on this matter.

He will be aware that we had some discussions, and there was perhaps a sense among some that there was an improper perception of some sort of improper behaviour. However, let me tell him that message was very clearly conveyed to the party. I think he wants to be fair, because he is a fair-minded chap, and he wants to read the letter in full to this House. It asks for donations of $1,000 or more. As he knows, they are all reportable and all part of the public record. Let me read it to him.

"Membership is by way of a minimum donation of $1,000, and by doing so, you will also be supporting the Ontario Liberal Party by helping reduce our campaign debt and to finance ongoing party operations."

That is clearly what it is for. Presumably his party raises money, and we raise money. Any sensible person reading that letter would clearly get that sense.

Mr. F. S. Miller: The Premier said there was no influence peddling. I find that hard to believe. He also said he told Mr. Smith directly that he did not want this to happen any more. Mr. Smith says the Premier did not. Who is lying? Is the Premier lying or is he lying?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: My friend wants to be very careful before he puts himself in a position that I am sure he would not be comfortable being in.

The message was conveyed very clearly to Mr. Smith, as reported. The member will recall that after that -- he will not recall it, but I will tell him -- a notice was sent out to all fund-raisers in the party in all ridings clearly explaining where the party stands on these issues. It included therein a code of ethics, which I will read to him for his own information. Here is our code of ethics, and here is how we operate. It says this:

"All contributions shall be simple, unconditional donations, and no solicitor shall either directly or by inference suggest to any donor that he may be entitled by reason of such donation to any favour, special consideration or representation of any kind with respect to proposed legislation, regulations or orders of the government of Ontario or any department thereof, or to any contract, transaction or other affairs of any nature or kind whatsoever in which the government of Ontario, Parliament or any department thereof where agencies and dependencies have a direct or indirect influence."

Let me assure him there are no special interests in our party.

Mr. Rae: The Premier said on October 15, "I have told Mr. Smith" and he went on to say what he told Mr. Smith. Did he tell Mr. Smith? And for heaven's sake, after the second disgrace, why does he not cancel the whole program?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I told Mr. Ezrin and Mr. Ashworth in my office. The message was immediately conveyed. In the meantime, Mr. Smith had been in China, as the honourable member knows. Very clearly, the party understands where the government is on this issue. It is that simple.

Mr. F. S. Miller: It seems evident that the Premier is saying that what he put on the record on October 15 was not the truth. The Premier did not tell him, as he told us he told him. That is important. Is the Premier going to take control of his party? Is he going to get rid of these abominable practices and stand by the principles we stood by?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Now that my friend has an opposition mentality he is trying to create some impression that is clearly not the case. As I have said before, if he is interested in changing the way fund-raising is done by this House under the Election Finances Reform Act, we will welcome his suggestions in that regard, but the impressions he is trying to create are absolutely wrong and false.

My friend may want to speak to the Prime Minister in that regard. He originally mentioned in his first question that the Prime Minister was selling access, and he may want to take that question directly to him. I notice his letter to the 500 Club says, "The Prime Minister will be our guest speaker at a special luncheon and will also attend at a closed-session question and answer period for members only following lunch -- a unique opportunity for all of us." My friend may want to take his new-found morality to his kissing cousins there.

TAX INCREASES

Mr. Grossman: I have a question for the Treasurer.

[Applause]

Mr. Grossman: Are the members applauding him or me?

In preparing his budget and making decisions about tax increases, such as, in effect, 3.3 per cent to 3.6 per cent in corporate income tax, there is no doubt his staff will have told him how many jobs that will cost the province. Will he share that information with us?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The honourable member will be aware that balancing every tax increase is the expenditure of the funds. In this instance, the funds were used to provide new programs already announced in this House having to do with job opportunities for young people, which will cost this province $200 million in their second year; programs to foster economic development in northern Ontario, a $100-million fund over five years, twice as big as the Tory program; and a housing program --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Do members want to hear any sort of answer at all from the Treasurer?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I gather you do not.

Mr. Grossman: We did not get one; so let me come back to the question to the Treasurer. We know Treasurers in most governments use the money they raise to create jobs. We will be getting to how many jobs the Treasurer is creating in terms of what he was just suggesting. Before we do that, however, any staff, particularly Treasury staff, first advises the Treasurer on the job loss and the economic slowdown when that money is first taken out of the economy.

I am not asking the Treasurer how many jobs the government is creating with the money he has raised. I am asking what his staff advised him in regard to lost jobs when the government increased corporate income taxes by $200 million. Will he share that with the Legislature?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The information provided to me is in the budget papers, and it clearly indicates there will be 108,000 new jobs next year, plus the 30,000 --

Mr. Grossman: That is not the question. Why does the Treasurer not tell us the answer?

2:20 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The member asked me to tell him and the other members of the House what the staff had given me as to background information. I am telling him that our projection calls for 108,000 new jobs, plus 30,000 jobs associated with our housing program.

Mr. Grossman: I want to put the question once again clearly to the Treasurer. Every time money is taken out of the economy, every time money is taken away from the private sector into government, it hurts the private sector's chances of investing. I have been Treasurer of this province. Every time we contemplated a tax increase, the Treasury staff reported to me that every single tax increase would cost some jobs and harm the economy in some way.

Would the Treasurer therefore share with us the information he was given by his staff with regard to the cost in jobs, the number of jobs lost by taking out of the economy $200 million in corporate income tax? Will he share that with the House or will he not?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The thing the member and I do share is a respect for the staff in the Treasury of this province. I can assure him I was informed that our tax changes and the overall budgetary policy would improve the economic climate of this province and would increase the numbers of jobs by 108,000.

GASOLINE TAX

Mr. Rae: I have a question for the Minister of Northern Affairs and Mines about the gas tax. He will be aware that the gas tax affects the north in a very unfair way. He will be aware that northern drivers will be paying about 25 per cent to 30 per cent more than drivers in southern Ontario as a result of the tax hike proposed by the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon).

How can the Minister of Northern Affairs and Mines sit there and stand the shafting of his own constituency?

L'hon. M. Fontaine: Premièrement, je suis ministre des Affaires du Nord et des Mines, mais je ne suis pas trésorier. Je demande à mon ami de poser cette question alors au trésorier de la province (Mr. Nixon).

Mr. Wildman: Was he redirecting? He was redirecting.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The question referred to my honourable colleague had to do with his constituents in the north. As Treasurer, I consider my constituency to be the whole of the province, and an increase of 0.4 cents per litre is not an unreasonable increase in revenues when one balances and equates it with new programs called for on all sides of the House that will benefit the whole of the province, particularly northern Ontario.

We have already referred to the doubling of the dollars available for northern development. We are paying $10 million to $12 million for medically necessary travel. We have already indicated we are going to change the Mining Act in a way that is going to give exploration and mining a tremendous boost in that part of the world. We believe it is a balanced and fair proposal, which should be supported on all sides.

Mr. Wildman: The Minister of Northern Affairs and Mines cannot shift this over and abdicate his responsibility to the north.

Will he explain to us how he, as minister for northern affairs, can justify an increase in the gasoline tax that will hurt northerners far more than the residents of the rest of the province? How does he justify that as a member who is supposed to represent the interests of the north and the communities in northern Ontario?

L'hon. M. Fontaine: Premièrement, je tiens à remercier mon ami de cette question.

I would like to remind him that I go along with the Treasurer that there is other money that we forget. There is money, $60 million, for municipal roads. There is other money for the rural roads, plus other money for tourism. So the money that is going back is three times what we are going to collect. That is all I have to say at this time.

Mr. Bernier: I would like to follow up to the Minister of Northern Affairs and Mines. He ran around during the last election campaign telling the people of northern Ontario that he would equalize the price of milk and the price of gasoline across this province if his party were elected. What we saw last Thursday is a complete abdication of that promise.

What is he going to do for northern Ontario? What is his answer to northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Fontaine: First, I do not have to take anything from this member from across the floor, because he himself did nothing for them. Give me a chance in the next few months and there will be some change in the next budget, but I do not have to take anything from him.

Mr. Pouliot: Does the Minister of Northern Affairs and Mines realize the full impact of the gasoline tax on our first Canadians? Surely the minister must be aware that the communities of Winisk and Moosonee in his own riding are now burdened to the tune of between $4.50 and $6 a gallon. How can the minister tolerate yet another increase on northerners?

Hon. Mr. Fontaine: First, there is a difference between Winisk and Moosonee, because I read some of the reports that the price of gas in Moosonee was not $4. I go along with Winisk; it is a high price.

I would remind my friend that a study was done by the previous Minister of Northern Affairs, the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier), of the high costs in the north and he did nothing about them, but in the next few months we are going to revise this.

Mr. Bernier: We heard that in May.

Mr. Gregory: Why does the minister not resign?

L'hon. M. Fontaine: Pas du tout. Assieds-toi. Sit down for a while.

We are going to try to work our way towards a better price in the next while. The member has to believe in me. We are going to work together towards that.

AD VALOREM TAX

Mr. Foulds: I have a question for the Treasurer. He and his leader made a commitment last spring to freeze the ad valorem gas tax; not to repeal it and replace it with a higher tax but to freeze it. How can he now institute a tax that increases the tax on gasoline and hits everybody in this province, particularly the residents of northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am sure the member is aware, having followed the discussions in this House for a number of years, that the Liberal Party has long been adamantly opposed to the ad valorem type of tax for gasoline. Without any kind of consultation with anybody, our position has been clear on that item. The old ad valorem tax was frozen for more than a year. We have replaced it with one that leaves the responsibility with this House to establish the tax on gasoline.

We believe that 8.8 cents per litre is not out of the way. I simply ask the member to look at what they have done in Manitoba, to pick a province at random, all of which is above the latitude of southern Ontario. Their new tax is 8.9 cents per litre.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Would the members allow their colleague to ask a question?

2:30 p.m.

Mr. Morin-Strom: Surely the Treasurer must recognize that northerners face not only a colder climate but also longer distances to travel, and their businesses face considerable competitive disadvantages with businesses in southern Ontario. Northern consumers and businesses now are paying eight to 12 cents a litre more than those consumers and businesses in southern Ontario.

By increasing the tax on gasoline, is that not further accelerating the deindustrialization of the north?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I trust not. I began my salary-earning career working in the home town of the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Morin-Strom). The way they paid teachers in those days, I could not even afford a car. To go back to those antediluvian times, the road between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury was not even paved.

I can assure the member that, far from attempting, either deliberately or by mistake, to deindustrialize northern Ontario, we have made tremendous commitments of dollars -- far more than would be extracted from the good citizens of northern Ontario in paying their gasoline tax -- to improving job opportunities for young people and others in northern Ontario, for programs that have already been announced.

We want to do the best we can for the consumers of northern Ontario and those right across this province. We also know that northerners, as well as other taxpayers, want to pay their share of the cost of the programs that will benefit them. It was my judgement that this sort of balance is the kind of thing that would be welcomed in the north and I hope that will be the case.

Mr. Harris: Obviously the Minister of Northern Affairs and Mines (Mr. Fontaine) has not had any input into this budget or the Treasurer did not listen to him. The people of northern Ontario are delighted to pay their share. They are just not happy about paying more than their share. They are not happy about broken commitments on freezing gas taxes, now increased by up to 8.8 cents.

Earlier, the Treasurer talked about the ad valorem aspect. He wanted it removed. Now that all the experts are saying world gas prices are coming down, the advisers, who obviously did not include the Minister of Northern Affairs and Mines, the advisers behind this budget, the people who were behind the MacEachen budget, obviously the same people, did they tell --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I consulted with many people, including many northerners. The minister and I discussed the need for northern development funds which were provided in this budget. So there can be no misunderstanding based on the numbers the member was batting around a moment ago, the increase in the tax is 0.4 cents per litre for unleaded fuel. If you buy premium, it is just 0.2 cents per litre. Driving the kinds of cars that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. F. S. Miller) sells, it probably is quite an important matter.

We feel this is not an untoward increase but one that sensible citizens everywhere are prepared to pay, particularly the northerners who -- I would not say in return, because they merit and have earned all the improvements this budget has given them -- were provided with the medically necessary travel, the doubling of the northern development fund, the provision of jobs for young people, and the removal of the onerous provisions of the mining tax that the Tories were asked to change for so long, the famous John White tax they could never bring themselves to change.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Final supplementary.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: With these innovations, the northerners know they now have a friend at Queen's Park in this government.

Mr. Martel: Baloney. Obviously the Treasurer was not in the north on the weekend, because the people objected to his gas tax.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: What did they think about the removal of the tax on a dollar's worth of food?

Mr. Foulds: They were not crazy about that either.

Mr. Martel: Even McDonald's cannot have a 99-cent sale in the north because transportation costs to get the material there are too high.

Mr. Speaker: Was that your supplementary?

Mr. Martel: No, it was not. The Treasurer asked a question and I answered.

Mr. Speaker: Oh, then we will go on with the next question, will we?

Mr. Martel: Since the Treasurer does not ask southerners to pay for their own programs in the way he is now trying to tell us he is providing them in the north, and since, according to the oil companies, the cost of transportation is not the key ingredient in getting gas to the north, can the Treasurer tell me when he is going to appoint the commission we talked about in the accord to find out why we pay 12 or 13 cents a gallon more in the north and get rid of that nonsense in the future?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The review of gas prices in northern Ontario as compared with Ontario as a whole is well under way. I was hoping the results of that review could be tabled in the House in the very near future.

Mr. Martel: Early in the fall?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: No. The member, along with other northern members, has talked about this disparity and it is an extremely significant, important thing. The House is aware that drivers of motor vehicles in the north already, appropriately, pay a lower licence fee. There is already an indication that these differences can be recognized and that is important.

I do not want the member to give the impression that I have indicated northerners are paying for their own programs. As a matter of fact, the revenues out of the north exceed those that go back into the north. There is no doubt about that.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: If it were not for the depredations of the New Democratic Party in Sudbury, it might even be better. However, as far as I have seen over the years, the revenues that have come out of the north have far exceeded the amount of money that has gone back in. I would be the last one to talk about any region of the province paying its own way. We have inherited many problems from our predecessors and associated --

Mr. McClellan: And some they have created themselves.

Mr. Bernier: The minister has all the answers.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: They know it is correct. They know what is coming.

Mr. Foulds: He has created this problem for himself now.

Mr. Timbrell: I hate to get into the middle of a domestic.

Mr. Speaker: Then why not ask a question?

Mr. Timbrell: Yes, I would like to do that.

An hon. member: A lover's spat.

Mr. Timbrell: A lover's spat is right.

RENTAL ACCOMMODATION

Mr. Timbrell: I would like to turn to the subject of housing and ask the Treasurer a question, in the absence of the Minister of Housing (Mr. Curling). I am sure he recalls the many expressions of concern on this side of the House since the beginning of this session about the very low vacancy rates in Metropolitan Toronto and province-wide, the recent reports of the extraction of key money and all that goes with that, and the lack of employment for many in the trade.

The Treasurer is no doubt also aware that in recent days the builders and landlords have confirmed that the number of units to be constructed in 1986, even if the maximum and most optimistic figures were to be achieved, will fall very far short of what is needed to save us from a social disaster.

Will the Treasurer tell us today what additional measures he is prepared to take to ensure that, in the fall of 1985, sufficient new rental housing starts will be planned and committed for the 1986 building season to save us from all the ill effects of the government's policies as enunciated today?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: It is our responsibility to spare the community from the ill effects of policies we have inherited. There is no doubt about that.

Mr. Gregory: What is the minister going to do when that argument wears out? It is a matter of time; three or four months.

2:40 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I want to set straight something that was a part of the member's comment. The questioner would know that the budget contains provisions for 10,000 new low-rental facilities to be built over the next three years, plus an additional 5,000 which will be built by the private sector with assistance from the budget I read last Thursday. There will be $6 million put into this program during the remaining five months of this fiscal year and $16 million during the next fiscal year.

Over that period of time, it is hoped there will be 30,000 jobs in construction that will be a part of the overall program. We are aware that the waiting list is larger than that, but we consider this a good, workmanlike approach to meeting the demands as we see them emerging.

Mr. Timbrell: The government's figures in its own forecast indicate the need for more than 39,000 new rental housing units by the end of 1986. They also show, even with what is in the budget, no more than 20,500 units, if they are all followed through, will be built in 1986. Major builders such as Bramalea have recently cancelled projects for 1986 and specifically blamed it on the policies of the Liberal government.

