Journal des débats 1986-mai-14 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Speaker: I hope all members are aware that from July 26 to August 2, the Ontario branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association will be host to legislators from across Canada and from several Commonwealth countries at the 26th Canadian regional conference.

Earlier this year, the Ontario branch sponsored a competition for a conference identity symbol involving commercial and design students at the Ontario College of Art. There were 28 submissions. I would like to congratulate and thank all those who participated in the competition and the judging.

I am pleased to introduce the three prize-winners in the competition, who are seated in the Speaker's gallery today. The winner of the first prize is Roger Seguin. Mr. Seguin's design represents the coming together in Ontario of the 12 other Canadian branches of the CPA for the conference. Samples of the design are on display this afternoon outside the chamber. We also have with us Cindy Saunders, who was awarded the second prize. The winner of the third prize was Eileen Fleming. Please welcome our guests today.

ONTARIO ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES COMMISSION

Mr. Speaker: I also wish to advise the House that the Ontario Electoral Boundaries Commission has concluded its work with a submission of the large-scale maps of each proposed electoral district which I have tabled with the Clerk today.

TICKET ALLOCATION

Mr. McLean: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I would like to know the name of the person in charge of ticket allocation for such events as yesterday's budget speech. I asked for some tickets as soon as they were supposed to be available. I was told all tickets were gone within two hours of delivery to the person in charge of them. Then, some time yesterday morning, I was informed there were tickets available to the House.

For interested parties in some outlying constituencies, considerable planning must go into taking time out for a trip to Queen's Park. There appears to be a disturbing lack of coherence along the line here. I feel this is an abuse of my privileges as a member of this Legislature and of members of the opposition in general.

I want to know the name of the person who bears the ultimate responsibility. I would like some assurance that this procedure will not continue. Perhaps the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) was saving the seats for his tobacco farmer friends. I suppose if the galleries had been full, there would have been more disappointed people.

Mr. Speaker: I might just say to the member that the Speaker's office is responsible for the allocation of the seats. The same allocation was approved by the Speaker's office this time as for the previous budget. All members were advised by special delivery at one time that so many tickets would be available. I would be glad to get the full information for the member and respond more fully.

TABLING OF INFORMATION

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: On February 26, I put a question on Orders and Notices to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye). Since it is long past the 14 days in which one gets a reply, according to standing order 88(d), perhaps you could be helpful in finding out for me how it is I go about getting an answer from the swamp.

Mr. Speaker: The standing orders are certainly very clear. However, I am sure the honourable member is aware that there is another way and that is to ask the minister during question period.

2:06

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

CONTRACT WORKERS

Mr. Hennessy: I would like the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Sorbara) to look into a complaint from four Thunder Bay employees of the Confederation College whose contracts were terminated, resulting in them being let go without notice or warning. One was contacted by the program manager at 7:30 in the morning of a normal work day and told not to show up; his job had been taken by someone else.

These people had previously been given positive feedback about the work they were doing, in some cases had received wage increases and had contracts renewed automatically on previous occasions. Why is this year so different? They had been on contract for up to three and a half years. When did they suddenly become incompetent? Was not one of them qualified for any full-time positions that became available?

I am concerned about the way these individuals were treated. I would like the minister's assurance that this sort of thing will not happen in the future. I would also like to see if anything can be done to make up for the shameful way these four were treated. I think the college should offer them some reasonable alternative employment to make up for its bad judgement.

I would also like the minister to look into the manner in which they were told they had lost their jobs. The making of such an eleventh-hour phone call is just shameful. These people have written to the president of the college asking for an explanation of the sudden and unexpected dismissals. At the very least, the minister should insist that the college president respond to their inquiries.

BUDGET

Mr. Foulds: Yesterday's budget will become known as the Teflon-coated budget: slippery on the outside because it did not substantially raise taxes, but hollow on the inside because it did nothing substantial to develop new programs, reduce economic injustice or tackle the problem of tax fairness in our society.

The best antipoverty program in the world is not unemployment insurance benefits, social assistance or severance pay; the best antipoverty program in the world is a job creation program. This budget had none.

This year there was a buoyancy, the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) tells us, a small tide in the economic affairs of Ontario which, if the Treasurer and his colleagues had the courage to pursue it, would have led to improved conditions for the poor and unemployed all over our province. They could have done something genuine to meet the desperate needs of those facing a loss of job in northern Ontario.

The government has yet to grasp the loss of dignity and the loss of self that comes with the loss of meaningful work. The Treasurer's budget failed to meet the needs of the other Ontario: the homeless, the working poor and the unemployed of northern Ontario, whose rate is 13.2 per cent, twice that of the provincial average. This was a Progressive Conservative budget without any progressive parts.

2:10 p.m.

AMERICAN EMBASSY SITE

Mr. Morin: I rise on this occasion to draw members' attention to the problems my constituents are experiencing because of the federal government's choice of Mile Circle, a popular local park land, as the site of the new American embassy.

Let me assure you, Mr. Speaker, the local community is not anti-American. Like other Canadians, Manor Park residents want to see our good friends and neighbours, the Americans, have as secure an embassy as possible. The question is, should embassy security be at the expense of the aesthetics and safety of the surrounding quiet residential district? The answer is, of course not.

But even more irritating to my constituents than the location itself is the way in which this site was chosen without effective prior consultation with the community. In sharp contrast to this government's commitment to consultation, as was demonstrated only yesterday by the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) in formulating his budget, the federal government, through the National Capital Commission, has chosen to act unilaterally. The name Mile Circle is becoming synonymous with government by decree.

DAY CARE

Mr. Cousens: The expectations for an expanded child and day care program were shattered by the lack of commitment in yesterday's budget. It was a major disappointment.

The Premier (Mr. Peterson) has said he was prepared to make a substantial move in day care. The Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) has led people to believe that significant action was forthcoming in day care. What the people received yesterday was a drop in the bucket, certainly not enough money for major new initiatives that were talked about.

That the government would launch new, expanded day care programs was a false hope created by the Premier and the Minister of Community and Social Services. Only $6 million in additional funding was announced in the budget for day care, a mere 4.7 per cent increase. This is an insignificant amount for all the promises.

The government has compromised its commitment to the people who believed it was going to do something for children. This is a time for the government to act in a responsible and significant way for day care; it is time something happened. Obviously, that time has not arrived for the people across the floor.

NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Wildman: The budget presented by the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) yesterday is designed in the same way as was this Ministry of Transportation and Communications road map. Southern Ontario is dealt with on a much larger scale, and northern Ontario is left to the back and completely ignored.

It is time the government at Queen's Park realized there is a vast territory in northern Ontario and it is undergoing serious structural problems. While the unemployment rate in all of the province has dropped from 8.2 per cent in January to 7.2 per cent in April, the already higher rates in the north have increased. In northeastern Ontario, they have risen from 11.3 per cent to 12.8 per cent, and in the northwest from 12.9 per cent to 13.6 per cent. Those are the April figures, before any of the announcements were made by Great Lakes Forest Products, Algoma Steel, Kimberly-Clark or Rio Algom.

There is nothing in the budget, besides $17 million from the already announced $100-million northern economic development fund, which does anything for the north. There is a total of $35 million for health care, education and forestry as well as part of $25 million for the community economic transformation agreement program, which is to be shared with eastern Ontario.

This is just peanuts. The budget fails to deal with the problems of the north, and it is time the Treasurer studied the map to learn that there is another part of this province besides southern Ontario.

NIAGARA RIVER WATER QUALITY

Mr. Haggerty: I rise to support the efforts put forward by the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) and to encourage him to continue to insist on real and meaningful environmental safeguards being included in any agreement on the Niagara River. Any plan to clean up the toxic chemical pollution that enters the Niagara River must include (1) extensive monitoring for pollution within the river's watershed, (2) the excavation of the toxic deposits, and not any futile attempts to contain the waste and (3) a detailed and enforceable timetable for the reduction of the chemicals now entering the river.

The minister's defence of Ontario's interests in these negotiations is greatly appreciated by those millions of people who use the Niagara River and Lake Ontario for their drinking water.

BACK-BENCHERS' QUESTIONS

Mr. Gillies: It is with a great deal of pleasure that I rise to announce the creation and presentation of a new award. At great expense, our party wants to honour the contribution being made by government back-benchers to question period.

It was yesterday, after a couple of especially tough, probing and controversial questions from Liberal back-benchers, that members on this side believed it was time to recognize the best question. We believe it is surely a coincidence that Liberal back-benchers have increased their questioning 400 per cent since electronic Hansard came in. We want to honour the member for York East (Ms. Hart) for her particularly probing and tough contribution yesterday.

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: The members on that side have not seen anything yet.

Mr. Grossman: We saw it yesterday.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Somebody has to provide a credible opposition.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Time for members' statements has expired.

VISITOR

Mr. Speaker: I have just been advised that in the gallery today we have Chuck Furey, member of the House of Assembly of Newfoundland. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Furey.

2:16 p.m.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

ISRAELI INDEPENDENCE DAY

Hon. Mr. Ruprecht: On behalf of the Premier (Mr. Peterson), my colleagues and the government of Ontario, I rise for the purpose of recognizing an important event that took place on this day 38 years ago, May 14, 1948 -- the establishment of the state of Israel.

This date is of great significance to our Jewish community around the globe and indeed to all freedom-loving peoples. It is the fulfilment of prophecies, prayers and dreams.

I want to recognize the presence of the diplomatic corps of the state of Israel, including Gideon Saguy, and representatives of the Canadian Jewish religious, fraternal, cultural and philanthropic organizations in the gallery.

Israel may be a small dot on the map of the world, but it is a giant model of democracy, indeed, the great symbol. In spite of economic hardship, wars and threats of war, Israel has not lost its sense of purpose: to shine as a beacon of freedom, democracy and fulfilment of the promise of the ancient Hebrew prophets.

On this festive occasion, may all of us join in the hopes and prayers of Jewish people here and in Israel that the day may not be far off when the people of Israel and the nations of the world lay down their arms, turn their swords into ploughshares and realize the beautiful word of peace, shalom.

On behalf of the government of Ontario, I would now like to read the proclamation of Israeli Independence Day:

"Whereas the province of Ontario and the Canadian nation have prospered through the courage and industry of people of many nationalities and religions who have come to this land in search of freedom and opportunities; and

"Whereas we are especially mindful of the important contribution that citizens of Jewish ancestry have made to our province and country since first arriving in Canada in 1759; and

"Whereas the free, united, independent and democratic state of Israel was established 38 years ago on the 14th day of May, 1948; and

"Whereas it is imperative for Canadians to remember that the price of our precious freedom is eternal vigilance; and

"Whereas the observance of the anniversary fosters within us a deeper appreciation of freedom, liberty and democratic ideals;

"Therefore, on behalf of the government of Ontario, we are pleased to recognize May 14, 1986, as Israeli Independence Day and commend its observance to the people of our province."

[Later]

Mr. Grossman: Before I begin my response, perhaps I might raise a point of privilege.

Under the new rules of the House, there is a time gap between ministerial statements and the opportunity for us to respond on special occasions such as Israeli Independence Day.

I want to express my very serious concern and outrage at the fact that many very senior members of the Jewish community, including the Consul General, were here to hear the very first statement, which was that of the minister acknowledging Israeli Independence Day. As soon as his statement was finished, he left and took the entire contingent with him without leaving an opportunity for either the opposition party or the leader of the third party to join in a tradition in this assembly, which is to acknowledge together those nonpartisan occasions when the views of all parties and all people of Ontario should be offered.

I am told the government invited the representatives down to the government caucus office. The Premier (Mr. Peterson) joined them there, together with the member for Oriole (Ms. Caplan) and the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Kwinter) -- not a coincidence, I might add.

The leader of the third party and I will now both use this opportunity, not to one-up the government, but simply to join with the government and all the people of Ontario in acknowledging a very important day to all people, I hope. The representatives of the Jewish community in Toronto and the Israeli consulate and their representatives, having met with and still meeting with the Premier, the minister, the member for Oriole and the member for Wilson Heights, will not have the opportunity to hear the best wishes expressed by the Leader of the Opposition and by the leader of the third party.

I want to express to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the government my very serious irritation at this lack of fundamental courtesy to the opposition parties on this day. I ask you to take whatever steps are appropriate and raise it with the government. My request to the government is that it express its apologies, not to us, but to the Israeli and Jewish communities in Toronto. Under the new rules, I consider this to be an absolute slap in the face and a serious breach of courtesy to the opposition parties.

Mr. Rae: These opportunities do not come very often for me, but I want to associate myself and our party entirely with the remarks that have just been made by the leader of the official opposition. I watched the minister without courtesy stand at his place and then escort out the entire delegation that was here, including the Consul General, Mr. Saguy, and Rabbi Pearlson and his friends who were up in the gallery.

Given the normal courtesies of events of this kind, the well-known association of members of all parties with the state of Israel and the well-known association of both the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman) and myself with the Jewish community, I would have thought the smallest of courtesies on the government's part would have been reflected on this day of all days in the assembly.

I want to register my very strong protest at what has taken place. It is an insult to turn what is a nonpartisan occasion into a partisan occasion and is intensely regrettable. It signals a very bad message about general courtesy and understanding between members on a day of great significance to a great many citizens of this city, this province and this country.

I express my personal protest and that of my caucus colleagues at the way in which this whole event on United Nations Day has been treated. On any other occasion I can think of, when these events have been spoken to by the Premier, it has always been customary for leaders of other parties to be able to participate and share in those occasions. That has not happened on this occasion. It is profoundly regrettable and an insult to a great many of us who would have liked to have been able to participate on this occasion.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: May I, on behalf of my colleagues, indicate we have taken the deep concerns expressed by the two opposition leaders seriously and will convey them to the minister responsible.

In the past, it has always been accepted that when a statement of this nature is brought forward, opposition members take part in the general discussion. Under the new rules, this is not one of the freedoms that seems to be emphasized. I cannot do anything now to correct what has just happened, but in the future I feel unanimous consent would be readily forthcoming for any member to join in the sorts of comments made on these important occasions.

Mr. Speaker: I have listened carefully to the members. It is not a point of privilege or a point of order. It is certainly a point of objection. I understand from what has been said it has been taken note of very carefully.

Mr. Grossman: I say to the government House leader it would have been appropriate to schedule the statement last, and that would have avoided the problem. There was no particular urgency to it. Second, the Premier should not blame the minister responsible, because it was quite clear the Premier left at the time to meet with the group. It was not a coincidence; neither was it totally in the hands of the minister.

