L116 - Tue 6 Dec 1988 / Mar 6 déc 1988
REDUCE IMPAIRED DRIVING EVERYWHERE
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
MOTION TO SET ASIDE ORDINARY BUSINESS
The House met at 1:30 p.m.
Prayers.
VISITORS
Mr. Speaker: I would ask all members of the Legislative Assembly to recognize in the Speaker’s gallery a member of the West German Parliament who is a member of the foreign relations committee and the defence committee. Please join me in welcoming Count Hans Huyn.
Also in the Speaker’s gallery, we have the member-elect for the federal riding of Markham, Bill Attewell.
MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS
CHRISTMAS CATALOGUE
Mr. Allen: For the second year, the Globe and Mail has issued its exclusive Christmas collection it calls The Best of Toronto. Examples tell us clearly where the Globe appears to stand in the battle with poverty in Ontario: for example, a single room rug, worth $120,000 or 17 years of social assistance to a single disabled woman; a single china setting, worth $2,300 or 1,000 community breakfasts for poor kids in Toronto; matching jewellery, $36,500 or the difference between poverty and frugal comfort for a two-income minimum-wage family of four for 14 years; or another neat piece of jewellery, a necklace, $140,000 or what would lift one single working poor person to a living wage for 24 years.
This is not the best, this is the worst of Toronto, which under this government is unfortunately becoming a class-ridden city where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This catalogue tells the sad story of chief executive officers leading the pack in double-inflation salary increases while the poor get 20 cents more in a minimum wage. It tells of developers bidding up land prices and driving low-income families out of housing and off to food banks.
How could a self-respecting newspaper remotely think this was the spirit of Christmas or a slightly moral publication? The Premier (Mr. Peterson) has had his inquiry into poverty. When is he going to look at the corrosive effects of undue wealth in Ontario?
AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY
Mr. Villeneuve: The midterm review of the Uruguay round of talks on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade marks a pivotal point in the evolution of world agricultural trade. Last year governments paid out the equivalent of an estimated US$220 billion in agricultural subsidies. While not all these payments were trade distorting, there is no question that the subsidies issue is the most contentious on the GATT agenda and its resolution will have a direct impact on Ontario agriculture.
We in this party have consistently maintained and have repeatedly told this government that the real threat to Ontario’s supply management and marketing board systems lies not in the free trade agreement, but in the GATT. In particular, we have warned of the potential dangers of a GATT article XI challenge against our marketing boards. At this crucial time, we hope the Ontario government will do something different, something new and take a constructive approach to trade policy for a change as opposed to what the members who are interjecting are saying now.
The government of Ontario should work closely with the federal government to ensure that the interests of Ontario farmers are fully recognized and protected in the GATT and in any agreements relating to the agricultural trade issues of access and subsidies. Ontario farmers should not pay the price for this government’s incoherent trade policy. This Ontario Liberal government developed a bad case of tunnel vision --
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Villeneuve: -- because of the free trade agreement and must now turn its attention to the broader issue affecting Ontario agricultural issues.
Mr. Speaker: I found it somewhat difficult to hear the last --
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
DIAPERS
Mr Adams: I would like to return to disposable diapers. These create environmental problems because the plastic in them persists for ever in dumps.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I wish the members would show a little respect for other members who wish to make statements.
Mr. Adams: These diapers create environmental problems as the plastic in them persists for ever in dumps and inappropriate disposal of diaper contents creates health hazards. This is no small problem as one child uses 1,000 diapers a year. Also, some seven million adults in North America use disposable diapers. These produce 37,000 tonnes of dangerous waste in Ontario alone, one per cent of the municipal waste stream, yet there are easily available, equally convenient, cheaper alternatives.
There are biodegradable plastic diapers, there are cloth and plastic reusable diapers and diaper-laundering services are widely available at a fraction of the cost of disposable diapers. When members are approached by consumers trying to make environmentally sound choices, I urge they use one simple answer: If in doubt, buy durable, buy degradable.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
CRASH OF AIR AMBULANCE
Mr. McLean: My statement is directed to the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan). She is aware of and has shown a great interest in the air ambulance crash on November 27 near Chapleau, Ontario, which killed two paramedics, a pilot and a co-pilot.
It has been suggested that paramedic Ian Harris of Orillia had feared such a tragedy could happen, because the North Bay based airline did not have enough experience flying out of the government’s Timmins air ambulance base. As it turned out, this fatal flight was the first this company made out of the Timmins air base where it had only recently assumed a government contract previously held by Air Ontario, another private carrier.
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Ironically, Mr. Harris had travelled to Toronto to take part in a November 17 rally at Queen’s Park to demand a province-wide ambulance inquiry. At that time, Mr. Harris warned that the experience of the pilots and the quality of the air operations were not up to standard.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union and both opposition parties of this Legislature have urged the minister to conduct a public inquiry into this tragic crash and her ministry’s policy of contracting ambulance services to private firms, and now Mr. Harris’s father, Rawson, has also called for a public inquiry. A public inquiry will not bring back Ian Harris, but it could prevent a similar tragedy from occurring again. I urge the minister to conduct a public inquiry immediately.
REDUCE IMPAIRED DRIVING EVERYWHERE
Mr. Kanter: I am rising today to acknowledge the contribution of the private sector to the Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere program in my riding of St. Andrew-St. Patrick and throughout the greater Metro area.