Can the Treasurer confirm it now is the policy of the government, in the words of Mr. Sean Goetz-Gadon, executive assistant to the Minister of Housing, or whatever he does, to count on the need for accommodation being adjusted "as renters choose to double up, stay with their parents or find other ways to deal with the shortage"? That is the quote in this morning's Globe and Mail.

Mr. Speaker: The Treasurer. Order.

Mr. Timbrell: Is that the Treasurer's policy, proving he clearly does not have a commitment to provide enough new rental housing?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am sure members are aware that the federal government also has very useful programs designed to assist with housing in this province. While the member may be prepared to dismiss them out of hand, certainly we are not. Also, the member is prepared simply to wipe out the private sector completely, and we are not.

Mr. Timbrell: The Treasurer did in his budget with his housing policy.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: No, not at all. The members opposite are gloom and doom; they are naysayers. We are much more confident about the health of the private sector. In Ontario we are providing the kind of leadership in this connection that has been lacking for so long. We believe these initiatives are going to lead to a suitable solution to the problems we inherited.

Mr. McClellan: In view of the disquieting and even ugly rumours that have been circulating over the last two days that the new president of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is going to be our dear friend and former Minister of Housing, the member for Ottawa South (Mr. Bennett), and in the light of that hideous prospect, which will undoubtedly lead to the complete demise of federal social housing programs in Ottawa as it did in Ontario in 1978, would the Treasurer consider doubling his housing budget?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Was part of that rumour not that this was the deal our colleague made to support one of the leadership candidates`? Nothing like that? I have not seen the member for Ottawa South in the House for many days. I have heard and read the rumours that he may not be with us much longer. We cannot wait to have a shot at that by-election too. Do any of the rest of the opposition members want federal jobs? Hop to it, then.

In responding to the question of the member, asking if we are contemplating doubling the program, I wish the numbers were higher. With the revenues we have been able to raise and with the program we put before the House, we believe this is the best we can do. On the other hand, if revenues appear to be more buoyant than we see them at this time, we might be able to give some positive consideration to looking at those figures as the year goes on to see what we can do, particularly with the leadership of my colleague and with the response we still hope will come from the federal government and the private sector.

We are confident that although the problem is certainly not going to go away, it will be substantially alleviated by our initiatives.

EMPLOYEE HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Martel: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. He looks so healthy today. Is the minister aware that in 1983-84, the ministry issued 48,000 orders under inspection of fatalities and accidents alone? There were 4,800 repeat orders, which is a licence to continue to violate the act, and there were only 67 convictions, all of which tells me that companies know they do not have to worry about the Occupational Health and Safety Act in Ontario.

Is the minister prepared to table the documentation regarding Valenite-Modco? Can he tell me the number of orders issued from 1974 to 1985 and how many of these were repeat orders? Will he table the legal opinion, which apparently he is not prepared to do, from the Attorney General (Mr. Scott), saying he cannot prosecute? If he does not, it kind of smacks of a coverup.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: The member has asked a number of questions. Let me deal first of all with the comments he makes in terms of the issuing of orders, the reissuing of orders and the number of prosecutions.

At my request, a full review of the policy of issuing orders has been under way for some months and is nearing completion. As a result, preliminary recommendations on a new prosecutions policy are before me now and I expect to have some changes in the near future.

I will get to Valenite-Modco in a second. I have indicated that this minister believes -- and this speaks to Valenite-Modco and the whole policy of issuing orders and then reissuing them -- that orders should be issued and should have terminal dates. By that date, the order has to be met so that the company must be in compliance. Without indicating to the member the final detail of the order, that is part of the overall policy on orders that this government is putting in place and will have in place shortly.

As it pertains to Valenite-Modco, I can get that specific information. I believe the total number of orders is 28 or 29. The orders were reissued in many cases. I do not have the exact number, but I will get that for the member and I will give him some detail not only about the plants they were issued for, but also on the locations and the machines within the plant. I can share that with him.

With regard to the legal opinion, I can tell the member that in discussions with my colleague the Attorney General it was requested that the opinion from the Ministry of the Attorney General remain confidential, and it shall.

Mr. Martel: This minister is no different to Ramsay.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: My friend may suggest that it smacks of a coverup. I can only say to him that the opinion of the Ministry of the Attorney General and the opinion of the legal branch of my ministry were one and the same, and that is that the company should not be charged.

Mr. Rae: You cannot enforce your own laws. That is what it shows.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that was a very good example, I would point out to all members, that if you try to place three questions in one question you will get quite a lengthy reply.

Mr. Martel: I got the answer I wanted. He is not going to do anything.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I would like to ask the minister -- and I ask this question on behalf of a lot of people in Windsor, but specifically on behalf of Larry Girard, the victim of this Valenite-Modco case -- if he does not have the guts to lay charges against Valenite-Modco in a case like this, where in the hell is the justice for people like Lay Girard, a 29-year-old who has hard-metal disease? Will he not reconsider his position to lay charges?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member has asked the question.

Mr. Martel: They knew for 10 years they were doing it to him.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: I will try to restrain myself. I do not need a lecture from that member as to what

Mr. Mackenzie: He is not much different, restrained or otherwise. He is another Ramsay plus.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would like to remind the minister that the proper way is to address the reply through the chair.

2:50 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: The government has already indicated its new treatment of this issue in a way different to that of the previous government on two occasions, the first being in July when four machines were tagged and shut down because the company was not in compliance with the section 20 order and no exemptions were given.

As I am sure the honourable member knows, the company and the workers asked this minister for an exemption from the section 20 order in respect of the closing of the old plant and the opening of the new plant. This minister indicated to the company and to the workers at a meeting in my boardroom that this exemption would not be given, that they should get on with the job and follow the section 20 order. Indeed, I am told the company moved its location to the new plant on the weekend and that the section 20 order has been complied with.

I apologize for losing my temper briefly. I share the member's deep concern. I have met Larry Girard and his wife. I think we have, in a sense, an enormous human tragedy. He is a young man who is obviously very ill, and there are some very real problems. The program last night raised a number of questions, and I am seeking answers to those questions as well.

Mr. Gordon: Given the fact that the minister is unwilling to prosecute, is he aware that Dr. Raphael Morey, an industrial hygienist for the United Auto Workers, has said that the type of mask the Ministry of Labour has demanded be worn by Valenite-Modco employees is exactly the type of mask that should not be worn in the presence of cobalt dust? Can we count on the minister to issue an order today, to talk to the company and to see that proper masks are worn until the new plant is completed?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: First, I want to indicate to my friend, who raised the matter of my absence last week, that I do apologize for my absence. I know he will understand that I was ill. It is certainly not this minister's view that he should be away and shirk his responsibilities here in the House.

I know the honourable member's question arises out of the program Monitor last night. I am informed in a preliminary way -- and I do not have final information on this -- that the mask that was shown was not worn in those areas of Valenite plants 3 and 4, I believe, where the exposure potential to cobalt dust was the most extensive. In addition, I did indicate in my answer to the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. D. S. Cooke) that plant 4 is now shut down and a new plant has opened with extensive state-of-the-art engineering controls for ventilation.

Finally, I would simply say to my friend that I find all this interesting in that the only tough action that has ever been taken against Valenite-Modco was not taken by that party over there, but it was taken by this government after it took office.

JOB CREATION

Mr. Gillies: My question is to the Treasurer and it returns to the issue of jobs in our province. Every Ontario budget since 1979 has introduced specific programs to train, retrain or employ unemployed people over the age of 24, that is, until this budget.

What specific programs will the Treasurer be undertaking to provide work, training or retraining for 386,000 people over the age of 24 in this province who are unemployed and do not qualify for the government's youth employment programs?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The honourable member will know that the budget calls for an enrichment of the funding for colleges, universities and school boards substantially in advance of the year when the dollars will be spent, so that proper planning can be made. We feel that by correcting at least some of the damage that has been done because of underfunding, we are making places and training facilities available for the people to whom the member is referring and who are a concern for all of us here.

I would also point out to him that the numbers of jobs implicit in the budget and in the fiscal projections I have already given to the House would indicate there will be 108,000 new jobs, plus the 30,000 in construction. This should bring the level of unemployment, which is too high at 8.1 per cent, down to a lower level, which is still too high, but we expect it to be 7.7 per cent in the coming year.

Mr. Gillies: With respect, I am not asking about jobs implicit in his budget. I am talking about direct job creation. In his prebudget consultation, he was asked by groups, and by Sudbury region in particular, to bring in job creation programs for some areas that have higher than average unemployment. There is nothing in the Treasurer's budget that is a successor to the Canada-Ontario employment development program or the enriched skills development fund.

I am specifically asking him what programs he will be introducing to help train, retrain and employ those hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced by technological change or by changes in the marketplace and who want to get off social assistance.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: We hope the buoyancy in the economy is going to improve job opportunities, not of an artificial nature but of a real and long-term nature. In this connection, I have already indicated the improvement in the employment picture that we project through this budget. It is true that the so-called COED program, which was a good one, is not being directly funded in this budget. However, we are confident that with the additional funding for municipalities, school boards, hospitals and the post-secondary education level, we are injecting sufficient funds into the economy to make training opportunities available for the people the member is referring to.

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I have a question for the Treasurer, going back to the question of the premium assistance plan and the lack of addressing that problem in the budget.

When he pulled the budget together, was the Treasurer aware that the cutoff figure, the taxable income at which a person has to pay a partial premium, is only $3,001 for a single person and $3,500 for a working family, and that this has not changed since 1981? Was he aware of that before he struck his budget? Did he realize that he could have picked up the portion for the 8,000 people on partial assistance this last year for only $1,563,000? Does he not think that would have been an important gesture within his budget process?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Yes, it would have been. Our party has expressed its concern at the level of Ontario health insurance plan premiums. All we were able to do this year, for the first time in many years, was to freeze the premiums at their present level. We did not change the support level as it was previously. We are hoping in subsequent budgets that we will specifically reduce the premiums, as was our political promise. I wish I could have done more. I know that kind of thought will not get me much further than expressing it in this House, but the member makes a point that is valid.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: My concern is with the question of priority. People like myself are happy with the freeze for people who are paying the full amount and can afford to pay it. Is the Treasurer not aware that for the first time, because of the increase in the minimum wage this fall, minimum-wage workers will now have to pay 50 per cent of OHIP premiums?

That means for every $60 taxable increase they get a month, they are going to have to pay the Treasurer back $15 for their OHIP premiums. He is taking too much back. Is it too late for the Treasurer to consider a program specifically designed for premium assistance? It is not going to cost that much money to address this problem, which affects some of the poorer working people in our province.

3 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I do not suppose it is ever too late for those matters, but the budget is drawn in such a way that the cash requirements, which are significantly high, are established. Anything we do beyond that will change those cash requirements. Any matters that would add costs to programs or in any way reduce revenue have to be considered as far as the bottom line is concerned.

On a more positive note, I expect we are now not much more than five months away from getting back into the regular budget cycle. At that time, the tax changes I have proposed to the Legislature may very well be in place. This improvement in revenue, as we get into the new calendar year when the personal income tax changes go into effect and then into the fiscal year when certain other changes go into effect, as people have pointed out, will add about $700 million to our revenues.

This should give us an opportunity to be a little more aggressive and optimistic as we contemplate the kinds of programs the member is referring to. This depends quite basically on our expenditures not being increased in any huge amounts and, at the same time, our revenues not being eroded unexpectedly.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: They are not the ones who should wait.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am taking it seriously. I am taking both aspects of it seriously.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I did not say that. I said they are not the ones who should wait.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. F. S. Miller: The Treasurer stood there a moment ago and said, "It was my hope and promise to eliminate OHIP premiums" -- I think those were the words he used -- "but I have done all I can in this House and I know that will not work too well, just shrugging my shoulders." It certainly will not.

The Treasurer talks about restoring the confidence of people in government. Yet he went around with his Premier (Mr. Peterson) in the last election campaign promising not just an improvement in premium assistance but the abolition of OHIP premiums. He now tells us he cannot keep his promise. What promises can the people of Ontario expect him to keep?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The Leader of the Opposition is rather plaintively asking what promises we are keeping. The member knows that the Premier, on the first day this new government took its place in this House, made a statement indicating clearly the commitments we were making for this session.

I have considered it my responsibility to provide the funding in a fair and equitable way, even by raising taxes to pay for those programs. I have stated clearly that it is unreasonable, as far as I am concerned, to expect us to keep all our promises in the very first budget period we come into, particularly when there is only a maximum of five months for the application to be made.

The member refers specifically to health premiums. I say to the House that Ontario has a family rate of $714 a year; that is what we inherited. The next highest, from British Columbia, which is a paragon of progressive political philosophy, is $432. Alberta has $336, and the other provinces have no direct premiums whatsoever. It is going to take us a while to correct the effects of the arch-Tory approach to the provision of services we have inherited. We have a commitment and we are going to do it.

IMMIGRANT SERVICES

Mr. Leluk: I have a question for the Premier. During the provincial election, the Premier promised to provide core funding for immigrants and cultural minorities. His government has also indicated it will extend on-the-job training in English as a second language to immigrant women.

Can the Premier explain to this House why, under his government, there is $10 million less than in the previous government's estimates for these and other programs, and why the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture was the only ministry in the social policy field to suffer a cut in funding in the Treasurer's (Mr. Nixon) budget?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Let me tell the honourable member that this government has a great commitment to the Citizenship and Culture portfolio. It is so important to us that we even have two ministers there; they weigh about the same together as the former minister.

Apart from that, we are looking at the way we can provide new services fundamentally. We have a great commitment to the community groups that are providing services. We have a different philosophy with respect to the provision of services through the welcome houses and that kind of thing, as the member will very well know, and our commitment will never shrink in that respect.

Mr. Leluk: Is this $10-million cut an indication of the lack of importance this government places on immigrants and cultural minorities in this province? Furthermore, what new programs has this government initiated to extend this critical service to cultural-minority women? Can he assure this House that funding for these service groups will remain in place?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: This government's commitment to women's issues is very deep. The member will be aware that we are working on a number of fronts, such as equal pay for work of equal value, which I notice one of his party's leadership aspirants now supports. I am delighted to see that kind of progressive support from that party. It shows that the members opposite are not completely without some redeeming value. Occasionally we can reach through to them in that regard and get their support. This government has a very great commitment in that regard and will continue to exercise it.

Mr. Leluk: The Premier should put his money where his mouth is.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: What does the member mean, I should put my money where my mouth is? Does he want me to put $650 million into an oil company? Does that show where my heart is? Just because a dollar is spent does not mean there is a dollar's worth of results. We will get real results for our money.

Mr. Grande: Will the Premier give an assurance to the House that he will begin to change the trend that the former administration was following, in reducing the budgets to those community services and to community agencies that deliver services to immigrant women for English as a second language and other services, by taking a look at those needs and funding them properly?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The answer to the honourable member's question is a very clear yes, because it is extremely important to fully integrate women and new Canadians into all aspects of our lives in this great province. I have said before to the member and to others that we believe we should ensure that every single person in this province has an opportunity to make sure that all the governing institutions reflect the real face of Ontario, and it is something we have made a real start at.

It takes a long time to make those changes, but we are very impatient and want to move quickly. We are most anxious to have this specific suggestion of the member and of others who are knowledgeable and care about these particular issues. We want to make sure the funds we expend are used in the most effective and sensitive way. I am one of those who believe the efficacy of a program is measured not just in the quantity of dollars; we are looking at real results in that regard.

If the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande) and the former minister who asked the original question have specific suggestions on how we can make real improvements, we are anxious to have input from all members in this House.

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr. Allen: I have a question of the Minister of Education. The Premier (Mr. Peterson) has repeatedly made promises to the parents, property taxpayers, teachers and school boards of this province that during a first term of office he would return to 60 per cent provincial responsibility for funding for education.

When I asked the minister this question a week ago, he replied that on Thursday the first intentions of this government in this connection would be made clear. There was nothing there. Is it the minister's first intention to abandon this commitment so seriously and frequently made to the province?

Hon. Mr. Conway: I must take issue with the honourable member's assessment of the budget of the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) of last Thursday, in which there was a substantial commitment to education.

Under the leadership of this Premier and this Treasurer, the general legislative grant for 1986-87 is going to be increased by 5.4 per cent. The cash flow to school boards will be improved substantially in the first quarter of the school and calendar year, something that school boards have requested repeatedly. The Treasurer has committed a special $25-million capital improvement fund.