This is a touching and important day for me and has traditionally been so. One of my earliest remembrances of all is listening to the United Nations vote. I can remember gathering around a radio, as many other Jews can. Although I cannot remember the vote, I can remember the setting and sitting there listening to the vote with the family. This date in 1948, whose anniversary we are celebrating today, was a great day not just for members of my faith, but I hope also for all democratic peoples, as this great, glorious, strong, fiercely fighting and independent state was created. It is an opportunity for all of us to reflect upon the continuing importance of that great state.

I remember back further. In terms of measuring the significance of this date, my grandfather escaped from Europe in 1907 and thereby escaped persecution. He would not have believed that today we could celebrate and talk about the state of Israel in this assembly. He would not have believed the warmth of the greetings that the state gets here and in other places, for all those reasons. My grandfather, had he still been with us today, would not have believed his grandson could stand in this place in this assembly. All of that is not unrelated to the events of 1948, which we celebrate today. I want to join the government and the third party in acknowledging this date, which has special significance for me.

I cannot resist adding that it is of double significance for me to be able to join in this celebration, as it were, on a day when my son Robbie and his class are joining us in the east gallery so that they may be with us this afternoon.

Mr. Rae: I want to associate myself with the comments that have been made about the celebration of the anniversary of the state of Israel.

Canada came of age in its diplomatic life on the world stage with the events after 1945. Many Canadians, not only Jews, shared a great pride in the creation of the state of Israel. We as a country have played a critical role in the Middle East in trying to create a more stable world condition. We celebrate every year as we approach the 40th anniversary of the state. We celebrate this wonderful occasion with the Jewish people.

I only regret that my daughter is not in the gallery to hear these remarks, but there we are.

GREAT LAKES FOREST PRODUCTS

Hon. Mr. Fontaine: Following discussions with the company, its principal labour unions and the municipality of Thunder Bay, the Premier (Mr. Peterson) has now arranged for an independent assessment of the financial situation and the competitive outlook of the Great Lakes waferboard mill.

This confidential study, which will be undertaken by my ministry, will be led by Dr. Bob Rosehart, president of Lakehead University. Dr. Rosehart is also chairman of the committee on resource-dependent communities in northern Ontario, whose report is expected shortly.

Dr. Rosehart is now preparing terms of reference for the study, with the assistance of my ministry, the Ministry of Labour and other ministries. He will also consult with the company and its unions in the development of the terms of reference.

We are very grateful to Dr. Rosehart for accepting this additional onerous task. We have assured him of our support in the provision of outside expert assistance of a financial, technical and economic nature as well as in-house data and expertise from our government.

While no one can say the study itself will resolve the present difference of views that has led to suspension of plant operations, we believe it responds to the need for an impartial point of view, which has been a key issue raised by the employees. It is our belief that this government should do everything it can to secure reopening of the plant.

We have been assured the company will take no action with regard to the now-idle plant, pending discussions and the results of Dr. Rosehart's study. Initial study results are expected to be available to my ministry within two months.

Mr. Bernier: I say to the House and to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines that we welcome the announcement on the study with respect to the closing of the Thunder Bay waferboard plant.

However, for a government that professes to be open, a government with no walls and no barriers, I am shocked to hear the minister say this will be a confidential study. If it was sincere about this study, it would look at all the facts and figures, and if the company was sincere in bringing out the facts, they should be made public.

Also, I find it inconceivable that the man undertaking this study will be preparing his own terms of reference. I wonder where the government is and where the leadership is on that side. Surely, if a government is having a study, it would at least have some indication of what the terms of reference would be, and not ask the gentleman who is in charge of the study.

Mr. Foulds: I welcome the statement by the Minister of Northern Development and Mines (Mr. Fontaine), but I have some reservations. I welcome the appointment of Dr. Rosehart, who I think will do an excellent job. Like my friend the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier), I worry about the confidentiality of a study, I think with more justification than he does.

Second, I believe the terms of reference must be made public. I believe all the information must be made accessible to the union involved. The community must have access, not only to the books but also to the feasibility study the company did. I also hope Dr. Rosehart can complete the study before the two-month period, because every day the plant is down means it will be harder to open it again.

I hope Dr. Rosehart will look at the full range of options, including an alternative ownership of the plant. A study does not solve the problem, but it could help.

VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION

Hon. Mr. Wrye: As honourable members know, the government is dedicating significant time and effort to the reform of the workers' compensation system.

In recent months, there has been a great deal of activity in this regard: implementation of the major reforms prescribed by Bill 101, indexation of compensation benefits and the announcement of further regionalization of compensation board services.

In the next phase of reform, the government proposes to introduce amendments relating to compensation for permanent disabilities, the reinstatement of a worker to former employment and mandatory experience rating.

It is in the area of reinstatement that the quality of vocational rehabilitation services is so clearly crucial. For the right to reinstatement to be more than merely theoretical, injured workers and employers must have at their disposal a meaningful, comprehensive rehabilitation program that makes effective way for such reinstatement.

More than that, some workers are unable to return to their previous employment following a work-place injury, simply because the level of permanent disability makes it impossible for them to perform the work. These workers often need substantial and comprehensive vocational rehabilitation to enable them to once again play a meaningful role in the Ontario work place.

In recent times, there has been a continuing call by injured workers, legislators and rehabilitation professionals for extensive improvements to the vocational rehabilitation services of the Workers' Compensation Board.

Last November, the standing committee on resources development reported that the WCB's "current rehabilitation programs need modification and upgrading in a number of ways." The committee made seven specific recommendations on WCB rehabilitation services. The establishment of an independent task force to recommend improvements to those services was one of those.

Therefore, I am pleased to announce this afternoon that the government has established the Ontario Task Force on the Vocational Rehabilitation Services of the Workers' Compensation Board.

I am also pleased to announce that Walter Majesky and Maria Minna have agreed to serve as full-time co-chairmen of the task force.

Mr. Majesky is a past president of the Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto and former secretary-treasurer of the Ontario Federation of Labour.

Ms. Minna is a community relations consultant who has substantial expertise in the rehabilitation of injured workers. She is the president of COSTI-IIAS, the largest immigrant services organization in the country, and is a former director of the National Council of Welfare.

The task force I am announcing today has been charged with eight tasks.

1. To examine the vocational rehabilitation services provided by the board, including an examination and identification of the goals and expected results of the vocational rehabilitation programs.

2. To assess the adequacy of the funds expended by the Workers' Compensation Board on vocational rehabilitation programs in relation to the intended goals of the program and to other types of benefits provided to injured workers.

3. To explore strategies to identify at the earliest possible opportunity those injured workers who will probably encounter difficulties in returning to suitable employment and to ensure that these workers are provided with appropriate vocational rehabilitation services.

4. To examine approaches for providing a comprehensive rehabilitation service to workers through the integration of vocational rehabilitation, claims and medical services.

5. To examine the role of vocational rehabilitation in facilitating the hiring of injured workers.

6. To explore the appropriate role for retraining and re-education in the vocational rehabilitation process.

7. To examine the extent to which the Workers' Compensation Board's vocational rehabilitation service is dependent upon vocational evaluations and to determine the role for the board, the private sector and nonprofit organizations in providing vocational evaluation services.

8. To consider any other vocational rehabilitation issues which the task force considers important.

The task force will have members aside from Mr. Majesky and Ms. Minna. I expect the appointments of these additional members will be announced shortly.

Finally, the task force has been asked to issue an interim report by October 31 and a final report by May 1, 1987.

I know honourable members will share my view that the task force has a very important job before it, one that has vitally positive implications for the injured workers of Ontario.

I wish it well in its deliberations and I keenly await its reports on those deliberations.

Mr. McClellan: On behalf of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party, I welcome the announcement from the Minister of Labour that he intends to have a serious review of the vocational rehabilitation services of the Workers' Compensation Board and to set up a task force to that end, to report as early as next fall.

The minister and members of the House will know of our concern about the practices of the WCB and its failure to respond to the needs of injured workers for effective rehabilitation services and, most important of all, for the right to return to productive employment.

It is the experience of the majority of injured workers who end up with residual disabilities that they are deprived of high-paying jobs. Even if they are successfully rehabilitated by the WCB, they find themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder. In some cases, construction workers move from $18-an-hour jobs to minimum wage, without a decent pension, without decent supplementation and without prospects.

We will be making submissions to the task force when it begins its work. I want to acknowledge that the task force idea flowed from the work of the standing committee on resources development under the chairmanship of my colleague the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) and the excellent report which was tabled earlier this year.

There are three quick points I would like to make that the task force must address.

First, it must address the legal right of workers to return to their pre-accident jobs. Many workers are now simply thrown on the economic scrap heap.

Second, the task force will have to address the question of quotas and the need to have a quota system to require the private sector to hire disabled workers. Most European countries did this after the Second World War; Ontario has simply failed to grasp the nettle.

Third, the task force will have to deal with the question of job creation. Over the years, we have argued that Ontario should establish crown corporations, modelled on the British re-employment system, to hire injured and disabled workers. We hope this task force will also look at the problem of physically handicapped workers, who fall under the aegis of the Ministry of Community and Social Services and are outside the ambit of the Workers' Compensation Board, so that we will end up with a system that provides decent employment for all disabled workers.

I would like to acknowledge the excellence of the choices. Our old friend Wally Majesky, who has assumed this office, and Maria Minna as well will, I am sure, do an excellent job.

COMPUTERIZED MAPPING SYSTEM

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: I know all the members are aware of the impact of technology on the way our world operates. We are experiencing a trend towards the more frequent use of computers to record and exchange information.

The government is committed to increasing technology development in Ontario and maximizing the export potential of the rapidly emerging computer mapping industry.

In response to these developments, my ministry will proceed with a two-year project involving an investment of $4.2 million a year to test how computer-recorded information can be applied to upgrade our present mapping system.

More than half of these funds, $2.2 million a year, will be obtained by redirecting moneys used under the existing Ontario basic mapping program and from other internal funds. The remaining $2 million a year will come from new initiative funding under the technology opportunity fund.

I would like to remind the members that this test phase of the computer mapping system expands on a mandate given to my ministry more than 10 years ago. At that time, the Committee on Government Productivity gave us the responsibility to develop a comprehensive, land-related information system.

Since then, we have accomplished a great deal. We have created a common means by which land-related information is identified through a computerized geographical referencing system. With the Ontario basic mapping program, we have produced hand-drawn maps to display basic topographic information about the province.

We are now at the point where a computer version of this product is not only possible but very much in demand, both in the public sector and in the private sector.

I would like to take this opportunity to stress the benefits a computer mapping system will have to its users. It can serve as a common reference base for a variety of information, from assessing forestry plans to deploying ambulances, thus reducing the complexity of decision-making. It can permit the overlay of one piece of information on another; this not only adds to the total information stored but also helps the user to test the impact of decisions on a variety of areas.

The economic benefits for this system are far-reaching. It will place the Ontario mapping industry in a leading role in Canadian and international markets. This, in turn, will create the opportunity for new U. S. and overseas markets.

It will directly create 135 to 200 high-technology jobs in Ontario. It has the potential to create indirectly an additional 250 or more jobs for Ontarians in Canadian and overseas contracts.

It will help to bridge the transition from conventional to computerized mapping technologies, ensure standardized computer products and provide marketing opportunities to stimulate both industry and government awareness.

A computer mapping system will offer many rewards to the user, the province and to private industry. However, before we can implement such a system, we must gather the information in digital form and then test the system's capabilities.

I would like to outline how we will proceed with this testing. We plan to produce about 600 computerized Ontario basic maps of selected northern areas each year for the next two years. The production of these maps will be contracted out to the Ontario mapping industry. This industry has gained valuable expertise in computer mapping technologies and techniques over the past several years. A market analysis will also be conducted during this time. At the end of the test period, my ministry will analyse the results and provide recommendations on how to implement this system at a provincial level.

This government has already articulated a firm commitment to technological advance. The testing of this computer mapping system will bring us one step further towards implementing a comprehensive provincial mapping tool.

Mr. Harris: I congratulate the Minister of Natural Resources on his announcement to continue with the computer mapping. I did not hear anything on the remote sensing program that was started at the same time a couple of years ago, with Board of Industrial Leadership and Development funding, and the experimental project that started in Cambridge two years ago to prove the technology by MNR on the computer digital mapping project.

On a disappointing note, while all of this mapping is going on in northern Ontario, not a comment was made about the technology being developed in northern Ontario, about the jobs going to northern Ontario or about any economic benefits to northern Ontario, even though that is where the mapping is taking place. Those are the types of areas we are concerned about. Consistent with the budget we saw yesterday, everybody seems to be ignoring the north over there.

Mr. Laughren: I would like briefly to commend the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) for the computerized mapping program he has announced and, in keeping with the comments made by the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris), encourage him to ensure that those significant numbers of jobs are located in northern Ontario, since that is where the initial mapping is going to be done.

2:47 p.m.

ORAL QUESTIONS

BUDGET PROJECTIONS

Mr. Grossman: My question is of the Treasurer. In preparing budgets, Treasurers always go through the range of economic predictions for growth in Ontario from various leading indicators and various leading sources. Will the Treasurer share with us the predictions for economic growth in Ontario offered by the banks and the Conference Board of Canada?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: It is true the economic policy experts in the Treasury provide on a regular basis a range of the projections from the various banks, the conference board and also some of the projections from American financial and economic institutions. I am not prepared to rhyme off the variety of projections that are a part of that. They change as the views of the growing economy and the opinions of these economists change as time goes forward.

Mr. Grossman: I ask because I suspected the Treasurer was perhaps unfamiliar with them, which he should not be, or not willing to share them with us, which he should not be.

The conference board, which the Liberal Party of Ontario has always held up as an accurate beacon and forecaster, predicted 4.9 per cent growth for Ontario for this coming year. The conference board is held out by most other objective observers to be a pessimistic forecaster.

Yesterday the Treasurer based all his budget expectations, including his revenue, not on 4.9 per cent, which the conference board says, and not on 4.4 per cent, which is the lowest range we could find among major institutions, but on 4.2 per cent.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Grossman: With the revenue we suspect the Treasurer is going to get from the real growth, which most people say will be somewhere near five per cent, he will generate approximately $900 million in additional revenue during this coming year.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Grossman: Why did the Treasurer not project a revenue forecast and growth for Ontario closer to the mid-range of all the other averages instead of the most pessimistic one anyone can find?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I remember the then Treasurer, now the Leader of the Opposition, being somewhat embarrassed that the Conference Board of Canada had a pessimistic outlook for Ontario when he was managing our economic affairs. I can remember bringing to his attention, somewhat to his embarrassment, something he did not know, which was that he was paying $100,000 for their views at the time when they were shooting very low in the projections for Ontario.