A very attractive poster has been donated by several media firms, including Telemedia Procom; McLaren Morris and Todd; and Bergman Graphics. I would like to advise members that it is available at the new Metro police headquarters building located at 40 College Street, which happens to be in my riding.
Other incentives have been provided, ice scrapers and discount coupons. They are made available to motorists who pass spot checks successfully. They have been contributed by a number of corporate sponsors, including the Toronto Automobile Dealers Association, Bank of Nova Scotia, Warkworth Enterprises, Canada Dry, Becker Milk Co. Ltd., TransCanada PipeLines, Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Brewers’ Warehousing Co., Insurance Bureau of Canada and Co-operators Insurance.
I would like to acknowledge the important contribution that these and other corporate sponsors of the RIDE program have made. They are providing publicity and positive incentives to make our roads safer, both during the festive season and throughout the year.
AMBULANCE SERVICES
Mrs. Marland: I rise today to speak out on behalf of the residents of Halton and Mississauga, who are now enduring almost four months of an ambulance strike.
In rising, I also welcome and recognize some members of the Halton-Mississauga ambulance organization sitting in the gallery to my left. These people are committed professionals. They are ambulance officers who want to work. They do not want to be sitting here in the House when they could be out driving the ambulances that are most needed for the health care of the people in those communities.
We are desperately frustrated, the people who live there; the people who have experienced firsthand far less than adequate response times. We are aware that the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) has said repeatedly in the House that she is assured that the public in Halton-Mississauga are not at risk. We do not know who is assuring the minister, but we know that 35- or 40-minute response times do put the public at risk and we have documented cases where that is so.
We plead with this government to put an end immediately to this risk to the public. We are coming into a season of bad weather which we know will accelerate the number of traffic accidents alone. It is not good enough that the government chooses to ignore these people and their risks.
TERRY PIANE
Mr. Callahan: I rise on behalf of myself and my colleague the member for Brampton North (Mr. McClelland) to pay tribute to an alderman with whom I served on city council, who early on in her term discovered that she had cancer. She very bravely served out the full balance of her term and died just recently. I would like to pay tribute to Terry Piane, an alderman I found to be a very sensitive and caring person, and express my sympathies to her family.
VISITOR
Mr. Speaker: If the members would allow me, I would like to draw their attention to a former member for Lincoln, Ross Hall, in the gallery. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Hall.
STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY
SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I am announcing today increases to Ontario’s social assistance system, including new family benefits and general welfare assistance rates for 1989.
Over the last three years, we have taken a number of necessary steps and have embarked on the planning for the future which is so essential to ensure a system that meets the needs of its recipients.
Since we took office in 1985, Ontario has increased its social assistance benefits by $337 million. We have raised benefit levels by an average of 23.9 per cent, well above the rate of inflation, including some important adjustments to the existing system. These changes include: A children’s winter clothing allowance which next year will amount to $89 per year per child; in September 1986, $25-million worth of improvements to our shelter subsidy program; an increase of $50 per month in the benefits paid to disabled people under our family benefits program; $1.8 million to raise the personal needs allowance for residents of institutions from $77 per month to $100 per month; removal of the regressive spouse-in-the-house rule; and finally, $20 million to ensure that utility costs paid separately from rent are taken into account in determining the amount of shelter subsidy.
I am announcing today a five per cent increase in the basic allowance for social assistance recipients effective January 1, 1989. The maximum shelter subsidy will also be increased by five per cent. This represents additional provincial spending of $92.1 million annually.
I am also announcing today another step towards a fairer social assistance system. As of April 1, the $100 monthly personal needs allowance paid to nonelderly adult residents of many of our institutions will be extended to residents of psychiatric hospitals, homes for special care which are funded by the Ministry of Health, as well as residents of my ministry’s facilities for the developmentally handicapped. The total cost of this initiative is $9.2 million.
In total, then, the increases to the system I am announcing today amount to more than $101 million, for a total, since this government took office, of $438 million.
Members are aware that in addition to these increases, the report of the Social Assistance Review Committee recommended fundamental reforms to the social assistance system in Ontario. Given the significance of these changes, the committee recommended the government take up to six months to review the report in detail.
To that end, over the next three months, my cabinet colleagues and I will consult on the specifics of the Social Assistance Review Committee report with special emphasis on stage one. The consultation will include other levels of government, especially municipalities, organizations with expertise in social services and members of the business community. This consultation process will assist the government in developing its response to the report.
RESPONSES
SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
Mr. Allen: It is hard to find words to describe what the minister has stood up and said today. In light of what the Thomson committee has proposed to this province and what he and his ministry and government have known was coming over the last couple of years, they could have made provision for action long before this to meet the needs of the working poor and those on social assistance in this province.
He has done none of even the less costly items which might have been done in the course of these past few months. And nothing appears to be coming in the next three months, nothing about appeal or administrative delays, nothing to reduce tax-back rates on earnings, nothing to extend earnings exemptions for earnings under family benefits, nothing to meet real housing costs for social assistance recipients.
If you look at the amounts the minister announced today, a single disabled basic needs recipient would still only be at 58 per cent of the poverty line, a nondisabled couple would be receiving only 49 per cent of the poverty line, a mother and child on welfare would be only 44 per cent of the poverty line.
