L076 - Thu 19 Dec 1985 / Jeu 19 déc 1985
RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY AMENDMENT ACT
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL AMENDMENT ACT
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY RETIREMENT ALLOWANCES ACT
WORKERS' COMPENSATION AMENDMENT ACT
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)
Resuming the debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 77, An Act to amend certain Acts respecting Residential Tenancies.
Mr. Speaker: Are there any other members wishing to participate in the debate? The member for Eglinton.
Mr. McFadden: I am very pleased to --
[Applause]
Mr. McFadden: The Christmas spirit must be reigning. Even the minister is applauding me tonight.
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to say a few brief words here tonight in connection with Bill 77.
Mr. Pierce: It should be noted that no members of the third party are here.
Mr. McFadden: I have been asked to note that no members of the New Democratic Party are with us here tonight. I do not know whether that indicates they are boycotting this debate or not supporting the bill. Those of us on this side are here in support.
Mr. D. R. Cooke: They have no interest in tenants.
Mr. McFadden: They have no interest in tenants, as the member for Kitchener says. Well said.
As I said at the outset, I am in full support of Bill 77. The only thing I would like to say, though, is that the delay in introducing this piece of legislation was extremely lengthy and bordered on the unconscionable.
Mr. Epp: We would not have had that delay if we had changed the government four years ago.
Mr. McFadden: As you will recall, Mr. Speaker, during the course of last spring the then Premier, the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller), announced that the Progressive Conservative government of the day was to go ahead and introduce legislation that would have established a rental increase ceiling of four per cent.
The election took place. Then we had the current Premier (Mr. Peterson) in August state he would confirm the four per cent ceiling. Here we are, just before Christmas, and the Minister of Housing (Mr. Curling) introduces this piece of legislation right in the middle of the Christmas rush.
Mr. Warner: Hear, hear; the Christmas spirit.
Mr. McFadden: Perhaps to be charitable, as the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere said, it is all part of the Christmas spirit.
In view of the fact that this legislation was requùed and was supported not only by our party but by the Liberal Party, and we assume by the NDP, this bill could have been introduced in the fall and would have removed a tremendous uncertainty that existed out there among tenants. Over the last several months we have had untold numbers of telephone calls, in particular from the elderly, concerned to know what their rights are and whether the four per cent ceiling was or was not going to come in.
We assured everybody that we assumed the government was going to act and that we were urging the government to act. The delay in introducing this bill into the House has created tremendous anxiety among the people who need this legislation the most, namely, senior citizens and those on fixed incomes. I do not know the reason for the delay in bringing in the bill, but I think the delay was unconscionable in the circumstances that existed in Ontario up to now and in view of the all-party support for this piece of legislation.
In an ideal world we could go to a situation where the free market would prevail in rents. It has been a while since wage and price controls came off across this country and this province. Yet this sector, which is so important to our economy, the building industry and the accommodations industry, is subject to rent control. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of affordable accommodation across this province, particularly in the large urban centres.
There are many reasons for the lack of affordable rental accommodation. In recent years, we have suffered from high interest rates that acted as a tremendous depressant on the building industry in total, let alone in the construction of rental accommodation. We have also had the factor of land prices, particularly in a city the size of Toronto.
Construction costs have shot up in recent years and have made it impossible to build buildings at a sufficiently low price to be able to afford to offer units at a low price that people on fixed incomes can afford. Rent control itself, according to the development industry, has also been a depressant in terms of the construction of new rental accommodation. Be that as it may, we have a shortage of rental accommodation at an affordable price in the Toronto area, Ottawa and other large municipalities.
One of the things it is fair to say about this whole area of rent control is that there are people living in controlled buildings who, by any standard, should not be entitled to any form of state support or state subsidy for their rent. We all probably know of people in the Toronto area or elsewhere who live in rent-controlled accommodation and who have a combined family income of $50,000, $60,0000 or $70,000 a year. It is hard to justify their rents being controlled. In many cases, their salaries are going up way in excess of the rate of inflation.
The concept and rationale behind the Residential Tenancies Act when it was introduced by the previous Progressive Conservative government, and which is supported by the current government, was the need to maintain a system of control in the rental area to take care of senior citizens and those on fixed incomes who, if they were forced to pay the going rate for apartments, would effectively be deprived of any form of housing.
In my riding, about 20 per cent of the population consists of senior citizens. A good part of those people could not afford to live in their current accommodation if rent control was removed. For many of these people, the rent, even as it is now, is a tremendous burden. I think of a number of high-rises in Eglinton riding where 50 to 60 per cent of the population consists of senior citizens. Probably half of them would be forced to vacate if their rents were doubled or tripled, as they might well be if rent controls were suddenly removed.
The four per cent ceiling is reasonable in the light of current rates of inflation, and the current system has to be maintained because it is an absolutely essential feature of social policy in this province. Having said that, I should say that in the long run, we must work towards a situation where the supply of housing of all types is sufficient so that market conditions keep prices down at a reasonable level.
Even if, at some future date, rent control was to be removed, and I cannot see that happening in the foreseeable future, we nevertheless might well have to maintain some form of state subsidy or some form of control on units occupied by senior citizens, single-parent families and those on fixed incomes.
8:10 p.m.
There is nothing more vital in our society and nothing more important to the average person than shelter. It is interesting to note that there is no control at all on increases in clothing costs, which obviously are vital to every person. Essentially, there is no control over food, which is equally vital to every person; yet we maintain a very rigid system of controls in pricing over rental accommodation.
Given the fact we do have a free enterprise economy, I think this is an area that is going to require very careful work in the years to come. Speaking for myself, I support the current legislation because it is essential for the people in society who need support the most. It is an essential part of the housing strategy that has been developed in this province over the past decade.
As the years pass, I hope we are going to be able to develop a system of housing and a confidence in the market that will allow us to create sufficient numbers of new affordable housing units so this kind of legislation may not be needed. However, given the current state, there is absolutely no doubt that it is needed, and I support it very strongly.
As I said at the outset, the only regret I have is that the amount of delay has created some very significant problems and some tremendous anxieties and concerns for a large number of people in our population, senior citizens and others, who are the people for whom we should least have been trying to create an air of uncertainty.
Mr. Gregory: I did want to have an opportunity to make a few comments on the initiatives the minister has shown with his new act, Bill 77, perhaps from a different perspective than has been heard. It might not be that much different, but it might be different.
I am one of those who happens to believe the best way to control the supply of rental housing for the general public is through free enterprise. This might be outdated. Perhaps from where the minister is sitting and from where his partners on the left are sitting, it is probably an outdated way of thinking. Perhaps I am regarded as a dinosaur because of that. However, I happen to believe it is a fact. The way one provides --
Minister, if I may have your attention, I do want to speak to you rather than to the opposition in the third party here.
Mr. Breaugh: Why do you not try talking to the Speaker?
Mr. Gregory: I am talking to the Speaker and through the Speaker to the minister, but I would like to have his attention. I do not particularly care whether the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) listens, which he probably will not.
I happen to feel very strongly that the best way to solve the housing crisis in so far as rental accommodation is concerned is through private enterprise. I guess one could interpret from what I am saying --
Mr. McClellan: That is not what your critic said. Your critic hates developers.
Mr. Gregory: Who are you?
Mr. McClellan: Your Housing critic attacked developers.
Mr. Gregory: Do you want to let me finish?
Mr. McClellan: Read your critic's speech.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Gregory: I imagined if the other party had a speaker, he would have stood up when I stood up, but he did not, therefore I had to assume they had nothing to say, which is probably the case.
I feel the proper way to solve the particular crisis we have is to encourage developers --
Mr. McClellan: Developers?
Mr. Gregory: I know, it is a naughty word; however, we should encourage them to build rental accommodation. I know in the minister's first bill in the House perhaps there is some excuse for the naiveté which he and his advisers have shown.
When one looks at this, what one finds is the majority of the initiatives lean towards rent-geared-to-income housing, public housing and this sort of thing. I am not against public housing or rent-geared-to-income housing; I do not oppose that at all. As a matter of fact, as a member of city council in Mississauga for many years, I was responsible for -- not totally responsible for but I supported -- rent-geared-to-income housing in my riding of Mississauga East. I do support it. However, it seems to me that the main thrust of this government's program is in rent-geared-to-income housing.
Mr. McClellan: Hear, hear.
Mr. Gregory: I hear "Hear, hear" from the opposition. If the third party had its way, we would have the same as they had in England and are now trying to get rid of, and that is council housing. That is exactly what they have.
Mr. McClellan: That is right. Let us hear it for Thatcherism. Here is a real Thatcherite right here.
Mr. Gregory: That is probably so. Probably there are a lot of people in this House who admire Mrs. Thatcher.
Mr. McClellan: I know the member for Mississauga East does, and that is what I admire in him. Too bad his colleagues do not agree.
Mr. Gregory: If we took a poll in this House, we would probably find more people who admire Margaret Thatcher than admire Neil Kinnock.
Mr. Speaker: What section of the bill is that on?
Mr. Gregory: Do members remember Neil Kinnock? I know I am responding to this member of the -- what do they call those people over there?
Mr. Warner: Leaders.
Mr. Gregory: The little red rump over here is causing me trouble, Mr. Speaker. The Speaker will accept my apology for responding to the little red rump over here. I really wanted to talk to the minister.
Mr. Warner: No; the member should continue his attack on the tenants.
Mr. Gregory: I have not attacked a tenant yet tonight.
Mr. Warner: No, but he is about to.
Mr. Gregory: The member should wait for it. He might enjoy it.
Mr. Warner: That is what I said.
Mr. Gregory: He might enjoy it, but he should wait for it; he should not try to pre-empt me. Let me say it and then he can react to it.
I was in the process of saying that I feel there is room to consider the fact that before perhaps 1975, 1974, 1973 -- whatever -- the developers and the private builders were doing a pretty fair job of providing rental accommodation for the people of Ontario.
Mr. McClellan: That was before rent control.
Mr. Gregory: What they are saying to me is that we brought in rent control, and we did. However, if we brought in rent control, why are they continually trying to take credit for it? I do not understand that. They all take credit for it and yet they blame us or say we brought it in. We did. I realize that rent control had to be brought in at the time it was because there had been --
Mr. Warner: Because of us.
Mr. Breaugh: You never see Margaret Thatcher collapse like this. What a wimp.
Mr. Gregory: I love to get up and speak, because it gives them so much enjoyment. They really enjoy my speeches.
I did really want to talk to the minister about this, but apparently I am going to be interrupted by the red rump over here, which will never be anything but the red rump.
Anyway, in my particular riding, if I may become more parochial, we have always had -- perhaps unlike other parts of the province; I do not know -- a reasonable relationship with the development industry, the council, the housing authorities and what have you, and that relationship has worked rather successfully in providing rental accommodation. Odd though it may seem, out in Mississauga we do not tend to look at developers and say they are bad people. They are not bad simply because they want to make a profit. I do not think "profit" is an evil word. At least, on our side of the House it is not an evil word, and perhaps on the other side of the House it is not an evil word. Perhaps down to the left here it is an evil word, but I do not see that.