Mr. Grossman: Not as low as the minister is projecting.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Now that they are overshooting, I do not say I am a bit gun-shy of those projections, but we simply put them in with the other projections as points of interest which affect my views and the views of the economists in the Treasury. Unlike the then Treasurer, I have a good deal of confidence in the officials of the Treasury. They worked for him; they work for me. I know they are assiduous in their reviews of all the indicators, and the bases of the budget projections are essentially those numbers provided by the economists in Treasury. I do not apologize for that. In response to his original question, the range of projections is there. We have a chance, around the same board table he used for so many years, to discuss those alternatives. I take the responsibility for those projections, and I get them from competent officials.

Mr. Grossman: If the Treasurer did not understate his expectation of growth so there would suddenly be approximately $1 billion in unreported revenue coming in in the course of the next 12 months, which he will have opportunities to spend, shall we say at a later date, on day care, on living up to his election promises, on getting rid of Ontario health insurance plan premiums and on the meal tax concession, can he explain to this House why he rejected all the other advice and came in at the most pessimistic guess for growth in Ontario of anyone we can find?

Mr. Speaker: Treasurer.

Mr. Grossman: On what did he base his own pessimistic outline?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I have the reputation of being conservative and careful, and I do not object to that. We feel these projections are reasonable for the present fiscal year. If the growth of the economy is greater than those projections, this House will know about it as soon as I know about it. The conspiratorial approach to politics that characterizes the questions from the Leader of the Opposition bothers me somewhat. He has referred publicly to some ulterior motives, which he might find in his own mind but which are not in mine nor in the minds of my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker: New question.

Mr. Grossman: If they are not, let the minister tell us why he has 4.2 per cent and everyone predicts --

Mr. Speaker: New question.

Mr. Martel: That was a new question.

Mr. Grossman: No, it was not. It was a prediction that later on in the year they will have hundreds of millions of dollars --

Mr. Speaker: Order. I did not recognize the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel). New question.

HOSPITAL FUNDING

Mr. Grossman: I have a question for the Premier. Consistent with what we have seen developing into a pattern and not inconsistent with the events we were complaining about a moment ago, the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston), instead of being at question period to provide information to this House, is at this very time meeting with the Ontario Hospital Association to announce to them his plan to hand out money to hospitals over the next few years.

I want to begin by registering our concern with that sort of arrogance. In the minister's absence, can the Premier explain how capital allocation for hospitals, currently running at about $170 million, as reported in the budget yesterday, is going to turn into a marvellous new program, given that he has promised $850 million over five years, which as we calculate it, is a continuation of $170 million a year? How is that an expansion of hospital funding?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I find the member's question somewhat curious. Regularly in the last couple of months, he has been yapping about underfunding of the hospitals. I hear that quite regularly from him. Now he is making it appear as some kind of sin that the honourable minister would meet with the OHA, which was delighted with the government program. It is delighted with a long-term commitment and an ability to plan in the long term, something it has not had in the past. The member should talk to the OHA and not to me. He seems now to be begrudging it that money. Now that we have entered into long-term planning, the member seems to be regretting that very much.

The minister is doing exactly what he should be doing today. He is discussing the long-term planning with the OHA. We are committed to addressing some of the capital shortfalls that have developed during the last 10 years. The member is seeing real action from this government.

Mr. Grossman: The Premier clearly does not know the answer to the question.

I invite the Premier to explain to me how this is such a great new program for the hospitals when, on page 39 of the budget, it indicates that capital for health this year is $168 million. Would he be kind enough to explain to us how $850 million over five or, as we read in the paper this morning, maybe eight years turns out to be more money than $168 million per year?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The honourable member will be aware of the frustration of the OHA and others with the short-term approach the previous government took. The members opposite will recall the capital allocations a year ago and how, in their dying days, they increased the allocation, how they fiddled around with them, kept them on tenterhooks, announced and reannounced and things did not happen.

They are expressing a great admiration for the new approach of this government, the long-term commitment and the ability to plan, deal in candour with them and not use them just for political purposes. That is why the member sees the OHA and other responsible health care professionals stand up and say, "It is about time we had this open-arms approach."

Mr. Grossman: I want to invite the Premier again, when he has finished those great speeches, to share that speech about lack of forethought or planning with London Victoria Hospital, Parkwood Hospital or any of the other hospitals in London where this government approved those very major projects. They are up and running, thanks to a lot of foresight, planning and commitment, in those two projects alone, involving much more than $200 million.

I am not going to let the Premier continue to avoid answering the question. In a great new announcement, he has alleged he has $850 million over five years or eight years. How does that amount to more money than $168 million per year? It is flat-lining. Can the Premier explain any other version of that money?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: May I at the outset thank the honourable member for the compliment on the quality of representation that London has had in this Legislature during the last few years with respect to the capital facilities in that great community. It is our desire that the other communities be as well represented.

Mr. Grossman: Let us hear the answer.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am sure the member has read the budget. He is aware of the commitment to cancer facilities, which have been, in our view, shortchanged during the last little while. A whole succession of announcements was made with no real funding coming forward. They are seeing that.

I ask the member to talk without his political motivation to people who have a completely different view of this situation. He should, in fairness, bring their quotes into the House when they talk about the brave new day this province has entered into.

Mr. Grossman: I asked the Premier to answer the question. He does not have a clue what is in this budget.

3 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman) contain himself. He has had an opportunity. Will he please give an opportunity to the member for York South (Mr. Rae).

Mr. Rae: It is important that those of us who do not have children in the gallery get a chance to ask a question as well.

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Mr. Rae: I have a question for the Treasurer. I am sure he is aware that in 1981 one could earn the princely sum of $1,880 in Ontario and not have to pay any provincial income tax. I am sure he also knows that sum has now been increased, thanks to his generosity and compassion, some six years later, to $2,075.

How does the Treasurer feel about the incredibly parsimonious and cheap treatment given to the working poor in this budget? Why does he not raise the amount to a decent level so people who are making $4 and $4.50 an hour can make that money without having to give so much of it to the provincial government?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I wish the tax reduction program could have been richer. I ask the member to compare it with the initiative taken by the government of Canada in its first budget following the election of the Conservatives in Ottawa, when it wiped out the tax reduction program completely and at the same time offered a substantial loophole on capital gains to the other end of the income spectrum.

In direct response to the honourable member's question, both in last year's budget and this year's budget, I increased the amount allocated for tax reduction at the low end of the income spectrum. I wish it had been more, but in my judgement, that was what we could afford at this time.

Mr. Rae: The Treasurer mentions the other government in Ottawa of blessed memory. We are aware of what they have done.

It is fair to say the Treasurer is $49 better than the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman) was in 1984 when he was Treasurer. Does the Treasurer not realize he looks good and he was able to increase the amounts only because the member for York Mills (Miss Stephenson), when she was Treasurer, reduced the amount that could be earned from $2,000 to $1,433 at the stroke of a pen on June 19, 1985, by means of regulation? Does he not realize that he looks good only in comparison to that?

When the Treasurer compares himself to any standard of the past prior to that time, when he compares himself to what is fair and just, he has been rather measly in the kind of the treatment he has given to our lowest-paid people in the province.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I look forward to the comments from the member for York Mills when the member for York South accuses her of making me look good.

At least I had the opportunity to reverse that decision and to strengthen the income tax reduction program. I have already indicated that I wish it were more, and I know all members here wish it were more, but that is the allocation of funds at this time. I hope the member and his colleagues will support it.

Mr. Rae: Time will tell. I say to the Treasurer --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Time will tell when we get a supplementary too.

Mr. Rae: How does the Treasurer feel when he realizes that in this year, prior to the budget, his government gave an extra $65 million to the doctors practising in Ontario, a group that can hardly be considered to be underpaid, whereas by his own admission, when we total up the Ontario health insurance plan changes and the minuscule changes in the amount of money one can earn without paying any taxes, it looks like it is going to be $35 million, not this year but next year?

How does the Treasurer feel when he makes that kind of comparison, when we are looking at literally one million Canadians living in Ontario who are poor? That is the treatment he has given to them, and to roughly 17,000 doctors he has given an extra $65 million.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Along with many other citizens of Ontario, I felt a cold hand on my heart when the increase in the doctors' revenues was approved. It was an agreement, entered into some years ago by the previous administration, that was described by some honourable member in this House as an occasion when the previous Minister of Health and Treasurer was wrestled to the ceiling by the doctors. However, that commitment is one this government inherited, and naturally, we maintained it. The fact that we are now at an end of that agreement simply means we will have the honour of negotiating with the medical practitioners on that basis in the future.

EXTRA BILLING

Mr. Rae: Now that the Treasurer has spoken at such length about the cold hand on his heart with respect to doctors, I would like to turn my question to the Premier and ask him whether it is true that his Minister of Health (Mr. Elston), who unfortunately is otherwise engaged at this time, stated to the press outside the scrum after the cabinet meeting this morning that a decision had been reached with respect to the schedule for the bill on extra billing. Is it the case that Bill 94 will be brought forward in the very near future?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: It is the case. The matter was discussed in cabinet this morning. We had an update from the minister, who had attended a meeting, I believe this week, with the Ontario Medical Association. There is another meeting scheduled next week, but the minister will convey to the OMA that unless very substantial progress forward is made, we will have to move on legislation.

Mr. Rae: Gee, that sounds positively draconian.

Mr. Breaugh: Cold hands, cool heart.

Mr. Martel: He had them by the throat, not the heart.

Mr. Rae: Given that we have the reports today, and I am sure the Premier has read the comments by Dr. Moran that he is offended by the attitude of the Minister of Health, and that when the minister said any progress was being made he was simply being "sly and clever," to quote the words used by Dr. Moran, what is the test going to be in terms of progress being made? We have now had 10 sessions, and there has apparently been no change in position on either side, yet at various points the Premier has said progress is still being made. Those of us who are mere laypeople looking on are rather baffled by this process. Nothing changes and yet progress is being made. How do we determine whether progress is being made?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I understand the member's difficulty in understanding the proposition. Let me give an analogy. Sometimes the member gets flowery in his rhetoric for public consumption, but when it comes time to vote, he knows how he votes. That is the kind of situation I am talking about.

Sometimes people such as Dr. Moran use language in a certain way, and perhaps we are all guilty of doing that at some time or other. We do not have to construe these remarks in the newspaper as necessarily being indicative of all the true feelings. I do not think we have to negotiate these through the newspapers. I am sure the member understands this phenomenon.

There have been 10 meetings, as he says. Some were more constructive than others, but we have said that they know our position, which is very clear. We do not want a system in which any patient pays extra; it is that simple. Unless there is very substantial progress made towards those ends in the next meeting, we will have to review the other options.

Mr. Rae: It is hard to vote on legislation when the government does not bring it forward. If the Premier will bring it forward, we will vote on it. All we are waiting for is for him to bring it forward, if he has the courage.

Mr. Martel: Like the transit workers. Does the Premier remember them?

Mr. Rae: Given the extent of the delay this government has inflicted on patients in the province and the extent of the dithering and the kind of falderal that has gone on, does the Premier not agree that it would only be fair for the government of Ontario to use at least some of the money that is now in escrow in federal funds to compensate patients who have had to transfer their benefits to doctors who have been extra billing over the past year because this government has been responsible for the delay?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I heard that principle espoused this morning, but the logical extension of that is to go back to 1967 and pay people --

Mr. Rae: No.

3:10 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: For what period? What about the time back to the Canada Health Act being passed? Then we would have to track everybody down. I see that as a rather complicated process.

I suspect those people who have been extra billed, and believe me I am not happy about it, would be just as happy to see those funds going into cancer treatment facilities, new hospitals and other medical programs that we so desperately need in this province. I think every member in the House agrees.

Mr. Grossman: The member has offered all the money to the Ontario Medical Association.

Interjection.

Mr. Grossman: Does he make the member proud to be a friend of his? Does he make him feel good? It still makes the member proud to be in bed with him, does it not?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

HOSPITAL FUNDING

Mr. Grossman: My question is to the Premier. The Premier and his ministers have made quite a fuss generally, and in the budget yesterday, about the alleged massive increases for the Ministry of Health and hospitals. In the previous fiscal year, the Ministry of Health's budget increased by exactly 10.8 per cent. Can the Premier explain why the Ministry of Health's budget went up by 8.4 per cent, for a 2.4 per cent reduction, in yesterday's budget?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I remember the budgetary manipulations of the previous government. In the last Conservative budget, the government cut back on the transfers. Then in the dying days of the government after the election, before the Conservatives left office, they added one per cent to that. They were worried about losing the triple-A credit rating. Then they put a lot of pressure on this House to keep that extra funding, which they did not grant in the first place. The Conservative government kept these transfer agencies and hospitals on tenterhooks and did not allow them to do the long-term planning that was so necessary.

Everywhere I go, people are responding in a very positive way to our program and to our approach of taking a long-term view of the situation. They are convinced of our sincerity in trying to rectify some of the problems the Conservative government caused.

Mr. Grossman: Can the Premier explain why the increase in the Ministry of Health's budget last year was 10.8 per cent while the increase in the budget yesterday was 8.4 per cent, for a 2.4 per cent reduction?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: In drawing up the budgetary allocations on the basis of need and long-term planning, the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) has made the commitments he thinks are necessary. Generally, they have been extremely well received by the transfer agencies. It may bother the honourable member personally, but the people out there are very happy about the positive program that has been brought forward by the Treasurer.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr. Foulds: I would like to raise a question with the Treasurer on behalf of my two sons, who are in their classroom in Thunder Bay and will not be watching this on television.

The Treasurer tells us that he has a revenue windfall of more than $2 billion in his budget and that the provincial unemployment rate, at 6.8 per cent, is the lowest in Canada. If the Treasurer's revenues and the economy are so buoyant, how does he justify only $12.5 million being in the community economic transformation agreement fund this year to help restructure those northern and eastern Ontario economies when the payroll at the Great Lakes Forest Products waferboard plant in Thunder Bay is $5 million, at Algoma Steel it is $45 million for those who have lost their jobs, and at Kimberly-Clark it is $70 million for those whose jobs are threatened?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The honourable member refers to a windfall. It is true that a buoyant economy increases revenue. The expected revenue change at the time of the budget in October 1985 was about $1.6 billion; we expected that as an increase. The increase we are now projecting on the basis of the available figures is about $2 billion. We know the economy is going forward. At the same time, the cost of many programs is expanding at an even faster rate than that at which the economy is growing, not the least of which is the medical program the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman) mentioned a moment ago.

The member should be aware that the so-called windfall is about $400 million to $500 million and that the actual cash requirement was reduced by almost exactly that much, plus a little bit more. It may be that the reduction in cash requirement should have been directed towards other programs. I have heard the Leader of the Opposition and the member, as a spokesman for the New Democratic Party, criticizing me for having bad judgement in that regard. However, as Treasurer, I have to make that judgement.