In the first budget of this government, the Treasurer has set a very positive course for this government, which is quite obviously intending to support public education to the degree it requires.

3:10 p.m.

Mr. Allen: The question has not been answered. In the lockup, the Treasurer's own officials, when they were asked this question, said: "No. When you work it all through, and all the commitments that have been made by the ministry here and there, there will be no return to, or any steps taken towards 60 per cent funding this year in the province."

The policy is clear: a return in the term of this government to 60 per cent funding. Is the answer yes or no?

Hon. Mr. Conway: I want to say to the member that this Treasurer's budget has been well received by boards of education and school boards in Ontario. I think this House owes a great debt of gratitude to this Treasurer and to this Premier for moving so expeditiously, in their first effort, to meet the needs of school boards. The cash-flow improvements that have been called for repeatedly by school boards and ignored over the years by the previous administration were met by this Treasurer in his first budget.

I want to say to my friends opposite that as we go forward in the next very few days to distribute the additional $25 million for capital improvements, I hope this government, this Treasurer and this Premier are not going to be complained of when they go into the communities and say: "Here, we are meeting the needs of your children, your teachers and your school boards."

PETITIONS

ROMAN CATHOLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Mr. McKessock: I wish to table a petition which reads:

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario: "We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas it is the sincere expectation of more than 500,000 students and staff of the separate school system of Ontario and nearly four million separate school supporters in the province of Ontario; and

"Whereas it was clearly the intent of our forefathers to treat both sectors of our common school system equally; and

"Whereas this intent is evident in successive acts of the Legislature since 1841; and "Whereas the rights of separate school supporters are now protected under the Constitution of Canada; and

"Whereas deviation from past practice has occurred within the last 20 years, whereby trustees of the nondenominational sector of the common school system have been given the right to administer secondary education; and

"Whereas similar rights have not been granted to the trustees of the separate school sector; and

"Whereas the then Premier, the Honourable William Davis, on June 12, 1984, informed the Legislature that it was the intent of his government to empower Roman Catholic separate school boards to operate secondary schools for secondary students, commencing September 1, 1985; and

"Whereas this intent was unanimously supported by all parties in the House;

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to implement the policy on the funding of the completion of our separate school system without delay in order that it can applied on September 1, 1985.

"We further petition that this legislation protect the historic rights of Roman Catholics to maintain the special character of their separate schools."

This petition is signed by the parishioners of Saint Joseph's Roman Catholic parish in Markdale and the Mission Church of St. John's at Glenelg Centre, signed by 127 people.

I also have a similar petition signed by 66 people from the Durham-Hanover area.

Mr. Speaker: I might remind the members -- maybe the member for Grey was not in -- that when presenting their petitions, and some of them are quite lengthy, they are certainly allowed to read them. However, I suggest you read that it was addressed to the Lieutenant Governor, give the number of names that are on the petition and probably, since the meat of the petition is when you come to the "therefore," if you just read the "therefore" it would be very helpful.

Mr. Leluk: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table a petition containing some 1,500 names of residents from central Etobicoke, from the grand knight of the Kingsway council of the Knights of Columbus.

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario to implement the policy on the funding of the completion of our separate school system without delay in order that it can be applied on September 1, 1985.

"We further petition that this legislation protect the historic rights of Roman Catholics to maintain the special character of their separate schools."

MOTIONS

COMMITTEE SITTINGS

Hon. Mr. Nixon moved that the committee on agenda and procedure of the select committee on economic affairs be authorized to meet following routine proceedings this afternoon.

Motion agreed to.

WITHDRAWAL OF BILL 28

Hon. Mr. Nixon moved that the order for second reading of Bill 28, An Act to amend the Education Act, be discharged and the bill withdrawn.

Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

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

Mr. Eves: I am very pleased to have this opportunity to participate in the debate on the budget that we have before the House.

This is a budget that raises the deficit and taxes but does very little to raise the hopes of the people of Ontario, especially the people in the province who voted for the Liberal Party on the strength of its election promises. The most important promises are noticeably absent from this budget. The list of promises unfulfilled in this budget is a long one, but let me offer a few of the highlights.

Dental care for senior citizens and children under high-school age: During the election, the Premier (Mr. Peterson) put the price tag for this program alone at $50 million annually. During the election, he was willing to spend $50 million on just one program, but in this budget there is a total of only $11 million set aside for improvement to all the community support services for the elderly.

Speaking of community support for the elderly, what has happened to the Premier's promise in his July 2 statement "to place a high priority on implementing homemaker and home support programs" for the elderly? We are still waiting for the details of these high-priority items.

Looking at other election promises for seniors by our Liberal friend, we can see how thinly spread this $11-million budget commitment will have to be. During the election, the Liberals promised to create a seniors' advocate system throughout Ontario. They promised to expand home care to cover Alzheimer's victims and those who are terminally ill. They promised to provide support to develop more options for seniors living within their community.

Not one of these items has been specifically addressed in this budget, and the $11 million provided in the budget barely scratches the surface of the funds needed to implement these promises. Clearly, this budget does not address the needs of Ontario's senior citizens or the promises made to them by Liberal candidates several months ago.

Senior citizens are not the only ones with needs that have been ignored and promises that go unfulfilled in this budget. Yesterday, the Ontario Coalition for Better Daycare spoke with members of all three caucuses about issues confronting the providers of day care and the parents who require this service. This group and everyone else in our province who is concerned with day care had a right to expect greater things from our Liberal friends in this budget. After all, they promised great things during the election.

What did they promise? They promised a $10-million work-place child care initiative to encourage the creation of work-place day care. They promised startup grants for nonprofit work-place centres. They promised that all children who needed subsidized day care would be guaranteed spaces. They promised a $5 million funding program to ensure that a range of special-needs child care centres would be available; these centres would operate 24 hours to help shift workers, provide short-term emergency care and offer flexible hours for rural workers.

3:20 p.m.

The Liberal Party promised to establish a policy of contract compliance that would require companies doing business with the government to ensure access to or provision of child care services for their employees. The Liberals promised a $6-million fund for working parents who do not qualify for subsidy rates but need financial assistance. They also said they were committed to providing grants for loans to child care centres to defray operating costs.

Unless I have overlooked something in this budget, all these promises are missing, just as those for seniors are missing. What the Liberals have done in this budget is to play games with the figures and make it appear as though they have lived up to one of their commitments, the provision of 10,000 new or additional day care spaces. What they have done is add 2,500 additional day care spaces to the 7,500 spaces our government announced on March 20, 1985.

The Liberals knew that those spaces had been announced before the election campaign started. Yet they campaigned on a promise of 10,000 additional new spaces for those in need of affordable day care. Instead we have 2,500 new spaces and some fancy footwork by the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) and by the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) to take credit for the 7,500 spaces announced a full three months before this government even took office. This does a serious disservice to the people of Ontario and to the Liberal pledge of open and accountable government.

Another of the many areas this budget fails to address is that of services to victims of family violence. That is a particularly disturbing omission, not only because of the very serious nature of the problem, but also because the new Minister of Community and Social Services stood in this House in July and told us the figures indicated that child abuse was rising. In view of these figures, I cannot believe that no special measures were taken in the budget to help victims of abuse.

It is also disturbing because in this area many initiatives were also promised by the Liberals during the election campaign. Among those initiatives were promises to support services such as counselling, victim advocacy clinics and the introduction of new standards for transition houses. Not only does this item not seem to be a high priority with the new Liberal administration, it no longer seems to be on the Liberal agenda at all for any type of action.

Another item that seems to have been lost in the Liberal transition to power is the need to improve services to the handicapped. The lack of new initiatives for the physically and mentally disabled is a glaring inadequacy of this budget. Since his appointment, the Minister of Community and Social Services has said in several interviews that one of his top priorities is to help the disabled to help themselves. Yet there are no initiatives in the budget to help achieve that very important goal. The only reference to the disabled is a promise of increased social assistance payments to handicapped children. While this initiative is certainly welcome, it does not begin to address the issue of self-help that the minister says is a priority.

Another priority the minister has identified is the need to help those who have fallen through our social safety net and must rely upon food banks and emergency shelters, often sponsored by churches and charitable groups, to survive. The minister has said it is the job of government to help these individuals. Yet it seems clear from looking at this budget that the Treasurer of Ontario does not believe it is his government's job to address this need. Instead, he has offered increases in social assistance payments that will not even keep up to the rate of inflation, and very little else to assist the severely disadvantaged in our province.

The litany of broken promises and lack of social policy initiatives that this budget represents leaves me and other members wondering exactly what the people of Ontario have got from their new government. It seems they have got a whole host of new tax increases. Although it has been said before, it bears repeating that the average family will now pay more for gasoline, cigarettes, liquor and spirits, drivers' licences and vehicle registration. They will pay more income tax and they will pay additional tax when they buy a house.

If the people in a family are elderly, disabled or poor, they will not find a friend in this government or in its budget. It is especially surprising to me that if the speech of the member for Hamilton Centre (Ms. Munro) in this House yesterday is any indication, the Liberal Party feels this budget does address the many serious social issues facing the province. In her remarks she said: "The people of Ontario want to show compassion to the less fortunate and they want to remove barriers to equal opportunity. This is the mandate to which Thursday's budget responds."

I would like the member to explain to me and to other members what in the budget responds to the need for compassion for the less fortunate. Social assistance increases that are short of the rate of inflation? How does the budget remove barriers to equal opportunity? Certainly not by coming to grips with key women's issues or multicultural issues.

What this budget means to the average person in my riding is less money in each week's paycheque, more money spent each week and the delivery of very few of the tax breaks promised in the election campaign.

The average person in northern Ontario can also see that promises to northern Ontario have been broken. Northern Ontarians will now not be seeing a northern tax credit of $100 per household, as promised in the recent campaign. They will see a northern development program whose total cost equals the cost of the previous Conservative government's northern Ontario regional development program. They will also see less tourism development, which is crucial in many areas of northern Ontario, as a result of a 10 per cent cut to the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation.

This is not a legacy of hope, as the government members would have us believe. Rather, for the disadvantaged of Ontario, for northerners and for the average citizen of Ontario, this budget is a legacy of broken promises and cynicism.

Mr. Ramsay: I am honoured to be able to stand up today as the member for Timiskaming and speak for or against, depending on which side one is on, the budget that was presented the other day in the House.

I want to make it very clear at the outset, and it was apparent in question period today, that as northerners we are very angry about the gasoline tax increase. I have seen the rationale of the Treasurer, and supposedly, with all the taxes calculated, it may come to $8 a year for the average driver. But there are a lot of circumstances in the north that cause our expenses to be quite a bit higher. I suppose the Treasurer has not been out on those mornings when it is 40 degrees below zero.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Yes I have. I had to walk, not drive, to school.

Mr. Ramsay: That is it, though. I have to get in the car because the other thing is distance, and I am going to talk about that in a minute. One has to get out in that car, start it up and let it warm up. It takes quite a bit of gas to get her going, and then one has to warm it up

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I used to trudge up the hill to the collegiate in the Sault. The member would not believe it.

Mr. Ramsay: Listen, I do not want to hear these sad olden-days stories. I have had enough of that from my parents. Actually, the Treasurer looks like my grandfather.

We drive now; we are on rubber up north now, four wheels and everything, and it takes gasoline. It costs more just because of the climate we live in, but, as the Treasurer mentioned, distance is the other big problem. We do not have that cushy ride from Oakville on the Queen Elizabeth Way to Toronto. When we commute we really mean business up in the north. We are talking about commuting down to the Sherman Mine in Temagami from the Tri-town area, for instance. We are talking about 40 or 50 miles out to mines in Gowganda or up to the Adams Mine in Kirkland Lake. We are talking about distances we have to drive.

In the north, we just do not get in the car on a Sunday and say we want to go out for a drive. We cannot really afford to do that, because we have to drive to get to work. It is a tool we have in order to take care of ourselves. The Treasurer is taxing that tool, and that is why we are angry about it.

Mr. Pierce: No subways?

Mr. Ramsay: That is right. I wish we had a subway. Maybe the Treasurer could put in a subway for us. We would not mind.

The Treasurer wonders why we are screaming over here, but it is the biggest irritation, I would say, of anything that was in the budget. Of any of the daily costs incurred by people in the north, it has to be the gasoline tax that is the biggest irritation. That is the other assumption I would like to put a hole in.

I hope the Treasurer does not go. I am so reminded of the Friendly Giant here. Not that the Treasurer looks like the Friendly Giant, but I wish he would look upon this as a fireside chat. We would pull up a chair for the little one and he could curl up in it and just listen to this.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am listening.

3:30 p.m.

Mr. Ramsay: Okay. That is good, because we are concerned about it. One of the assumptions the Treasurer makes when he comes up with the $8 a year in additional costs from this taxation is that we fill up only once a week in the north. But because of those distances, we are filling up two or three times a week. It was related yesterday by the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) that the reason we have to go those distances is that we have only four plants to hire over 200 people in the north and we have to get to those plants. We do not have the jobs and we have to go farther. That is why we are angry about it.

I argue with the Treasurer's figures. They concern us a lot more. He had better go back and sharpen his pencil and see how he is going to get the revenues, because he is not going to get that tax increase. We are not going to let it happen here and I am giving him notice of that now. It is not going to happen.

I have finished my little rant. I would like to make the next half of this a little more informative. I would like to talk about some of the tools in the north that we could be given to take care of ourselves. We do not want charity in the north; we want to be self-reliant. We are always being penalized by government taxation. We already have the penalty of geography and we do not need any more penalties in our economic development.

One of the penalties is the mining tax. It is unfair to us that local government is always circumvented when it comes to the mining tax, which goes to general revenue. Because of that and other ways the mining tax works -- for instance, with local taxation, we are not allowed to assess the buildings in a mine or in a town that are directly related to the extraction of resources in Kirkland Lake, a mine will pay less in municipal taxes than a local motel. It is an unfair burden on the local taxpayers there because the mine does not pay its fair share.

I am not saying we have to tax the mine more. I am saying we have to redirect our taxation not so much to the secondary level of government but more to the municipal level, so towns and townships are not always on their hands and knees in the north begging for government grants. We should have the tools to assess and tax the money ourselves so we can take care of our own development.

The other thing about mining tax is that the tax goes to the secondary level of government. It goes into general revenue and we do not see it. We are left with a hole in the ground in the north and that really upsets us. We want to see some of that money put back. That is why on this side of the House we always propose a tomorrow development fund very much like the heritage fund in Alberta.

I welcome the northern development fund in the budget, the $100 million over five years. That is a good start, but I would like to see something -- and we will give them another five months to work on it -- that is tied more directly to the extraction of the resource from the north so that something is left, put away in the bank for tomorrow.

If this were done, the one-industry towns that have boom-and-bust cycles, which rip out the hearts of our towns and of our people in the north, would have something to rely on. Then, when we have some ideas about developing secondary industry -- related to resource development most probably, because we know we are not going to get a major car development yet but we will have to look at that some day -- we will have the money there, in a fund directly related to what is taken out of the north. That is what we would like to see, instead of all those millions of dollars going out, as we have seen over all the past years.

Forestry is another thing that is very important in the north. I would like to see more reforestation for northern Ontario. Obviously, it is one of the bases for many areas of the north. The policies always seem to be established in the south. That is one of the gripes we have, especially in northeastern Ontario where we do not have -- the Treasurer promised he would stay and listen to this because it is --

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I will be right back.

Mr. Ramsay: I guess he has to go, but he will be back. Let him go.

We would like to have more control of the forests in the north. I propose that in northeastern Ontario we introduce the idea of a forest authority based on the way Algonquin Park is managed. In the northeast, we do not have the big tracts of forest they have in the northwest where the forest management agreements come into play.

This is something about which I want to talk to my colleague the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio). This is the type of thing we can have as a tool ourselves, especially in the northeast. That would get rid of the problem of confrontation that we always have with the various users of the forest.

We have that problem because we are the closest wilderness to southern Ontario, and there are many competing demands for that forest, especially around the Temagami area. We always have a confrontation when we talk about access roads or spraying programs. If we had a forest authority made up of local people, the owners of the sawmills and some of the environmentalists, tourist operators and all the people who want to use that forest resource would be able to handle the problems themselves. We would have the funds generated from those stumpage fees to replant and manage the resource ourselves the way we see it should be done. This is something I am going to continue to pursue.