If those who believed in the profit motive in this House were all to vote together, it would leave the little red rump out in left field, because they do not seem to have any regard for the profit motive at all.
To get back to my subject, I want to speak to the principle of the bill. I certainly want to do that and I am going to attempt to do it, if I get around to it.
8:20 p.m.
The profit motive is not regarded as an evil thing in Mississauga. It is regarded as something that is necessary to provide, at least in the development business, the things people need; that is to say, rental accommodation, condominiums and rent-geared-to-income units.
What we all seem to have forgotten in this issue, in this wad of paper I have been given, is the single-family home owner. I did not see any reference in this package to the single-family home owner. Perhaps that is because the minister is taking the position that they do not count. They do. He might be surprised how many singlefamily home owners there are.
The whole thrust has been towards rental. That is fine, because the minister has a problem, but he is missing the point entirely. He cannot solve this problem by throwing money at it. The government has thrown some $500 million, most of it towards the rent-geared-to-income, nonprofit type of thing.
Not all private developers are crooks, much as my friends to the left think they are. Many of them are public benefactors. They have to be motivated in such a way that they think they can build something and make a reasonable profit. First and foremost, they have to have some trust in their government.
The minister is flying on a pretty high plane right now. He thinks he has the development industry with him, but he does not. He has one or two spokesmen. He can get one or two spokesmen out of any group to say, "I represent this group." What the minister has are two or three people from the development industry who are jumping on the bandwagon. They are even putting on red ties and saying, "We support your program."
Some of the biggest apartment builders are not on his side; they do not agree with this. I can give the minister facts and figures from many of them who think this program is nothing more than a Band-Aid approach to the problem.
I am not in any way expressing opposition to the rent control program. However, the minister has gone too far. I do not see a problem. Our bill suggested that the rate of increase should be reduced to four per cent. That is fine, and I agree with that. I also do not have too much problem with the idea of now limiting increases on rents of more than $750 a month. That does not give me any problem either.
In many cases the minister is using a whitewash brush, because any increase in rent is not going to hurt a lot of the people who can afford to pay $750, although I know there are some people who are scraping to pay $750 a month and perhaps those people should have the benefit. The minister, however, is painting it all with a whitewash brush.
The one hope we had of keeping the development industry interested in building rental accommodation was the fact that nothing built after 1976 was going to be included in that. We had the chance of encouraging the development industry to build something. What the minister is attempting to do in this program, if this bill passes -- and I see no reason why it will not -- is to tell the development industry, "No matter what you do, we have got you."
Mr. McClellan: This province needs a good free enterprise party.
Mr. Gregory: I am trying to illustrate that. Why do the people to my left make their arguments and expect everybody to listen to them, but when somebody else is --
Mr. McClellan: Does the member's party not believe in free enterprise? I know deep down it believes in free enterprise.
Mr. Gregory: The member is doing what I am doing now; he is overtalking me. Why does he not listen to somebody else's argument? He may not agree with them and vote against them, but why does he not just shut up?
Mr. Speaker: Now on to Bill 77.
Mr. Gregory: I am on to it.
I am sure the members of the Liberal Party notice that when they have a point to make, these yahoos over here keep talking and yelling through it. When they talk, they get mad as hell if anybody tries to speak. They might not appreciate --
Interjection.
Mr. Gregory: I am on Bill 77, sir. Is it Bill 77 we are on?
Mr. Speaker: Yes; Bill 77.
Mr. Gregory: Thanks. I just wanted to bring myself up to date.
I do want to make these arguments, and I know my friend sitting in the back, the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Offer), is totally in agreement with what I am saying because I can see him smiling. Or is he laughing? I do not know.
At any rate, back to the bill. What I am saying to the minister is that he is missing the boat on this one. He could have included what he did; he could have reduced the increase to four per cent and he could have included everything over $750. However, his bad mistake was making it retroactive and including everything built since 1976, because anybody who has any thought of building a rental unit now will only build it with the outlook that he is going to be subject to these controls the minister has put on.
The minister may say that is fair and that these controls should be put on. However, I ask him to put himself in the position of a man who is going to invest several million dollars in constructing a building. He knows that if he builds it, he will be immediately subject to rent controls of this stringency. On the other hand, he knows he could put his money in the bank or in bonds and let it sit there and make more. What is he going to do? What will he do? I will tell him what he will not do: he will not build the rental units.
It seems to me the minister is putting his head in the sand in suggesting this looks good. It is a very populist move. He has more tenants than developers on his side. I understand that. I am a politician, and I know where he is coming from. He knows there are more tenants and they are going to stand up and applaud the Minister of Housing for doing something that benefits them. However, he is not doing anything for the good of Ontario. I tell the minister that in doing this he does not have the guts he should have.
Mr. Breaugh: We are getting close to imputing motives.
Mr. Gregory: I was not imputing; I stated it. I am not trying to insult the minister; I know he is doing his best in the ministry. If I insulted him, I apologize; I did not mean to do that. What I am insulting is the thrust of this bill. I think it misses the whole point.
I suppose the answer to the problem is that the government could step in and spend billions of dollars building nothing but rent-geared-to-income apartments. That would satisfy my socialist friends; they would love it. However, I am not sure it would satisfy the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon). The minister has to take a sort of halfway measure and he has not done it. He has missed the boat. He has to encourage responsible development in this province.
Hon. Ms. Caplan: Is it the Conservative Party's policy to vote against the bill?
Mr. Gregory: I say to the Chairman of Management Board that in the Conservative Party we have the right to speak our minds. We do have party policy, and I will support this bill because I do not have an alternative. Okay? I have to support this bill.
Mr. McClellan: No. He does not.
Mr. Breaugh: We noticed there were a lot of free thinkers there.
Mr. Gregory: However, I am awfully angry.
Hon. Ms. Caplan: Do not be angry. Just vote for the bill.
Interjections.
Mr. Gregory: Will my friends tell their partners in the little red rump over there to be quiet for a minute? I have not quite finished. If they tell them that the longer they keep this up the longer I might speak, it might shut them up.
Mr. Speaker, I do have the right to speak. I think I am addressing myself to the bill. I am having a difficult time with the fellows to my left.
Mr. Speaker: You should probably face the Speaker and address your remarks to the Speaker, and disregard what is said in the other parts of the chamber.
8:30 p.m.
Mr. Gregory: I do not mind addressing myself through you, sir, but I want to speak to the minister. It is important that he hears what is being said and knows who is saying it to him.
I come from a little town called Mississauga, a little town of 330,000.
Interjection.
Mr. Gregory: The member can tell her story and I will tell mine.
It is a little town that has grown into a city. The wonderful region of Peel has the city of Mississauga, 330,000 strong. We have perhaps the largest development initiative in Ontario, and we have some of the most responsible developers in the province.
My colleague the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland) will tell members, having sat on council, the responsible position the development industry takes in Mississauga. With this bill, the minister has cut them to the quick. He has taken away any hope they have of operating under a free enterprise system.
As I said to my friend the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan), I am voting on this bill since I do not have any alternative.
Mr. McClellan: The member should be a man and stand up for his principles.
Mr. Gregory: I am doing that right now. I might vote against it. I do not know. It depends on the mood I am in.
Mr. McClellan: I admire a free thinker.
Mr. Gregory: Let me tell my friend that if I did vote against it, it would be understood in my party. However, if one of the members opposite tried to vote against it, I would like to see what would happen over there or what the people over there would do.
I recognize the problem we have in Ontario. We have a shortage of rental housing. There is no question about it. That is what this whole exercise is about: trying to do something about it. I do not think the government has done that. I think they have missed it. I think their retroactivity is going to totally destroy it.
I have responsible developers in my area, and I will name one of them, Ignat Kaneff of Kaneff Properties Ltd. My friend the member for Mississauga North will know the man. He attended a dinner I attended. My friend the member for Brampton (Mr. Callahan) was there as well. This man is not too happy about the way the government is handling things. He wants some freedom to be able to develop and build a responsible product, a good product --
Interjections.
Mr. Gregory: They never stop, do they? They just yap, yap, yap.
Mr. Speaker: Ignore them.
Mr. Gregory: That is what I am doing. I am ignoring them, but I am anxious to have this conversation with the minister because it is very important.
Perhaps the member for Mississauga North will have something to say later on. He has not had much to say on this subject lately. I notice that no Liberals have spoken, perhaps because they are trying the trained seal position. I notice when somebody says something good over there, they all go up like that, but they are not saying anything on this. I am sure among the rows over there some of them are not crazy about this bill; they might not say so, but they are not too pleased with it.
The minister is driving the nail into the coffin of apartment development in Ontario, notwithstanding my friend the member for Bellwoods, who would go to nothing but social development, rent-geared-to-income, nonprofit and all those things. There is room for them, but the minister cannot afford to get rid of the free enterprise development system in Ontario.
The ideal situation, as the minister has to admit, is to have enough rental apartments so we do not have to have controls. He said that very early in his career. He has had several position changes since that time, but very early in his political career he said rent controls will disappear when we have a proper supply. Is that fair enough? However, the other day he said rental controls are here to stay. I find his changes in position a little troublesome.
Notwithstanding that, I would think the minister would have to agree that if we had sufficient rental apartments, we would not need rent control. If we had a vacancy rate of five or 10 per cent, we would not need rent control. My friends from the left would want it anyway, but I would think the minister would agree that the marketplace would take care of itself.
The point I am making is that by doing what is being done here the government is totally destroying any chance of that happening. I understood the Liberals were supposed to be free enterprise people. I did not understand they were totally dedicated to the social housing idea for everybody. That is what this bill is doing; it is encouraging people to stay in their apartments because the rents are going to be controlled. The government is encouraging people not to buy houses, telling them: "Stay in your apartments. Do not get out of them. Do not buy a house."
The government is doing nothing for the housing market. If it has, I would like to hear about it. I have not seen it. It is doing everything for rental. It is saying: "Stay in your apartment. Do not get out, no matter what. Do not venture out to buy a house. Even if you are making $50,000 a year, stay in your apartment and let the controls of four per cent stay on them. It does not matter if you are paying $1,500 a month for your apartment, let the four per cent take care of it. Do not go out and buy a house. Do not make room for somebody who would like or needs that apartment."
If the government thinks it is doing something progressive for the housing business, it is making a very sad mistake. I have to agree with the four per cent because that is in line with the inflation rate.
Mr. Breaugh: What a wimp.
Mr. Gregory: Somebody called me a wimp over there. He should not do that outside this House.
Mr. Breaugh: I did it. I called the member a wimp.
Mr. Gregory: We will talk about it later. Okay?
Mr. D. R. Cooke: The member should tell us what legislation he would like.
Mr. Gregory: The member for Kitchener has asked me what legislation I would like. What I would like is precisely what the government has, except for the retroactive clause and except for including all those apartments that were specifically excluded when rent control came in initially, for the very purpose I am outlining, which was not to make people afraid of government or to mistrust government, but to encourage them so they could build something without being trapped.