We felt the cash requirements should be reduced to about $1.5 billion. At the same time, we have allocated the revenues and our projections of revenues to the various ministries and programs, many of which are old programs and some of which are new, on the basis of what we consider to be equity, fairness and meeting the needs of the community at large.

The member mentioned the community economic transformation agreement fund particularly. This is for the economic transformation agreements, and it is not a new program. We did not dream it up. It was an old one, and while I mentioned it during the speech yesterday, the members of the previous government were patting themselves on the back. There is no reason why they should not. I think the concept is a good one. It is a very flexible fund which is available to municipalities that are experiencing special difficulties in not sharing in the general growth, particularly one-industry towns. When I mentioned CETA, I referred to Sault Ste. Marie particularly. The additional funding is $25 million over two years.

Mr. Foulds: When we cut through the Bill Davis verbiage, what specific steps are there in the Treasurer's budget to combat an unemployment rate of 13.2 per cent for northern Ontario, twice the average of the province, and what specific steps are there in the budget to ensure and guarantee those more than 4,000 jobs that are being threatened in the northern Ontario economy?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: First, I cannot guarantee the jobs; I wish I could. The specific programs are an additional $10 million in the north for health and transportation; an additional $5 million for new education programs; an additional $17 million for the northern development fund; the restoration of the 65 per cent processing allowance in the new Mining Act, which is much sought by the mining community; and an increase of 13 per cent in our funds for the forestry programs, up to $271 million. We expect the forestry programs to have an export basis of $3.5 billion.

I have only three points to go. The CETA program already referred to in the main question is being funded to the extent of $25 million in two years. We have a new entrepreneurial support program, which is designed for northern utilization for men and women and which we think is going to be of particular use. We have increased our skills funding to the level of $275 million for training and retraining. Finally, small business development corporations have been strengthened and perfected for northern utilization.

TRUCKING INDUSTRY

Miss Stephenson: I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. In 1983, the government then in existence provided in its budget a seven per cent tax exemption for the purchase of heavy trucks and trailers. That was specifically designed to buoy a struggling trucking industry, which had been hard hit by the 1982 recession because the industry had experienced a 33 per cent reduction in traffic in that carrier activity during the recession period. It has not yet recovered from that.

Does the minister believe that withdrawing that exemption, which is going to cost this beleaguered industry something in the order of $65 million next year, will be in the best interests of the trucking industry in Canada, particularly in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I understand the nature of the honourable member's question, but since it is really one for the Minister of Revenue, I would like to redirect it to the Treasurer and Minister of Revenue.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Is that all right with the member for York Mills?

Miss Stephenson: It makes no difference to me.

Mr. Speaker: I understand the Minister of Transportation and Communications redirected it to the Minister of Revenue. Is that correct?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: All of the things the honourable member has said about the history of the exemption are true. The sales tax on heavy trucks was removed as an economic stimulus to part of the economy that was under severe stress. Since then, the trucking business has grown very substantially. We are the only jurisdiction in Canada that does not apply the sales tax to heavy trucks.

3:20 p.m.

We believe as well that because of interprovincial agreements on sales tax, many trucks owned and operated outside the province get the advantage of this exemption, which is not to our advantage in this jurisdiction. We feel that with the return of an expanding economy, the trucking industry should be asked -- I did ask them, and I intend to put the legislation before the House -- to pay the seven per cent sales tax on heavy trucks. We believe that to maintain an expanding road system, we have to have revenues not earmarked but available to support those new commitments.

Miss Stephenson: The Treasurer, whom I am delighted to have answer the question, has noted that he spoke to the Ontario Trucking Association, which represents 900 members. That association wrote to the Treasurer, asking for a reduction of two cents per litre fuel tax for truckers, which also did not occur. That accounts for something like $50 million a year in costs to the trucking industry in Ontario. That is in addition --

Mr. Speaker: Is your question to the Treasurer, "Do you agree?"

Miss Stephenson: No, that is not my question, sir.

Mr. Speaker: I am waiting for it.

Miss Stephenson: That is in addition to higher labour costs, higher workers' costs, more compensation costs and more prohibitive insurance rates than their American counterparts. Since much of the carrying is being done by American truckers as a result of this, does the Treasurer believe he is putting Canadian and Ontario truckers in a competitive position with this kind of additional cost that he is levying?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: No one likes to raise taxes, but in this instance I believe it is justified on the basis that no other provincial jurisdiction has continued this exemption. We believe Ontario ought to see that there is a fair and judicious allocation of the tax revenues. In this instance, it is my recommendation to the Legislature that the exemption be removed.

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr. Ramsay: I address my question today to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. As the minister will be aware, during the past several weeks the oil companies have allowed the price gap between leaded and nonleaded gas to widen. The gap across the province today is about three cents a litre, although experts tell us the price difference should not be any more than 0.4 to 2.4 cents a litre.

I want to know why the minister is allowing this. Is he not aware that if one takes the lowest price difference of 0.4 cents a litre, Ontario consumers are being ripped off today by the oil companies of this province at a rate of $2.9 million a month?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: The member asks why I allow it. I have said to the members before that there is no legislation at present that allows me to prohibit it.

Mr. Martel: In 1968 I asked the following question of the minister of the day: "Is the government considering discussions with the oil companies in an effort to overcome the more than five-cents-a-gallon differential between the south and the north?"

An hon. member: A gallon.

Mr. Martel: A gallon. This past week I paid 26.4 cents a gallon more in northern Ontario than in Toronto on the same day. Will the minister tell me how that ripoff can be tolerated and how the oil companies, from the time they converted from gallons to litres, have been able to increase that price differential from five or six cents a gallon to anywhere from 25 cents to 30 cents a gallon? It is a ripoff. He knows it. What is this government going to do about it?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: As members will know, I have been in communication with the oil companies. To tell members the situation --

Mr. Martel: Is that not a wonderful answer? That is what they think of the north.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: So that my answer to the honourable member who is asking about the tax on trucks will not be misleading, I want to add that the tax will not go into effect until January 1, 1987. There is the remaining period of this year for any purchases to be made without the tax being imposed.

Miss Stephenson: While I thank the Treasurer and Minister of Economics for that response, I am not sure his long-term planning, much vaunted in other areas, is very good in this area.

POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION

Miss Stephenson: I have a question for the Minister of Colleges and Universities. Will the minister please tell me how much money his government will be spending on capital funding for each of the community colleges and the universities? I am talking not about each community college and each university, but about the college system and the university system in 1986-87.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: This is a matter I dealt with in response to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman). I do not have the figures in front of me, but as I recall, the total spending for the current fiscal year, 1986-87, will be about $55 million on the university side. I am sorry I do not have the figures for the college side at this time, but I will provide the answer to the honourable member in the very near future.

Miss Stephenson: In 1984-85, the community colleges and universities in this province received a combined total of $60.5 million in capital spending. Yesterday's budget revealed that the government, because it is all going to be done by the Imelda who does not have shoes but who apparently has capital funds for construction, will set aside $59 million of capital spending for both of those systems of institutions in the upcoming year. How is the minister going to justify giving post-secondary education $1.5 million less in the next year than it was given in 1984-85?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: As the member points out, we are approaching the funding of capital spending in what is a dramatically new and different way in this government. As the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) pointed out yesterday, he and this government are trying to approach spending by looking at ongoing expenditures based on revenues and by looking at investment that is, capital spending -- in a separate way.

The member was the minister for a number of years. She knows the requirements for universities and colleges on the capital side are dramatic. One of the reasons they are dramatic in 1986-87 is that, under the government of which she was a member many years ago, there was a freeze on capital spending, so that what we inherited was an accumulation of need, which we will be dealing with during the next several years. We are not going to be able to respond to all of those needs in the short term or, indeed, in 1986-87.

With the new approach that the Treasurer, the Chairman of the Management Board (Ms. Caplan) and I as the minister will help to implement, I am satisfied that those needs for capital on the university side will be far better met than they were under the administration she was a part of.

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Mr. Laughren: I have a question of the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, who has been unable to protect northerners from exorbitant gasoline prices.

The minister will recall that a year ago his party, in a document, stated two points. First, government expenditures on the King's highways are low in northern Ontario, given the proportion of highways that are located there; and second, it would place a priority on improving and expanding the provincial road network throughout the north. Those statements were made just prior to last year's election.

Can the minister tell us why he was unable to convince his government to target major funds, which would create major employment throughout the north, by targeting those kinds of funds towards highway improvements across northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Fontaine: I would like to remind my friend the member for Nickel Belt that the budget for highways in the north went up this year. He can look at the budget.

Mr. Bernier: It went down.

L'hon. M. Fontaine: Attendez un peu, Monsieur. Fermez-vous pour un moment. Restez tranquille.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

L'hon. M. Fontaine: Vous, vous l'aviez descendu, le budget. Vous l'aviez descendu. Moi, je l'ai remonté. Mettez-vous ça dans la tête. He put it down, and I put it back up again.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have reminded members before to disregard the interjections; they are out of order. Does the minister have any response to the question?

3:30 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Fontaine: I would like to say that the members are always asking that kind of question on that side. They should refrain from doing so and ask their questions directly instead.

First of all, the budget of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines went up on highways and, second, other money was also allocated to highways. There is going to be more money for highway construction. I would like my honourable friend to wait for a few weeks to see yet more money coming for highways through reallocation of funds.

Mr. Wildman: Considering the comments in the budget about the bumpy roads in this province, and considering that this government has embarked on a very bumpy road because of its lack of response to the problems of the north, can the minister take the opportunity now to announce a major program to increase the infrastructure in the north to provide for economic development and to provide jobs immediately? What new programs over and above what he has already allocated is this government going to make available to provide jobs and better transportation facilities in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Fontaine: First of all, my honourable friend has been here for a long time and he should know that highways are not built in one day; it takes about five years to make plans. Right now, we are going to spend the money available at this point and there will be some more in the next few weeks.

I would like to remind the member that I cannot tell him all the projects today because I am not the only minister involved. There are 22 other ministers who are going to respond on projects in northern Ontario in the next few days.

Mr. Harris: Perhaps the minister could check page 39 of the budget document, wherein it shows the capital for roads and transportation in northern Ontario is down from $108 million last year to $106 million this year. Can he explain how a $2-million cut translates into more money, or does he have some slush fund that he says will come out in the next couple of weeks that the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) does not even know about?

L'hon. M. Fontaine: Cela me surprend beaucoup, la manière dont le député de Nipissing me répond, car il doit avoir eu des slush funds lui-même dans sa vie parce que c'est lui qui est en train de me montrer quoi faire avec l'argent.

He is the one who is going to show me where the slush fund is because his party is used to the slush fund. I am new here and I have never used a slush fund. His party has. Maybe he thinks there will be an election pretty soon. I will do as they do and go from town to town and give out little cheques. That is what they had to wait for in the last 42 years.

The money is there. If he will look, there is another section about $10 million for transportation and health. It is in English, not in French. The member for Nipissing should not worry; there will be money for the roads this year, next year and in the years to come.

Mr. Harris: The minister surely knows by now that it is not just the members of this Legislature and the Treasurer who were disappointed yesterday with what happened in the north; the people of the north are not happy. The government has no promised tax credit in the budget, no move on gas prices, nothing on gasoline taxes. Now we see less money being spent on the roads in northern Ontario than last year. On top of all that, why is there a cut of $3 million in the economic development fund, from $20 million to $17 million, this year?

Hon. Mr. Fontaine: I should remind the ex-Minister of Natural Resources that today he is only an MPP. He should read the document. The $17 million is new money and there is $3 million for the northern Ontario regional development program. I cannot go on and on; there are too many things for the north in this. The people of the north will judge.

Le monde du Nord va nous juger en temps et lieu. Lorsqu'il y aura une élection, le monde nous jugera à ce moment-là. On va voir qui va avoir raison. Ça va être lui ou bien moi, l'un des deux.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will once again ask for order. You are just using up the time for other members' questions. I can wait.

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

Ms. Gigantes: My question is to the minister responsible for women's issues. I am angered by the tokenistic approach taken in the budget to issues on which the Liberals made such fine promises to women in Ontario just one short year ago. Where is the funding for 1986-87 to provide equal pay for work of equal value for women who work directly in the Ontario government or for agencies such as hospital boards, schools boards and municipalities which are funded through the provincial government?

Hon. Mr. Scott: I did not get the last part of the honourable member's question.

Ms. Gigantes: Where is the money?

Hon. Mr. Scott: For what?

Ms. Gigantes: For equal pay for work of equal value for the government's employees and for the employees of the agencies it funds.

Hon. Mr. Scott: The government has introduced a bill that will implement equal pay in the public sector. When the bill is passed, the member may be certain that the money will be provided. I also draw to the member's attention the fact that a very substantial commitment has been made in the budget to child care, to employment equity and to a number of other matters that this government regards as very important and that I am proud to be able with my colleagues to introduce to the House in due course.

Ms. Gigantes: It takes a bit of nerve to state in the budget that child care is recognized as a basic public service and then provide a measly $6 million in extra funding. Most of the funding we are spending is coming through the federal government. Where is the so-called comprehensive plan for child care that got beat around in cabinet, and why is child care still being treated as a welfare benefit in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Scott: If the member had read the budget after hearing it, she would have heard the words twice. They indicated that a comprehensive child care plan will be announced by my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) very shortly. In addition to commenting on this government's commitment to the announcement of that plan, the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) yesterday indicated as a firm sign of faith that actual new money was being committed to the project right now. I am proud of that achievement. I have no reason to apologize for it.

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

Mr. Gillies: My question is to the Treasurer. In view of the continuing unacceptably high rate of youth unemployment in this province, why did the Treasurer in his budget flat-line the expenditures of the government on youth employment programs at $175 million?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: In conjunction with the allocation for youth employment and skills development, there was a substantial increase in the funds available for skills development in general. The two funds together now total $275 million.

The Futures program has been successfully received in all parts of the province. It will continue and will be adequately funded, as indicated in the budget. In addition, we have doubled the amount available for general skills, which will be applied particularly to more senior workers who have been unemployed, let us say age 40 and older, to minorities, to women and specifically to young people. We have a $275-million commitment not only to the skills development of young people but also to general skills policy, and this is an addition of substantial funds.

Mr. Gillies: I thought my question was fairly specific. In the previous budget in October 1985, the Treasurer said he would be increasing the funding of the youth employment programs from $175 million to $200 million. He did not do it. Why did he not do it?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The program as it has been established across the province is adequately funded at present at the dollars that were allocated, but we feel we also have to provide additional skills instruction and opportunities for people who do not fall into the age group of 24 and under.