I was very disappointed to see the lack of funds put towards tourism. In the year 2000, tourism is going to be one of our biggest industries, especially in northern Ontario. We are endeavouring in my riding to set up local tourist organizations and, relating from the Kirkland Lake tourist committee, we have established a Treasure North Tourist Association whereby we are going to start to develop our own tourist resources as we see fit, especially the Highway 11 corridor in Temagami all the way to Timmins.

We do not feel the big, block, provincial regional sectors of tourism are really doing an adequate job for us in Timiskaming. We are setting up our own association and in that we are going to develop our own tourist attractions because we have finally realized that while we have the beauty of the lakes and trees we also have to put some man-made tourist attractions up there to attract and keep tourists coming to our area.

We need small developments. We would love to have a Disneyland up there, but we are going to have to work on some of the mining towns and recreate the Klondike type of atmosphere in some of our towns. We would like to have more mining tours, such as has been successfully demonstrated in Timmins.

One of our biggest faults in the north is the lack of secondary industry. I am glad to see the Minister of Northern Affairs and Mines (Mr. Fontaine) is over there watching and listening very diligently to my speech because he knows the problems and that is why he is keeping an eye on the business pages of the Globe and Mail for his stocks and of course foreign-owned everything. How is Hemlo doing? Is Golden Sector up today? I will confer later with the minister on the stock situation.

We have to look at the development of secondary industry. I think the first way we have to consider that is with respect to what secondary industry should be in the north. At the beginning, it should be related to the resources we have. It is a shame 70 per cent of the mining equipment we use in the north comes from overseas. There is no excuse for that, because we have iron ore deposits and energy and we could be creating that right in the north, which would cut down on transportation costs. Instead of exporting jobs, we could keep and develop them at home. This is something we are going to have to examine. We can look just at the mining sector and create a lot more jobs in the north that really would also affect our balance of payments, about which we are very concerned in this country.

We talk about trading, but we could do a lot if we just made more for ourselves in this country. We have 50 per cent of our forestry equipment imported from overseas. This is something we cannot tolerate. We are going to have to start to develop this industry.

Also we have to develop secondary industry that supplies on a lower scale what we do in the north. For instance, in mining, we now have an example in which we have established an explosives factory in Kirkland Lake. That is where it should be, instead of bringing dangerous goods up the road. We could be developing these things right at the site. Places such as Kirkland Lake and Timmins could be providing the materials and tools necessary for the industry of the north.

When we get those resources out of the forests and ground, we have to be adding value to them. This is something we always overhear discussed. It is a shame to see those trains and trucks going down the road with the raw material because we export our jobs when we do that. We are going to have to stop that and add the value to the product and make sure the transportation rates are not rigged against us so that we can do that in the north.

There have been some developments in that regard and I draw to the attention of members an example in the town of New Liskeard. Actually, I always consider it is New Liskeard, but it is right across from Radley's Hill Road so it is actually in the town of Haileybury. I had better get that straight for the people back home.

The Three H Manufacturing Ltd. plant manufactures furniture which is very similar to the knock-down, put-together type that comes over from Europe. We are able to compete very well with that and this company is not only exporting its product to southern Ontario and Quebec but also into the United States. It is a prime example of using a resource from the north and from the locality. We can produce it with local labour and be competitive. That is the kind of thing for which we must strive.

How do we get there? One of the ways we can do it is to have an industrial strategy because we never have really sat down and said, "What are we going to do in the north?" We have just let it be the colony. It is a great place to extract the stuff and bring it down the road. We have never really thought about it and sat down and done some planning.

3:40 p.m.

I am not one for having the government run everything and I think business can do a lot of these things, but we have to sit down as a government and plan and decide the way we are going to go. Then we can let business do some of these things, but we have to plan it. Let us make a plan for the north so we are not always on our knees begging to the south.

We are starting to do that in developing economic development committees in the north. There is a very good example of an economic development commission in Kirkland Lake, which has been established for the last three years with the help of the Ministry of Northern Affairs and Mines. I must say we have been very grateful for that help. The past government did see that this funding was necessary, and this is a good step, but we have to carry on.

I have been working with some of the other groups in the north. My executive assistant attended a Timiskaming Municipal Association meeting the other day and brought forward the idea that the Timiskaming Municipal Association should start getting into the business of developing an economic development committee and council for the Timiskaming riding as a whole so we are not competing with each other within the area. They have looked upon that idea very favourably and are on their way. I am really excited about that. We are going to start to become self-reliant and do some of these things for ourselves in Timiskaming.

I have talked about all these things for one purpose. Without this development, we do not have any jobs in the north for our children. That is the greatest tragedy and the greatest reason I am here today. It makes me sad when I know many of our children do not have a future in the north the way it is structured today. There is no place for them to go to work. They should be able to get the education they want in the north and they should be able to find the work they want there so we can build a society up there and not a colony or satellite of the south. That is the greatest tragedy there.

We have to be working at this at all levels of government and we have to be working at it in a co-operative manner. We have to be doing it with the input of government, labour and business. We have to be working together to solve this problem. If we do not, our children will continue to leave and there will not be any of us left to worry about.

Mr. Sargent: I welcome this opportunity to say a few words about this budget. I want to congratulate the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Ramsay) on his first major speech in the House. It was well done. I have been through about six or seven of these budget debates and the knowledge the new members have gained in such a short time is a credit to all of them.

Listening to these politicians talk has made me think of the story about a US senator who years ago visited a small town and was invited to a public hanging. It was an honour to have such a dignitary at such an affair, so the mayor of the town asked the condemned man if it would be all right to ask the senator to say a few words before he was hanged. The condemned man said, "Yes, it is all right with me, but could you hang me first because I have already heard him talk?" I think that is the way a lot of people feel when I get up to speak.

Mr. Martel: That is not true, Eddie. You have to be careful now you are on the government side of the House.

Mr. Sargent: I will talk about Whitehorse if the member does not keep quiet.

I think our Treasurer has made an all-time record in provincial politics, as the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) and everybody will agree. His budget has received support and acclaim from all the major newspapers and media in Ontario. Somebody must be right. The Conservatives will not recognize a fact which --

Mr. Runciman: Grit rags.

Mr. Sargent: We will get to the member in a minute.

The province is lucky to have the Treasurer's knowledge and dedication at a very important time in its history. He has done a masterful job of judging the climate and the needs of the people.

Having heard some of the Conservative members talk about this budget, as the former Premier and former Treasurer, the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller), asked this morning, who is telling the truth? I do not know how he could say that, realizing that the former Premier and Treasurer was the Treasurer when there was a transfer payment of $500 million coming to Ontario from Ottawa and the government turned it down. They did not want it. They would not accept it because they said Ontario was not a have-not province. It is very expensive pride when about 250,000 of our youth are walking the streets. During the last 10 years of Tory rule, they have been faced with these things.

It must be very embarrassing for members of the opposition, the Conservatives, to have the Toronto Sun, a well-recognized Tory newspaper, say this morning editorially:

"Farmer Bob took a few calculated risks with Ontario's finances last week. It looks like some of them have already paid off.

"Nixon demonstrated hard-headed savvy as the provincial Treasurer when he gambled (a) that the province's valuable triple-A credit rating wouldn't be forfeit although he's allowing the deficit to rise; (b) that the NDP would button its lip and back the package; (c) that the public would roll over and play dead, relieved that the tax bite wasn't worse.

"That's just about what happened. There's even been some praise of Nixon's housecleaning."

Mr. Stevenson: He pulled the wool over everybody's eyes.

Mr. Sargent: Wait a minute now. Just hear this. It praises the government's housecleaning, and away we go.

It talks about inheriting the debt of Suncor. I have been in politics a long time, as a lot of members have, but I have never seen anything so crummy and so obviously corrupt as that deal. It was a washroom deal. Suncor is in the same building as the Ministry of Energy. When they put the deal through, only three members of the cabinet knew about it. The then Treasurer and former Premier, the member for Muskoka, did not know about the deal.

This was engineered by a young fellow named Kierans. Kierans is a former Deputy Minister of Energy; I believe that was his title. He arranged the deal with this Suncor group, which was not even listed on the stock market. The government invested $650 million and had to go out and borrow the money to do it. What is the form in Smith Barney? They say: "We make money the hard way. We earn it." The members opposite make money the hard way; they borrow it to buy Suncor, a corrupt deal. Let us see how corrupt it was.

There is a commission due to McLeod Young Weir Ltd. for one per cent of the deal, which would have resulted in a $6.5-million commission to McLeod Young Weir. They turned down the commission. As a result, Mr. Kierans became president of McLeod Young Weir, and we are holding the bag for whatever it is, $350 million or $650 million. Our Treasurer had to assimilate that kind of thing and clean up the deck. We have a clear pattern here of total disregard for public funds.

Our debt now is about $24 billion, and Ontario Hydro has about $20 billion to $30 billion. Borrowing is simple, but it is tough when one has to pay it back, and that is exactly what is happening here.

3:50 p.m.

Someone has sent me a very interesting note. I do not totally agree with it, so I will not read it.

Mr. McLean: The member is wanted on the telephone.

Mr. Rowe: There is a long-distance call for the member. Pierre Trudeau.

Mr. Sargent: I think I know who it was. George Bernard Shaw once said, "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." Even in Ontario, Paul did not come through the last time and all the Peters got together and booted the Conservative Party out of office.

I am happy about things that are happening to the farmers up my way. There are about a third fewer farms up for sale among farmers in the major beef cattle area. They were dying like flies. We could not get the Conservative government to do a thing for our farmers. Here is a whole list of things that are going to help farmers:

We are funding them for $50 million through the Ontario family farm interest rate reduction program to assist them in reducing the cost of their long-term debts to eight per cent for this year. We are furnishing $20 million for Ontario's share of this year's payments under the tripartite stabilization plan for red meat producers. A $6-million transition fund will be established to assist tobacco and other farmers leaving the agriculture industry.

Then we have a long list of transfer payments -- increases in all of them -- in the areas of day care, the Ontario student assistance program and capital support of $67 million for education. Funding for provincial support for separate secondary schools will rise to $107 million. These are all part of a picture that the opposition has the audacity to say is not good business. I do not think I am going to convince the members on the other side of the House of anything, but I want to say this --

Mr. Barlow: It is different when the member has to defend it, is it not?

Mr. Sargent: The member for Cambridge is right. There is always a smart guy in the audience.

Will Rogers once said, "I have never met a man I did not like." I have never met a man who did not like or trust the Treasurer. I am sure the members agree with that. I could talk all night about this budget, but the members on the opposite side of the House are just whistling Dixie. That is why we had to close down the House yesterday. Nobody had anything to say against the budget. Luckily, we have some more speakers today. I hope they have some more to save face.

I have enjoyed this chance to say a few words of truth for a change.

Mr. Stevenson: I am pleased to follow the Sermon on the Mount, or whatever it was -- Mount Forest or Owen Sound. I know Mount Forest is not in the member's riding.

I am very pleased to join the discussion on the budget, to state the disappointment I have in the budget and to relate the disappointment that a number of the people from the great riding of Durham-York have mentioned to me.

First, I am going to address some of the more local issues that have been brought to my attention about the budget. Then I will get into a somewhat longer discussion on the agricultural impact of the budget. I want to try to get through the smoke and mirrors and the shell game that is being presented to us by the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) on the significance of this budget to agriculture and attempt to show that there is very little new money in this budget for the agricultural industry.

To go briefly into the situation as it affects Durham-York, which is a rural riding with a number of small towns and farms, agriculture, tourism and small business are the economic heartbeats of that riding.

When we go through the budget and look at transportation, which is a very important ministry for rural areas, we see there is a promise for $8 million of new money per year for municipal roads; yet the Ministry of Transportation and Communications budget has been cut by $34 million a year. There has to be a bit of sleight-of-hand going on there.

Mr. Andrewes: They will build roads in Grey-Bruce.

Mr. Stevenson: We look at the many commuters in the riding of Durham-York who work in Oshawa or the general Metro Toronto-Golden Horseshoe area and at the impact on those many workers. We see the gasoline and diesel fuel tax increased and the cost of motor vehicle registrations and drivers' licences increased. Very clearly, they are not overjoyed with the budget.

The housing area is not as critical in many rural areas as it is in some of the more urban areas, particularly Metro Toronto. However, even on a modest home, the transfer tax, half of one per cent, amounts to a few hundred dollars. That is just additional discouragement for people who might wish to buy a house, particularly first home buyers.

In many cases, young couples who cannot afford a home in metropolitan areas, urban areas and rapidly growing areas look to the more rural parts of the province to buy their first house. That is quite common in the part of the country I represent. That tax is further discouragement to buying a new home and further discouragement to moving out of the already crowded apartment dwellings that we have available.

To go fairly quickly through some of the major areas -- I have mentioned tourism, small business and agriculture -- the tourism people in my riding are quite unhappy with the performance of this government right from the time it took office, and are particularly discouraged now that they see the budget. In a riding with the south shore of Lake Simcoe and the south shore of Lake Scugog, tourism is a very important industry and many smaller tourist operators exist there. We have a few large operators such as the Seven Mile Island resort and the Briars Inn resort, which is quite famous in the Jackson's Point area.

The first problem in the general tourism area, even though the program is handled by the Ministry of Natural Resources, is the small marinas program the Tory government previously had in effect. We currently have two marinas wishing to expand in the riding of Durham-York. One was part-way through making an application for that program and now there is no funding. I suppose the program may be renamed and come out in next spring's budget or something like that, but they are going to lose one construction season.

One must understand that many of the hard services, such as retaining walls, etc., are put in during the winter when they can get equipment out on the ice, so they can work both off the land and the ice. These approvals are not coming forward. The program is not in existence any more and these places are not going to be able to expand this year. As a result, more people are going to be unemployed in that particular area.

4 p.m.

I also received a letter today from a vacation farm operation in my riding, Woodnewton, which is quite a well-known operation near the village of Goodwood. Many people go there, particularly to cross-country ski in the winter. A number of people have farm vacations there. They wrote to the minister stating their great concern over the apparent cut in assistance to their operation, particularly the cut in the moneys that was going to be made available by the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation for information or advertising assistance in promotion of the vacation-farm operation. Clearly, it is another move by this government to reduce the support for a very important industry in this province, particularly in the area I represent.

The large resort industry is also unhappy with the co-operation it has been getting and the hearing it has been getting from the ministers involved in this government.

In the small-business area, the new inventory tax will hurt. I suspect many of the small business people really do not know yet what the impact will be. They will wait until they sign their cheques when they pay their taxes and suddenly realize that more money has gone to the government, and then they will be discouraged. It is just a matter of reducing entrepreneurship among these small-business people and discouraging hiring of many of the young people they might well otherwise have employed through their busy season.

I want to switch now to the agricultural area and very briefly compare a few of the promises that were made by the present Premier prior to the election with what we can safely say is now the new spiel for Ontario farmers.

The Liberals promised 22 planks in their agricultural platform, of which they have lived up to maybe one or two. They were going to bring into effect a capital loans program, which would have been of major use to the farmers now because their incomes are very low as a result of low commodity prices. Certainly the Treasurer will be aware of that.

The physical facilities on farms are deteriorating rapidly because the income from the marketplace cannot keep up with the capital needs on the farm. A loan program or a grant program to help maintain the physical structure of Ontario farms would have been welcome. Was it in the budget? No, it was just in the list of promises.

Mr. McKessock: What about the $76 million?

Mr. Stevenson: I will get to the $76 million. I will gladly come to that. In fact, we will spend quite a bit of time on the $76 million. The honourable member will be delighted to see how much of the $76 million is real.

The government was going to cover 75 per cent of the file drainage loans. Somehow or other, I guess drainage is not as important in the fall of 1985 as it was in the spring of 1985.

The government was also talking about expanded markets, supporting programs for storage facilities, processing plants and improved market intelligence. That is difficult when it is coming from that side.

There was going to be increased research in food storage and new crop development. Where is that in the budget? Not only is it not in the budget, but the government has also dumped the $12 million a year that was coming through the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program. Fine, get rid of the word "BILD." It does not bother me that the title "BILD" is gone. Maybe we could help the government. Perhaps it could have called it Liberal Improvement and Mechanical Processing or something. Give it the acronym "LIMP." That would fit right in with the budget.