Mr. Speaker, you look at the rates that were announced today and you discover that after you adjust for inflation, the amount the social recipient is receiving in this province is only what it was in 1975. We have made no progress whatever, and the minister is dreaming in Technicolor if he thinks his figures amount to anything for the poor in this province.
As for his announcement for the personal needs allowance, it took three months of our protests to get the minister to stand up and make this announcement today of an extra $100. That is one item out of 274 items that Thomson listed. At that rate, it is going to take 68 years for this minister to do something about Thomson.
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Mr. B. Rae: The statement made by the minister today is as unconscionable as any that even he has made in this Legislature. To do it at this time of year, as if this represented any kind of achievement on the part of this government or any kind of justice for the people of this province who need social assistance and who qualify for social assistance, I just find offensive.
Not only are the amounts offensive, not only is the fact that even with a five per cent increase -- as the minister well knows, Judge Thomson told us very clearly that even with an increase that kept in line with inflation, poor people in this province are no better off in real terms, in real dollar terms, than they were 13 years ago. If the minister thinks that is something to be proud of and if his colleagues who were applauding him a moment ago think that is some kind of achievement worth applauding, then they live in a very different universe than the one I live in.
I also want to say that for the minister to say today that his sole response to Thomson is that he is now going to start a consultation process for the next three months, some three months after Thomson, is in itself a disgrace. His initial response to the Thomson report was to tell the reporters on that day -- and how well I remember his face on the national news as he said what a wonderful report he thought it was -- and to assure everyone that it would be given priority, that it would be done as a whole, that it would be administered by him and with pride by him and that he would be pushing for it and moving for it.
What do we have some three months later? An admission by the minister that he has not consulted with anyone, that he has not sat down with the municipalities and developed any kind of strategy, that he has not sat down with the interest groups and developed any kind of strategy, that he has not even managed to convince the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) as to with what kind of priority this vital report, with a very substantial expenditure of public moneys, is going to be included in this year’s budget.
The minister knows perfectly well that unless that information and plan are on the Treasurer’s desk today, and put through a fight through Treasury and through Management Board of Cabinet starting months ago, it simply will not happen. The minister knows that perfectly well. He has been a minister long enough to know how the process works. To suggest otherwise to the poor people in this province is simply to lead them down a garden path.
Organized groups of poor people across this province are beginning to understand this government for what it is: a government that during the minority period appointed Judge Thomson and asked him to do a thorough review, that got the review from Judge Thomson and that since that time has sat on its hands and done nothing to relieve the poverty, the hardship, the hunger and the homelessness that affect thousands and thousands of our fellow citizens right now. It is simply not acceptable.
Mr. Cousens: This is a sad day, a sad day for the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) and a very sad day for the people he has been given the authority to serve and to do something for. I find it difficult to describe the agony that is going to be prolonged for those people who are looking for something that would come out of Transitions, a report that Judge Thomson and a group released on September 1, a report that gave them reason to have hope for the future, a report that really said that the government took seriously the needs of those people in our society.
What we have got today is the reiteration of some of the things that the government has done. I am sure many of those things would not have been done had we not put the pressure on the government at the time to provide the winter clothing allowance and to do something about the subsidies. This government has reacted to things only because we have pushed it, because the opposition has pushed it and the people in Ontario have pushed it. They are going to have to start pushing an awful lot harder in order to get the government’s attention.
The Minister of Community and Social Services has lost a battle. He lost the battle for the people he was called to serve to the Treasurer and to the other members of cabinet who have not heeded the needs of the people of this province. In fact, when they started talking about the implementation of Transitions they called for an immediate increase. It is three months later, and now the minister is talking about another three months in order to continue his analysis and evaluation. That is not good enough; it is not good enough for him, it is not good enough for the people of Ontario.
We are in a position where we should see a phasing in of the proposals that came from Judge Thomson’s report. The minister is now talking not about the one month that the report called for but six months before that will begin to happen. This report might well end up with the same kind of dust on it that the Thom commission has at the Ministry of Housing, where they just go and shelve it. About $3 million has been spent on preparing it, and now the government is not prepared to implement its provisions.
This government is not only slow and tardy; it is failing even to keep up with the cost of living. The cost of living increase right now is 5.1 per cent, and the minister is not even at the cost-of-living level. Why not? I think this is an uncaring government which is not showing the compassion and consideration that it has been given the right to do.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Cousens: This minister was in a position to do something about psychiatric patients, so there is now a $100 monthly allowance. May I suggest to the Speaker and other honourable members of this House that this minister was going to appeal that decision of the court. This is not a generous act of the government. This is a response to a court order to do something about that.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order, the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay (Mr. Black).
Mr. Cousens: I think they are just embarrassed.
Because of the fact that I have been elected to represent some of the people of Ontario, I would like to stand up for those people who cannot stand up in this House and defend themselves. The outrageous remarks from the other members of this House, who are not allowing me the right to have this opportunity to speak without these interruptions, I find are disgusting and reprehensible. It is typical of what this government is trying to do.
We will not see the people muzzled in Ontario and we will fight for the people. We know they deserve more and we know it is right for the government to get working on it.
Interjections.
Mr. Cousens: I am really sorry that the House does not have at least some sense of the urgency of what this issue is all about. When other members are taking this as something that is fun, I see this as a really disgusting moment in the province of Ontario.