3:40 p.m.

PENSION FUNDS

Mr. McClellan: I have a question for the Treasurer arising out of the statement on page 12 of yesterday's budget, wherein the Treasurer states that he has asked his Treasury staff for a review of the financing issues related to the indexing of Ontario's two major public sector pension plans. I am sure that statement has put a cold hand on the hearts of those who contribute to the public service superannuation fund and to the teachers' superannuation fund. Since the Treasurer is opposed to indexation of pensions for private sector workers, does this mean he is now moving towards opposition of indexation for public sector workers' pensions?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The answer is no, I have no thought to move towards any program to stop indexing. It is not my intention. I put it there and I explained -- perhaps in a news conference; not to the House -- that we are concerned about the adequacies of the funding of the Superannuation Adjustment Benefits Act fund.

Mr. McClellan: If the Treasurer supports the continuing indexation of public sector workers' pension funds, why on earth is he so dug in and intransigent on the issue of extending indexation to private sector workers and private sector company sponsored plans?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Unlike the honourable member who pursues this line of questioning, I am more committed to the private funds than he is. If we impose indexation on funds of the type that are currently established, they will simply disappear. There is no law that says there has to be any of these private funds at all. Surely the alternative the member is referring to is some addition at the provincial level to the Canada pension plan. Maybe that is something that should be reviewed.

We had a pension committee-my honourable colleague the Premier (Mr. Peterson) was a principal member of it -- which reviewed all the alternatives. I can assure the member that report is well worth reading.

STABILIZATION PAYMENTS

Mr. Stevenson: I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Of the 13 per cent increase in budget the ministry got this year -- about $54 million -- how many millions will be used to pay for the beef stabilization payments from last year and the rest of the payments for the Ontario family farm interest rate reduction programs and the pork payments?

Hon. Mr. Riddell: I am sure the member must be criticizing the agricultural budget with tongue in cheek after he received the Ontario Federation of Agriculture news release which has as its heading, "Province's Farmers Welcome New Budget." I quote: "Harry Pelissero, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, welcomed the initiatives announced in yesterday's provincial budget."

Compare that to the OFA news release which came out in 1984 when the Conservatives were in power:

" `The provincial budget blatantly ignores the immediate critical needs of the farm sector,' the president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture said in Toronto. `This budget has no news as far as agriculture is concerned,' Harry Pelissero said. `The Treasurer has totally ignored the urgent needs of a growing group of farmers. It is obvious that Mr. Grossman has chosen not to respond to these needs. "`

I cannot accept the member's criticism. No matter how he slices the pie, the increase in the agricultural budget since we took power 11 months ago is 39 per cent. That is all new money.

Mr. Stevenson: I do not recall issuing a single word of criticism. I asked a very simple question. Of the 13 per cent increase in budget that OMAF got this year -- $54 million -- how many millions of that budget increase will be used to pay for the beef stabilization payments, the rest of the pork payments and the OFFIRR programs?

Hon. Mr. Riddell: Those payments will be made with the money that was dedicated for that purpose in the last budget. The $70-million increase in this budget will not be used for those ongoing stabilization programs.

HOSPITAL FUNDING

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I have a question of the Treasurer in the absence of the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston). The Treasurer's allocation of $850 million for hospital capital over the next eight years works out to $106 million a year. How is that possibly going to meet the capital needs of our hospital system in Ontario when the Ontario Hospital Association has indicated the requirements over the next decade on an annual basis are two to three times the amount he has allocated?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Part of it might be that we expect the expenditures to be in support of construction over the next five years. Anything that is not completed then will be funded as that aspect of the construction winds down.

When we talk about a three-to-five-year funding plan for hospital construction, we intend to make an announcement adding a year as the years go by. I do not describe that very carefully, but it is not simply a five-year plan that will be put in place and then nothing else done.

It is essential that we take whatever decisions are necessary to continue the sorts of planning on a medium-to-long-term basis. That will give the members of this House an opportunity to support and criticize what those decisions are and it will give the hospital boards an opportunity to plan for their future development. We think this is a businesslike responsibility on our part, and I am glad it has been so well received by the hospital association.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: Does the Treasurer understand that from fiscal year 1978-79 to fiscal year 1985-86, in 1986 dollars, the provincial government spent $1,096,000,000 on capital? This budget will provide for a decrease over that same number of years of $246 million. How will long-term planning make up that quarter of a billion dollars?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am convinced that with the careful research that has gone into the development of this plan the needs of the broad community of Ontario in establishing better and improved hospital services will be met. This is a commitment the government has made, and we believe the $850 million is sufficient at this stage to accomplish that over the next five years.

There are many other things that will be coming forward in health care. We are committing $10 billion this year to health care all in. This is just a shade under one third of the total provincial budget.

STABILIZATION PAYMENTS

Mr. Grossman: The Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) said a moment ago that the payments referred to by my colleague would be paid out of last year's budget, not this year's budget. Can the Treasurer confirm or deny that?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I was not paying careful attention to the answer. I am sure what the honourable member said is correct. He knows the Treasurer is supporting the program he described. The Ontario family farm interest rate reduction program is an initiative the minister brought forward soon after the election of the new government and it is one that is well received by the farmers in all parts of the province.

PETITIONS

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr. Jackson: In response to yesterday's budget, I have more petitions coming in as well as the one from 3,000 constituents tabled yesterday, requesting the government of Ontario to reduce the gasoline tax. I hope the Treasurer will try to listen today.

NATUROPATHY

Mr. Henderson: I have a petition from a number of my constituents and citizens of nearby ridings:

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

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas it is our constitutional right to have available and to choose the health care system of our preference; and

"Whereas naturopathy has had self-governing status in Ontario for more than 42 years;

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to call upon the government to introduce legislation that would guarantee naturopaths the right to practise their art and science to the fullest without prejudice or harassment."

That petition is signed by 200 constituents and citizens of ridings nearby to Humber.

3:50 p.m.

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr. Martel: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I want to ask a question and am looking for your assistance. I asked the minister a question concerning gasoline prices in northern Ontario, and he refused to reply to it. I asked the same question 18 years ago and the minister of that day said it was not supplementary. Can you tell me which political party has enough clout or enough courage to take on the gas companies and protect the consumers of northern Ontario?

Mr. Speaker: Since the standing orders have changed, I am not just sure of the number, but I believe it is standing order 30 that the honourable member has the right to use in order to acquire some information from the minister.

MOTIONS

WITHDRAWAL OF BILL PR41

Hon. Mr. Nixon moved that, at the request of the applicant, the order referring Bill Pr41, An Act respecting the City of Hamilton, to the standing committee on regulations and private bills be discharged and that the bill be withdrawn.

Motion agreed to.

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY

Hon. Mr. Nixon moved that the select committee on energy be continued and that its terms of reference established by order of the House on July 11, 1985, be amended to provide that the committee report on its inquiries on Ontario Hydro affairs on or before May 29, 1986.

Motion agreed to.

COMMITTEE SITTING

Hon. Mr. Nixon moved that the select committee on energy be authorized to meet following routine proceedings on Thursday, May 15, 1986.

Motion agreed to.

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP

Hon. Mr. Nixon moved that membership on the select committee on energy be as follows: Mr. Andrewes, chairman; Messrs. Ashe, Charlton, Cureatz, Gordon, Mrs. Grier, Messrs. Haggerty, McGuigan, Sargent, Taylor and Ward.

Motion agreed to.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS IN ORDERS AND NOTICES AND RESPONSE TO PETITION

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Before the orders of the day, I wish to table the answers to questions 19 to 45, 92, 97, 107, 108, 109, 125, 135, 145, 146, 147, 148, 152, 153, 154, 155, 170, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 221, 222, 224, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 236, 237, 238, 264, 266 and 275, and the interim answers to questions 250, 258, 259 and 260 standing on the notice paper, and a response to a petition presented to the Legislature, sessional paper 318 [see Hansard for Tuesday, May 20].

ORDERS OF THE DAY

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

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

Miss Stephenson: I am rising to participate in the early stages of this debate with some feelings of ambivalence. I am delighted that indeed there has been an improvement in the revenues of Ontario. I am disconcerted that so little is being done with so much.

We are viewing yet another chapter in the continuing soap opera across the House, the Liberal Search for Tomorrow, which began in something of a fog a few weeks ago with their forward-to-yesterday throne speech and continues with the haze produced by this budget. Just as the throne speech was considerably less than meets the eye, so is the budget much less.

A budget is supposed to explain the government spending priorities as well as its taxation priorities. How in the world can anyone comment with accuracy on what this government is planning to do or is thinking about doing or is going to do when approximately $300 million of tax revenue appears not to have been allocated within this budgetary exercise?

I believe the people of this province deserve to know what this government intends to do with their tax dollars. For a government without walls, without barriers, without impediment, without any kind of obstruction, my only question is, why all the mystery. Why can the Treasurer not tell us what it is he is going to do with the money, which actually belongs to the taxpayers of Ontario? Why does he insist on raising suspicion and on producing grave concern? Why is he not being honest and why does he not indicate clearly where each tax dollar is going to go?

I have a feeling that if the Treasurer, member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon), ran his farm the way he seems to be running the finances of this province, he would have been out of business long before that boomer from Huron could have come to his door to provide him with dollars from the farmers in transition program to persuade him to leave the land.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Thank God for Jack Riddell, the farmers say.

Miss Stephenson: That is not what the farmers say, but then the Treasurer cannot hear that.

Hon. Mr. Riddell: How does the member know what the farmers say?

Miss Stephenson: I know a lot of farmers, as a matter of fact. Is that not astonishing?

Hon. Mr. Riddell: I have not heard one farmer talk about the member.

Miss Stephenson: Is that not a shame? The minister does not talk to very many farmers, obviously.

Traditional liberalism, it seems to me, calls for as little government as possible. That was what I always thought was Liberal philosophy. I gather it has changed. Peterson liberalism in this province apparently calls for a government with as few ideas as possible and as much direct intervention into people's lives as possible.

We saw the government's lack of imagination and its lack of insight in its throne speech. In this budget we see more repeat announcements on previously announced programs over and over again than farewell tours of most ageing opera stars.

Think of the real opportunities this government has as a result of improved finances. Think of the real opportunities this government has -- or had -- to provide for real achievements for the people of Ontario, real opportunities to tackle the challenges that face the people of this province. Unhappily and regretfully, just as in the throne speech, these opportunities have been missed by more than a country mile.

Instead of showing real leadership, real imagination and real courage and initiative, the government at present, according to the throne speech and the budget, resembles nothing so much as it does a school of minuscule minnows circling and nibbling at the major concerns of the people of Ontario and devouring none of them.

The people of this province are looking for good, thoughtful, real leadership. They are looking to the government for new initiatives, for individual effort, for new strength and for new encouragement to economic growth, especially in the small business area. They are looking to the government for leadership to provide opportunities for young people, for the elderly, for the unemployed, for the needy and for all who face unjustifiable and very considerable barriers.

They were looking for answers. They were looking for responsibility and for caring. They were looking to the government for hope, actually; some hoped that in this new government they might find a feeling of belonging in a Liberal Ontario.

From this budget and from its preceding throne speech, there is precious little they can find to make them feel comfortable in a Liberal Ontario -- no sense of belonging, no sense of caring and certainly no sense of the traditional Liberal philosophy.

4 p.m.

In an attempt to be politically shrewd, the government, I believe, is not speaking with the real voice of leadership but with only the echo of that kind of voice. They are skulking in the cemetery of old Progressive Conservative programs, old ideas, well-worn theories. The Treasurer has dragged them all up and used them; he is rattling all of them with his hands. He appears to believe he can manage this province with the concepts discussed among members on this side, not just five or 10 years ago but 15 years ago. Really, he is not that far behind the times, I believe.

When the Treasurer talks about the shortcomings of previous restraint programs occasioned by the worst recession, the most difficult economic times, faced by any jurisdiction or any area of jurisdiction in recent memory, the shortcomings he mentions are those of insufficient numbers of hospital beds, portable classrooms, constrained university budgets and bumpy roads. He is also talking, and he does not seem to realize this, about the very vivid shortcomings of his own budget and of the government of which he is an integral part.

It seems to escape the government that it is now its responsibility to lead this province. It seems to escape the government that it now has the responsibility to conjure up new ideas, or at least to develop some imaginative thoughts and to put them into practice for the people of Ontario. It is very easy to criticize and point fingers, which is precisely what this government has done for 11 months, but it has done absolutely nothing to provide solutions for the problems the people are facing. That is simply not good enough; it is not good enough for any government, but certainly not good enough for a government that has spent as much time criticizing previous governments in this province as this one has.

Ontario is looking for leadership to tackle the problems of the 1980s and the early 1990s. Thanks to falling energy costs and an economy that continues to grow at a rate that appears to surprise the Treasurer -- it overwhelms him with surprise, and he is paralysed -- this government has found itself with a revenue windfall of approximately $2.6 billion. We predicted a windfall in the range of $2 billion and $3 billion, and we were not far wrong.

That windfall is thanks to the remarkable strength of the economy of this province. We lead the other provinces in Canada as we have always done. We have led Canada in economic growth, and our economy continues to grow, I believe partially at least as a result of the legacy of excellent management provided by previous Progressive Conservative governments in Ontario.

The Speaker will recall that last June, when the members opposite were wringing their hands about the state of the economy in this province, I told this House Ontario was experiencing its best rate of growth since 1972 and that rate of growth was going to continue. It has continued, in spite of the gloomy predictions of the Treasurer in August, which gloomy predictions immediately had the rating agencies examining carefully all their information and deciding that Ontario should lose its triple-A rating.

In spite of the Treasurer's gloomy forecast, our province's economy has been growing twice as fast as I predicted. The Treasurer is still using ultra-large-C Conservative figures in any projection he makes for the future of the economy of this province. We foresaw that growth. The members of the government today obviously did not foresee that growth. We had faith in Ontario. Apparently, the Treasurer and his colleagues did not, and I fear at present may continue not to have that faith in the strength of the economy of Ontario.

We look at the things this budget has left out. We look at the things the Liberals promised so glibly to all the people for lo these 10 years I have been around, and particularly during the election campaign of 1985 -- glowing promises, almost not one of which they have been able to produce. They have neglected to consider seriously following up on those promises.

We look at their promises for programs for single parents. We look at their promises for child care, and then we look at the programs they have produced. We have to mention very clearly that even the Treasurer has described these initiatives as not too impressive and not enough. We are not impressed on this side of the House either. Obviously, the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) can have no power in cabinet. He is at the mercy of the Premier's (Mr. Peterson's) trendocrats, who seem to be running the government of Ontario.