Mr. Andrewes: They do not understand.

Mr. Stevenson: LIMP. What is wrong with it? That would have fitted very well with other agricultural programs in the budget. But here is this big promise for all these things. Number one, not only is it not in the budget, but also they canned the $12 million a year, plus or minus $1 million or $2 million -- I cannot remember exactly -- that had been flowing for the past five years.

Where is the crop insurance program that was to have been established so that farmers could insure part of their crop but not other parts of the same crop, one farm versus another operated by the same farmer? I wonder what the minister thinks about that idea now that he is on the other side of the floor.

Where in the budget is the undertaking for an aggressive hay marketing program to develop fully the export potential of this province? I have heard the minister talk about that a number of times, but it seems as though priorities have changed.

Another platform plank was the establishment of an alcohol-gasoline blend to replace leaded fuel. I am sure the corn farmers of Ontario would be delighted to have that program implemented, but somehow or other it seems to have fallen by the wayside.

Here is a good one: "We would use one per cent of the ad valorem tobacco tax revenue to develop new products and alternative crops to tobacco." The frozen ad valorem tax is gone and the new tax is on at a higher rate than it was before. As I recall from my days as parliamentary assistant in the Treasury, one per cent of that tax is a lot more than $6 million. Although I do stand to be corrected on that, I think they may have fallen a long way short on that promise as well.

Again, I would have thought that in a time of such economic stress in the agricultural community we might have had some comment forthcoming in the area of support for financial distress boards. Anyway, it did not happen.

4:10 p.m.

Let us try to figure out exactly what is new in this budget for agriculture. If we look at some of the press releases the minister has been putting out, he obviously has no fear that there is going to be a paper shortage, because we have been getting a regular stream.

The minister is very proud of the $76 million in supposedly new money put into the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. I would congratulate him quite happily if I thought it were really new money. I just received a copy of the 1985-86 estimates, delivered to my desk yesterday afternoon, so unfortunately I have not had the time to go through the estimates thoroughly. However, I do know that the figures in the votes at the back are absolutely identical, number for number, to those that would have been presented had I been the minister.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: They are identical.

Mr. Stevenson: They are identical. That is correct.

As we look at these numbers, we see a figure here of $361 million. Then we add on the programs that we announced after the May 2 election. There is the farm operating credit assistance program, $40 million, or the equivalent of $13.3 million per year. That is on top of the $361 million. Then there has been an addition in the new budget of $5 million annually on top of what had been allocated, $15 million for tripartite or bipartite stabilization.

There was the new crop development fund, the agricultural outlet draining program that the minister again announced in the last week or so, an $8-million rural employment assistance program, a $500,000 extension of the clingstone peach program and, of course, the financial protection payments by the ministry in the grain area. I will not mention the veterinary college, but I know if the present minister was listing to the numbers he would put that in as well.

When I add up those numbers, take them on an annual basis and see how much money would have been available this year, the figure comes to $381 million. I could be out by $1 million, $2 million or $3 million. That is not a big concern of mine. Let us say, in round numbers, $380 million. That would have been increased by $5 million because of the extra money going into tripartite stabilization that is not listed in the current estimates. Let us give the benefit of the doubt and say $380 million.

The minister is now crowing about $399 million. At the very most, there is $20 million of new money the Ministry of Agriculture and Food had not been expecting.

Mr. McKessock: What percentage increase is that over last year?

Mr. Stevenson: It is very little, as a matter of fact. The government has contributed very little, despite all the noise over it. The ministry was expecting something like a 16 per cent increase and it has about 20 per cent. It is right here for the honourable member to look at. He just has to walk over and have a look.

There is very little new money, yet there is all the talk about extra new money. There is a discrepancy of about $50 million somewhere in how the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food is being shuffled by the current administration. Clearly, there have been some very significant cuts in anticipated spending from June until now.

It is quite clear that the farm operating credit assistance program, which would have been about $14 million, now is part of the Ontario family farm interest rate reduction program; so there is considerable money there that is not new. One program was cancelled and the other put in its place.

What else has happened to the programs that should have been increased and are not now going to be because they are going to show up in the OFFIRR program and the $5 million in tripartite stabilization? I cannot find them, but obviously a number of programs are flat-lined and quite clearly there had to be a number of cuts in existing programs. These are existing programs, not promises from the May 2 election. They have been in the ministry for a number of years, have proved successful, are very much liked by the farmers of Ontario and have been brought under the axe by the present administration.

While the minister, who likes to be known as the King of the Castle, is out there crawling to the agricultural industry and wanting to be patted on the head, he has very clearly fallen short of what I am sure he would have liked to have done for the industry. When the word gets out about exactly what has happened to the existing portion of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food budget, I am sure some agricultural organizations will be quite upset by the amount of quick stepping that has been done to try to put this document together.

There were some other comments I wanted to make, but they have slipped my mind at the moment. Very briefly, I want to address a few changes that have occurred in the past few months and question the approach of the current administration.

The financial problems of the industry have changed for the worse, but we cannot say those changes were totally unexpected. Certainly, since 1981, anybody associated with the industry over the years has hoped that it would turn around and that commodity prices would increase so farmers could make an adequate living and get an adequate return from the marketplace. That has not happened.

For the past two or three years, the Ontario government and most certainly the producer groups -- the Ontario Pork Producers' Marketing Board and the Ontario Cattlemen's Association -- have taken a very statesmanlike approach to try to solve this problem. That shows up in the approach taken in the attempted establishment of tripartite stabilization.

They went to the federal government and other provinces and said the war between the provincial treasuries, particularly in the red meat area, must stop for the good of agriculture in Canada. The tripartite stabilization not only was a stop-loss mechanism and an income insurance program as such but also was intended to stop the war between the treasuries and the balkanization of the agricultural market across Canada.

Certainly, members on this side of the House who were Ministers of Agriculture and Food pushed as hard as they could to get that program coming forward, but quite clearly it had been fought at the federal level by a number of other provinces. It is yet to be signed, and although the current minister here and the federal minister say it is about to be approved, there is still some very real question as to whether it will be.

4:20 p.m.

Mr. McKessock: Why did the federal Minister of Agriculture give in to some of the other provinces?

Mr. Stevenson: I am sure the Ontario caucus and the federal minister, being from Ontario, did the best they could to try to support Ontario's position as stated by the government, the cattlemen's association and the pork producers' board, as well as the identical position put forward by Alberta, but when there is support in government from other provincial caucuses, they decided to try to come up with some sort of compromise. I would suggest the federal government, on the whole, has failed to take the leadership required on this issue. The industry of agriculture, particularly the red meat sector in Ontario, is going to suffer severely because of it.

Mr. Villeneuve: Who knows the industry? It is the Farm Credit Corp.

Mr. Stevenson: Yes. If the member is suggesting the agricultural activity of the federal government is a total loss, one has only to look back at what it was when the Liberals were in and one will see many positive changes.

Mr. Villeneuve: It is 16 3/4 down to 12.

Mr. Stevenson: The other thing that has been brought to a completion in the last few months is the fact the United States countervail action against Canadian pork was finally and firmly put into place. That has brought a new reality to the types of programs that must be brought into effect in Canada for our agricultural producers. We must review the delivery of the agricultural programs in Ontario and across Canada, in the hope of minimizing that sort of activity towards agricultural products.

To review briefly, very clearly the statesmanlike approach towards tripartite stabilization and a national plan of that type have failed. Also, the reality of countervail is with us. These two things have become abundantly clear in the last few months. What has the Liberal government of Ontario done in recognition of that reality? It has done nothing.

We can look at another similar province, Alberta, which took the same statesmanlike approach in the tripartite stabilization question. It now realizes the program is not going to be what it hoped, and it must do something to protect its local red meat production system.

In the last few weeks, it has taken two big new steps. One was a $128-million allocation to livestock producers of that province in a feed grain program. Those members would say that was brought in to adjust for the grain price situation relating to the effects the changes in the Crow rate would have in that province. I am sure that is largely true, but very clearly it has a major impact on the agricultural producers in that province and also on the competitiveness of Ontario producers now with Alberta, along with most of the other provinces in Canada.

Mr. McKessock: The member's government had a couple of years to do that.

Mr. Stevenson: I very clearly said these are the result of developments in the last three or four months. The producer groups have not asked for that to any great extent in Ontario. I said at the beginning, the Ontario Pork Producers' Marketing Board and the Ontario Cattlemen's Association went along with the statesmanlike approach that was taken by the Ontario and Alberta governments to try to get the war of the treasuries to cease. It has not worked. This government has not recognized the fact that the rules of the game have changed in the last few months.

I believe another announcement was made two weeks ago. An additional $41 million is going to the red meat stabilization program in Alberta. It is going to pay between $22.86 and $79.75 per head of slaughtered cattle marketed and between $10.11 and $14.30 for hogs marketed. This information was out in time for the budget.

The statesmanlike approach is over. The war of the treasuries has just taken a very significant step forward. Our producers' groups are now asking for some special help before the tripartite stabilization agreement is signed, so that Ontario, along with the other provinces, has something to phase out over the next five years. Are they going to get it? It certainly appears to me they are not.

The minister has certainly been very vocal. It now appears it has been a fair bit of wind and is not going to turn out to be a whole lot of action.

I have a few other comments I would like to make, but I will save them for another occasion that is coming up. Just briefly, to review the situation as I see it, as a representative of the people of Durham-York and as the agricultural critic for this party, the budget certainly is a major disappointment. It has been made very clear to me by the people in Durham-York that they are unhappy with a number of aspects of it.

l have tried today to bring to the minister's attention the fact that the numbers that appear in the agricultural budget are largely a shell game. There is very little money in there that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food had not already expected to receive. When one looks at the numbers that show up, very clearly a number of programs in the ministry are either flatlined or cut quite substantially, because for $76 million of new programs there is actually only $20 million of new money to cover them. Obviously the difference there creates problems for the existing programs in the ministry. I am sure that, as time goes on, we will hear from the squeaking wheels and we will find out what section of the ministry has been hurt because of this budget.

Lastly, I received a copy of a letter addressed to the minister. Many other copies have gone out. It states that the producers of Durham region, Victoria county and York region are very unhappy with the performance of this government, because it has failed to come forward with any sort of payment to the hog producers of that area and the hog producers of the province.

4:30 p.m.

They are expressing their disappointment because both ministers made positive statements at the time of the international ploughing match, and, certainly with all the great press releases the Minister of Agriculture and Food is currently putting out, one would think they could come up with a bit of action and not just more rhetoric.

Mr. Breaugh: I want to make a few comments on the budget, the process, and several items that are in the budget. I want to begin by saying I am not sure this is quite as fiscally responsible as it ought to be, but in general it is probably about as exciting as an evening in South Dumfries.

I do not know the expectations of the people of Ontario for this first budget from a new government, but I think it is reasonable to say that, after 42 years of one political party being in government, they might well have anticipated something a little more exciting than what we got. I do not want to be too sharp in my criticism, but I do want to recognize at the beginning that there are a couple of things we ought to consider.

First of all, through a series of unusual political circumstances, we did not see a budget in the normal time frame. It is an unusual circumstance for us to be looking at a budget in the fall session. Normally, we have seen it in the spring. Most of us are anticipating that we will see the first full-fledged budget of this government in the next spring session. In a sense, it is a budget for an interim period of six months.

Also, we have to recognize that the Treasurer has had a short period of time to get things in gear, so to speak, to prepare, to make his options known, to make the decisions of political will that are part and parcel of any budget.

To put an expression on it, it is a little different from what we have seen previously because it is not mean. I have been a member here and have seen budgets that appeared to me to have a real air of meanness about them. They went after a particular economic group and taxed them where it hurt the most. They taxed them on things such as Ontario health insurance plan premiums. I have been here when there was an across-the-board sense of meanness expressed in some sort of a restraint program, when there was clearly some large measure of unfairness put into the context of a budget and carried out in a way that affected the lives of literally thousands of working people in this province. There is none of that in here.

However, there is an air of indecisiveness all the way through. I have listened to question period in the last few days and I think all members are aware that this Treasurer had to roll in several programs that were begun by a previous government and were already in place, in operation. They had to be incorporated into some of his plans.

I have listened with some interest to the discussions around whether there is more than the previous government had anticipated, or not as much, or whether it is just the same. For the most part, that is an irrelevant discussion in my books because essentially he does have the right, as the Treasurer of Ontario, to present a program. The question to be judged here is, basically, does the program meet the need.

I am not really interested in discussions about whether this program is bigger than the last program or the same kind of program or a slightly different program. The truth is there are several members now in opposition who are seeing programs they initiated when they were on the government side come into being. For example, l happen to know all the youth training consolidation programs were initiated by somebody else when he was in the ministry position. It takes eight or 10 months, and sometimes 14 years, for ideas to roll through the government process here.

We are seeing initiatives that were begun last year now coming out of the mouths of new Liberal cabinet ministers. We are all aware that is going on. It is fun to watch people who began something on that side of the House now being very critical of it on this side of the House. I suppose that is part of the process, but a little ironic and somewhat misleading, I might say, to the people of Ontario who have to watch all this.

Let me put to the House a couple of other general comments about the budgetary process. There is in this budget a very nervous, tentative step to do something revolutionary in this country. It is not a direct approach but an indirect approach to doing something that has never been done here. There is the threat of, the hint of, an attempt to tax the wealthy in this country. Both this current provincial government and our federal government are playing with the notion of things such as capital gains taxes, taxing the wealthy and taxing the wealthy corporate sector as well. But it is such a revolutionary notion in the history of our political system that they are moving with glacial speed on it. They are fearful of it. It is such a novel concept that the rich should pay taxes in this country.

Let me put to the Treasurer a small amount of support. It is only fair that the rich pay as much taxation as the poor in this country. That would be a good first step. I do not want him to rush in and tax the wealthy as he taxes the working class. That would be too much of a shock for sure, but I would like to see us get headed in that direction.

Most of us who have followed federal and provincial budgets know that, by and large, the poor do not pay taxes in this country because they do not make enough money to pay taxes. They pay them in all the indirect forms. One will find in this Ontario budget all the different forms of taxation that people pay; all the lotteries, the racetrack taxes, the booze taxes -- everything that is not called a tax but really is a tax. It is a great source of revenue for this government and every other level of government.

That is really the tax on the poor in this country. If they do not have enough income that the government can nail them with on income tax, it gets them at the corner store when they buy their Wintario tickets. It gets them at the Brewers' Retail when they buy a case of beer. It taxes them that way. This government is very good at that.

Although I do not want to dwell on what this government said during the course of the election and what it did when it introduced the budget, this government continues to tax people at the corner store. This government continues to tax people when they sit down to eat a meal. There is no question about that. That process is so deeply ingrained in our society that most of our citizens are not even aware that the taxation process is taking place.

Most people do not know that when they go to the corner service station to fill up with gas, most of what they are paying when they sign that chit or hand over their money is tax of some sort. Most of our citizens actually think they are paying for liquor when they go to a liquor store. It is not true. For the most part they are paying taxes. The instalment happens to be collected at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario and it is picked up by somebody who does not look like a tax collector but who looks like a salesperson.

Our people are slowly but surely beginning to understand this a little bit more, but I believe it is still true that most of our citizens do not know when they are paying taxes in this country. I am aware of that. I keep meeting with groups and I keep asking, "How many people in this room think there is a provincial income tax?" My score-card on that is we are lucky if two out of five people know they pay a provincial income tax. That is an astounding thing. There is a provincial income tax. There has been for a long time.

The provincial income tax is going to be increased in this budget and most of our citizens do not even know that such a creature exists. In some sense that may speak to the political shrewdness of the previous government. It was so successful at hiding the taxation process that most of our citizens are not even aware that it is going on, but it is.

Let me go on to some of what are laughingly referred to as initiatives in this budget. I want to start by mentioning something that I am sure a number of other members will want to talk about as well. On major things such as employment and housing, one really has to stretch it to say that this budget does very much for anybody. We will go through a long period now where each day questions will be asked on the opposition side and the Treasurer will respond on the government side with everybody trying to fudge the numbers about whether we are really creating new jobs. The truth of it is that this budget does not create very many jobs for anybody.

One can say that 108,000 jobs and 30,000 more are being added to the process, but if we were being completely honest about it, we would say: "In this budget we hope we are going to create 140,000 jobs and, unfortunately, we are going to lose 50,000 or 60,000. So at the end of it all, if we are lucky, we might be up 50,000 to 70,000 jobs."