It would have been very easy for the minister to have imposed the four per cent instead of the six per cent and to include those over $750 if he wanted to -- I think that is a mistake, but if he wanted to do it, that is fine -- but he went too far by making it retroactive; he totally discouraged anybody from building rental accommodation.
Mr. D. R. Cooke: How would that help the developer?
Mr. Gregory: It would help the developer by giving him some confidence in the government so he could say, "I can build and know I am not going to be trapped into this program." My friend from Waterloo does not agree with me, and that is fine. He has a right to his opinion, but I do not agree with him.
Interjection.
Mr. Gregory: I may not have any confidence, but I am talking to the minister. I am not interested in talking to the little red rump over here. They are a little strange.
Obviously, I have gone on long enough, because I have lost the interest of the members opposite --
[Applause]
Mr. Gregory: I got applause. I might go on for another half an hour or so.
Mr. Breaugh: This is a great speech.
Mr. Gregory: I am glad the member likes it. I am putting my best into this.
Mr. Breaugh: It is one of the best speeches of the 16th century.
8:40 p.m.
Mr. Gregory: Is that right? Back to Bill 77. If I can get one point across to the minister, and I hope he will understand what I am saying, it is that I am not opposing the bill so much as I am criticizing one part of it. He has gone too far. I think he is right in reducing the rate of increase to four per cent. We felt the same way; it was our party policy. The minister knows that. He is correct in doing that. If he wants to include all those over $750 a month, that is fine. I believe we had something along the same lines in our policy. However, I think he is dead wrong in his retroactive position of including everything that was built.
The development industry did develop a bit of trust in government when there was a Conservative government. They knew those units were not included. However, the minister has taken that away from them for ever. If he thinks he is going to get the development industry to go headlong into building his 65,000 units or whatever he is projecting, if he wants that number of units, it had better be all rent-subsidized stuff because he is not going to get private industry to do it.
I do not care about the few of them he has appointed as their spokesmen, or they have appointed themselves. It is easy to get spokesmen. Anybody can stand up and say, "I speak for this group or that group." The minister has a few of them. As a matter of fact, he appointed one to his committee who is a self-proclaimed spokesman. If the minister feels he is going to be told that the development industry will buy this holus-bolus, fine; believe him. However, I think he is going to find that the development industry is not going to build rental units. It is not going to do it.
Unfortunately, he is going to find out that this is true when it is too late. They are all going to build condominiums. I hope he knows the difference. There is a hell of a difference in the problems we have today.
The minister can accept that or not. It is my position; it is what I believe. I believe he has to encourage the development industry to do something on the basis that it can make a fair profit -- not excessive profit, but fair profit. The minister has taken that away.
I regret that I have to support his amendment.
Mr. Timbrell: I am looking forward to the member for Oriole (Ms. Caplan) joining in the debate when I am finished, adding what she has to say about the interests of the people of Oriole, our neighbours to the north. Oriole is a constituency that is not very different from Don Mills, at least the northern half of the riding of Don Mills, in that I represent half the borough of East York as well.
Don Mills is probably a unique constituency as far as this debate is concerned in that Don Mills has had only two members of the Legislative Assembly since the riding was created in the redistribution of 1962-63, and both of those members have served as the minister responsible for housing.
My predecessor, the Honourable Stanley Randall, who represented Don Mills from 1963 to 1971, was the father of the Ontario Housing Corp. I can remember the numerous occasions when Stan has told me about the day he was called into the office of John Robarts, the Prime Minister of the province of the day. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss questions of housing in the province. Robarts said: "Stan, we have a problem of affordable housing. We have people out there who cannot afford their accommodation. Do something about it."
That was about 1964. By the time he retired in 1971 he had, under the auspices of the Ontario Housing Corp., seen to the construction of literally tens of thousands of units across the province.
Mr. McClellan: I think it was 60,000 units.
Mr. Timbrell: Something on that order. It is something of which he is immensely proud, as he should be. He is a man who contributed a lot to this Legislature and to the government of Ontario, and he is a man who, I am pleased to say, continues to contribute a lot to Canada.
Mr. Randall is 40 years my senior. When I took over from him in 1971, it was remarked at the nomination meeting that we were jumping a couple of generations. I was 24 when I was nominated and Stan had just celebrated his 64th birthday. He is 40 years my senior, which means he is in his 80th year, and yet he continues to go to his office every day and he continues to travel the globe looking for new ideas, promoting new ideas and trying to put together investment proposals, whether it be in microelectronics, intercity transit or whatever, and in the housing field.
It was a bit of a revelation to me, when I became Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and went through the various briefing meetings, to discover that fully 11 per cent of all the rental stock in Ontario today, 121,000 units, is subsidized by the government of Ontario and that our expenditures for those units run to approximately $1 million a day. That is not an inconsiderable contribution to the needs of the people of Ontario and it is something of which my predecessor Mr. Randall is proud and something of which I am proud.
If memory serves me correctly, in my constituency of Don Mills we have something in the order of 1,100 or 1,200 subsidized units in dedicated buildings or projects, and many hundreds more of what we euphemistically refer to as "scattered units." Between Mr. Randall's efforts and my own over the last 22, almost 23 years, we have attempted to address that problem.
Mr. McClellan: How many units did the member build when he was minister?
Mr. Timbrell: Unfortunately, I was minister --
Mr. McClellan: The answer is zero.
Mr. Timbrell: No, I regret to say that my honourable friend is quite mistaken. There were a number of projects, whether they were through Convert-to-Rent or various other programs in the ministry, that were approved in my time as minister. The member wants to live with that mythology, he wants to keep trading on that, and I am not going to try to dissuade him.
Interjections.
Mr. Timbrell: I have known the member for 10 years and he is no more impressed with facts today than he was when he came into this place 10 years ago. I have given up on him. He is a lost soul.
Mr. McClellan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: With the minister's permission, may I ask him a question?
Interjections.
Mr. McClellan: I am sorry, I mean the former Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. With his permission, I would like to ask him a question. It is up to him, of course.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): It is up to the honourable member to accept.
Mr. Timbrell: I will be happy to listen to the question and then I will decide if I am going to answer it.
Mr. McClellan: I would like to ask the former minister how many subsidized housing units were constructed during his tenure, as opposed to the more than 60,000 that were constructed during the tenure of his predecessor, the Honourable Mr. Randall?
Mr. Timbrell: I will be happy, just as the present government would do, to look up those figures to determine from February 8, 1985, to June 26, 1985, how many projects were approved under various programs and how many projects were under way and approved by my predecessor the member for Ottawa South (Mr. Bennett) -- in my four and a half months, as compared to the seven years that my predecessor from Don Mills was the minister responsible for the Ontario Housing Corp.
The Acting Speaker: I will now ask the member to continue his debate on Bill 77.
Mr. Timbrell: I will be happy to. It will be interesting to compare, and I think I am going to do it, the number of projects and units approved and under way in that four-month period to what has happened since I left the ministry a little over five months ago.
Hon. Mr. Curling: Look at this document.
Mr. Timbrell: Not that smokescreen. I will come to that; if not tonight, certainly in 1986. My friend, that is nothing but a smokescreen. It made great headlines. Maybe some day I will give the minister access to what I learn. If he goes back to the proposals I was working up in the spring of this year as Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, there is nothing new. I am sorry, there is something new, and we will come to that.
8:50 p.m.
I am keenly aware of the importance of the housing issue because of the nature of my constituency. Almost 60 per cent of my constituents are tenants and about 20 per cent of the residences in my constituency are condominium units. I probably have the greatest concentration of condominium units of any constituency in the province and a great number of those are rented out.
Close to two thirds of my constituents are tenants, whether it be in rental buildings or in these scattered units, condominiums and single-family houses. I am keenly aware of that from the background I have described with my predecessor Mr. Randall and my own brief experience as Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
Before I go any further, I should congratulate the member for Scarborough North (Mr. Curling) on his appointment. I found it a little interesting that when we changed governments it took three ministers to replace me on the opposite side, for the four portfolios I was carrying at the time. The member for Scarborough North, the member for St. David (Mr. Scott) and the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Grandmaître) picked up the load I was carrying at that time. I may come back to that at a future point as well.
Against that backdrop, I am aware that the issues are very much matters of supply and affordability. As my colleagues have said and as I will repeat, we will be supporting Bill 77 in as much as Bill 77 is enacting policy proposals which for the most part were announced by the former member for London South, who was then Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, and myself in my capacity as Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
I want to talk about this bill against the two criteria of supply and affordability; what this bill and the minister's other initiatives are going to do. With respect to supply, it is very clear that in his extensive discussions with the development industry over the course of the past four or five months, from what the developers had to say with respect to the minister's announcement on Monday, he has created a certain expectation among them that they feel, if it is met, it will lead to significant increases in supply.
This document the minister tabled on Monday is not going to answer the supply problem. It is not even going to keep up with current demands. If we built nothing more than what is described in this document, which he calls Assured Housing for Ontario, we would, year after year, whether it be with respect to subsidized housing, housing for seniors, housing for singles -- and they are not mentioned here at all -- or housing of various forms for the private rental and purchase market, we would fall further and further behind.
Surely I do not have to tell the Minister of Housing how seriously low vacancy rates are at this time. In some municipalities --
Mr. Polsinelli: Surely that is something of an indictment of the previous government.
Mr. Timbrell: The member for Yorkview represents one of the most concentrated apartment communities in Canada, if not North America. I am looking forward to what he has to say this evening with respect to Bill 77, or even more particularly to what he has to say to Bill 78 some time early in 1986 as it relates to the thousands of young people in the Jane-Finch corridor who before very long are going to want their own rental accommodation.
The member is going to have to answer to them when they want to know where they are going to find accommodation and how they are going to be able to afford it. That comes back to the two points: supply and affordability.
The expectation the minister has developed is outlined very clearly in the letter which four gentlemen, Messrs. Basel, Goering, Griesdorf and Grenier, sent to the Premier a week ago Monday. I hope the Premier has shared a copy of that letter with the minister.
In that letter, they say, "We are encouraged by the government's commitment to allow units whose rents are chronically depressed to move up to average market levels of controlled units within their market area."
The minister knows very well, as we all know very well, the common complaint of landlords large and small, particularly small, in recent years has been that they have been losing money on the buildings. As some of them would put it, they have been subsidizing some of their tenants. Therefore, the rents on those units and on those buildings has become chronically depressed.
I will not take the time of the House, unless I am provoked, to read the whole of the letter into the record. I might add there are some very flattering things said at the beginning of the letter about the minister and the process. I am sure that makes him feel very good and I hope that in three or four months' time he will feel just as good about it.
I hope they will feel just as good about it. These are four of the principal spokesmen for the industry. These are four of the principal leaders of the -- what is the proper name? -- Fair Rental Policy Organization or something to that effect.
Very clearly, their expectation is that the incentive for them to build more rental housing in the future than is currently intended, more than would be built with the various subsidies outlined in this paper, will be that through various criteria and various formulae which he has only alluded to in almost a passing way in recent days, which has not been picked up by his bed partners, through those criteria, those formulae and those guidelines which they are clearly expecting from the minister from the hours and hours of discussions which have gone on -- and these are not always within the Ministry of Housing, I might add; a lot of them are in the corner offices; a lot of them are in the office of the Attorney General (Mr. Scott), who I understand is the minister responsible for the Minister of Housing and the ministry.