The Minister of Community and Social Services has not even met the level of inflation. I have to say that this is a sad moment for the people of Ontario on general welfare assistance and it is a sad moment for the people on family benefits allowance. Let us hope that something more can happen.
ORAL QUESTIONS
AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE
Mr. B. Rae: I wanted to ask the Premier (Mr. Peterson) this question, but since he is not here, I will ask the Minister of Financial Institutions.
A 30-year-old driver with one year’s experience, according to the report that has been tabled with the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board, is now paying somewhere between $1,237, or, according to another company, $1,294. According to the proposed increase, it will now go up to $2,650 -- which is an increase of over 100 per cent, Mr. Speaker, in case you are wondering what kind of increase that is for a 30-year-old driver with one year’s experience.
Let’s say that 30-year-old driver was watching television on the evening of September 7, 1987. That driver heard the leader of the minister’s party, now the Premier, say, “We have a very specific plan to lower auto insurance rates in this province.”
Can the Minister of Financial Institutions tell us what that driver should now think about his party and the leader of his party when it comes to automobile insurance in this province?
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Hon. Mr. Elston: I thank the honourable gentleman for the question. This has appeared to be, in the last couple of days, the issue that has been grabbed by the third party. I am glad to see that the leader of the second party is looking at it more seriously now.
I can tell the members what the honourable gentleman should advise that particular person who was watching his television set on the evening of September 7, 1987. I should tell him that this party has moved forward to eliminate the discrimination with respect to insurance rates based on age, sex, marital status or handicap, as we had indicated.
We have moved with dispatch to deal with capping those rates earlier. We have moved with dispatch to have the auto board take over the duty of demystifying the market with respect to what is required to put rates together. He should also advise that particular person to --
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: Just think how happy they are after they get this increase.
Mr. Speaker: Order, the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. D. S. Cooke).
Hon. Mr. Elston: Basically, to finish off, the Leader of the Opposition should also advise that member that this is a proposal based on several assumptions and indications which, in the report, point out that there are some areas of data which must be clarified and otherwise. In fact, the chairman of the board will be, with his board members, examining this proposal in conjunction with representatives of the public and industry in a very thorough manner to deal with the assumptions and the basis upon which the recommendations have been put before the board.
Mr. B. Rae: Mr. Mercer’s proposal is not that of some guy off the street who said he thought he had a good idea. This proposal is the one that was asked for specifically by the auto insurance board to guide its discussions, so the minister cannot say it is just a proposal. It is not just a proposal. It is the one proposal that provides the framework for the entire discussion at the board, and the minister knows that. He knows that perfectly well.
I would like to ask the minister this specific question: When that 30-year-old driver heard the Premier say, “We have a very specific plan to lower auto insurance rates,” how was he supposed to know that the Premier was not talking about him?
Hon. Mr. Elston: First, I have to advise the 30-year-old driver who has been singled out as an example by the Leader of the Opposition that the leader is wrong when he says this is the basis upon which the hearing will be held. In fact, what will be dealt with here is this proposal in conjunction with the decisions that have been rendered in respect of all of the other parts of the hearing. This is a four-part hearing which has built constructively upon the basis of discussions earlier on. There are parts of the decisions rendered earlier that have been used to provide some of the assumptions, but this is not the entire basis upon which the hearing will be based.
This is a good part of it. This is a consultant’s report. The consultant was hired by the board; I agree with that. But the member will also want to be fully up front with the people of the province -- Mr. Speaker, I am sure the leader would say -- by indicating that this is not the entire basis upon which the hearing will be held but that it is, I agree, a very important component of it. It does point out certain problems with respect to data and other things, and I know that Mr. Kruger, the chairman of the board about which the leader spoke as well, has indicated that there will be a very rigorous examination of the basis upon which these recommendations were brought forward.
I can tell the people of this province that there will be a very thorough and full analysis and a very public analysis, so that --
Mr. Speaker: Thank you.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. B. Rae: When a political leader says he has a specific plan to lower rates, that sounds to me like a promise to lower rates. When an insurance board appointed by his government awards an increase of return on investment of some 12.5 per cent -- which, in terms of existing premiums, means an increase in premium income alone of some $1.2 billion -- as one of the other foundations of the discussions that are going to be going ahead in the next few days, along with the Mercer report, it sounds to me as if the government of Ontario and the Liberal Party of Ontario all along had a plan in mind not to lower rates but to send insurance rates through the roof.
That was the plan they had in mind before the election. That was the plan they had in mind during the election, only they did not have the forthrightness to tell the people of the province about it. In fact, they told the people of the province the precise opposite when it came to insurance rates, when it came to profitability and when it came to anything else. That is what they did. The precise opposite of what they have done is what they promised during the election campaign.
Mr. Speaker: The question?
Mr. B. Rae: Specifically on the question of a return on equity, I wonder how the minister feels about a proposal not from Mr. Mercer but from the insurance board itself which says that, in addition to making a return on investment of some nearly 27 per cent in all other business, the insurance companies are now going to be allowed an increase from 3.25 per cent return on investment, not the loss they have been talking about, to some 12.5 per cent: a $1.2-billion increase in their premium income.