The budget does not quite put it in those terms. It would be a little more honest if, when Treasurers presented budgets, they gave us the good and the bad by saying, "Here is what we are trying to create in the way of new jobs and here is what we are liable to lose in the way of jobs from existing industries." That would be of some possible use to the people of Ontario. They do not do that.

4:40 p.m.

There are some things missing from all this. The problem of young people getting employment vexes me every day. I continue to go back to my constituency office and see young people who are doing what they are supposed to do, being good boys and girls, going to school, applying for jobs, sending out résumés and not getting employment.

The word seems to be out that there will be some hiring of staff for the members. I see a constant flow of résumés across my desk here at Queen's Park, by and large from young people under 25, who are extremely well qualified for just about any kind of job we might have around here. That is an indicator to me that there are a lot of very well qualified young people who do not have a chance to get the same kind of a job opportunity I had when I started out in the work force.

I also want to put on the record -- and I am ashamed to say this is hardly the first time I have said this in a budget speech -- that I have a lot of older workers coming out of plants and industries who are in their 40s and 50s. Their chance of getting a job is nil. It is fine to talk about skills training programs, retraining programs and further education, but they do not apply to many of my constituents who worked at Houdaille, Firestone, Ontario Malleable Iron and Pedlar.

All those people are people who came here, many of them from other countries. They do not have a great deal of education and they do not have a great command of their own language, let alone the English language. They are people who worked in the plant, so to speak, some of them for 20 or 30 years. Their chance of getting a job out of this budget is zip; it does not even consider them. That is a tragedy. It was a tragedy last year when a different government put forward its budget.

I know that it is hardly a simple problem, but this world can handle only so many security guards, and that seems to be the only kind of job opportunity there for them. This world can only have so many custodians, which is another dead-end job opportunity. I would like to have seen some initiatives in this budget around that tragedy.

I understand it is not easy. It is hard to employ these people, but the fact remains that they are people, not just numbers that appear on somebody's balance sheet somewhere. This government in its next budget had better put its mind to that problem. It is not only a problem in my constituency, but it is a problem all over Ontario as our economy changes over.

This is one of the first budgets for a while that has not talked about the auto industry, which is a little bit strange. I am not making an argument that previous budgets did anything, but at least they recognized that the auto industry is a major part of our economy. This budget does not seem to know that the auto industry exists in Ontario. There are those who look at a place, such as my riding of Oshawa, and say, "General Motors is putting $2 billion worth of investment into Oshawa." General Motors has just announced another plan for an $80,000 expansion in Oshawa.

It is true that if one comes to Oshawa today and looks at the official numbers, our numbers on unemployment look better now than they did a year ago. Investment looks better now than it did a year ago. But those of us who have lived in that community and in other automotive communities for a while know that one cannot look at the short term; one must look at the long term. One must look at what is happening in the whole auto industry.

What is happening in the whole auto industry is a little scary. As the federal government talks more about free trade, as the federal government has resisted the idea of Canadian-content legislation, we are a little vulnerable here. I believe the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. O'Neil) has been offshore, so to speak, courting other auto makers, and I know we have to do that. We have to try to work with them and see if we can get some Canadian content that way.

The whole discussion about free trade sends little shivers up and down my spine. Those who think one can entertain that notion in the abstract and not look at the reality of what impact it will have on Windsor, Oshawa, Brampton and a whole lot of other communities in this province are nuts. They had better go back home and talk to their people who work in the auto industry on the labour side and on the management side and get some estimation of what that whole concept of free trade means in reality to something as important to us as the automotive industry.

I am not making an argument that a budget ought to contain all these things, but I do think somewhere in the budgetary process the problems and future of the auto industry deserved a line or two somewhere. I regret they did not get it. There will be lots of opportunities to put it on the record in the next little while. I urge the Treasurer to do so.

Let me talk a little about some good things. I have to modify "good things," because they are not good in the sense that they are going to resolve a lot of problems. However, I want to recognize that the Treasurer of Ontario did some things in the budget that were good.

For the first time in many years, the municipalities have had somebody at least listen to their problems. I believe that has to be noted. The Treasurer did a little in firming up transfer payments and in addressing a little more money to municipalities. He seems to have discovered that school boards have had problems building schools for a long time. Somebody has to address himself to that, and he did.

The people I know who work in municipal government and on school boards are saying it is a good idea, but that it is not really enough to make much of a difference. None the less, let us give him a pat on the back for at least understanding that there is a problem. A municipality that is required to file a five-year financial plan with the government also has a right to know what the government's intentions are for the next little while.

In this budget the Treasurer said, "Here is what you are going to get for the next two years." I want to applaud him for that. If he could get his act together as well as most municipal councils get theirs, he could tell them his intentions for the next five years. We had one other Treasurer, Darcy McKeough, who once made an Edmonton commitment to provide to the municipalities the five-year forecast he demanded of them, but it never made it back to Ontario. It died somewhere around Winnipeg.

I want to applaud the Treasurer for letting us win a point in principle. One can try to separate municipalities and school boards, but when one is sitting on a municipal council and putting out a tax record for the year, it does not really matter that more than half of what is being asked for in the way of taxation from the public is for a school board, although everybody I know makes sure that information is printed on the tax form. In total, it is a lot of money. They have to put out the taxes. They have to make those requests.

The Treasurer has at least acknowledged that they need to know a little more than to hear somebody make a speech this fall at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario about what the grants are going to be next spring. He has done that. They need to know that he has recognized school boards are having problems with capital costs, with building things. He has done that. They need to know that he has recognized that a lot of municipalities have been unable in a period of restraint to continue capital improvements for roads, sewers, transit systems, etc. He has recognized that.

I am not sure he has put enough money into it really to do anything about it, but he or somebody at least read the report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities that established that the inventory of street improvements, sewer improvements and all that unglamorous stuff municipalities do is suffering some problems.

The roads cannot be left alone for five or six years, as we have just done, without paying a price for it. The municipality does not have to repave or rebuild the roads this year or next year or in the third, fourth or fifth year, but by about the sixth year the roads start to deteriorate and then it has to fix them up. It seems to me the Treasurer has at least discovered that one fact.

I want to put a little hook in here in my wonderful support for the Treasurer and what he has done. It is a local one. We have gone through about a decade when the government of Ontario said something about providing GO Transit trains to Oshawa. In this budget, there is an allocation of some $60 million for transportation purposes.

We have talked long enough about the extension of the GO train to Oshawa. We went through a previous government that tried to use light rail transit. It did that dance for about three years and finally admitted it is probably cheaper, quicker and better to use heavy rail. It finally made that decision.

4:50 p.m.

If somebody such as the current Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Fulton) stands up in this House and tells me this government has reneged on that promise to provide GO trains to Oshawa, I am going to lead the revolutionary forces out front. They come in here every day on double-decker commuter trains from Pickering. There are a lot of them. We are going to be really angry if this budget, when it is finally translated, reneges on that long-standing, 10-year-old commitment on the part of the government of Ontario to provide GO trains to Oshawa, Newcastle, Whitby, Ajax and all of that area.

We are up to our eyebrows with discussions of how to do it, when to do it and what kind of vehicle we will use. We have had more than 10 years of discussions about it. We really do not want to discuss it any more. We would like it done. In as polite a way as I can, I will say, "Do it, for crying out loud."

A couple of other things need to be noted in passing. There is a discussion paper with tables in the course of this year's budgetary statement called Reforming the Budget Process. Let me add my voice to those who would say, "Is it ever about time this process got reformed."

Members will forgive me. I want to say at the beginning that I am a fan of the parliamentary system. I believe in the parliamentary process; I do not like the congressional system. I believe in and love all our parliamentary traditions, even if they are British. But the budgetary process in a traditional British parliamentary system stinks.

It is ridiculous to say that the Treasurer of Ontario retains secrecy next to his heart in the preparation of a budget so that even other members of his government do not know what he is going to do until he stands up and starts his speech on budget night. That is crazy in this day and age. It is crazy that no group of parliamentarians from this Legislature gets to look at budgetary policies before moneys are spent.

I welcome his proposal in here to do something like that, to have a charged-up finance committee that would look at budgetary policies in general. It seems to me it would be an extremely useful exercise to have things such as employment trends and some generation of information around various parts of the economy, on what is going and what is not going, and a discussion of options on a broad base that would give the Treasurer some information.

Just stop and think for a moment, Mr. Speaker. It is ridiculous that, in preparing for a budget, every Treasurer for the last 20 or 30 years has sat down and talked about it with groups such as the chamber of commerce and the Ontario Federation of Labour, but no Treasurer in all that time has bothered to sit down and talk about it, even in general terms, with a committee of this Legislature. Everybody is consulted about it except us.

That is crazy, quite frankly. Some of us have come, for example, from municipal experience, where a budget starts being open on day one. Everybody is involved; everybody has a chance to propose things and to argue about what is in and what is out of the budget. It is virtually all done under public scrutiny in the eye of the public. One makes one's choices and has one's arguments.

To come here and say the province cannot do the same thing is ridiculous. Of course it can. Of course we can establish a committee such as the one discussed in this little reform process. As chairman of the standing committee on procedural affairs and agencies, boards and commissions, I hope to have in front of the House shortly some changes in how we operate our committee system here that would enhance this kind of idea and that would allow a committee of the Legislature to have that kind of information flow.

When one looks at the Mother of Parliaments, they are not nearly so old-fashioned at Westminster as we are at Queen's Park. It is ridiculous that we nurture a myth around the preparation of a budget. It is not just quaint but wrong. It is wrongheaded in spirit and dumb to boot.

There are good things about the way the Treasurer has put together his budget, but let me try to nail down for members one or two things I think are not good. I know that the way to get off the hook on this is to say, "We will see you in the spring and we will be able to tell then whether we have really taken enough initiative."

I believe it is sad in this day and age, when the statistics are really in on the number of Canadians, Ontario residents, who are living at or below the poverty level, to table a budget in here which does not in a serious way, in my judgement, address itself to their problems.

I read some of the lines in here and I am not clear what the budget really means about reforming things such as shelter allowances. I do not know what that means; I await the detail of all of that. I do know one of the problems we have in dealing with people who are poor, who are out of work, who are unemployable is that a broad, general amount of money to help those people sometimes does not reflect local conditions.

To be a little more specific, if I lived in certain parts of Ontario and was able to get relatively cheap housing, the amount of money I might get, for example, on a disability pension might be sufficient. If I move to the city of Toronto and am not able to get some form of subsidized housing, probably my entire cheque is used up in providing housing.

There is that distinction to be made. If one reads between the lines, that is kind of where the Treasurer of Ontario is going, but he does not go there. He simply points out an area where he might move. I would urge him over the winter months to give some serious consideration to a number of things.

There are people living in this province, supposedly assisted by the government of Ontario, who cannot survive. That is clear to me. There are people in this province who are paying the price, unfortunately, for a government that decided in 1978 and 1979 to stop building socially assisted housing. Some building has continued. In my area, everybody loves senior citizens, so socially assisted housing for senior citizens has been built by three or four church groups. There are problems about the rent level, but we have to admit that the housing has been built.

It seems that in my area, nobody -- no church group -- wants to take on single-parent families, because nobody has come forward to use any of the government programs to build that kind of housing. Nobody, it seems, is terribly interested in people who might have a physical or mental handicap. Nobody, it seems, is interested in some other groups that might be around but do not fit these neat classifications.

I think it is fine; I love senior citizens too, but there are others in my community who have a need for socially assisted housing, and we have not built a stick of it for them in almost a decade. That is wrong, and the next budget is going to have to address itself to that.

I could read the arguments in here where this budget tries to identify that kind of area, but I do not have any hope that it is going to happen. I wish I did, but I do not. Again, I know there is recognition of a problem. There are programs being cranked up to point the government in that direction, but no one can make me believe that over this winter anybody is going to build a whole lot of housing for those folks. That is not going to happen. It will be, unfortunately, a long, cold winter.

I have to say that almost every day now, somebody calls my office who is in a tragic situation. I had one again last night. A young mother with one child and nobody to support them is going to be out of her apartment by Friday. What do we have in my community to offer this woman? There is a chance to stay at the Young Women's Christian Association. It has some rooms it lets to young women with families for three or four days.

If that were a young man with a child, we do not have any place for them. If it were a drunk lying on the sidewalk, I could take him to the men's hostel, which we have, but we do not have any socially assisted housing for single-parent families led by a male.

Again, it is the kind of classification system our society is using that is a little screwy here. If people are poor, it does not matter a hell of a lot to them whether they are young poor people, old poor people, male or female poor people. If people are poor, they have no money and they need some help. The fact is that society says: "If you are a senior, we like you; we have built some housing for you and we will help you. But if you are young, a single-parent mother or someone in a similar position, we do not care to deal with you just now."

These people are there in my office and they need some help, and this budget does not do very much for them at all. If we want to be kind about it, the budget identifies areas where things have to be done and takes some feeble, tentative initial steps in that direction. I am saying that is okay for now. I understand all the constraints this government is under, all the pressures and the time frame. We still have ministers who are not sure what being a minister of the crown really is all about; I understand that. I did not think we would see the new world in here.

We have put most of our concerns into a little document called the accord, and if we get out the accord and match it up with this budget, it sort of matches. The one major exception would be the one that has been discussed at some length here today, and that is the gasoline tax. I think what has happened here is very simply that we have a new Treasurer in Ontario who is trying to do some things in new and different ways. I applaud him for all of those and I have tried to put those things on the record this afternoon.

5 p.m.

At the same time, he grew up around here in a whole political attitude in which the Treasurer of Ontario wanted to be as sly and sneaky as possible. In this province we are accustomed to a budget that says taxes were not raised, but Ontario health insurance plan premiums were; we did not do this, but we lowered exemptions; we did not fire people, but we put them in a straight program that caused them a lot of pain; we know there is a problem, but we did not do anything. Those have been the cutesy-pie notions on the part of the Treasury.

In his initiative around the ad valorem tax on gasoline, this Treasurer got a little cutesy-pie as well; so he is able to engage in a splendid political debate each day which goes roughly like this: Someone on the opposition side asks why the tax on gasoline was raised. The Treasurer will say: "I did not raise it very much. You should be so pleased when the pain stops. If you do not give me that, I will leave the ad valorem tax on."

I would have been most pleased if the Treasurer had said: "I think the ad valorem concept is a wrong one. I am taking it off the books. We should replace it with a fixed-rate tax. Here it is at exactly the same level as the ad valorem taxation rate is now." For this budget, that would have established the principle I think he wants to establish, that we should not put automatic taxation processes in place.

I recall joining with the Treasurer in that argument on many occasions when we said that the ad valorem concept was a sneaky, underhanded way to tax people and that governments should not do that. Governments have to tax people, we all recognize that, but they should at least have guts enough to tell people when they are being taxed. That is what is wrong with the ad valorem idea. When the previous government introduced it, it decided it would like a really sneaky, automatic increase system. That is what an ad valorem tax is. It has nothing to do with Latin. It has to do with sneakiness. That is the purpose of the exercise.

This Treasurer did himself a disservice when he tried to be a little devious -- to use a polite word, maybe even a parliamentary one -- around that process. If he had brought forward a budget that had said, "We are just shifting this thing from ad valorem into a fixed rate and here is the bill, away you go," I would have been happy. Now I think he has created a bit of a problem for himself -- a political problem in the first instance in that he may lose the budget bill, although we do not know that yet, but also a problem in credibility.

The Treasurer has gone to some length to create the image that he is interested in opening up the budgetary process by providing people with more information and by letting members of the Legislature be part of the preparation and approval process of a budget. In large measure he has done that. He did himself a disservice when he tried to throw this slight curve ball into the routine. I would ask him to rethink that.

He went a long way down the road towards providing us with some kind of publicly identifiable budgetary process. That is good stuff. Why louse it up with a tax increase of 0.4 cents per litre? It is unnecessary and a little silly, if I may be forgiven for saying so; and this is from a Treasurer who is not given to a whole lot of silliness.

I read the comments on the Treasurer's performance, the presentation and all that. It was interesting because there was a lot that suggested this is a Treasurer from rural Ontario -- a tightfisted, frugal person, not too sophisticated. I would like to meet those reporters and sell them some swamp land in Florida.