Elinor cannot help; do not listen to her.
Hon. Ms. Caplan: Keep talking.
Mr. Timbrell: I intend to; do not worry. They very clearly understand their incentive is going to be that on those buildings which they own and which were built prior to 1976, the minister is going to allow them to collect much higher rent one way or another.
There is a surprise somewhere in this bill. The surprise is either going to be for the tenants of the pre-1976 buildings who think the minister is limiting their rent increases to four per cent -- let us face it, we know that four per cent is the trigger point for hearings; we know that in any given year, landlords who have gone to the board have got -- what was it last year? -- an average of about 11 or 12 per cent or something like that when the guideline was six per cent. We know that. However, the public expectation is four per cent, which is the norm.
Hon. Ms. Caplan: Under whose policy? Whose policy was that?
Mr. Timbrell: I will tell my friend something. We will monitor this, and she may be sure we will monitor this, month by month, six-month by six-month period. We are going to monitor it very carefully.
Either the tenants are in for a surprise with very much higher rent increases than the four per cent they are anticipating because of this bill or the landlords -- the property owners, the developers; I do not care what they are called -- are in for a surprise. Their surprise may well be that they have been sucked in. In point of fact, their expectations -- and these are not my words; these are their words --
Mr. McClellan: Who wrote their words? Did George write those words?
Mr. Timbrell: These words were authored and attested to by four worthy private citizens who are major builders of rental accommodation in this province.
Mr. McClellan: I hope it was not your campaign manager who wrote them.
9 p.m.
Mr. Timbrell: Ruth Archibald, no; neither was it Charlie Gill, come to think of it. There is a surprise here; there is a surprise coming. It is not going to happen in a month's time and it is not going to happen in two months' time. However, I suspect that by spring -- "soon," as the minister likes to say -- it is going to be clear who is to be the recipient of this great surprise. Will it be the tenants? We have 1.1 million rental units in Ontario today. Were 750,000 or 800,000 constructed before 1975? I am looking to the officials under the gallery to nod aye or nay. I suspect it is something in the order of 750,000 to 800,000 rental units that were constructed before 1975. It may be more than that.
Perhaps they have a big surprise coming the next time their rent increase applications are heard, not in a hearing but by a bureaucrat who is working to some new guidelines and new criteria and a very public commitment. However, I think there may be a much more specific commitment given, if not by the minister then by people who may not even have told him. I do not know what Hershell has told him. I do not know what John has told him. I do not know what some of these other people who have been brought in from Ottawa and other points unknown have told him.
I do know from this letter and from conversations I have had face to face with representatives of the development industry --
Interjections.
Mr. Timbrell: I say to the minister not to get paranoid. When I was Minister of Health they taught me the expression, "Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not after you." I urge the minister not to get paranoid.
Many of those tenants may well know by spring that the surprise in all this is for them. I do not know at what point his colleagues to my left, philosophically and geographically, will become aware of it, but we will soon hear from them. Alternatively, it may be the building industry that will find the surprise is for it. Many of them think this is their last gamble with government. As I said during our party's recent leadership campaign, the building industry, to use the broader term, does not have any time for any politicians any more. They are fed up with the whole lot of us. It is sort of a pox on all your houses.
They may be the ones, but it is going to be one or the other. The tenants of the pre-1976 buildings or the builders are going to find by spring that their expectations are dashed totally.
Mr. McClellan: Guess who it is going to be?
Mr. Timbrell: I know.
Here is the problem, one I have had with the issue all these years. It is always put in terms of the tenants or the builders. I have never looked at it in those terms. I have always felt, and I continue to believe -- I said as much during our party's recent campaign -- that a competitive rental marketplace, with vacancy rates very much higher than those that plague us today in every major urban centre in Ontario, save perhaps Sudbury -- I guess Sudbury has a fairly high vacancy rate right now. What is it? Three or four per cent or thereabouts? It is very much the exception.
I have always believed that competitive vacancy rates and a competitive marketplace were as much in the interests of the tenants as of the landlords and the builders. Why is that? It is very simple. Tenants have a greater variety of choices available to them. The fact that vacancies far exceed demand keeps the rents down. When we get to two to three per cent vacancies, there is quite a gap above demand.
I can remember when I moved to Don Mills in the mid to late 1960s, we had a competitive rental marketplace with a 2.5 per cent to three per cent vacancy rate. In those days it was very common in my constituency and in that of the minister's colleague, the member for Oriole, for landlords to offer one or two months' free rent, free broadloom, free drapes, additional appliances -- whatever -- just to get the tenant, because it was a competitive rental marketplace.
That is in the interests of tenants. It is in the interests of the young people in the Jane-Finch corridor, for whom the member for Yorkview (Mr. Polsinelli) refuses to speak in this debate, for whatever reason I do not know. When they look to the future, they must have choices. I do not mean choices far removed from where their families are now or from the places of employment they will have, we hope, if the Futures program has a future past the first year. I am talking about choices within the community of Metropolitan Toronto, within the community of North York, Canada's fourth-largest or fifth-largest city. Can the member for Oriole help me?
Hon. Ms. Caplan: Fourth.
Mr. Timbrell: Who is fifth?
Hon. Ms. Caplan: Winnipeg.
Mr. Timbrell: No; anyway, it does not matter. I will be very interested to see how this unfolds. I intend to participate at greater length when we come to Bill 78 early in the new year.
I want to conclude by making it clear, if I have not already made it clear, that I support retaining the present rent review system. However, as I have said as Minister of Housing and as the member for Don Mills for years -- and I remind members of the heavy concentration of tenants in that constituency -- I do not support making rent review and controls permanent to infinity. There has to be a better way.
In my very brief time as Minister of Housing I had started a process to find, I hoped, a better way -- to be sure, to maintain the present system, to maintain the present protection -- to work towards the re-establishment of a competitive rental marketplace and to encourage the construction of more, not less, rental housing and affordable starter housing.
During the recent election campaign, I was canvassing one day in the apartments at the northwest corner of Victoria Park Avenue and Eglinton Avenue, an apartment development, by the way -- I think there are four buildings there that was constructed after the 1981 election because of one of our government's rental supply programs of noninterest-bearing second-mortgage loans.
I happened to run into a canvasser for the New Democratic Party. I recognized her. If one has knocked on the doors in that constituency as many times as I have, one tends to know the opposition. I recognized her, so I gave her one of my brochures and she gave me one of hers.
This single-page, mimeographed, 8.5-by-11 sheet of paper from the New Democratic Party was a paraphrase -- not a quote, a paraphrase -- of something I had said in the January 1985 leadership campaign, the first of our semiannual campaigns, the obvious intention of which was to lead my constituents to believe -- and as far as I know, this was distributed to every one of the 15,000 rental units in the riding -- I wanted to abolish controls the next day, that they had to go the next day.
Clearly, either my constituents have an awful lot of faith in me -- and I have been very gratified by their support over the years, including on May 2, when they still delivered 51 per cent of their support to me -- or they have the NDP's number. I suspect it is a combination of both.
That is not what I said; that is not what I am saying here tonight. I say by all means keep the present system, maintain the protection. But for God's sake, do members in either of those parties not realize --
9:10 p.m.
Mr. McClellan: What did the member tell Landlords Against Rent Control?
Mr. Timbrell: Oh, no. I have said in private and in public exactly what I am saying here tonight.
Mr. McClellan: Are they misquoting the member?
Mr. Timbrell: There is no difference. I made it very clear, and I make it clear here tonight, that my preference would certainly be to see us arrive at a day -- and I do not know whether it can be accomplished in five years or in 10 years, whatever it is going to take; we have been in controls now for 10 years -- when we no longer needed controls; a day when, through other creative endeavours, we had done so much to encourage building, the creation of jobs in construction and the creation of jobs in the industries that supply the building materials and those things that are needed to furnish new accommodations that the controls, the bureaucracy and the expense to the public purse would become redundant.
We would arrive at a day when the Minister of Housing would rise in this House and say, "I move, with pleasure, Bill I to abolish the Residential Tenancy Commission because it is no longer needed." That would be my preference, and I have been very clear on that for 10 years.
On May 2, out of approximately 120 apartment polls in Don Mills -- and the New Democrats tried hard; they try hard every time in Don Mills, and they damn near won the riding once, in 1967 -- I think I lost five, even against the campaign the New Democrats waged using a brochure deliberately misquoting me.
Mr. Breaugh: You would not do that.
Mr. Timbrell: No, I would not, as a matter of fact. I have got -- oh, never mind.
We will be supporting this bill in principle.
Mr. McClellan: When the Conservatives are down to one seat, it will be Don Mills.
Mr. Timbrell: I can remember the day I was sworn in as a minister just down that hall in February 1974, and a gentleman who is now the press secretary to the leader of the New Democratic Party came up to me. He was then a reporter for the Globe and Mail, and he let his guard down. He betrayed his partisan bias and said to me, "How does it feel to be a member of the last Tory cabinet in Ontario?" That was February 1974, and I was made minister for youth. I went on to seven more portfolios and 11.5 years --
Mr. McClellan: Our press secretary was only 12 years old then.
Mr. Timbrell: Peter Mosher?
Mr. McClellan: He is not our press secretary.
Mr. Timbrell: Oh, I thought that was his title. Peter Mosher, anyway. I went on for 11.5 years longer as a minister in the Davis and Miller administrations.
Mr. McClellan: No. I am saying that the member for Don Mills will be there forever, but he will be the last one.
Mr. Timbrell: Oh, I see. Are the New Democrats going to give me an acclamation next time? I already have two former NDP opponents in Don Mills working for me and a former Liberal opponent; so a few more will not hurt.
One should not count this party out, not by any means. With the recent change in leadership, they say that if one happened to be --
Oh, the member for Bellwoods was there.
The Deputy Speaker: Order. Might I ask the member to get back to the bill?
Mr. Timbrell: All right. We will talk about that another time.
Before I was interrupted, I was saying we do support the principle of the bill. We are going to monitor it very carefully -- this bill, its companion legislation and the minister's program -- because, unless I miss my bet, as I said earlier at some length, there is a big surprise here for somebody, either the tenants or the development industry. However, either way we are not going to have enough housing to meet demand. Not enough is provided for in the minister's program and not enough will be added to it by the private sector. We are not going to have enough affordable housing, whether it be for seniors or for those of limited or low income.
I know the minister has done a study, or that somebody has caused a study to be done, on the possibility of a universal rent supplement program. When the minister rises tonight, I would like him to give me -- the minister should not worry. This was not a leak from his ministry; word gets around. They are safe. I know them. They are all very reputable people of sterling character. One of them used to work for me in the Ministry of Energy almost 11 years ago.