Hon. Mr. Elston: As is not unusual with the Leader of the Opposition -- I almost called him the leader of the third party; I did not want to provoke the leader of the third party by saying he was always unaware of the reality of the situation. In this case, the gentleman has not always put all of the material together so he can provide a cogent argument.
What he has indicated is that there is in some way -- and he is trying to lead the people to believe incorrectly -- a guarantee of 12.5 per cent on equity. That, of course, is not the situation. It becomes an assumption for the basis of setting a rate structure in place that can be talked about. There is no guarantee of return on equity. There is no guarantee of the 35 to 40 per cent which has been made here. There is no guarantee that, in fact, that will be happening.
I can tell the honourable gentleman that his allegation that this party had in mind that it would raise insurance rates through the ceiling, that it would do all those other things he incorrectly suggested it would do, is in fact a disservice to the people of this province.
Mr. Speaker: Thank you.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Other members wish to ask questions. I will just wait. The Leader of the Opposition, new question.
TEMAGAMI DISTRICT RESOURCES
Mr. B. Rae: I have a new question for the Premier. He will know that Chief Potts held a press conference at one o’clock this afternoon and, in a very eloquent letter to Mr. Feilders, who is the negotiator for the government, he quotes a comment made in 1939 by the Deputy Minister of Lands and Forests, under a then Liberal government, I might point out.
The deputy minister said: “In the first place this department cannot consent to disposing of any portions of the township of Vogt in this way. The township is altogether too valuable from a timber point of view to even consider the question.”
Chief Potts then goes to say: “Nothing appears to have changed, except that in 1939 there was a lot of forest. Now there is only a little left and this is what your government wishes to destroy.”
I wonder what the Premier has to say in response to this comment by Chief Potts with respect to the clear implication of the government’s decision to seek an injunction, with his clear indication that he is going to allow for the continuation of clear-cutting in the area, that there is going to be a continuation of the destruction of the land that is the ancestral home of Chief Potts and his band. What is his response to Chief Potts?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: A great deal has intervened since 1939, particularly from this government. As the honourable member knows, an offer was made with respect to a settlement in this area, not only land but money as well. That was put forward in good faith. The Attorney General (Mr. Scott) will help me if I am wrong, but I believe the first bona fide offer ever made by this government was put forward and was turned down.
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As the member knows, it has gone to court, and the court ruled against the Indian claim, but we stand prepared to sit and negotiate and continue to try to come up with a settlement of this matter. I can say to the member in as good a faith as I possibly can that we have tried to negotiate with the band; we have made that offer in good faith and we have sat down and talked about shared jurisdiction with respect to resource management in that area. The band turned down various proposals that were put forward, and we are still prepared to sit down and try to work this matter out.
I believe we have exercised good faith, patience and goodwill and we will continue to do so in this matter. But at some point or other one comes to the determination of whether the talks are at an impasse, and it was our judgement -- and I believe theirs, because virtually they walked away -- that we could not proceed any further.
Mr. B. Rae: First of all, with respect to walking away, I think that is a very unfair characterization of Chief Potts’s position, a very unfair characterization of the position he described today and one which I am sure the Premier himself would want to reflect on.
One of the things the chief has to say is that he no longer can have any faith and he does not believe his band can either with respect to the Attorney General, who has a clear conflict of interest in this regard in that he represents two very different approaches. One is as the minister responsible for native affairs who has to sit down and negotiate in good faith a settlement with the native people, and the other is as the Attorney General who is, prior to the Court of Appeal even considering the appeal of Chief Potts and his band, asking the court to allow the government of Ontario to act unilaterally and allow logging in the area, which is specifically the area under contention, specifically the area under review and specifically the area that Chief Potts and his band want to protect.
Does the Premier not think it is time he settles in his own mind what it is he wants the Attorney General to do, to negotiate in good faith with the native people or to go ahead and simply clear them off the road and let the loggers go through and preclude any discussion --
Mr. Speaker: Order. The question has been asked.
Mr. B. Rae: -- of a land claim at all, which is precisely the effect the action will have?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: To respond both to the member and to Chief Potts in this regard: I say to the member in all sincerity that I do not know anybody in Canada who is more dedicated to the cause of our native people than the Attorney General; he comes to this government second to none in this country. This has been a lifelong passion of his. He has put forward a land claim. This was the intellectual leader across this nation when it came to discussing aboriginal self-government, who was working hard to bring other governments across this nation to put their minds to that question of constitutional reform.
I would say that without question he represents a position of integrity and has great ability and great commitment on this matter, and I say to him and I say to the member, that the native people are very lucky to have someone of this ability and this judgement charged with the responsibility of looking after their affairs.
Mr. B. Rae: There might have been a time when what the Premier said was true; that time is certainly not now with respect to the actions of the Attorney General.
If seeking a court injunction before the Court of Appeal has determined the question of the land claim -- a court injunction which, it successful, will in effect preclude the settlement of the claim and grant the logging companies the unilateral right to territory which is now under dispute -- is doing something in defence of the native people of the province, that is a very different definition from the one I have and indeed a very different definition from the one Chief Potts and the native community as a whole across the province have.