The Treasurer may come from a rural part of the province but he is no rube, let me assure all of us who watch him. This is a shrewd politician at work. He knows when things are getting so serious in here that we ought to have a little favourite story of times past, quaint tales of politics in Ontario over the past 40 years, what is happening in South Dumfries tonight or what is going on at the Shell station. When things get hot, we can count on an anecdote. He has millions of them. I have not heard them all; I hope to in the next 20 years or so. This is a shrewd person, an astute politician who knows what he is doing.

[Applause]

Mr. Breaugh: There is no need to get excremental about it. I am just saying he does some things right.

I believe his proposals to change the process are really important. If they are adopted, they will get us to a point where this House will finally have a budgetary process that may not be the best in the world but at least makes sense and has some logic to it. We are headed in that direction. We will need to do whatever we can to enhance that process.

I accept the limitations of time, knowledge, staff and experience and all of that which might have given this budget a somewhat rushed appearance around the edges. Not everything was thought out as thoroughly as it might have been. I understand all that. In my remarks today, I tried to point out the areas where I thought the Treasurer had at least discovered what the problems were.

In closing, I do not believe the Treasurer has provided very much in the way of solutions here. It will take a great deal of work to pursue his initiatives on housing, adjustments to payments to people who need assistance, job creation, transit and dealing with municipalities and school boards.

I applaud him for having the astuteness to take the Suncor deal and write it off. That is a shrewd political move. If somebody comes in next week and offers him $1.95 for Suncor, he can say: "We wrote that off last week and we got $1.95 this week. We are up $1.95." Before, somebody would have said, "You are losing $200 million." There is political shrewdness in here.

I am not sure he is going to be so shrewd when he gets to the land assets. I do not know what the Treasurer is going to do with the tree farm in eastern Ontario. All these things were hallucinations of a previous Treasurer. I do not know what he is going to do with the nonairport land in North Pickering. The lawyers have been to court and made fortunes from that. It has been a tremendous employment opportunity for young lawyers. It has made careers for ombudsmen. All of that has made great television journalism as well. The Treasurer is going to have a little trouble with that.

When he says he is going to end the Ontario Economic Council, that is hardly a dramatic move. There is not very much there in the way of a plus. My committee, the standing committee on procedural affairs and agencies, boards and commissions, happens to have reviewed that agency. We thought they were nice people and did good work, but we could not see much of a relationship between what they did and what the Ontario Legislature ever did. Frankly, to summarize it unfairly, I do not think they could either.

They were just nice folks who were studying things, which is good. There is nothing wrong with studying things.

There are lots of initiatives in here that may be significant in the long run if the Treasurer opens up the process. In the long run, that is a really good move. If the Treasurer takes the short steps in here around matters like housing and employment, develops them into full-fledged programs that really help people over the winter and comes back in the spring session with a dramatic change in budgetary process and some initiatives that actually do something, we will all be happy.

The problem is that we are now left looking at something that has touched all the bases but has not moved them anywhere. That is where the Treasurer has left us with this budget. He has identified problems. He has made some symbolic gestures and he should be applauded for those.

To put it into perspective, I have watched Treasurers in here do the same dumb things for 10 years now. This is at least a Treasurer who acknowledges that some of those things are dumb and one should not do those any more. One has to give him credit for that, but the challenge is before him. The challenge is that we are living in a time when our economy, whether we like it or not, is changing dramatically every day, all around us -- for young people, old people and people who have established jobs now but who are not too sure they are going to be there tomorrow.

I say that coming from an economic climate in Oshawa where there has been a pretty dramatic renewal of our auto industry. Our employment rates have not fallen dramatically, but each time I go into the union hall or plant, people are worried that a strange thing called automation is coming into the plant. Weird things like robots are being used in there. They do not know whether they are going to be working on this line today, that line tomorrow and no line the following week.

They have lived through a lengthy period -- and it is continuing -- when what they thought was a well-paid industrial job disappeared on them overnight. It continues to happen every day, even in a plant that is undergoing considerable investment and considerable change. That anxiety has to be addressed by the Treasurer in his next budget.

5:10 p.m.

I want to conclude by commending the Treasurer for the feeble, tentative, initial steps he took in here and by encouraging him to take these long winter months to develop them so that when we look at a statement by the Treasurer in a spring budget next year, we can say he accomplished something. He will have had a winter to think about it, a long time to sort the bugs out of the system. He will have had almost a year to get his ministers ready for the concept of being ministers of the crown and to develop programs of their own, not just reruns of what a previous government did.

I am encouraging him, begging him, to take the time now at his disposal to think through that process. If he comes back here in the spring with another two steps sideways and one step forward, I will be disappointed.

Mr. Cousens: Get ready to be disappointed.

Mr. Breaugh: l have been disappointed for 10 years, and I am prepared to give these people another six months until I express my disappointment again.

To sum up, there is a little envelope of time within which this hope and the aspirations we all have for some change in the province may be realized. We are not going overboard in our praise of this budget, but we are trying to recognize that there are some good things in it, as there have been good things in every other budget I have seen. We have tried to find them, but it is not yet fulfilled.

The government and the Treasurer still have a large job ahead of them over the winter. We will try to assist them in that job by pointing out where we think they have not quite found the mark yet; for example, where they have housing programs based on the right idea but without enough flux in them to make them work. We are mindful that the problems are not small in nature, but large. That is about all I have to say about this budget.

Mr. Knight: I am privileged to have the opportunity to participate in this budget debate. I am privileged because this is a historic budget, the first Liberal budget in 42 years --

Interjections.

Mr. Knight: Contrary to the hope of many people in the opposition, it is the first of many. I am also privileged because this budget is totally supportable. It is one I totally support, and I am sure it will be supported by all progressive thinkers in this House. This budget is progressive and responsible. There are many new and enhanced programs presented in a framework of fiscal responsibility. It is fair and responsible, and it accurately reflects the true state of Ontario's financial affairs.

This government should be highly commended for introducing one-time measures such as discharging the Suncor debt, restoring the advances to the school boards and correcting the unfunded commitments of the former government. Overnight, this government has brought good management principles and practices to government, keeping a clear, concise set of books, spending money efficiently and dealing responsibly with our partners.

The Treasurer's decision to remove from the province's financial statements the more than $2 billion in assets that do not represent any real value, other than to record financial obligations the province owes itself, is welcome and long overdue. The Provincial Auditor has been commenting on this since 1979. It has always been an anomaly that the province should be supplying the funds to make payments on the loans it has made.

I also welcome the decision to assume the excess debt load of municipalities with respect to water treatment and waste control facilities, where such facilities were built by the province at costs far greater than the capabilities of these municipalities, but these adjustments must continue to be done on a periodic basis as market conditions necessitate.

On a specific basis, the decision to ultimately divest ourselves of our interest in Suncor and to buy out or retire the debt on this investment was necessary. It was a bad investment. I never could follow the former government's logic in acquiring the shares in the first place. I know several members of the government of the day did not agree with the acquisition. The fact that current market interest in the shares is low or nil, and certainly reflects a much lower valuation than the acquisition price, shows the purchase in 1981 was a bad deal.

Likewise, the Treasurer's decision to sell off Ontario Land Corp. holdings, where appropriate and as market conditions permit, will generate revenue and bring land into the ownership of private interests. I have never felt the province should be involved in land banking to the extent that the former government was.

Mr. Callahan: They speculated in a lot of things.

Mr. Knight: They did, and that speculation led them to make land purchases at prices higher than their current appraised value. As a result, the writing down of land holdings to reflect current market conditions was necessary. I think as much of the land as possible should be sold to private interests when and where appropriate.

I would like to spend some time on the program funding announced in the budget. In particular, I am pleased with the training and employment program for youth. I have heard criticisms, even this afternoon, that nothing was done for the jobless over age 25. However, I suggest this government's Futures program places the emphasis on the age group that comprises far and away the largest portion of our unemployed. It is only by placing emphasis on direct job creation and educational upgrading that we will be able to contribute to the ability of these people to hold and retain jobs when they are older.

As I emphasized in the campaign, this government's job creation plans, which are now being implemented, benefit both business and employees. Funds are provided only when a new job is created, which is unlike the former government's trickle-down theory. I could never understand why it was not obvious that under the former government's plan, there was no assurance that grants would directly result in jobs. When new jobs are created, as 230,000 will be over the next year, business prospers and our entire economy prospers. In my riding of Halton-Burlington, new jobs are needed, and I am confident this program will help create them.

For those youths who are not employment disadvantaged, but rather are securing a postsecondary education, the increase in the Ontario student assistance program and a four per cent cap on tuition fees will help.

As a former municipal councillor in Milton, I appreciate the fact that the Treasurer has seen fit to signal to the municipalities and school boards the amount of their transfer payments for next year and indeed, in the case of municipalities, the amount for the year after.

I share with the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) his thoughts that the budget process of the municipalities is better. When I say that, I mean better in the sense that they are open to the public in large part throughout the budget process, and I will speak about the Treasurer's discussion paper later.

In particular, I am delighted with the school capital support funding, both public and separate. In Halton-Burlington, the separate school board is faced with an extreme overcrowding situation, not caused by the funding extension but by normal growth. That board was pleased with the Treasurer's announcement and I am sure will be dialoguing with the ministry.

I am pleased to see programs announced to provide affordable rental housing, socially assisted where necessary. I am further encouraged to see that private developments will be encouraged with interest-subsidized loans. Rental accommodation is not available in many areas of this province, and I look forward to announcements by the Minister of Housing to address this problem.

A problem in my riding of Halton-Burlington, as in many other areas of the province, is the lack of affordable day care spaces. I appreciate the announcement that the 10,000 new subsidized day care spaces will be given priority in underserviced and rural areas.

The new level of health care funding is especially welcome to me, providing as it does increased opportunities for the Milton District Hospital, the Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital and the Georgetown and District Memorial Hospital to continue their excellent services to the community and I shope, to expand areas of health service that are of concern to my constituents.

I know the farmers in the old Nassagaweya, Esquesing, Nelson and Trafalgar townships area of my riding and all over Ontario will recognize that the longtime Liberal commitment to the farming community has been addressed in this budget. Indeed, I noticed a news release from the Minister of Agriculture and Food which indicates that agriculture's share of Ontario's budget has climbed to nearly $400 million, an increase of 21 per cent from last year's expenditure.

5:20 p.m.

We have addressed the problem of low cash receipts and heavy debt load with the Ontario family farm interest rate reduction program. We will assist farmers leaving the industry with a $6-million transition fund and provide $20 million as our share of a tripartite stabilization fund for red meat producers.

It would be nice if a lot of other equally good programs could be introduced at this time, but all of these measures cost money. I feel this budget is a realistic one that maximizes the important social and economic commitments outlined by the Premier in July in a manner that minimizes the cost to the taxpayer.

The tax measures outlined in the budget simply reflect the reality that the cost pressures of providing the existing and proposed services exceed the existing revenue structure. I unequivocally support the necessity of improving the fairness and equity in Ontario's tax system. I am pleased that, as a result of the province's tax reduction program, 350,000 low-income Ontarians will pay no provincial income tax and a further 40,000 will have their taxes reduced. It is my hope that the federal government will proceed with the introduction of a minimum personal income tax and I feel that a parallel program should then be introduced in Ontario. I would like to refer to the discussion paper the Treasurer tabled with the budget. The paper, Reforming the Budget Process, is appropriate for a government committed to openness. The bold suggestion that prebudget consultations no longer be in camera between the Treasurer and interested parties, but rather through the mechanism of a standing committee, is a welcome proposal. Recommendations from such a committee on economic and fiscal issues could be provided to the government as input into the development of the budget. Besides allowing for public participation, it would provide for all party involvement in the budget process, which heretofore has occurred only after the budget has been tabled.

As indicated by the Treasurer in this discussion paper, before the budget process is broadened and opened as outlined previously, it will be necessary for the Legislature to establish guidelines regarding budget secrecy. Such guidelines can be established to allow for wider public discussion and debate. I hope the discussion paper will receive the consideration and input needed to open up the budget process.

This budget clearly illustrates this government's priorities: youth programming, agricultural enhancements, regional initiatives, job creation and the development of a fair, open and farsighted partnership with local municipalities and those who deliver major education and health services. This budget is equitable, responsible and supportable because it brings to this province a new social compact based on openness and fiscal responsibility that will go a long way towards meeting the needs of all citizens of this province.

Mr. Sheppard: It is indeed a pleasure for me to say a few words from the great riding of Northumberland. The people of the great riding of Northumberland are very disappointed by this budget and I am going to make a few comments about why they are disappointed.

The Treasurer's first budget carries at least $600 million worth of broken promises, and that, to me, is a major disappointment. No one expected the Liberal government to fulfil all its promises in the first budget, but the members of this party and the people of Ontario expected it to do more than this budget proposes.

I sympathize with the people of the north. Nowhere in the budget do we see the promised $20 million in $100 tax credits for northern families, increased funding for northern schools, hospitals and day care, seasonally adjusted hydro rates, or equalized milk and gasoline prices. After all, the people in the north should drink more milk because the people in southern Ontario produce 88 per cent of it.

The only promise the Liberals did deliver was the commitment to subsidize travel expenses for health care purposes. This apparent concession comes not a moment too soon, because the increased tax on motor vehicle and aviation fuel will have a more serious impact because of the greater distances involved.

While on the topic, I should say that by eliminating the ad valorem tax the party managed to keep an election promise while at the same time introducing another form of tax which is higher. The minister was cunning because had it remained an ad valorem tax the tax would have come down, thus not ensuring a constant tax return.

Ontario motorists suffer twofold in this budget. They suffer not only through increased gas taxes but also through drivers' licence fees which are up 60 per cent and registration fees that are up 15 per cent.

This budget completely ignores the Liberal commitment to freeze Ontario health insurance plan premiums, let alone phase them out over a five-year period. It is another broken election promise. As members are aware, when this party was in power, it committed itself to a freeze in OHIP premiums and to an increase in premium assistance.

Senior citizens must also be disappointed by the failure of the government to establish the denticare program it promised during the spring election campaign. It was very nice, however, that the promise to create 10,000 day care spaces will be honoured because the truth is that 7,500 were promised by the Progressive Conservative government.

It appears this year is not a good one for farmers as they have been forgotten by the new administration. The only assistance available to them, other than the programs introduced earlier by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, seems to be to leave farming. Surely Ontario farmers deserve more than this. Whatever happened to the Liberal promise to spend one per cent of the tobacco tax revenues to develop new products and alternative crops? Whatever happened to the pledge to double the agriculture budget to two per cent of expenditures? This budget literally encourages farmers to bail out while they still can and it certainly does not provide any initiatives to potential young farmers.

I was dismayed that the environment sectors were completely ignored at a time when most individuals are expressing deep concern over our depleting and deteriorating natural resources. The $30-million superfund to clean up toxic waste sites is yet another election promise unfulfilled in this budget.

We have yet to hear about programs that will encourage private developers to provide 5,000 rental housing units, at the same time creating 30,000 new jobs, when affordable rental housing is another critical issue. The minister's budget is very vague. How many private developers have already announced their decisions not to build any rental accommodation in 1986 due to recent uncertainties concerning housing? Furthermore, 10,000 units over the next three years is a far cry from the April promise of 14,000 in the Liberals' first year of government.

Now that the Treasurer has seen fit to raise Ontario's general rate of personal income tax by two per cent, it is possible that we may see an increase in the retail sales tax in the future spring budget -- if we have a budget in the spring.

I am certain we are not the only disappointed members. I strongly suspect the members of the third party are also extremely uneasy over this budget.

An issue fundamental to the New Democratic Party that was never mentioned is equal pay for equal work. As indicated earlier, the 10,000 new nonprofit housing units in the first year of government, as well as the $73 million in environmental commitments, are just two more broken promises made during the concept of NDP-Liberal accord.

In summary, this budget is unacceptable because it fails to provide programs for victims of family violence or of other kinds. It ignores the plight of farmers throughout Ontario when more incentive programs should be established. This budget fails to provide for the preservation of the environment and resources. Women are completely forgotten in this budget. The upgrading programs, new skills training initiatives and equal pay for work of equal value are nonexistent.

Furthermore, this budget increases the deficit and jeopardizes the financial stability of the province. As mentioned last Friday by my colleague the member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. McCague), this party cannot express confidence in the budgetary policies of this government and we will wait to see whether the government brings in a better budget in five months' time.