I know somebody over there has caused such a study to be done. When the minister rises tonight, I would like him to give me and this House an absolute, firm, unequivocal commitment that study will be released and laid on that table tomorrow, so that we can all take a look at it over the course of Christmas and New Year's.
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: You never gave as firm commitment in 42 years. Why are you asking us now? That is ridiculous and you know it. Come on!
The Deputy Speaker: Order, the member for Niagara Falls.
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: You are right, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Timbrell: It is nice to see the Minister of Natural Resources joining us. As on all other occasions, he has thrown in totally inconsequential non sequiturs, unrelated whatsoever to the subject at hand. They are non sequiturs and inconsequential remarks, which I swear he carries in his left pocket so he can throw them into any debate when he senses that one of his colleagues, his party or his government is not doing well.
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: I am one of the people in this country who allow you to exist. That is where I come from. Without people such as me you would not be there. You would wither on the vine.
The Deputy Speaker: Order, the member for Niagara Falls.
Mr. Timbrell: It sounds like the member has withered on some vine or the product of some vine tonight.
We will watch and listen carefully. The minister has got off to a very bad start. I do not fault him for that. I know he is new to the ministry. He has got off to a very bad start. Let us not try to --
Hon. Mr. Nixon: Are you kidding? That legislation is world class.
Mr. Timbrell: I was going to stop, but the member provokes me. The fact is on that June 26 the minister was asked about his government's policy on rent review. He said he would have to look it up. He did not know what it was. He had gone through a campaign in the constituency of Scarborough North, which probably does not have as high a percentage of tenants as I have, but has a very high percentage of tenants, and he did not even know the policy.
Then all through the fall he was telling us variously that rent review could be gone in -- what was it? -- three years; at one point he said one year and on another occasion --
Mr. D. S. Cooke: You were asked tonight how many units you built and you do not know what you did.
Mr. Timbrell: I have been absolutely consistent in my position, and my constituents are well aware of it.
All through the fall we were being told it could be gone, I think he said in one year at one point and in three years at another. Was it at Kitchener or London he talked? I think it was in London on September 29 that he talked to the London Free Press and gave them --
Mr. McClellan: At what time?
Mr. Timbrell: At what time? I am not sure. I would have to look it up.
He said that somewhere down the road he could foresee the day of no controls. All through the fall, we kept saying, "When will your policy come forward?" I went through the litany yesterday in his absence. He has said, "soon" or "very shortly." One day, good Lord, he said, "soon" or "very soon" four times in answers to questions, only to come up with this policy on Monday, the details of which he could not even recall on Tuesday when he was asked about it; that was very clear from the questions.
I sympathize with my friend. I was a tyro minister once myself, but the honeymoon is over. He now has drawn the line.
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: With 68 per cent in the Decima poll, you do not have to feel sorry for us at all. You guys are dead.
The Deputy Speaker: Order. Will the member for Niagara Falls please be quiet and let the speaker speak.
9:20 p.m.
Mr. Timbrell: I remember discussing with some of my colleagues early in 1985 how great the polls looked, and I hope the minister does not put any more faith in them than we should have.
The minister has drawn the line. He has said, "Here are my legislative proposals and here are my policy proposals." Based on these, I am sure we are going to see a spate of speeches, press releases, newsletters and Lord knows what else. Maclaren Advertising, Vickers and Benson and others are going to advise his caucus and his party what to do over the course of the next month or two on this issue.
We are going to see a spate of things indicating the government has solved the housing crisis in Ontario. However, the government has not. The longer this accord goes on and on, if it honours its word to those people -- which I do not think it will -- it is going to become clearer and clearer that not only has it not solved the current housing dilemma in Ontario but it has made it much worse.
Hon. Ms. Caplan: I will speak very briefly to this. I want to respond to some of the comments I heard from the member for Don Mills who, it is true, has a riding that is very similar to the riding of Oriole. The riding of Oriole has a dense population, particularly in the area around the Peanut. Fifty per cent of the population is tenants.
Mr. Timbrell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I do not think it is very fair, charitable or gratuitous in the least for the Chairman of Management Board of Cabinet to refer to those people who saw fit to send her here on May 2 as dense.
The Deputy Speaker: That is not a proper point of order.
Hon. Ms. Caplan: The density in the riding of Oriole, particularly around the Peanut, is one of the highest. It has been compared, rather unfavourably, to the density in Hong Kong. When I speak to the members of this House, it is with a knowledge and understanding of the problems of tenants living in an area that is so dense.
The point I make this evening is that I heard some very conflicting remarks from the member for Don Mills. It is important to clarify what I heard so the goals of the housing proposals and the rent review package which the Minister of Housing has placed before this House will be clear.
I represent a heavily populated riding, 50 per cent of which is populated by tenants who have grave concerns not only with affordability and supply but also with security for tenant protection and the ability to know their homes are secure. What I heard from the member for Don Mills would create fear in the constituents whom I represent. He has suggested that tenant protection is not a priority.
Tenant protection is and must be a priority for this government because of the very critical state left by the previous administration in this province. The proposals by the Minister of Housing will offer tenants greater protection than that available under the previous administration and greater choice because of the supply.
Our Minister of Housing consulted widely in an effort never before undertaken by the previous administration. That is the reason we have had a response from both the tenant leadership and the development community. Following this kind of consultation, they say, "This is the foundation of a firm housing policy for this province which will result in greater tenant protection and in the opportunity for the development industry to have some security in the future and to develop the confidence that is necessary to produce the housing we so badly need in this province."
On behalf of my constituents, I say this bill is eminently supportable because it will achieve what the people have asked for; that is, fair and equitable treatment for tenants. It will ensure that those in need, those who have a problem, will be heard. I believe we have established a streamlined administrative process which will result in the equitable and fair treatment that people demand from their government.
The ceiling of four per cent was an election commitment. The five per cent cap on pass-through financing costs is being extended to all tenants in this province. No longer will there be discrimination against tenants who happen to live in buildings that were built after 1975. That was our commitment, and we have lived up to that commitment to ensure that all tenants are treated fairly and equitably in this province.
I support this legislation. It is long overdue and it lays the foundation for what I believe will be a sound housing policy for Ontario.
Hon. Mr. Curling: This is my first debate, or response to any debate, so it is with great honour that I stand to address my colleagues. I am tempted to respond to the comments I heard. Tempted as I may be, however, I will receive my response to most of the comments, which were irrelevant to Bill 77.
I had thought my colleagues would address the relevant issues. Perhaps they did not because of anxiety over the very stimulating policy I have presented. I am anxious to address all the concerns the members may have in the coming year. I had hoped the member for Don Mills would have had the bill in his hand to realize what the issues are and what subjects he was addressing.
I will address one aspect of the problem. Somehow rent review has become such an ugly term for them all, especially for my colleagues across the chamber from the previous administration. We would like to emphasize that rent review is security of tenure for tenants, a protection. It is also a policy that will treat them more fairly. That in itself will be a continuous process as long as our government, and our party, is in power, for at least two years, I presume.
9:30 p.m.
There is nothing wrong with rent review. All the quotations that members may go about saying I have said will be properly addressed later on, when we can come to that. I want to continue to address the portion of the bill that is being presented. It is indicative of the thrust of this comprehensive policy that we have the support of the New Democratic Party and the Progressive Conservative Party and that we have the landlords' and the tenants' support.
There is basically the thrust that what we have presented as a policy is fair. People can identify with justice and fairness, and that is all it is. There is no hidden deal about it all. We told them it is four per cent. We also told them up front that we will put the controls on units that are being rented for $750 and more. We told them up front that pre-1976 buildings will also have the four per cent. There is no hidden agenda.
Perhaps the member for Don Mills got his brown paper bag confused. He is trying to present some letter he has there. It is because of his visit to Jamaica, I gather. I am sure he had a good time in my home country.
Mr. Timbrell: I was in Falmouth.
Hon. Mr. Curling: He was in Falmouth, a lovely place.
Maybe the other brown paper bag is coming through with the real letter that he would like to present. Whenever he would like to present it --
Mr. Timbrell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I do not mean to change the minister's euphoric face, but he is trying to impute motives and say that I have alluded to a false document. I will be happy to provide him with a copy of this, because it bears copies of the actual signatures of the four gentlemen to whom I have referred. The letter did not come in a brown paper envelope from his ministry or any other source of the government; it was given to me by someone who was authorized to do so by the four gentlemen in question.
Hon. Mr. Curling: I did not allege that it is wrong. I said the member has one letter and maybe I could present another. Again, that is not the relevant matter now. I will, as I said, relevantly address the bill as I hoped his colleagues would have done.
There is no hidden deal here; I want to stress that. Maybe there is a hidden agenda. I confess to there being a hidden agenda. The hidden agenda is called consultation. The hidden agenda means to get together with the landlords and the tenants, talk out these problems, lay it out on the table and ask them to assist us in bringing about affordable rental units to the people of Ontario. There is no magic about that at all.
I know the members opposite may feel it is some sort of wand I am waving, some mystic thing, but it is not that at all . It is not too late for that party over there to start speaking to people; they might learn something about how to resolve problems.
I do not intend to take the time of the House to elaborate on the points that were made, because I will be prepared at the relevant time to address the concerns he has raised. The member for Don Mills has indicated he is supporting Bill 77, and my colleagues are prepared to support Bill 77. I will not waste the time of the House since we are all in agreement.
Motion agreed to.
Bill ordered for third reading.
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mr. Nixon moved second reading of Bill 88, An Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Act.
Hon. Mr. Nixon: Members may recall that in introducing this bill, I referred to the fact that it will increase the legislative pay and allowances across the board by 3.4 per cent.
Mr. Timbrell: It is 3.9 per cent.
Hon. Mr. Nixon: It is 3.9 per cent; 3.4 was another number that was in my mind.
Hon. Ms. Caplan: That was just to see if members were paying attention.
Hon. Mr. Nixon: I thought members might like to consider that increase along with the two per cent increase -- or four per cent, if they wish to think of it that way -- in personal income tax and the three per cent surcharge we voted in favour of a few days ago so enthusiastically.
Mr. Timbrell: It will come as no surprise that after careful deliberation and very lengthy consideration of this bill -- as I am fumbling with my Christmas cards -- my colleagues and I in this caucus have concluded we will support the proposal.
It is late. I know the increase for members must be consistent with other increases in government spending and with increases being allowed for various sectors of the public service, but I do hope that at some point we will be able to move out of this chamber, and the one down the hall, the whole process of the calculation of the worth, whatever that is, of a --
Mr. Warner: What a difference when one is not in government.
Mr. Timbrell: I have sat at that other table down the hall many times over the years to deal with this issue, and it is no more fun there than it is sitting at the caucus tables to deal with it, knowing full well what the reaction of the public is every time these damned politicians go back to the trough.
Let us be honest with ourselves: That is exactly the way we are perceived, whether it is a one per cent increase or whatever. I can remember the year we took a five per cent cut. When was that?
In 1975? Members of the cabinet and even the then Leader of the Opposition, I think, took a cut. It was a big bump, but it did not make one whit of difference; nobody noticed.
Hon. Mr. Nixon: My wife did.
Mr. Timbrell: I did not have one at the time.