In the light of the fact that Chief Potts has indicated today that the band is going to be asking the Court of Appeal to delay the question of any injunction until such time as the court’s decision is made, does the Premier not think that the very least he can do is to delay the application for the injunction until such time as the Court of Appeal makes its decision with respect to this land claim?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: My honourable friend, I think, forgets a number of the facts at issue here. First of all, a land claim offer was made in good faith, both money and land. It was turned down by the band and, as I understand it, the band did not want to negotiate pending the appeal.
Mr. B. Rae: What is this? Is the government saying just take it or leave it?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: We never say take it or leave it. We said it and the band has refused to negotiate because it wanted to wait for the appeal. This has already gone through a trial, one of the longest trials in the history of this province, and it was found against the band. They have every right to appeal that to the Ontario Court of Appeal and after that the Supreme Court of Canada, and we can take another five, six or seven years.
I gather the position of my honourable friend opposite is to do absolutely nothing and wait for the court for the next five, six, or seven years or whatever it is in that regard. We have offered --
Mr. B. Rae: I am saying to respect people’s legal rights and not to preclude those rights.
Hon. Mr. Peterson: We have offered methods of joint management of the resources. We have offered to bring them into the discussion. They have chosen not to accept that. We have not moved unilaterally. We are asking for the advice of the courts in this matter and they will pronounce on it.
I think our position has been reasonable. We have been patient. We have taken a great deal of time on this. We have not done as the Tories and moved in the howitzers, by any stretch of the imagination. I believe our position is fair and supportable in the circumstances.
My friend may have us do nothing, but I think that we have moved and will continue to move and sit down any time to try to resolve this question. The honourable member now understands the complexity of the question, but I believe that our approach has been fair to all sides and we have demonstrated good faith and we will continue to do so.
AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE
Mr. Brandt: My question is to the Premier, and speaking of moving in howitzers on insurance, there will be many people in this province who will aim their howitzers in the Premier’s direction coming off the recent statements that he made prior to the last provincial election.
On September 7, the Premier indicated very clearly -- I have been trying to interpret his comments as specifically as I can, and I will quote him: “We have a very specific plan to lower insurance rates.” When the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae) quoted that particular statement in the House a few moments ago, I say to the first minister, a member of his party to my left indicated, “Well, some rates will be lowered.”
I looked again at the statement. It says, “We have a very specific plan to lower insurance rates.” Not just some rates, but insurance rates generally. I think the Premier has a responsibility to the people of Ontario to indicate what he meant by a “specific plan.” Is he prepared to back up the claim he made, three days prior to the last provincial election, that he was going to lower insurance rates?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member sees in place a regulatory authority. He sees a variety of reports that have been put forward. They have not been adopted. At the time when they come forward with their independent recommendations, then he can form his own judgements on that. We think that plan, in the long term, will alleviate the situation and take some of the pressure off.
Mr. Brandt: I say with respect to the Premier, if his plan was to incorporate some form of a review function with the regulatory Ontario Automobile Insurance Board which he now has in place, that is fine. Whatever the Premier wants to put in place with respect to his specific plan is all I am asking for in terms of some kind of expansion or clarification of what he meant on September 7. What the Premier very clearly said at that time is that he had a plan. I am not arguing the plan. I am arguing the net result, which is the lowering of insurance rates. How does he intend to do it?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: As the member knows, there is no price that can be held lower in perpetuity. I assume that the member would understand that. But I think that this board is going to provide independent advice and counsel on that matter. Why does the member not attend the result?
Mr. Pope: Your nose is growing.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Brandt: I have to tell the Premier that the perpetuity he is talking about lasted less than a few months. Rates have already gone up by about nine per cent over the past 12-month period. We have had broken promises on free trade, we have had broken promises on Sunday shopping; we have had broken promises on affordable housing, and now we have another broken promise on auto insurance.
Let me remind the Premier that what he said was, “We have a very specific plan to lower insurance rates.” Further to that, on the same date he said, and I want to quote him accurately, “The point is, if you aspire to govern, you’ve got to be credible and base things you say on accurate information, not just wishes and theories.”
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What accurate information did the Premier have on September 7 which indicated that he could stand before the public of Ontario and indicate that he was prepared to lower insurance rates? Will he share that information with the House now?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: One of the things we have done is move to develop a credible database, which we did not have before. The member will remember the debates in this House on all sides. People were saying they were making too much, the socialists have this view. The member says they are not making enough in that regard. That will all be there for everyone to see with an independent board. They are looking for advice from a variety of consultants. They will look at the information and come to their own conclusions.
The member will be able to come and challenge that. He can say it is too much or too little, and so can members opposite. I believe it is a way to take pressure off the rates, which we were seeing rise very dramatically. I think it is a credible solution to the problem.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: What was your promise on this one? Is there any major promise you have made that you have lived up to: insurance, free trade, Sunday shopping?
Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Windsor-Riverside is wasting the time of the House.
Mr. Mackenzie: The bigger the lie, the easier to sell. Very apropos.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: That ought to lift the level of debate in the House.
Mr. Speaker: If you wish to waste the time, I do not mind waiting here.
Mr. Runciman: My question is to the Premier as well, on the same line of questioning. Hopefully, we will get some meaningful answers this time.
As my leader indicated, the Premier stated in September 1987, during the election campaign, that he had a very specific plan to lower insurance rates. But lo and behold, the Mercer report tabled yesterday suggests that some drivers could pay as much as 142 per cent more for auto insurance. As the Premier might not appreciate, most drivers cannot afford a 142 per cent increase in premiums.