We look at the initiatives for colleges and universities, but all the Treasurer has done is to expand the existing university research incentive fund. It is not a new approach; there are no new insights, no new programs and precious little money. The Treasurer says he is expanding the Ontario skills fund, but all the emphasis on employee training can be accomplished by expanding existing programs, those that were established, I might remind the House, by the previous Progressive Conservative governments.

The Treasurer talks about expanding scientific programming on TVOntario. Does he really believe that television programs are going to boost or improve industrial involvement in high technology? Are they going to assist experienced workers with retraining and provide the bridge to a new high-technology world? Is that what the Treasurer believes?

There is truly nothing new here and nothing substantial. The Treasurer has to admit he announced it all last fall anyway.

Let us talk about high technologies and new technologies. This was the flagship promise of the throne speech. This was going to be the key initiative, the great vision for Liberal Ontario for the 21st century. What a hollow vision has been presented by this government. We know that technology is changing the face of the world economy. We have known that in this province for more than seven years, and we have been doing something about it. We know that new manufacturing processes are making people more productive and cutting costs dramatically.

We know that job creation in the high-technology industry has increased at nearly twice the rate of more traditional sectors. Mr. Speaker, I hope you will remind the Treasurer that was why we set up the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development more than five years ago, a program the member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson) at the time claimed was already in disrepute in most circles.

My, how times change; how dramatically they change. What was in disrepute with the leader of that party five years ago is now world-class because it is what that government has introduced. What was criticized as ineffective is today presented as the new vision for Ontario. Vision? That is hindsight. I am afraid the Premier has shown about as much backbone on technology development as his Minister of Energy (Mr. Kerrio) has on the sale of tritium to the United States.

In the spring of 1985, we proposed the enterprise technology fund for this province, which would allocate --

An hon. member: I will be right back.

Miss Stephenson: The Treasurer can read it all anyway; he need not bother. Obviously, he is not the least bit interested in the concern of this party for the future of Ontario as a result of his budget. There are not even any members in the House. I should not say that. The member for Humber (Mr. Henderson) is here, the good and faithful member of the Liberal government, and the gloom of doom from here on is still here, as well as the member for Downsview (Mr. Cordiano). I welcome their presence and I hope that perhaps their numbers may increase this afternoon, but I will not hold my breath.

4:10 p.m.

In the spring of 1985, we proposed the enterprise technology fund, which would allocate $250 million over a three-year period to boost high-technology adoption by Ontario industry and open up a whole new era of co-operation among business, government and research institutions. We opened negotiations with the federal government to obtain matching federal funds for a good deal of this activity.

What does this government do at this date in 1986? It is going to spend $100 million this year on its technology fund, but there is absolutely no framework for action proposed in any of the documentation. There is nothing in the speech from the throne or the budget, and we have no idea what it is going to do.

Under our program, we had established the criteria for action. We had told business precisely what it could expect from us, and we had linked funding with skills training commitments that would have been assessed by the Ministry of Skills Development and would have ensured significant improvement in skills training in this province. Unhappily, that is not a part of anything we have seen so far.

I am a bit concerned because I do have some commitment to skills training, and I wonder whether there is a quorum in the House to listen to the response of this party.

The Deputy Speaker: There is a quorum present.

Miss Stephenson: The commitment we demonstrated clearly to skills development and to linking that skills development to the enterprise fund would have ensured the setup of appropriate training programs throughout the province.

Mr. Runciman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I do not believe there is a quorum in the House.

Mr. Polsinelli: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: A quorum call was requested a few minutes earlier. The members were present, and at least five Conservative members walked out.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. Call in the members.

Mr. Polsinelli: On a point of order --

The Deputy Speaker: There is no point of order once a quorum call is made.

The Deputy Speaker ordered the bells rung.

4:14 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker: A quorum being present, the member for York Mills.

Mr. Epp: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I want to point out that just a few minutes ago a quorum was asked for; there was a quorum here. Some members from the Conservative benches then indicated they would leave so there would be no quorum. They deliberately left to create --

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

Mr. Bernier: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: The record should show that there were only three government members in their seats.

The Deputy Speaker: That is not a proper point of order.

Mr. Gregory: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: The member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp) is imputing motives to this caucus.

The Deputy Speaker: First, that is not a point of privilege. If it were a point of order, it would not be a proper point of order.

Miss Stephenson: The program we had begun last year would have established the specific requirements for skills training within any company assisted through the Enterprise Ontario activity. Commitments would have been made that would have been assessed by the Ministry of Skills Development and would have ensured that appropriate training programs were set up making use of the firm's own resources as well as the resources provided by local secondary schools, community colleges, universities and private institutions. That was a very good plan. The funding and the framework, the criteria and the direction were established and clearly laid out.

This government, after a year in office and 42 years of Liberal policy conferences, Liberal discussion groups and Liberal study of all the problems, has nothing to provide for us but rhetoric about skills development -- absolutely nothing. There is no timetable for action. There is a promise of some funding going somewhere to do something, and that funding is going to be directed by a council not of respected representatives picked by labour and industry, as we had proposed, but by a council hand-picked by the member for London Centre from all of his friends -- a curious proposal for a government without walls, barriers, impediments or obstructions.

Appointment to a key committee shaping the technological and industrial future of our province apparently is completely in the hands of the member for London Centre. The Treasurer, I remind members, talks about decaying infrastructure and bumpy roads, but it is within his power to do something at this time. He is, I remind him, the Treasurer of Ontario and the Minister of Economics. I hope members are aware that that expenditure and the increase in that expenditure are at higher rates than those of any other government in Canada at the present time, and I am not sure this is something to be proud if.

The member for London Centre used to say that at least one quarter of the province's roads were in disrepair and getting worse. Now that he is in a position to do something about it, that concern is apparently forgotten. To insult and disparage the trucking industry of this province, the Treasurer then lifts the sales tax exemptions for the purchase of heavy trucks and trailers. This blow to an industry that has not yet recovered from the pain, the trauma and the difficulties of the very severe recession in 1982 is a major matter of lack of concern on the part of the Treasurer.

4:20 p.m.

It is little wonder the 900 members of the Ontario Trucking Association are today absolutely up in arms. They say that with this budget, the Treasurer of Ontario has without any question won all the votes of the US trucking firms that are going to be doing all the business in Ontario. Is that what the Treasurer wants? I am not sure that will return him to his position after the next election.

Let me remind the Treasurer that his budget is supposed to work with and for all the people of Ontario. What benefit the Treasurer hopes to achieve by enraging the trucking industry is a mystery, as are some other things related to this budget. I am afraid it is simply more evidence of this government's arrogant and cavalier attitude towards all the groups that make this province move. There is no doubt that the guys on the other side of the House would rather fight than govern. They are fighting with everyone. That seems to be the only style they understand.

Allow me to remind the Treasurer that the trucking industry carries an estimated 60 per cent of all the goods and supplies in this province on an annual basis. That is more than the combined traffic of railways, buses, pipelines, ships and aircraft. Lifting the exemption on the purchase of new equipment for the trucking industry will not help to reduce the cost of transporting goods in this province, nor will it help the automotive industry. It will make all our trucking less competitive than its American counterparts and will ensure the demise of a significant portion of the industry.

What about the gasoline tax? This party is on record as opposing the government's increase in gasoline tax. Last fall, my esteemed colleague the member for Lincoln (Mr. Andrewes) stood in this Legislature, and despite the criticism and disbelief of the members opposite, stated very clearly that the price of gasoline was going to fall. They did not believe it, but it is too true. He also said the government's proposal to increase the gasoline tax would gouge the motorists and truckers of Ontario.

We have seen the price of gasoline fall quite dramatically. Had our ad valorem tax remained in place, the tax would have fallen significantly as well. With the windfall this government enjoys, we could have seen the gasoline tax rolled back even further than we forced it to be rolled back last fall. We certainly would have forced it to be rolled back in northern Ontario.

Considering how little has been allocated for the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, it would have been fair for this government to roll back that gasoline tax. It would have kept faith with organizations such as the Ontario Motor League, considering how little the government is willing to invest in our transportation infrastructure. Apparently good faith, fairness and clear vision are concepts that seem alien to the current government of Ontario.

I ask members to look at health care. Let us look at the promises that were made, promises that emanated from the members of the government in this House and during their election campaigning. Let us match those promises with the real performance outlined in the fine print of yesterday's budget from the Treasurer.

The government talks about improving hospital facilities. The Treasurer talks about the shortfall of hospital beds. What did the Treasurer propose yesterday? The budget he provided talked about an $850-million hospital expansion for a period of more than five years or eight years, depending upon the rapidity with which the construction can be carried out. It is the same amount of money whether it is five years or eight years. On a five-year basis, it works out to about $170 million a year. That allocation comes nowhere near to answering the real challenge of expanding hospital facilities to meet the real needs of the people of Ontario. The Ontario Hospital Association has urged that capital grants be increased significantly in 1985-86, let alone in 1986-87.

I am afraid the Treasurer and the Premier have been hearing siren songs from the wrong voices when they suggest the members of the Ontario Hospital Association are delighted or satisfied or even grudgingly appreciative of whatever is being proposed in the budget, because the Treasurer is not dealing with the real crunch. They are trying to walk around the issue, nibbling at it like a group of minnows, when what we need is true leadership in this area.

Let me remind the government that we proposed the creation of new community-based clinics providing care at the Ontario health insurance plan rate to reduce the pressure on emergency departments and to assure access to care for all in Ontario. We were looking at imaginative approaches to health care, and we were looking for some matching kind of imagination in approaches to health care in this budget from this Treasurer, but there is no imagination there -- none.

The suggestion that the planning is going to satisfy the hospitals is ludicrous. I wonder what the Treasurer believes the hospitals have been doing for the past 15 years -- planning and having allocations made on a rational health care needs basis, not on the basis of the decision of the grand duchess of Management Board about whether the provincial government's political needs will be met by whatever allocation is going to be made. That is what it says in the budget. It says every capital allocation must meet the criterion of the determination of the needs of the government. That is crass political activity. This is not worthy of inclusion within the budget of Ontario, and it is not worthy of the character of the Treasurer.

We have heard a lot of talk about dental care. We know the campaign promise that was made was actually a reincarnation of a 1974 program at 1974 allocation levels.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The Conservatives promised it in 1943.

Miss Stephenson: It was in 1974 that this program was investigated in terms of cost, and the cost in 1974 dollars was approximately $50 million. That is what the leader of the government offered as a promise for dental care in the election campaign of 1985. The only thing he did not do was to look at the actual increase in cost. In fact, the program they were proposing in their election campaign would now cost, according to the best calculations by the Ontario Dental Association, approximately $325 million a year, not $50 million.

I guess that reality was borne in upon the Treasurer. That campaign promise, he said, was not going to be able to be met for the time being. In fact, he was not sure when it was going to be able to be met in spite of the fact that they promised it to the people of Ontario, who were looking for some kind of commitment. What do we see in the budget? We see precious little in dental care. We see nothing at all for improved dental care for senior citizens. The Ontario Dental Association predicts that to set up an adequate program to meet the needs of the working poor will cost between $7 million and $10 million.

4:30 p.m.

In this budget we do not see any announcement of dollars, but it is stated in the budget that there will be a program for school-aged children who have urgent dental needs. It will not be a program of prophylaxis. It will not be a program of preventive dental care. Apparently, it will be a therapeutic dental program to extract the carious teeth of children whose parents cannot afford to have them go to a dentist and whose school system or public health system does not provide a dental care program. It will address the needs of approximately 50,000 to 60,000 schoolchildren in all of Ontario, and it will not be a comprehensive program. That is a far cry from the campaign promise of this government in 1985.

However, I remind the House that we do not see any real announcement of dollars. We have heard what is likely to be allocated this year, something in the order of $5 million for the program, which probably will not even cover the cost of the program. We have not had any announcement of the implementation date or how the program is going to be set up. This is just another fractured election promise.

I remind the Treasurer that this government is on record as saying it is its intention to eliminate OHIP premiums immediately, and it has approached this is in a very bold way.

Mr. D. R. Cooke: Not immediately; gradually.

Miss Stephenson: That is the Treasurer's word. I am speaking to the Treasurer. I remind the member for wherever -- Kitchener something. Kitchener what?

Mr. D. R. Cooke: Kitchener-Kitchener.

Miss Stephenson: Kitchener-Kitchener? Kitchener squared, that is. I remind the member that he has not been in this House for the past 10 years, as I have, when the present Treasurer and the current leader of the government stood up in this House and said they would immediately eliminate OHIP premiums as soon as they came into power.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: No way.

Miss Stephenson: The Treasurer should read some old Hansards, and he will find --

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I read my old speeches constantly. They are marvellous.

Miss Stephenson: I am not sure I would go that far.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): Order. Ignore the interjections.

Miss Stephenson: The leader of the government most certainly has said he would immediately eliminate OHIP premiums, and he may have been afflicted slightly by the gradualism of the Treasurer when this budget includes a statement that they will nibble away at the OHIP premium matter. They have gone into a program which in fact does not eliminate the premiums for 35,000 people but reduces the premiums by some small number to zero for 35,000 people in Ontario.

Instead of concentrating all of its efforts and energies on its continued confrontations with lawyers, doctors and pharmacists in this province, would it not be more appropriate if the government considered seriously addressing the real problems of the health care system, just as its excellent member for Humber (Mr. Henderson) has suggested on so many occasions? They need to look at the concerns regarding the health care system which have been raised by any number of people who have come to speak to us in this House and in the committees.

We have recommended an immediate injection of at least $300 million in hospital funding to allow for expansion, new construction, new equipment which is specifically needed, and improvements within the facilities. The people of this province were looking for leadership. What they have been offered is a school of minnows.

What about the agricultural community? The Treasurer states very clearly that the farmers are experiencing the worst conditions in Ontario since the 1930s. The Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) does not remember the 1930s and therefore he has no reference point. The Treasurer proclaims very loudly a 39 per cent increase in ministry funding. In fact, that increase is about one third of the amount announced by the Treasurer and the Minister of Agriculture and Food.

The Liberals said they would be doubling agriculture's share of the budget, but the Treasurer has achieved a 0.2 per cent increase in his budgetary activity for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. That is not a very significant step in the direction of doubling the agricultural budget.

I do not believe there is anything in this budget to encourage the farmers to stay on the land. I remind the Minister of Agriculture and Food that my mathematics is considerably better than his rhetoric in terms of what he is achieving. His language is not necessarily the most pristine in most circumstances, nor is it always accurate. I suggest very strongly that there might be some improvement in those directions.