Hon. Mr. Nixon: Mine did.
Mr. Timbrell: She did? My sympathies.
I hope we can move the whole process out of here to an independent body. It is unfortunate in a way that the Commission on Election Contributions and Expenses came in with as high a figure as it did, or that it did not come in with some kind of staging proposal; because even I gulped, as I am sure we all did, when the report was laid on my desk. When was that? May or June?
Mr. Warner: It was a good report.
Mr. Timbrell: It may have been a good report, but the member and I both know as politicians that it would not wash in Scarborough-Ellesmere or in Don Mills, two other neighbouring constituencies. I am surrounded by those people to the north. That has happened before. Oh, never mind; I will not get into that. We will clean that up next time.
I hope the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) will seriously consider, and perhaps we could discuss this at some future meeting of the House leaders and the whips, whether it is not possible to move this whole darned thing right out of this chamber to some independent body that has the authority to review, comment and decide.
Hon. Mr. Nixon: Perhaps the provincial court judges.
9:40 p.m.
Mr. Timbrell: Does the Treasurer want to start that? Does he want to reopen that?
I remember once reading a comment by a western Canadian political wag who said he knew what a statesman was -- it was a dead politician -- and that what this country needed was more statesmen. I know full well that this is the way people perceive us, and there is no magic way for us to do it and have it well received by the public. I urge the Treasurer to think seriously about moving the thing to heck out of here so that we do not go through this any more.
Mr. McClellan: The bill before us to raise our salaries by 3.9 per cent is part of a package of three bills. The second bill will raise the salaries of the executive council and the final bill will change our retirement pension provisions.
I want to comment on behalf of the New Democratic Party that we will be supporting the legislation the Treasurer has put forward. However, I want to say a few things about this bill and about the way our salaries are set.
On June 5, 1985, the Commission on Election Contributions and Expenses made its report recommending an adjustment of the base of the members' salaries to $40,000. Now $40,000 may be -- I have forgotten the word my colleague the member for Don Mills (Mr. Timbrell) used; I think he said he was astounded.
Mr. O'Connor: He gulped.
Mr. McClellan: He gulped. It still would just get us into the public accounts book. I hope this is the last time we use this procedure to determine the salaries of the Legislative Assembly.
The commission report was sent to the standing committee on members' services for its recommendations. The committee recommended to the Board of Internal Economy that it support the recommendations of the commission. The board did not support the recommendations of the members' services committee or of the election expenses commission with respect to the basic salary. I think that is too bad.
On behalf of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party, I am instructed to say that we wish the government had accepted the recommendations of the commission because we feel they were fair, just and sensible. I agree completely with my colleague the member for Don Mills when he says that we need to remove this task from the assembly and from the cabinet.
I have made a suggestion to the Board of Internal Economy that I will repeat again tonight. The election expenses commission should be given the power to make its report and to send it to the Speaker, whereupon it would automatically be turned into a bill to be presented by a minister to the assembly in exactly the same way as the Ontario Electoral Boundaries Commission is empowered to proceed with its final report.
The cabinet would have the right to veto it, but the procedure would be that when the commission made its report, it would go to Mr. Speaker. It would then be drafted as a bill and would automatically come to the assembly. I think that is a good proposal. At least, I hope it can be the basis of discussion in the future.
I also want to say that we are pleased to see the reform in severance pay and pensions. We feel it is long overdue and we welcome this initiative by the government.
However, we hope this is the last time we have to deal with the difficult question of members' salaries in this wholly inadequate and basically unfair way.
Mr. Lupusella: I am pleased to speak on Bill 88. I know this bill deals with an issue that politicians usually do not want to face. The reason they do not want to face the issue is because there is out there, as someone in this Legislature stated, a public perception that when we increase our salaries something wrong is going on. Every year we rush in this type of legislation just before the House rises for Christmas. This approach is not fair to the legislative procedure or to the members who are approaching the issues before them to try to determine whether this legislation is fair or should be amended.
I view Bill 88 in the same way I view Bill 81, An Act to amend the Workers' Compensation Act. We fight for the rights of the people out there and when we know for a fact that there is work going on in this Legislature, I do not feel shy; I feel that certain people should emerge when such a debate is taking place on the floor of the Legislature.
We know there is a public perception that whatever we do, we do as politicians in a very political way. Sometimes we do act in that way, but most of the time we have to dispel this wrong perception that exists out there. From time to time we hear that certain members of this Legislature are getting sick and having nervous breakdowns because of the work. I do not see why we have to be shy when we deal with the allowances of members of this Legislature.
For this reason the government chose, maybe correctly, but I think wrongly, to introduce these three bills just before the House is going to rise. To tell the truth, and again I am not shy, even though the media would like to convey my message outside, they show only what was supposed to be sent to a committee to make amendments to the bill.
The report of the standing committee on members' services was not taken into consideration by the government. The main recommendation was to send the whole issue affecting members' allowances and benefits to an independent commission. I do not understand why we are faced with these three bills when the content of the report from members' services was supposed to be dealt with by the government by referring the whole issue to an independent commission.
Going through this bill, we see that even on the floor of this provincial Legislature there is a creation of classes among the members of the provincial Legislature. If one looks at the salaries of individual members of the provincial Legislature and their duties, the whole system is unfair.
9:50 p.m.
It is unfair because when we deal with the pension issue of members of the provincial Legislature, the salary issue. is also affected by the tenure achieved by the individual members in relation to the amount of money they will eventually receive in the form of a pension.
In our society we have classes of people. The government is also creating classes on the floor of the Legislature by establishing different salaries for members by considering the different functions and duties members perform on the floor.
It is unfair for back-benchers and others who do not serve a specific function. They work hard in this Legislature by effectively representing their constituents and expressing their constituents' views on the floor of the Legislature. If someone outside is of the opinion we do not work hard enough in the Legislature, then we have to go through the process of listing specific incidents of members who get sick as a result of the functions they have been performing here on behalf of their constituents.
I am not pleased with the different classifications of salaries. It has concrete repercussions on the amount of pension individual members will get when they eventually terminate their tenure as members of the provincial Legislature.
There is discrimination in the way we are dealing with salaries. The same type of discrimination has existed in dealing with injured workers across Ontario. Members will understand my frustration when I speak on behalf of injured workers, as well as on behalf of members of this provincial Legislature.
I do not think I have been hypocritical in dealing with the issue. If we want to have concrete changes in Ontario on something that may be unjust and unfair, we must have a reasonable debate to make sure we cure these problems created by the governments of the day.
As I stated, I am not shy when I approach this issue or when I deal with this issue with my constituents.
I remember when I had a nervous breakdown in 1981. I realized all at once that the benefits that covered me as a member of the provincial Legislature were not sufficient. If I had been forced to leave my seat in 1981 because there was no recovery whatsoever, I would not have been covered with the extension of my disability benefits plan, because that plan ceased at the time the individual MPP ceased to be an MPP. I would have been faced with a permanent psychological disability for the rest of my life. I was supposed to collect the minimum amount of pension to which I was entitled in 1981.
I am not just talking about my individual case. I am talking about other Liberal members who have gone through the same thing. I am talking about Conservative members who were sick as well. The reason this injustice exists is that we are rushing through legislation at the time parliament is supposed to rise. Why? It is because we are afraid to face the public and therefore we are faced with injustices.
I would like to bring to the attention of the minister who introduced this bill that individual members of the Legislature who do not reach a total of 55 for years of service plus age, and who want to draw their pension at the time they are defeated or they retire, lose an amount of $1,000, $2,000 or $3,000 for the rest of their lives. If they are so unfortunate as not to find a job for three, four or five years, they will lose this amount of money.
There is a common pattern in dealing with the legislation on the floor of this parliament. We are dealing in a very unfair way in relation to An Act to amend the Workers' Compensation Act and we are dealing in a very unfair way when we are supposed to amend the benefits for MPPs as well. I do not want to mention MPPs defeated in the last election, but they have no one to speak on their behalf. Some of them are not rich and if they cannot find a job, they rely on the amount of the pension they are supposed to collect from being MPPs.
I know nobody is paying attention to my speech. When injured workers had a job, before they were hurt and when they were bringing salary home, they did not think that some day they might get hurt and, therefore, eventually realize how unfair the Workers' Compensation Act was. I found out in a very hard way in 1981, as an MPP, that my rights were not covered. There was enough pressure in 1981 between the government of the day and my party to change the legislation to consider cases such as mine or others in relation to the extension of the disability plan.
The way we are approaching this legislation is irrational, as is the way we are approaching Bill 81, An Act to amend the Workers' Compensation Act. I will also be speaking on the contents and the principle of Bill 81. We are rushing the whole procedure. I hope the minister will take into consideration all the recommendations made in the report of the standing committee on members' services.
The Acting Speaker: Order. I should like to remind the member we are debating Bill 88.
10 p.m.
Mr. Lupusella: I am saving time. I am trying to incorporate all the points I was planning to make on Bill 88 and I will not be speaking in relation to Bills 81 and 90 because I have been expressing my points all at once.
I would remind the minister that the members' services committee report recommended that the issue of members' allowances and pensions be sent to an independent commission, because all the problems outlined in that report reflect the real needs of members of this Legislature.
Motion agreed to.
Bill ordered for third reading.
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mr. Nixon moved second reading of Bill 89, An Act to amend the Executive Council Act.
Motion agreed to.
Bill ordered for third reading.
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY RETIREMENT ALLOWANCES ACT
Hon. Mr. Nixon moved second reading of Bill 90, An Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Retirement Allowances Act.
Motion agreed to.
Bill ordered for third reading.
WORKERS' COMPENSATION AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mr. Wrye moved second reading of Bill 81, An Act to amend the Workers' Compensation Act.
Hon. Mr. Wryer: As I outlined in my statement on first reading on Tuesday of this week, this bill incorporates three principal features.
1. It provides for the automatic escalation of the earnings figure used to calculate workers' compensation benefit entitlements in accordance with movements in the consumer price index. This will guarantee not only that the benefits of Workers' Compensation Board claimants are protected against the effects of inflation in future, but also that those benefits will be adjusted annually, not at the whim of the government of the day but as a matter of statutory right.
2. In recognition of the shift in benefit adjustment dates from July I to January 1, those in receipt of WCB benefits on January 1, 1986, will receive a transitional adjustment based on a 1.7 per cent indexation factor. This is designed to bridge the six-month period between the old and the new adjustment dates and is based on the increase in the CPI over the most recent six-month period for which data is available, namely, from April to October 1985.
3. The bill corrects an unfair discrepancy in the benefit entitlement of pre-existing and new claimants for survivors' pensions, a discrepancy that arose as a result of the way Bill 101 was framed. By providing for an increase of 10 per cent in addition to the 1.7 per cent transitional adjustment in the benefits of survivors whose claims originated prior to April 1, 1985, this bill ensures the surviving spouses in question a pension equivalent in amount to their average pension entitlement had they been under the terms of the new scheme incorporated on April 1.