It seems blatantly obvious that the Premier cannot honour his 1987 statement and at the same time permit the Mercer report to be implemented. He cannot have it both ways. Is the Premier prepared to stand in the House today and assure us that it will not be implemented?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: As the member says, it is just a report that is in the hands of the auto insurance board and it will look at the matter. One of the things my honourable friend fails to point out is that we have taken the age and sex bias out of insurance rates.
The member used to stand here and say that single, young males were paying too much in insurance just because they happened to be single, young males. So there are new actuarial assumptions.
Mr. Brandt: No, because they had more accidents than women did.
Hon. Mr. Peterson: Because they are single, young males. As a group they had perhaps more accidents, but just because they are single and male did not mean they did. They are using different actuarial assumptions to form these bases. If the member likes the old system, then he should stand up and say so; if he wants to just let it run, then he should stand there and say so. But we wrought significant changes in this matter, and I think my honourable friend should await the outcome.
Mr. Runciman: There is something known as risk determination. I guess the Premier does not want to take that into consideration in breaking yet another promise to the voters of this province.
The Mercer report suggests that an 18-year old, single female principal driver with no claims, no convictions could end up paying 142 per cent more for auto insurance. That is about $1,100 more than the $800 she now pays. Does the Premier think a young woman earning $15,000 or $16,000 per year can afford to pay an extra $1,100 in auto insurance premiums?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: I do not think you can draw any assumptions at this point, but the whole point of the exercise is to base insurance on record, not on sexual stereotype or age. It is based on driving record. If my honourable friend disagrees with that principle, then he should please stand up and share it with us.
Mr. Runciman: Again, the Premier said in 1987 that he had a very specific plan to lower insurance rates. The new auto insurance system that this government has brought in will clearly result in some unaffordably high rate increases.
The Mercer recommendations are clearly too much too soon.
Is the Premier prepared to turn rates that consumers cannot afford to pay into rates they can afford by accepting a recommendation from this party that rate increases be phased in over a seven-year period so that no one will have to give up driving because of this government’s so-called rate review?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: I appreciate the honour-able member’s advice in this matter. My friends in the official opposition would like to create a state-owned insurance company, and perhaps have the taxpayers subsidize that. My friends in the third party, I gather, do not care what the rates are, but now say the rates are going to go up and want to phase them in over a long period of time.
First of all, I think the member has to understand that the Mercer report is not government policy. It is like any other report around here. It is not government policy or --
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Hon. Mr. Peterson: I think my honourable friend should just be a little patient until they come with a final determination.
Mr. B. Rae: We now have the Tory plan, which is to increase rates seven years in a row, rather than just in one which is the Liberal plan.
Mr. Speaker: The question is to which minister?
Mr. B. Rae: I would like to ask the Premier --
Mr. Ballinger: What is your plan?
Mr. B. Rae: My plan is the one we put before the people of Ontario in the last election. That is the plan that we are in favour of, that will not have a 12.5 per cent profit rate for insurance companies which are now making 3.5 per cent, which is what the Premier was proposing.
I would like to ask the Premier what he had in mind for the people of this province --
Interjections.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Manitoba is 33 per cent lower than we are now.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Scarborough West does not have the floor.
Hon. Mr. Scott: He is heckling his own leader. Johnston and Rae are having a leadership review. They should both be leaders.
Mr. Pope: Stop the clock. They are talking to each other.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Supplementary, the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr. B. Rae: I simply want to put to the Premier a very simple question. He made a statement to the people in Cambridge on September 7. He said that he had a specific plan to lower insurance rates. He did not set out one driver, he did not say it was for young male drivers and he did not set out a category of drivers; he set out a general plan for the people of the province in response to our plan, because in the same statement, he said that our plan was no good and he had a better plan that he could tell the people of the province was in fact going to reduce their insurance rates.
Was the Premier telling the truth when he made that statement? If he was, can he tell us what was in that plan? Because it certainly is not what the government has been doing since the election on September 10, 1987, when rates have gone up and up and up and up.
Hon. Mr. Peterson: Can I ask my friend whether he was telling the truth when he discussed the problems with the Manitoba plan or the problems with the British Columbia plan, the one that he pitched to be nirvana. Did he talk about the great rate increases and how his friends got thrown out of government because they manipulated that situation politically? Can he tell the truth in that particular matter? If he wants to ask that kind of question, I can ask him that kind of question back.
We are bringing air into this matter. We are bringing the public examination of this matter. He will be able to make his own judgements in that particular regard.
I know my friend’s ideological determination to have a state-run system in that regard, but I do not think there is any evidence that it would deliver any cheaper product to the people of this province. We want to make sure we have a fair system, as cheap as is reasonable, and we also said we want to take the age and sex bias out of the situation.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: That was called a re-election plan.
Mr. Mackenzie: The bigger the lie, the easier it is to get away with it.
Interjections.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: Do you think they are directed at you? You are all full of guilt about it.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
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HOME CARE
Mr. Eves: I have a question of the Minister of Health. She has been saying for some time now that the future of health care lies in more community-based health care. She said to us just last week that beds no longer are the benchmark of health care in Ontario.