There is nothing in this budget to encourage the farmers of this province to stay on the land other than the programs that were introduced last summer, almost one full year ago. I remind the minister they are programs that have failed to meet their goals in almost all circumstances, programs such the Ontario family farm interest rate reduction program, which swamped the applicant farmers in paperwork so they had trouble surfacing out of all the stuff that was required of them by the ministry, and the farmers in transition program, FIT, which did not fit anything and was really a misfit for any kind of agricultural activity.

These programs were justly viewed with suspicion. No one could qualify for FIT. There was not a fit for FIT in Ontario, and FIT has flown as a result of that. Unhappily, there was a copying exercise, which was a copy of the old copying exercise by federal governments, which usually copied the best, but in this case not the best, programs introduced by the government of Ontario.

When this government tackles the real challenges that are facing rural communities, apparently it decides the solution is to remove the farmers from the land. As far as this party is concerned, I must tell the members we are not all farmers but we have great sympathy for farmers. This is no solution to the problems of the farmers in Ontario. Removing the farmers from the land is a shortsighted, ill-advised, ill-conceived abortion produced by the government of the day.

We want to see the kind of action that would help farmers meet the ends they have to meet to survive. We want to see action that will help them through the current slump in commodity prices, because therein lies the real problem for farmers. We want to see action that will provide leadership to protect our markets against the US farm bills. We want to see the kind of action that will address the real problems that are facing rural communities -- action that keeps farmers on the land and does not persuade them to leave it.

In the last session my colleague the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel (Mr. J. M. Johnson) in his wisdom, and it is great, introduced a resolution urging the government to give added strength to rural communities. He wanted to attract the kinds of industry appropriate to their needs and relevant to the farming communities.

On this side of the House we believe there has to be greater development of small-town Ontario. We believe there must be encouragement to communities with a rural lifestyle to develop the kind of growth appropriate to that kind of lifestyle, which will enhance their role as producers of food in Ontario. We want to see the kind of development that means jobs in those areas and that means young people can enjoy the same kind of opportunities their parents had to build a life, a career and satisfaction in their jobs in their own home towns in rural Ontario.

All the Treasurer has done in this budget is to reintroduce the community economic transformation agreement program introduced more than two years ago by the previous government. What kind of strength does he give to this announcement? He allocates $12.5 million a year for the next two years, and that is all.

In the 1984 budget, the previous government and this party allocated $20 million a year through the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development for such community transformation. Over the same period of time for which the Treasurer has proposed this program, alas, we would have spent $40 million, not $25 million as the Treasurer is suggesting.

4:40 p.m.

Indeed, the Treasurer has the temerity to include in that suggestion that this program will serve the needs of Sault Ste. Marie, which is faced with the very difficult problems at Algoma Steel. He has the temerity to suggest that $25 million in two years will assist Algoma Steel solve the difficulties it is facing in Sault Ste. Marie. If the Treasurer believes that, he is either suffering from abject ignorance or he is providing a continuation of the kind of insulting behaviour this government has exhibited towards the north ever since it became the government of Ontario.

What we are hearing from this government reminds us very vividly of the statements of a former leader of that party who suggested that he would go to Sault Ste. Marie practically on pain of death, but he would not go any farther north. The north was foreign country as far as he was concerned. Obviously, it was Stuart Smith.

Mr. Bernier: Oh, Stuart Smith.

Miss Stephenson: Yes. Obviously, that kind of attitude pervades the members of the Liberal government of Ontario, and there is no commitment by this government to the problems of the north. We need support for development in rural communities, we need support for communities in the north, we need support for one-industry communities and we need support for cities such as Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and others facing real difficulties.

However, Sault Ste. Marie requires much different attention from the kind the Treasurer is suggesting. I believe $25 million over two years is evidence of only one thing: the government does not care about what happens up there.

The previous government provided the Sault with more than $25 million in new services and waterfront development to help its economic future. The government of this day surely can do more than it is suggesting right now for the Sault and for other communities in the north, and it should be much less reluctant to suggest that it can do more.

The government also makes an attempt to talk about the needs of eastern Ontario as if it understood them, but when it comes to taking action, there are absolutely no specifics. I think you should warn them, Mr. Speaker, because you know the people of eastern Ontario will not accept that kind of attitude. The government has to be serious about the support it is going to provide, because if it is not, the people of eastern Ontario will see right through its transparent suggestions.

Let the government tell the people of eastern Ontario right now how much it is going to be making available to that section of the province through the increase in grants to tourism, if there are any. Please, Mr. Speaker, ask the Treasurer to offer the people of eastern Ontario something more than Peterson potties dotting the roadsides of the highways in the eastern part of our province. Ask him to tell them how much is going to be allocated for their area under the community economic transformation agreement program. Are they going to have to share this minuscule $25 million over two years? Is that what the government is proposing for them? Are there any other programs the government is going conjure out of a hat, or is it saving some of that mysterious $300 million of undesignated funds for activity related to the needs of Ontario east of Toronto?

Why does the government not try giving them a plan for a change? Give them some specifics, give them a timetable, but I beg, please do not give the kind of patronizing gobbledegook that was found in this budget and in the speech from the throne. They do not deserve that kind of treatment from this government.

The same is true of the north. There is nothing new in the budget for the north. The programs that have been announced in the budget have all been announced before. Here we go, reannouncing our final and ageing opera star tours all over again. The ageing opera star, of course, is the Treasurer, who keeps on announcing all the things that were announced last summer, last fall, in the last budget, in the speech from the throne and now in the budget again. I wish he sang better; it might make the sound a little more melodious.

Let us have some specifics. Let us have a timetable. Let us have some indication of where this government is going or whether it knows where it is going; therein, I believe, lies the question. Let us know as well whether it is sincere about living up to its promises, and then perhaps, in the words of one of my former colleagues, we might rejoice at some of the things the government is doing. But will we rejoice at any of this? Not a bit of it.

The people of northern Ontario deserve much better than the Treasurer has offered them. From the kinds of documents and comments that keep coming from this government, the people from the north hardly recognize that they have a minister sitting in cabinet. Why did that minister not speak up for the north on the issues that affect it? Why did he not speak up on the promises his party made in the last election campaign? Why did he not speak up for equalized milk prices for northern Ontario or, better yet, about rolling back gasoline taxes there?

Unhappily, the minister apparently sits complacently in his comfortable cabinet chair and does not lift a finger on behalf of the people he purports to represent. Today, what he did was to give a very rude and Liberal indication of the kind of concern he has for the people of the north. He gives bold speeches, but when there is real work to be done, where is he found?

An hon. member: Asleep in the House.

Miss Stephenson: No; lounging in his chauffeur-driven limousine in Toronto.

Interjection.

Miss Stephenson: That is factual.

In the throne speech, the government promised immediate action to set up a high school of technology in the north. It is a somewhat antediluvian suggestion that it should be at the high school level when it could have done much more, but between April and May, that immediacy melted away completely and even that antediluvian idea has dissipated into the mists of the Treasurer's budget. The promise is absolutely nowhere to be found.

If the government is really interested in improving training for technology in the north, why did it not say something about it in the budget? There is not a word, and there is not enough of an increase in the education sector of the budget to provide for that kind of construction, nor is there any indication that there will be any money to provide for that kind of program in the Ministry of Education's allocation.

This Treasurer and this government have the capacity of that marvellous magician from Winnipeg who can make the Empire State Building disappear. They can make all kinds of things disappear in the short space of time between the throne speech and the budget.

Mr. Epp: What about Suncor?

Miss Stephenson: The government made it disappear, and I am not sure it did it very responsibly either. I am not sure the Treasurer had the financial interest of the people of the province at heart when he carried out the deal.

In the throne speech, this government promised immediate action to set up a northern tourism strategy, but that promise did not even make it into the budget speech, although I must admit it was remembered in the ministry press release. However, there is not a word about it in the budget speech. Is that not an important initiative for the north? It is in the press release, but again there is no timetable, no facts, no solid material, no plan of action.

4:50 p.m.

Where is the marketing strategy that supports the government's new advertising campaign in tourism? That ad campaign is made up of a fake lake and all those make-believe general stores in photographs. Why does the government keep all the data to itself when it could help the operators of the tourist industry in this province improve their lot as far as tourism is concerned? Nothing is made available.

The Treasurer says we will have the best tourist year in history. That is absolutely true. There is almost no doubt that will happen. Americans will flock to Ontario because they are terrified to go to Europe or the Middle East. We will obviously enjoy the benefit of that influx, which is not because of anything he has done for tourism -- not one thing. It is because of the fear of terrorism on the airlines.

Mr. Gillies: They are going to be drawn here by the Peterson potties.

Miss Stephenson: I cannot believe it is the Peterson potties that are going to attract them to the province. I cannot believe that is the only initiative this province is going to take in eastern Ontario for tourism purposes. Surely the Liberals' minds rise a little above that, but I am not sure. Yesterday I heard that all of their commitments in the budget to child care were to provide small-sized toilets for children in current child care facilities because they were not there.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: You started out this morning talking about them.

Miss Stephenson: No, I did not. The Treasurer started out this morning. If he would stop interrupting, it would be fine. I listened patiently this morning to what the Treasurer had to say; I really did. I did not interrupt him once. It would be nice if he would return the courtesy, just briefly, this afternoon.

We have made public some of the things we would have done had we had the opportunities which face the Treasurer this week. We have said we really wanted to look at the needs in the housing industry in Ontario. With the windfall of money, that is precisely what we would have done. We said many new funds have to be made available for the construction of affordable housing. A new look should be taken at approaches such as shelter allowances, not the same old thing they are doing.

What did this government do? We never had $3 billion of a windfall with which to do it in the 10 years I have been here. Otherwise, we would have done it, believe me. We got this province through the toughest recession it has faced since 1929 and we did not increase the deficit significantly, we did not lose the credit rating and none of our institutions fell apart.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order. Ignore the interjections and address your comments to me.

Miss Stephenson: I do. You know I have been addressing all this to you.

We expected some bold approaches from a government that had almost $3 billion in hand.

Mr. Villeneuve: In 42 years to work with.

Miss Stephenson: They had 42 years of talking about what they were going to do and 11 months of planning. We expected some really bold approaches. What did we get?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: You are saying what my wife says.

Miss Stephenson: What the Treasurer's wife says is, "Promises, promises." I know that. Poor Dorothy.

Waiting lists are growing for nonprofit housing in this city alone. That figure has grown very dramatically over the last five years of very severe recession and the beginning of improvement. This government is all over that problem, just like a school of minnows, nibbling away at it, devouring none of the problem, solving nothing. It proposes subsidized housing for fewer than 5,000 people with low incomes. That is not going to address the problems of those who need housing in this city, let alone in this province.

In the meantime, the government party tries to paper over its inability to act by paying people to wait on lists for subsidized housing. It is using tax dollars without getting the needy one step closer to safe, affordable housing. That is not a solution. It is a cop-out and unworthy of this Treasurer.

In our party, we have proposed job training programs for the experienced worker, but the Liberals have been acting true to form. They have ignored the needs of experienced workers in their latest budget. They pay lipservice to them in one phrase and that is all. They ignored their needs in the throne speech and again they have ignored their needs in the budget.

No funds are set aside specifically for retraining. There is no mention of them at all in the high-technology fund and no mention of the expansion of training in business and industry programs which was successful in retraining 90,000 workers in high technology in one year in this province. There is not one word about that, and I am afraid most of it has been destroyed by the Futures program, which is all puff and no substance.

Experienced, laid-off workers apparently have no place in this government's vision of Ontario. They are forgotten on the breadlines while the member for London Centre swaps ideas from back issues of Popular Science magazines with his cronies on the technology council. That is all they are going to do. They have no idea about where they are going or the kinds of things they are going to do, except to provide $15 million to universities, which had been provided before.

We would want to set up programs to ensure that experienced workers continue to have a chance to achieve their potential until they choose to retire. The government's talk about doubling the budget of the Ministry of Skills Development is sleight of hand, for the most part. From the budget which has been presented, it is obvious the Treasurer and the government have no idea what they intend to do with that money except to throw it at the problem.

It is a very confused budget, as a result of confused and fuzzy thinking across the floor of this House. I believe this province will have none of it. On this side of the House and in this party, we believe the experienced workers of this province, such as the laid-off steelworkers in the Sault, deserve as much of a break and as much of a chance to make a contribution as Donald MacDonald, Bob Elgie or Russ Ramsay. We feel strongly about that and we hope the government will do something to ensure that chance will be given them.

What about our young people? Have they been abandoned as well by the Treasurer in his budget? They have certainly been abandoned with that wreck of a program called Futures, which cannot create any new jobs or opportunities for them at the same rate at which we were creating those training opportunities for many years and which this government again aborted to make way for this idiot smoke program called Futures, which has more advertising than it has training potential.

There has to be a much better way to do this, a much better way than this government has proposed. There has to be a new approach which will ensure that the young people of this province enjoy the fruits of recovery as much as other segments of our society. It appears that, for the most part, this government has turned its back on that problem.

We would look at new programs for the environment. In our last throne speech, we proposed programs to preserve our lakes, shorelines and beaches. We provided significant funds for the improvement of our beaches. We would also look at necessary environmental community services. We would work to ensure a secure supply of abundant fresh water, which remains the right of all citizens of Ontario.

5 p.m.

What happened in this budget? The school of minnows did not even mention environmental concerns. Truly, many concerns sparked by this government's ham-fisted approach to environmental concerns have been evident. Having raised concerns about the quality of our drinking water, they have retreated from the issue in this budget. All they are doing is developing a testing mechanism; they have done nothing constructive.

They have smeared the reputation of the great community of Sarnia, while ignoring the genuine concerns and worries of the residents of that area and those who reside in surrounding communities. That is not responsible leadership; that is simply gutter politics and that is the kind of activity in which this government has been involved.

Five million dollars is proposed for more studies. We know studies are important, but now is the time to act to allay the concerns they have raised with their ham-fisted approach. We know where the problems are; let us get to work on them now. This government would rather have the whole province and all its people living in a state of fear about the environment than take concrete and responsible steps that need to be and should be taken now.

The major increase in the allocation for the Ministry of the Environment is funding which does not even belong in the Ministry of the Environment; it belongs in the Ministry of Health's allocation. That is the $15 million for hospital waste disposal, which is properly a Ministry of Health concern. Why try to deceive the public with claims of increased environmental financing when it is the work of another ministry they are talking about? That is not plain dealing. I fear that the good common earth sense of the Treasurer has been overcome again by the trendocrat friends of the Premier.

What about taxes? What about this government's fiscal plan? The Treasurer is always proud to proclaim there are no major tax increases in this budget. Considering the windfall he has received, why should there be any increases of any kind? Why should there not be a reduction of taxes? The Treasurer does not like people to know his last budget in October 1985 raised taxes twice as much as the federal budget did for the people of Ontario. He does not like that information to be spread about, but he should know increased taxes are causing concern.