The chosen method of applying the indexation factor with reference to the pre-accident gross earnings of the plaintiff maintains the internal consistency and integrity of the principle of 90 per cent of net earnings, which has formed the basis for computing new benefit entitlements under the act since April 1, 1985. I will have more to say about that in a moment.
At the same time, the bill extends the financial advantages accruing from permanent indexation to all WCB claimants, regardless of the date on which they first entered the workers' compensation system. In addition, indexation will apply to other monetary amounts established by the act, ranging from the covered earnings ceiling, which affects maximum benefit entitlements, to minimum benefits, clothing allowances, lump sum payments to survivors and the burial expenses allowance. All these amounts will be escalated annually each January I by the percentage factor called for in the indexation formula.
I believe I should indicate quite clearly to the House that in applying an indexation factor, two alternative methods were available to the government: (1) to index the benefit itself, that is, the paying rate; and (2) to index pre-accident gross earnings and recalculate the benefit. In this bill, the government has chosen to use the second of these methods.
Let me get into a bit of an explanation. It is technical, but it is important that all members understand the rationale behind this.
Bill 101, passed around this time last year, introduced a principle supported by all three parties in this Legislature of using pre-accident net earnings rather than gross earnings as the basis for determining benefit entitlement. In the judgement of all of us, the use of the net promoted a more equitable and consistent relationship between a worker's benefits and his previous take-home pay. The new earnings principle is a sound one and was endorsed by all parties.
The maintenance of the 90 per cent relationship between benefit level and net earnings requires that future inflation adjustments be applied to gross earnings and benefits and that the benefits then be recalculated. Application of indexation directly to the pay rate would effectively sever this relationship because benefits would henceforth be adjusted without reference to rates of taxation or anything else.
On that basis, over time the benefit rate could theoretically attain widely differing percentages of the net earnings derived from the worker's updated gross earnings, either heading upward towards 100 per cent or, alternatively, falling quite a bit below 90 per cent. In contrast, application of indexation to gross earnings, from which benefits are then recalculated, ensures that a coherent and constant relationship will always obtain among a worker's adjusted gross earnings, his or her adjusted net earnings and the benefit rate being paid at any time.
It is worth noting that the distinction between the two indexation methods has no relevance for workers whose accidents occurred before April I of this year. Their benefits are still linked to 75 per cent of gross; the recalculation of net earnings is not at issue. This group, which today constitutes the vast majority of all current claimants and, with a handful of exceptions, virtually all permanent disability pensioners, will always receive an increase in benefits equal to the indexation factor itself. It is important to put that fact on the record.
I do not want to speak at length, but I do want to put this on the record, lest even today, as 1985 draws to a close, there be those who oppose the concept of indexation and do not recognize the propriety of this action. Let me first put on the record that Ontario is not unique. Today there are six jurisdictions -- British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Saskatchewan and the Yukon -- that have formal indexation of workers' compensation payments in respect of permanent disability. All but New Brunswick use the consumer price index; New Brunswick uses the average industrial wage. Four of those six jurisdictions -- British Columbia, New Brunswick, Quebec and the Yukon -- also index temporary disability benefits on a similar basis, as Ontario will.
It is important that we are not unique, we are not the first. It is certainly an appropriate matter, we believe, that Ontario should join what is now a clear majority of the provinces that believe this matter is long overdue.
In closing, I want to take members back to a report in 1979 that focused this issue, a report by Paul Weiler in which this issue was dealt with.
Mr. McClellan: Whatever happened to Paul Weiler?
Hon. Mr. Wrye: My friend the member for Bellwoods asked whatever happened to Paul Weiler. He is still working very hard in this field.
I suspect there may be those in this debate who will quote some of the rationale for nonindexation that was in the white paper. However, I always found, even when I did not agree with Paul Weiler, that the gentleman was able to turn a phrase rather well and to put his arguments in a very lucid way.
In speaking on the theory of indexation and why we ought to go to protection for injured workers against the ravages of inflation, Professor Weiler said, and he was speaking about the pension:
"In the final analysis, the point of this pension," the injured worker's pension, "was to establish the disabled worker's rights to share in the real goods and services generated by the Canadian economy. Inflation causes a general increase to occur in the money price of that same real basket of goods and services."
10:10 p.m.
This is crucial.
"If the government or citizenry of Ontario is not prepared to justify an explicit reduction in the real entitlement of workers' compensation pensioners, to take such a step as a conscious policy, they must not tacitly permit the same result to come about by allowing supposedly impersonal economic forces to take their course. This is why I deliberately speak of an adjustment to, rather than an increase in, pension benefits to take account of intervening inflation. We must keep clearly in mind that no real improvements to benefits are at issue here."
Finally, he added, "We do no more than avoid an erosion in real income levels we earlier awarded workers' compensation pensions." Surely, as I wind up my remarks on second reading, that is what we have done.
It is a change that is long overdue, it is a change that is appropriate and it is a change that will be applauded by injured workers all over the province as indicating that this Legislature has finally shown some real sensitivity and some real understanding of their problems.
Mr. Gillies: I am very pleased to join in the debate on Bill 81 on behalf of the official opposition. I open my remarks by saying to the minister that the phone lines are certainly abuzz about this bill this evening.
I will say at the outset that while a number of my colleagues intend to join me in the debate on the minister's bill, I do not think anyone, either inside or outside this House, should be under any misapprehension. The bill will not, I believe, be given all three readings rather expediently and passed before the members leave here tomorrow. I do not want anyone to labour under that misapprehension, wherever they are.
Mr. D. R. Cooke: What about tonight?
Mr. Gillies: No, we have some talking to do. I do not think we will be through tonight. I know our friends in the third party want to speak on the bill too.
Hon. Mr. Wrye: I want to hear the view of the member for Fort William (Mr. Hennessy).
Mr. Gillies: The minister is going to.
I join this debate very conscious of a number of things. First of all, what we are talking about is the wellbeing and the standard of living that will be enjoyed in large part by people who have had their earning power and their livelihood substantially reduced by way of a work-place accident.
It is very interesting that the minister, I and several other members of the assembly come back for this debate fresh from the deliberations of the Ministry of Labour estimates in the select committee on resources development. We heard there of the rather startling incidence of workplace accidents. The figures are rather disturbing every time members of the assembly hear them, although, overall, it appears that work-place accidents have stabilized in terms of their number across the board.
As the minister was telling us a few minutes ago, there are still employment sectors of the Ontario economy that are exceedingly dangerous. There are large numbers of Ontario workers, be they farmers, forestry workers or miners, who are injured. In fact, there are sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, where the number of accidents has been on a steady increase for some 10 years now.
As members of the assembly, we all have to share a very deep concern about the people in this province who labour day after day in dangerous occupations and who put their lives on the line, in some cases, when they go to their place of work every day.
I believe Ontario has recognized for many years the need for income protection, for benefits and for pensions for people who are placed in such situations. Many years ago there was a move away from the system of workers being put in a position where they had to sue employers to receive any compensation resulting from such an accident. The two-way scheme, now known as the Workers' Compensation Board, provides reasonably good protection for those people and stands, perhaps not as a model, but as a scheme as good as any other of which I am aware in Canada for the protection of these people.
We all have complaints. I hazard a guess that there are very few of us in this assembly who have not represented injured workers at one time or another. In my constituency well over half of the time of my constituency office is taken up by matters of concern to the WCB and to injured workers. Literally hundreds of cases have been brought to me or to my office since I was elected in 1981.
I know the chairman of the standing committee on resources development, the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), has voiced the concern in recent days that more than 50 per cent of the time of the MPPs is taken up with these problems and that sometimes we feel a little helpless about it. Sometimes we complain about the bureaucracy, about the delays and the holdups that seem to come with working with the Workers' Compensation Board.
We have been through a lengthy process. We have had the Weiler report and the government's white paper on the Weiler report. We have had many hundreds of hours of consideration of the issues raised through those reports in the resources development committee, and we have had recommendations from the resources development committee, all of which led to the former government introducing and eventually passing Bill 101, which was seen as the first phase of the reform of the Workers' Compensation Board.
There were reforms left over from those earlier reports which were seen as coming in as part of a second phase of reform. I believe some of those thoughts, about which we talked all of those years from 1980 until mere months ago in the resources development committee, are now coming forward in the bill the minister has put before us today.
Mr. Speaker: Order. There are about six other conversations going on here.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Seven.
Mr. Speaker: Seven. Okay.
Mr. Gillies: As I say, some of those reforms about which we have talked all these years are coming forward in one form or another. I for one would like to commend the minister on some of the steps he is taking.
When we look at Bill 81, there are a couple of things I would like to make very clear on behalf of our party. We support, and I believe every member of this assembly supports, improving in every way possible and in every way practicable the benefits, the access to the Workers' Compensation Board and the ease of dealing fairly and equitably with the Workers' Compensation Board, which we all believe injured workers deserve.
We believe very strongly, and will be supporting without hesitation, the steps the minister is taking in Bill 81 with regard to bringing dependants, the widows and orphans of deceased workers, into the same framework of benefit as would have gone to the deceased worker.
The 10 per cent increase the minister proposed in Bill 81 was endorsed in principle by our party when we were the government. While we proposed to bring it in stages -- I believe the former minister talked about four stages over a period of four years -- the minister has decided to bring them in one package, in one reform.
I have no problem with that and our party has no problem with that. I believe it is long overdue and a welcome outcome of the deliberations of the resources development committee that we will be able to make some meaningful improvement in the situation in which the dependants of deceased workers find themselves. The other housekeeping --
Hon. Mr. Kerrio: Conclude.
Mr. Gillies: Please, allow me a few minutes more. This is an important bill.
We are also in support of the move of the pension plan provisions which will reflect the new quasi-independent nature of the people affected thereby with the new workers' adviser group.
We have to look at the history of the increases and the mechanism under which increases to workers' benefits were brought in over the last several years. We talk about indexation, in this case, to the consumer price index. We have to look at the increases that were granted since 1980.
On July 1, 1980, the Legislature granted a nine per cent increase to the benefits; on July 1, 1981, a 10 per cent increase; in July 1982, a nine per cent increase; in July 1983, a five per cent increase; in July 1984, a five per cent increase, and in July 1985, a five per cent increase.
10:20 p.m.
I do not believe there has been any hesitation on the part of the Legislature in the past to grant regular and, I believe, fair and meaningful increases, although individual members could debate the generosity of those increases.
I want to quote some of the minister's own words on July 5, 1985, when he brought in the last increase to the benefits. I believe the minister made some very good points at that time. He said:
"In arriving at a determination of the appropriate level of increase for workers' compensation benefits in 1985, the government was guided by the desire to ensure that at the very least the adjustment in question keeps pace with both the increase in consumer prices and the increase in the average wage levels throughout the provincial economy since the last benefit increase in July 1984.
"At the same time, the government needs to be mindful of the potential impact of a benefit amendment on the future assessment rate policies of the Workers' Compensation Board. It is also very conscious of the fact that we are currently in the midst of a major overhaul of both the benefit system and the administrative structures incorporated into the act, a process that was begun but not completed with the recent enactment of Bill 101."