5:30 p.m.

Mr. Callahan: I am very pleased to rise and speak on what my colleague from Halton indicated is a historic budget. When one looks at a historic budget, one has to look at what has gone on in the past. We hear a great deal about the things that have not been done. There is no question but that within Ontario, great ills have been fostered over the years by various steps that were taken by the government that reigned for 42 years.

Since housing seems to be of grave concern, and surely should be of grave concern to the people of this province, what was most notable was the phasing out or complete obliteration of the home ownership made easy program, which was probably one of the best programs ever introduced into this province with regard to getting people into affordable housing.

With one stroke of the pen, or perhaps the issuance of the writ for that election, the entire plan was annihilated. I think it was in 1975, or perhaps 1981. If that was the action of a responsible government, I am dumfounded. That is one example of things that have gone on in the past and have resulted in a situation in Ontario that has to be resurrected by the Liberals. That is exactly what our government is doing. It is resurrecting all the sins of the past and it is trying to cure them. One cannot cure them all in one fell swoop.

I suggest that the Treasurer brought in a very fair and open budget. This was probably the first time the members have had an opportunity to follow along with the budget. That represents more than just a symbol of the openness of this government. It represents an appeal to the people of this House to try to join together to look at the positive aspects of the budget and the direction in which it is going.

I believe tradition says the official opposition is to oppose, but surely to heaven that does not mean that when one looks at the measures that are in this budget one has to continually object and put them down. On numerous occasions during question period, the Premier has invited the members on the other side of the House to give us their ideas and to assist us. Let us try to put it together. Let us try to put this province together.

Surely to heaven if we were sitting down to work out a budget in our family and there was $100 coming in, we would not spend $200. We would ask for the benefit of the advice of other members of the family. Surely that is what we have in this province; we have problems. I see young people every day between the ages that are provided for in the Futures program who wander around aimlessly without jobs and get themselves into trouble. They usually wind up seeing me and then wind up in the courts. It costs us endless amounts of dollars. Forget about the dollars -- it is the human loss; it is the human treadmill these people get on because they do not have jobs.

I suggest this budget addresses that front and centre. The programs introduced by the Minister for Skills Development (Mr. Sorbara) are excellent. This is the first time I have seen steps taken in attempting to get those people back into the mainstream of employment and off the treadmill. They are steps that have to be taken to bring back the members of Ontario society and get them out of the problem of lack of employment. If we get them employment, they then can afford appropriate accommodation. I suggest that is one step, a giant step, that has been taken.

It is interesting that the Ministry of Northern Affairs and Mines should be changing to a new name, the Ministry of Northern Development. That is exactly what the $100 million will be used for -- development. The minister is inviting the ministers and other members of this House to travel to the north and to learn something about it. That is a very positive step. In the past, it is my understanding the north has been represented by one member in a cabinet position, the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier).

Interjection.

Mr. Callahan: Have there been more than that?

An hon. member: Yes, many more.

Mr. Callahan: All right.

In any event, in the past we have failed to invite the opposition to join us in a partnership, to travel to the north to determine what can happen to that $100 million. There are great prospects, great possibilities for that.

When I look at my own riding of Brampton, one of the fastest growing ridings in Ontario, I see the problems that have existed for the last eight years in hospital funding and the problems that have accrued as a result of the enlargement of the population and the lack of school facilities. I suggest they have been addressed in a framework in which they have not been addressed in the past, as far as I know.

This government has also taken a realistic approach to the question of budgets for municipalities. The Treasurer has had enough foresight to indicate to the municipality the increase it will receive in the year beyond this, so that it can plan and budget. It will not overspend. It will not be anticipating greater benefits. It will be able to bring its fiscal house in order.

I would submit that the budget itself not only looks at the framework of problems with the unemployed and youth, it also looks at the question of enhancing our educational institutions, which for a long time have been neglected. Universities have been faced with the situation of not being able to replace much needed equipment and also update to bring them into the future, into the 21st century.

In the past, we have found seniors have been lumped in a predicament with other people of a different stripe and did not have their own personal ministry. This has been established by our government. Now $11 million has been granted to seniors on an annual basis to strengthen their position; to assist them in that regard. There is a resource that we have neglected sorely. The government of the past has made every move with respect to trying to package these people and put them away. This government is encouraging them, through increased funding and the establishment of a specific ministry, and saying to them, "We need your help, advice and wealth of experience." I suggest that will be forthcoming.

On the question of the income tax increase, we all recognize that the cost of living gets greater for all of us every year. The cost of government does also. If we are to provide all the services all of the people in the House wish to provide, we must have the money to do it, so we have to increase income tax. I doubt there are many Ontarians who would be upset with that fact if they recognize their own household budgets require some type of increase each year to keep them going.

As well, one of the most refreshing aspects of this budget is the fact it has been approached in a businesslike fashion. The Treasurer and the cabinet have gone into this budget as though they were buying a business. They have written off assets that were uncollectable. They have reduced prices to their realistic values. That is a step towards a responsible future way of budgeting. One cannot continue to carry items on the books at an inflated value and play smoke and mirrors with the people of Ontario. That is one of the most wholesome aspects and perhaps one of the things that immediately jumps out at someone who looks at this budget. There was a fair and honest approach taken.

5:40 p.m.

With respect to the question of the retail sales tax, everybody jumps on the question of a meal under a dollar. I am not certain whether it has been picked up in this House, because when the Treasurer has tried to tell the opposition the amount of money this has cost the province there has been so much noise over there that one could not hear him. However, that represents some $34 million in retail sales tax, which means there must be a great number of meals being taken for under a dollar; certainly coffees, candy bars, etc., and perhaps even the Danish the member for York Centre (Mr. Cousens) tried to give the Treasurer.

Mr. Eakins: There used to be a $6 exemption, and those fellows took it off.

Mr. Callahan: That is right.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Brampton has the floor.

Mr. Callahan: The elimination of several corporations that had absolutely no function whatsoever is an upfront move. It is an attempt to bring the budgetary process into a reliable document that can be counted on not only by the people of Ontario but also by people we deal with in respect to credit ratings. This is a fresh approach to the entire process.

All in all, the budget itself attempts to address the problems that farmers are having as well.

Mr. Villeneuve: "Attempts" is right.

Mr. Callahan: I would suggest to the member that, in recognition of the difficult economic times they are in, steps have been taken in those directions where they will be of assistance to the farmers, and there will be continued assistance for farmers, I would think, in future budgets. But at least it is being done; at least the position is being taken. At the other end of the spectrum, we try to do things here and the federal government in Ottawa does somewhat the opposite. It is simply not a co-operative measure; it does not result in positive effects.

The Treasurer's suggestion of investigating through Ottawa the return to some benefits to this province for capital gains is a good one. The night I heard about the $500,000 exemption in the federal budget to taxpayers on capital gain, I literally almost left and returned to the executive suite to get sick. If that is not an affront to the majority of Canadians in this country who are not in a position to take advantage of it, I do not know what is. It was like Robin Hood stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.

When the Treasurer introduced a hope that we would be able to regain the approximately $125 million that is lost to the citizens of this province, it was a move that I suggest was fair, open and above board. I would think it would be applauded not only by Canadians who perhaps are near the line where they can take advantage of that capital gain benefit but by all Canadians. I do not think Canadians particularly like the idea of feeling that there are people who are have-nots in this province while they have particular tax programs that give them significant benefits.

There are Canadians who, even though the tax benefits are there for them, feel a bit queasy about the fact that there are bag ladies on the street and there are people who are unable to afford accommodation, who enter into situations such as some of the people in my riding do, where we have to put a woman and her five kids up in a hotel because there are no accommodations.

The Treasurer has addressed that as well in a sensitive fashion. He has provided for the establishment of 10,000 units of low-cost housing, and they are very sorely needed. I would submit as well that this need must reflect the slowdown or the total inactivity in the building of these accommodations in the past.

In my riding alone I am embarrassed to answer the phone. It is even worse than that. I feel a great moral outrage when people call me on the phone who are unable to be accommodated with a decent roof over their heads and have to be accommodated in a hotel. We have gone a long way. The Treasurer in his budget has been fair in making a start -- I would suggest it is a start -- towards accommodating those people.

In addition to that, effort has been put into establishing rental accommodations, which clearly are necessary in this province, through the introduction of the 5,000 units that are going to be assisted financially. This is an attempt and a genuine effort towards sensitivity to the needs of the renters of this province.

The creation of an excellence fund for the university is a recognition of the commitment made during the election that we were concerned about the people in our universities and the education they could receive. The commitment to not increasing their tuition fees beyond the point set out in the budget is an effort to say to our young people: "We wish you to go to university. We recognize the economic climate in which you are carrying out your university education. We recognize that you had difficulty in getting jobs during the summer and, therefore, we are not going to put an additional burden on you."

That is a very sensitive approach to the question of a budget. This historic budget is a sensitive one that attempts to recognize the needs of those Canadians who are facing difficulties, whether it be in the educational system or the housing system, in the question of balancing their own budgets.

It is a budget that is not only historic in that it is the first Liberal budget in 42 years, but in the degree of sensitivity that has been put into it with a view to creating a budget that all Ontarians can look at, and perhaps Canadians in other provinces can look at, as a very sensitive and humane budget.

Mr. Runciman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: In the normal rotation, I think the New Democratic Party would have spoken before the member for Brampton (Mr. Callahan). They declined to do so. I want the record to note that. That is another nail in their coffin as a credible opposition.

The Deputy Speaker: That is not an appropriate point of order.

Mr. Warner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: We attempted to accommodate the members in proportion to the caucuses so there would be no --

The Deputy Speaker: That is not a legitimate point of order either. Does any other speaker wish to participate in this debate? The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere.

Mr. Warner: Like other members, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the budget debate.

Hon. Mr. Eakins: Is the member going to resign?

Mr. Warner: I would not resign, simply because the member opposite would be very disappointed. I am not one who likes to bring disappointment into people's lives. The member knows that and the Speaker knows that.

I wish to deliver this speech in two parts, the good things and the bad things.

Mr. Allen: And in two languages?

Mr. Warner: No, not in two languages, I have trouble enough with one.

I want to start with the good things. Most members, if they are being honest with themselves as well as with others, will admit that in all things in which we participate around here there are positive things and negative things. To think we live in a simplistic world where all things are either totally bad or totally good is silly; it is not reality. The reality is that there are some good things about the budget and some bad things. Let me start with the good things.

One of the things that appealed to me was the language that was used in the budget. It was understandable; it was in plain English. That was kind of nice. There was not a lot of fancy words, not a lot of accountants' talk or lawyers' talk; it was in language that all us ordinary citizens can read and understand.

One of the things that struck me and which I thought was interesting was on page 3 of the budget statement, "Ontario's Investment in Suncor." The Treasurer could have, as was the wont of past Treasurers, indulged in some fancy language around the investment, how that occurs, what is done with the money and so on but not this Treasurer. He said: "The share purchase was financed by a $325-million cash payment through the Ontario Energy Corp. and a $325-million, 10-year, 14.357 per cent note due to the Sun Note Co. This was a bad deal."

I do not know when the last time was that a member of the House read a financial document where there was a five-word sentence and all the words were understandable. "This was a bad deal," the Treasurer said in nice, straightforward language. I understand it and my constituents understand it. There is no fancy language, and I liked it.

Mr. Sargent: Typical Tory deal.

Mr. Warner: The fact that it was a bad deal, yes. The Tories made only bad deals. They never made good deals.

There was straightforward language all the way through and a realistic presentation. Certain key terms came up all the way through it such as "realistic," "fiscally responsible," "unfortunate investment." It is a language all of us can appreciate.

What was also nice about the budget was that there were none of the nasty little hooks in it that were always present in Tory budgets.

Mr. Villeneuve: Not nasty.

Mr. Warner: Nasty is a polite word for what was evident in every Tory budget presented in this place.

Mr. Runciman: That is the government over there. The NDP members forget that all the time.

5:50 p.m.

Mr. Warner: Nastiness was always evident. The ad valorem tax was mentioned earlier by the member for Oshawa, and he was absolutely right. I question whether the ad valorem tax was really legitimate. The principle behind taxation in a parliamentary system goes back many hundreds of years to Magna Carta. That is where it all started. How does taxation come about through Magna Carta? When the people won that little battle at Runnymede, they decided they could not have taxation without legislation. The people had to have a voice in parliament before taxation could be brought about. That was what Magna Carta was all about.

That was carried forward into our country through 1867 and into our present Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is our practice, our principle and our historic presence which say that we do not impose taxes without legislation. The ad valorem tax allows an increase in taxes automatically without any reference back to the Legislature. I submit that is a wrong principle. It is not in keeping with our principles of taxation which we took many hundreds of years to establish. It is a bad principle.

Many members know that it was also a reflection on how the Conservatives viewed the Legislature. Particularly in the last half dozen years, it became evident that the Tories had nothing but disdain for the Legislature. During the four years of majority government, it became painfully evident. It was impossible to get the former Premier into the House in the last several months. He washed his hands. He did not want to be around here. He did not want to be part of this. He just disappeared.

The tax was an indication: "Why should they come into the House to debate taxes. Slap them on the people and let them pay for ever. As prices go up, taxes go up. So what? We do not feel we have any responsibility to debate taxation in the House." That was the Tory attitude -- a total lack of respect for the parliamentary system and in particular for this Legislature. It was consistent, determined and planned. This was not an accident.

I watched some of that unfold when I had the privilege of serving here before --

[Applause]

Mr. Warner: One applause is better than none. I was on sabbatical for four years. Having completed my sabbatical, I am pleased to be back here. During that period of time, from 1975 to 1981, it was quite evident to me that the Conservatives had a little plan to try to downgrade the importance of this Legislature and part of that had to do with taxes.

The Speaker will recall that one taxation move hit home very pointedly when the Tories attempted to raise Ontario health insurance plan premiums without coming to the House.

Hon. Mr. Eakins: Where is Darcy now?

Mr. Warner: He is out of work. He is in the same category as some baseball managers. He is scrounging about for work somewhere. I doubt he is going to be on the soup line, though.

Mr. Villeneuve: He needs a good union.

Mr. Wildman: I think it is called the Tory senate.

Mr. Warner: The only thing he needs is a bus ticket.

The members will recall that during the debate on the OHIP premiums there were two basic problems. One was that the Tories refused to consider this as a tax, which in fact it is. Second, they did not want to bring it to the Legislature for approval. This was some kind of measure which they could simply impose on the people of Ontario without having any regard for the parliamentary process. On both counts they were sadly mistaken about how things should happen in our parliamentary tradition.

An OHIP premium is a tax. It is a tax which is levied on individuals to pay for health care. It is a very sad sort of tax and one which is outdated and obviously needs to be discarded. I will come back to that later on in my remarks.

To set the stage, we have some good things at work here. First, the Treasurer has decided to print the budget in a language we can understand, and that is kind of nice. He did not put in nasties such as an ad valorem tax. In the previous Tory budget, they decided they would tax feminine hygiene products, which was obviously a very unwarranted and nasty thing to do. The Treasurer stayed away from those sorts of things and for that he should be applauded.

[Applause]

Mr. Warner: Not a lot of applause, just some. The other thing I like about it is contained in the accompanying document called Reforming the Budget Process, A Discussion Paper. What the Treasurer has in mind is certainly in keeping with what has been discussed in the august standing committee on procedural affairs and agencies, boards and commissions. That committee has been discussing how we can open up the process.

It is essential for several things to happen in the budgetary process. I am watching the clock, but I have to complete this point. The budgetary process has to be opened up so that members of the assembly have the opportunity, regardless of the party to which they belong, to make positive contributions to the budget process, suggestions on what things could happen.

I would like to see an opportunity for the general public to be involved in some meaningful way in that dialogue as well. Why can we not hear from the general public as to what items they think should be included in the budget? That should not be viewed as threatening to the government. Because they hear ideas, it does not mean they are obligated to accept all of those ideas, or any of them for that matter, but there is at least an opportunity for the public to voice its concerns about the kinds of things it would like. That breaks away from the secrecy that has cast such a pall over this chamber for so long.

Mr. Speaker, as you have noted, the general public was not informed I was on the speakers' list, so I wish to adjourn the debate.

The Deputy Speaker: You will resume at eight o'clock. I would like to draw the members' attention to the swearing-in ceremony taking place on the great staircase.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.

29 octobre 1985