The May 10 issue of the Financial Post warned that tax hikes could be major obstacles to growing consumer spending and warned gravely against them. Consumer spending has powered our economy in its recovery over the last three years, and the Treasurer should remember that. At a time of economic growth, we should be seeing lower taxes, not higher taxes. We should be seeing tax rollbacks and not be satisfied with simply holding the line or increasing one or two only slightly.

The Treasurer is very well aware that the Ontario division of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association has warned this government that the tax burden on manufacturers now compares unfavourably with competing jurisdictions. This burden is making Ontario an expensive place to do business. This burden is making it more difficult for the industries of this province to compete with Europe, the United States or the developing nations.

Let us not forget that a dynamic private sector is the only guarantee we have in our province that Ontario will be able to satisfy any demand for extensive improvement, or even slight improvement, in social programs. That is where the engine is that makes social programs run. I remind the Treasurer that high taxes are eroding that guarantee in this province. They are also eroding our province's ability to act and react quickly in the event of negative economic movement.

I fear this government is painting itself into a corner from which even our strong economy, based upon the efforts and the genius of individual Ontarians and not upon government, will be unable to rescue it. We will not be rescued by those characteristic traits of the people of Ontario if that corner is so tight they can do nothing about it. That is what the Treasurer is doing.

On this side of the House and in this party, we believe the most productive money in Ontario is the money which remains in taxpayers' pockets. That is the money that creates jobs; that is the money which is invested and creates new industry; that is the money which provides growth in Ontario. It is not the money that is taxed away into the Treasurer's coffers that provides those stimuli which are necessary for economic development.

After reading the Treasurer's budget, one would have to believe he does not share the view of this party of the value of that specific money. Since he has taken office, taxes have continued to rise in Ontario as a result of his actions -- $750 million worth since October 1985.

I remind the Treasurer that the economy is not simply a never-ending source of revenue for treasurers of Ontario. I remind the Treasurer that economic growth needs encouragement, especially if it is to be directed to areas of need if we are going to break down the barriers caused by geography, education or background.

I think at this time the Treasurer should have had the courage of his convictions to roll back some taxes to give businesses and the individuals of this province a real break; not, for heaven's sake, the introduction of the improvement of the sales tax on fast food to exempt it to $2. All that means is that the guy who is going to buy fast food is going to be able to buy an extra cup of coffee. He is not going to be able to survive on that.

Why does the Treasurer not give them a real break? Leave more of those creative dollars in the pockets and the hands of the people who produce the real wealth of this province and make this province run. That is not the government, but the private sector -- the workers, the employers, the industry and the businesses of this province. Why do we not do that to try to fuel the improvement in our economic development? I do not get an answer, so I will go on to the next point.

Mr. Speaker, I ask you, what about the deficit? This Treasurer had the rare opportunity, an opportunity that has come seldom to Treasurers of this province over the past decade, to move towards a balanced budget.

An hon. member: They had it for 10 years.

Miss Stephenson: We did not. We had it for one year in 10 years.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: We reduced the cash requirements by close to --

Miss Stephenson: Piddling.

The Treasurer had the opportunity to really attempt a movement to put finances in this province in the kind of order that he has proclaimed and declaimed about for the last 10 years that I have been around here. What did he do? Nothing.

As early as 1984, we predicted that, given the growth in the economy, it was possible to balance the budget in three years. A balanced budget, I would remind you, Mr. Speaker, is still very much a possibility.

5:10 p.m.

What has this Treasurer done? He has not dealt with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries; he has not dealt with the recessional problems; he does not even know what it is all about, apparently. What has this Treasurer done? I ask, what has he done?

In the first budget he brought in, he boosted the deficit by $300 million. That was his choice of activity.

This budget, he boasts, reduces the operating deficit by $263 million. He brags in this budget about reducing net cash requirements this year by $85 million. We know how much effort the Treasurer has put into debt reduction. We know this boasted-of $85 million is about equal to the average level of transaction conducted by the Ministry of Treasury and Economics in one day in this province; one single day out of 365. That is an achievement when he has almost $3 billion in his hand? Come off it. The Treasurer should have the courage to admit he is doing nothing to reduce the deficit or the provincial debt in any real fashion.

He should admit that during all those years when he sat on this side of the House and criticized the debts of previous governments, he did not mean what he was talking about, because when he has the opportunity and the money, he does nothing about it. He had the chance to do something to reduce the province's operating deficit in a meaningful way, but what did he do? He blinked instead. He backed off and he did not have the courage to stand by those convictions he so loudly proclaimed for so many years from almost this seat in the Legislature. Not very long ago either, I remind him.

Let me remind the Treasurer of the words of his predecessor, not me, but the last Liberal Treasurer in Ontario, St. Clair Gordon, who said in his last budget that it was "good business to pay your debts in good times." We are in good times now. The Treasurer has the best opportunity this year that has been available for the past 15 years to do something, but I fear the Treasurer is reneging on his debts and failing to follow the precept of his learned predecessor.

If, in the throne speech, the government failed to live up to its own buzzwords about excellence and world-class achievement, in this budget it has not even made an attempt to do so. Not so much as an atom of energy has been expended in that direction. After 11 months in office, we have a government that is totally tired out. They are not thinking on that side of the House. They are exercising no imagination. There is not even a glimmer of imagination coming from that side of the House, except from our good colleague the member for Humber.

What is on the opposite side of the House is a group of extinct volcanoes.

An hon. member: Not even smoking.

Miss Stephenson: No, they are rumbling occasionally with memories of past explosions, but they are cold and they are dead and they are absolutely incapable of any future eruption of any kind. The fires have gone out. There is heart-rending cold on the opposite side of this Legislature.

An hon. member: I heard the member's waterbed had burst.

Miss Stephenson: I do not have a waterbed. I am not like the member; I do not need that kind of stimulation.

Their talks with the doctors are mired totally within their own stubbornness and their own intransigence. They tried to produce some absolutely draconian changes in the delivery of pharmaceuticals to patients in this province and they had to back down a little because both opposition parties demonstrated clearly that they were wrong. They have not done enough. They are not willing or able, apparently, at this point to ensure the safety of Ontario by ensuring interchangeability in those acts. They want the population of Ontario to be at risk.

This government cannot even sell off the Urban Transportation Development Corp. They really cannot. They have a marvellous facility, which should not be sold anyway. They tried to sell it and what have they done? They have got it all wrong and, as a result, there is not going to be a sale, certainly not at the price they wanted for it.

Now what do they do? They bring in a limp budget, a piece of wilted lettuce, that does little at best to address the real needs of this province and hides a considerable sum of money somewhere in the toils of government away from the prying eyes of the taxpayers who provided it.

The front cover of the budget booklet said it all. The image of the shattered trillium is the only vision this government seems to have for this province, to offer to the people of Ontario: the image of a fractured community, a community at war with itself. It is obvious that the members on that side of the House would rather hurl a bomb into the balcony than let the audience catch on to the fact that the performance below is going badly. That is what they are doing from time to time.

I was elected to serve the people of York Mills approximately 11 years ago. I believed at that time it was the job of government to provide creative activity, positive thinking and imaginative direction, which would ensure that the framework within which the people of Ontario function would be best for their own use and for the exercise of their ingenuity, their cerebral capacity and the kind of wisdom they have. I still believe that is the role of each one of us on behalf of all Ontario.

In those 10 years, I have never seen a government so lacking in backbone. There is no steel in the spine anywhere, except for the vindictiveness they like to demonstrate from time to time. They have absolutely no strength in providing initiative in the direction of helping the people of Ontario to grow.

I have never seen ministers so eager to make florid announcements and so slow to exercise their responsibilities. I have never seen a government so insensitive to the needs of the people and so arrogant as to ignore completely the views and the insight of the people. They do not even answer their mail. If one is a citizen of Ontario, one waits six or eight months for a response from the ministers of this government.

The government and its bedfellows are fond of saying that last May the people of this province voted for change.

An hon. member: Since the Conservatives got kicked out of bed with these people.

Miss Stephenson: I was never there. The New Democratic Party and particularly the Liberals like to tell us the people voted for a new approach at Queen's Park. The Liberals are fond of expounding that the people of this province voted for the kind of government that would listen, would meet, would consult and would then act in response to their concerns.

I have a list of the ministers who have refused to meet responsible groups and individuals in this province. That list is growing beyond the schoolbook exercise type of document that is available to us. It is a disgrace what is happening in many ministries of this government. One of these days, they are going to have to recognize that they must meet with the people of Ontario, not just those who pay $150 to go to the house of the member for London South (Ms. E. J. Smith) for a cocktail party to meet the ministers of the government. That is not the kind of consultation we are talking about.

5:20 p.m.

The people of this province may have been doing what the Liberals are fond of saying they did. They may have been looking for change, but if they were looking for a government to provide real leadership in the 1980s, they have been bitterly disappointed. I do not really think they were looking for a group of political necrophiliacs who try to breathe life into old programs and ideas that were best suited to this province more than 15 years ago.

We need real leadership in this province, not a school of minnows floating around in all directions. We need more than "Who cares?" or a shrug from this government. We need a government that is vitally concerned with the needs of all Ontarians, whether they live in eastern Ontario, northern Ontario or southwestern Ontario. We need a government that is willing and anxious to draw the community together into a cohesive whole, to restore the fractured trillium it is producing.

We need a government that has the courage to tackle the real issues in a genuine way and not one that offers token solutions, flashy publicity stunts or expensive -- and I mean expensive -- public relations campaigns. The members opposite should never talk to us.

I look at this budget and I am forced to shake my head when I think of what could have been achieved if the budget had any kind of focus and if it had anything other than the political agenda of the gentlemen and the few ladies opposite. What do they do? They hide taxpayers' dollars. They forget the throne speech programs. They forget their commitments and their election promises. What are they waiting for? I guess it must be for another election campaign.

I have no doubt that in the not-too-distant future a member of my caucus is going to move that this budget be rejected out of hand by the House, but at this point I can only shake my head when I look at what other governments have been able to achieve in the past year. I look at little New Brunswick. Its budget last month had no major tax increases and was close to being balanced. Here in Ontario, we see government expenses rising faster than in any other jurisdiction in Canada, including the federal government. What a difference from the former careful stewardship of this province's resources we see now under this Premier.

I look at Quebec, where the government has been in power since only last December, and what a difference we see. There are supposed to be Liberals on that side of the House, but the Liberal government in Quebec has demonstrated that it has focus, it has direction, it has a plan, and it is showing real leadership. In Quebec, we see a government willing to make personal income tax cuts, willing to ensure there will be real action taken to cut its deficit, willing to ensure that it earmarks areas of concern and working diligently -- working, not talking -- to encourage new economic growth in close partnership with the private sector, not driving business away with an attitude that tells the private sector the government knows better than it what is good for the province.

An hon. member: Big Brother.

Miss Stephenson: Big Brother. What a comparison with Ontario. Here we have a government drifting with the tide, arrogant enough to believe it has all the answers and apparently unwilling to see the initiative and enterprise that bursts out of the people of Ontario, which the government does not really have any involvement in and which it should be trying to encourage.

Can the government not understand that it does not provide the energy for the forward motion of this province? It may grease the wheels or give it a little push from time to time, but it is the people of this province who move this province forward. Why can the government not see that in this budget? Compare the two pictures of Ontario and Quebec. In Ontario, what do we see? Drift, lack of focus, total lack of direction, confusion --

Mr. Ferraro: The lowest unemployment rate in Canada.

Miss Stephenson: The lowest unemployment rate in Canada for the last four years. Alberta was lower than we were four years ago. We were improving faster than any other province long before the Liberals got here, and there is nothing they have done to improve employment, believe me, absolutely nothing.

What do we see in Ontario? We see drift. We see confusion. We see haziness. We see no vision from this government. We see absolute lack of direction and lack of focus. We see the arrogance of this regime. They believe there were others who were arrogant. There is no sample of arrogance more vivid than that which is displayed by this government on a daily basis.

However, in seeing that in this House and in our province, we also see in our sister province next door the energy, the leadership and the enthusiasm of a newly elected government with imagination and ideas. We see one regime letting things coast. We see another regime taking action, cutting taxes, cutting the deficit, limiting the growth of government spending, listening, and leading. This government is turning this province into a second class province by comparison.

I wonder what the boys at Earl's Shell will say to the Treasurer when they really know that this Treasurer and the Premier have let Ontario slide downhill in comparison to Quebec. What will they say when they see that Quebec has actually cut taxes and that this province has not only left them all on, it has increased some of them.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Their income tax is a third larger than ours, and the member knows it.

Miss Stephenson: They have reduced that already. They have taken action. What has the Liberal Party done? Nothing.

What we need is a real budget. We need some direction and some focus, not the shell game the Treasurer announced yesterday. It is hard to figure out where the $300 million is, under which walnut, but it is in fact a shell game. It is not worthy of the Treasurer to do that kind of thing.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: We are going to dinner. This is the big day of the Premier's dinner.

Miss Stephenson: Too bad.

We need a budget that will effectively harness the energy, the enthusiasm, and the ideals of the people of this province; a budget that has the courage to extend the potential of our province; a budget that will restore the trillium to its whole state as it has been for so many years and not leave it shattered in many pieces as the Treasurer depicts it now.

We need a budget that allows the people of Ontario to understand that the government of this province has some idea about where it is going. We do not have that. At the present time, and from this budget, the people of this province believe this government has no compass, no goal, no destination, and no plan to get there. I believe they are right.

It is a shame that I have to make such negative remarks about what had the potential to be a great budget in Ontario. It is one of the worst examples of a budget that I have had the misfortune to see and I truly regret that this Treasurer who was, I think, born with common sense -- he should have inherited some from his father -- has lost all of the effect of that common sense as a result of being subjected to the pressure of the technocrats, technocrats and yuppies who infect the Liberal Party of Ontario at present.

We do not need the kind of budget the Treasurer produced yesterday. We need real leadership and we are not getting it at present. That I abhor, that I feel the people of Ontario will understand shortly and that I believe they will speak to when the opportunity is provided to them.

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

Mr. Harris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: After the comments that were made today by my colleague, I wonder whether the House business will carry on or whether the Treasurer plans to withdraw the document and come out with a new budget.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order. I suggest the member try that as a question at some future time.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: As I rise to move the adjournment, I suggest if the honourable acting House leader for the official opposition, the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris), can get enough support on that side of the House, we can probably let the people decide the merits of the budget. We are quite willing to do that.

The House adjourned at 5:31 p.m.