The minister was absolutely right in his contention. First, the increases granted in the past number of years, if not precisely at the rate of increase of the consumer price index, were darned close. We are not talking about our commitment to injured workers and our desire to improve their benefits so much as we are talking about the mechanism by which that would be done.
I ask the minister, even as the Legislature moves on this package of reform, to keep in mind the problems or the challenges that face the Workers' Compensation Board and that have to be addressed, particularly at a time when we are bringing in reforms that will add to the cost of operating the board and to the benefits that will be flowing out from the board.
What are those problems and challenges? First and most important is the whole question of the unfunded liability that lies before the Workers' Compensation Board. The unfunded liability, the funds to which the board is committed to pay but for which it does not have assets, rose from $2 billion in 1984 to $2.7 billion in 1985, an increase of 34 per cent in assessment revenue in one year.
This increase and the increase in the assessment level have to be of concern to the minister and to the parliamentary assistant, who is here representing the minister. While we want to provide the best and most generous package of benefits and reforms we possibly can for the people for whom the board has a responsibility, for which we as members have a responsibility, we have to keep in mind the financial situation in which the board finds itself.
An increase in the assessment revenue of that magnitude -- 34 per cent in one year -- cannot cover the cost of current awards. It must be concluded that to some extent the payout capacity of the board, as compared to its capacity to take in revenue, is out of kilter. It is somewhat out of control.
The ministry has recognized that. A task force has been appointed, including WCB officials and employers, to set out a strategic direction for funding that unfunded liability. I urge the parliamentary assistant to take this concern to the minister. This work must continue. It is very important to ensure that the benefits we commit today be available to the injured workers five years, 10 years and 15 years down the road, that the financial integrity of the board is intact, that the unfunded liability is under control and that what we do today can be followed through with in the future.
Another related problem which I also urge the minister to consider, even as we debate Bill 81, is the question of assessment rates. I note again a 34 per cent increase in assessment rates to the employers from the board in one year. There is a great deal of concern among employers and, I would say legitimately, among employees of many companies that we should be moving increasingly towards an experience rating system. Under such a system, those companies that have a poorer accident record -- those that have demonstrated a lesser capacity to run their work places safely and responsibly -- should bear a greater percentage of the increased costs. Companies that are doing a good job of running a safe working environment should not have the types of increases of those that are causing the problem.
There has to be a fairer system. There has to be a better way to fund the Workers' Compensation Board that would be widely accepted by employers and employees. Perhaps the day is even coming when we are going to have to look at alternative sources of financing for the Workers' Compensation Board. This was the subject of considerable debate in the standing committee on resources development.
It may be that the day has passed when we can expect the assessments against employers to fund the board by 100 per cent. Heaven forbid that it should happen at a time when I know the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) is trying to get a handle on the provincial deficit, but we may have to look at funding from the consolidated revenue fund finding its way to the Workers' Compensation Board.
Hon. Mr. Nixon: Is the member going to finish?
Mr. Gillies: I am going to finish in about live minutes.
Hon. Mr. Nixon: Make it earlier rather than later. The member can start tomorrow morning.
Mr. Gillies: There is a problem with the standing committee on public accounts; I am going to be at the committee tomorrow morning. I will wrap up quickly.
There are other problems or challenges that the board has to get to. For example, I have raised in this House the question of the inequity in the wage increases granted to the salaried personnel of the board as opposed to the increases granted to the organized personnel of the board. I feel that question should be addressed. The minister is also aware of the illegal deduction of WCB fees from employees' cheques and the failure of the board to get a handle on that.
The bill before us will see an actual increase immediately of 1.7 per cent for the injured workers and an increase of 10 per cent, a one-time raise, for the dependants, plus the inflationary increase; so we have an increase of more than 11 per cent for the dependants of deceased workers. I have already spoken of our party's support for improvements to the benefits for dependants. I have spoken, and I guess I will speak again when we go into committee of the whole House, on the question of the superannuation clause.
We will be debating this bill tomorrow. Our party has some concerns about the mechanics of the bill, but the direction in which the minister is moving in trying to improve the situation of injured workers in this province is one we can all laud. I look forward to the debate.
On motion by Hon. Mr. Nixon, the debate was adjourned.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Mr. Nixon: I would like to indicate the business of the House for the remainder of this week and the week of January 6, 1986.
Tomorrow we will continue with this debate, and one hopes we will complete it in time for a timely adjournment to celebrate the Christmas vacation.
On Monday, January 6, in the afternoon, we would like to complete the redistribution debate. In the evening, we will have second reading and committee of the whole House, if necessary, on Bill 43 and Bill 44, and second reading of Bill 54, the Ontario Drug Benefit Act, and Bill 55, the Prescription Drug Cost Regulation Act.
On Tuesday, January 7, in the afternoon and evening, we will continue second reading, if necessary, of Bills 54 and 55.
Wednesday will be committee day.
On Thursday, January 9, in the afternoon, we will have private members' public business standing in the names of the member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Davis) and the member for Dovercourt (Mr. Lupusella). In the evening, there will be legislation, to be announced.
On Friday, January 10, we will have the estimates of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines.
10:30 p.m.
JUDGES' SALARIES
Mr. Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 28, a motion that this House do now adjourn is deemed to have been made. The member for Oakville has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer to his question given by the Chairman of Management Board. This will be discussed. The member has up to five minutes, and the minister has up to five minutes to respond.
Mr. O'Connor: Judging from her answer yesterday, I doubt she needs five minutes. Perhaps I can use some of her time.
In any event, I welcome this opportunity to chat briefly with the Chairman of Management Board on this question. The issue is whether a commitment was made to the Ontario Provincial Court Committee that if the committee recommended a certain level of salary for the judges, it would be accepted by the cabinet upon that recommendation.
The issue is not the amount of money that is paid to the judges. The question is one of the veracity of either the Chairman of Management Board or one of the members of that committee, whose versions of whether that commitment was made are diametrically opposed.
The minister says unequivocally, flat out, that no commitment was made. A member of the committee, Edward Greenspan, who incidentally has resigned over the issue, indicates that a commitment to a certain salary level was made. He further indicates he would not have signed the report had this commitment not been made; he would have filed a minority report.
I will read briefly from a letter of resignation he tendered to the chairman of that committee, dated November 19, 1985. He says in part:
"We were also informed that cabinet had agreed to an increase to $80,000. It was on that basis, and solely on that understanding, that I personally signed the report to the Lieutenant Governor."
He further states on the last page of that letter, page 5:
"Had I known in advance that the government was not going to recommend $80,000, I would have written an independent report had I not been able to persuade either you or Mr. Clairman, "the third member of the committee," of my view that judges' salaries should be immediately increased by $15,000, retroactive to April 1, 1984."
The other two members of the committee, Mr. Marchment, who is the chairman, and Mr. Clairman, an independent businessman, have been silent on the issue. When asked by the press and by others their views of what happened, they have chosen not to comment at all.
The other party involved, whom I mentioned in my question, was Douglas Beecroft, who is a counsel with the policy development section of the Attorney General's ministry and was a secretary to the committee. He is in a very sensitive and difficult position, obviously unable to say anything. However, in speaking to him, he simply indicated he was not at liberty to say anything.
I would suggest that for all three of these people it would have been a very simple, straightforward matter -- if the Chairman of Management Board is correct in her interpretation of what happened -- simply to have said, "No deal was made." I do not see how that would violate any privileges they have.
The matter has been speculated upon rather widely in the press. The positions of the two parties have been reported accurately, and this brings into question the veracity of one of the two parties. Both cannot be correct. One of them is and one of them is not.
I have a solution for the Chairman of Management Board to resolve this difficult issue and to remove the cloud that has to be over one of them as to who is telling the truth. The solution simply is for her to instruct the civil servant involved, who is an employee of the government, to give his version of the events. If the commitment was not made, he should say so. He was apparently a party to all the conversations between the two sides of the issue.
Alternatively, she could encourage, but obviously not instruct, either Mr. Clairman or Mr. Marchment, the chairman of the committee, similarly to give his version of the events that occurred.
A third solution, obviously, is for her to instruct the committee to release any minutes or documents of any discussions that went on. We have heard so much about open government, no walls, no barriers. Surely the tabling of such documentation would put to rest the speculation that continues around this issue.
They both cannot be right. It is a simple solution. If she is correct, why not instruct the civil servant involved simply to tell us what did occur, whether such a commitment was made or whether such a commitment was not made?
Hon. Ms. Caplan: It was my understanding that this time was available to answer questions. Having been accused of obfuscation in the past, I thought the answers I gave during question period yesterday were very clear. When questioned by the member for Oakville, I replied no to his first question. Then to his two supplementaries, I responded yes and no.
It was very clear. I have a copy of Hansard from yesterday. His questions were clear, and I am not sure of the purpose for this further questioning except to say that upon assuming the office of Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet in late June, I was told of the responsibility I had to report to the cabinet the recommendations of the Ontario Provincial Court Committee. I found this out when I was contacted during the summer by the committee and asked if I would convene a meeting with the Premier (Mr. Peterson) so we could discuss the history and the recommendations of this group on behalf of the provincial judges.
I might say I did that very expeditiously. A meeting was held. The members were at the meeting, as was the Premier. We listened. They informed us of the history. They told us in 1981 this committee had recommended parity with the federal judges and that the previous administration had never responded to the recommendation of that committee. It was now 1985 and there was great frustration because the previous administration had never even responded.
At that meeting, we considered parity with the federal judges as an unacceptable comparison and we rejected parity as a concept. In discussing this with our cabinet colleagues, we asked the committee in its deliberations to consider other than parity in that light. We asked instead that it look perhaps across this country at other provincial judges and see the state of the Ontario provincial judges.
As well, we were told of the frustration because the judges had been automatically given the same annual increase as the Ontario civil service by the previous administration. The frustration was that they felt they were being treated exactly like civil servants. We said we believed in the independence of the judiciary and would consider a recommendation that would separate the anniversary date and even the percentage increase as being different from the civil service.
There was an open and frank discussion. We listened. We did not at any time give a commitment. We could not because cabinet must make that final determination. What we asked was that they present to us a submission of options, which I took to cabinet. As members know, what happens at the cabinet table in its discussions is confidential. When I spoke to the members of the committee following that, I asked them to please present their recommendation to me and I would take it to cabinet.
At no time in my recollection did Mr. Greenspan tell me, either at the meeting with the Premier or subsequent to that -- and I did not have a further discussion with him following the day of that meeting -- that he would want to submit a minority report. He said clearly that he was seeking a consensus prior to the recommendation to cabinet. Never at any time did I say it would be possible to make a deal. No deal could be made because it is up to the cabinet, which has the responsibility to make that decision.
For the information of the House, I believe the judges in Ontario are fairly compensated. They compare with the highest-paid provincial judges across this land. They received a 4.4 per cent increase on a salary of $75,000.
The Ontario Provincial Court Committee has played an important role in the past and I hope it will in the future. Our commitment is to review the salary and remuneration of the court judges on an ongoing basis.
The House adjourned at 10:40 p.m.