We now find out that we have the Red Cross, one of the world’s most respected organizations, starting to have to close down its homemaker operations across the province, as of January 21, because of her and her government’s refusal to respond to its needs. This is what I would call a lack of commitment to community-based health care. Where is the minister’s commitment to community-based health care and why will her government not put its money where its mouth is?
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: I think it is important that the facts be known. When we talk about the home care program over the past five years, there has been an increase from some $67 million to $200 million. We have acknowledged that this program has experienced a number of growing pains as it has grown. We have had an operational review undertaken of the entire home care program. Both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Community and Social Services are very concerned that we deliver the kind of home support services to people that will help them remain in the community for as long as possible in a fiscally responsible manner.
Mr. Eves: The interministerial committee on visiting homemakers, which her ministry participated in, finished its report in November 1987, yet her government sat on that report and did not make it public until June 1988; that is, from November 1987 to June 1988. We are now in December 1988, some 13 months later.
There are 28 specific recommendations in that interministerial report. How many of those 28 has the minister implemented? Exactly what has she done with each one of those 28? When is she going to start following the recommendations of her own interministerial report? When is she going to implement them?
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: The member opposite displays a lack of real understanding of the expansion of home care and of the intricacies. In fact, his question is really a question for Orders and Notices. We had an opportunity to discuss home care through estimates. He declined to ask even one question at that time. We are committed to the expansion of home care.
We recognize there are many, many problems. I can tell the member that there are 38 home care programs across the province, that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Community and Social Services are working very closely together and that we have undertaken an operational review, to determine how we can provide the home care support services in an appropriate manner in the future, be they social home support services or medical home support services.
ACID RAIN
Ms. Collins: My question is for the Minister of the Environment. In view of the fact that our American friends -- at least the present administration -- have not been convinced of the need for immediate action on reducing acid rain, what new evidence can Canadians use to prompt action by the new American administration or by the United States Congress?
Hon. Mr. Bradley: The evidence is rather convincing at the present time in terms of its effect, for instance, on the lakes here in Ontario. We have documented evidence of the fact that it has rendered a number of lakes relatively useless in terms of the aquatic life that is there. That could be said of any place in Canada where it is landing.
We also have evidence that there is damage to forests, to the maple trees, particularly in Quebec where people have brought that to the attention of the American authorities. We know of damage to buildings. Even this building is eroded by acid rain. One thing I think is somewhat compelling that has been left out of the argument for a long period of time, particularly south of the border, although we are seeing some of it utilized now, is the evidence that there is an effect on human health.
I think Ontario Hydro commissioned a report here. There are other reports. Dr. Bates of the University of British Columbia has come forward with a good deal of evidence about acid rain, which is caused, of course, by burning fossil fuel, by the coal plants that are in the United States and in Canada. With this kind of evidence, we think there is a compelling reason for the reduction of acid rain on the American side of the border and we intend to continue to pursue that.
Ms. Collins: If this information is known and available, how can governments on our side of the border bring the message to those who have the levers of power in the United States, particularly when we know we have so many allies on this issue in that country?
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Another part of this is that it is indeed true there are a number of allies who are largely people from environmental groups, but also people within the Congress of the United States, who have in fact been promoting this kind of legislation.
What I have proposed recently to our friends on the American side of the border, I think with the support of Canadian and American environmental groups and those in Congress who are concerned about this issue, is that a seminar be held in Washington, DC, itself where the availability of senators, congressmen, their staffers and members of the administration is quite evident, and that we invite Dr. Bates of the University of British Columbia to attend to demonstrate clearly to those who have the levers of power in the United States Congress that there is a marked effect on human health in terms of admissions to hospital with respiratory disease when there is an increase in sulphur dioxide, which is a precursor, of course, to the acid rain itself.
I think this will prove to be highly successful. I know it will be supported by groups such as Energy Probe, the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain and others on this side of the border who see this as a positive step. What is really going to convince our American friends is the effect on human health.
PROGRAM FUNDING
Mrs. Grier: My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. It concerns yet another worthwhile program that is foundering because of lack of support from this government.
I would like the minister to know that on October 20, 1988, the provincial court ordered that Andrew Paul McLeod have supervised access to his five-year-old daughter every second Saturday between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. Mr. McLeod has not seen his daughter since he and his wife separated last January because of the mistrust and hostility between the couple. Before the family court judge, the family and its lawyers agreed that Mr. McLeod could visit with his daughter at a program called Access for Parents and Children, with which the minister is familiar and which is in my riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore.
However, because of the refusal of the minister to fund this program, Access could not accommodate the McLeod family and the lawyers have been unable to find any other supervised program for this child anywhere else in Metro. Can the minister please give me an explanation that I can then give to the McLeod family as to why it is going to be unable to have a family time together under some neutral supervision?
Hon. Mr. Sweeney: The honourable member raised this question with me, I believe it was on October 27. I clearly indicated to her that our ministry had never funded this program and had no funds to accommodate it at the present time. She will be well aware of the fact that I did indicate I would review the funding availability in that area office to see whether any money could be found. I have since written both to her and Mr. Leonard, the executive director of Lakeshore Area Multi-Service Project, indicating that I cannot find those funds and that my ministry is not able to fund it.
A court order is something that has to be enforced by the court. My ministry cannot accept the responsibility for that. The member is also aware of the fact that there is a co-ordinated effort between the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) and myself to run a pilot program to try to find ways to accommodate these kinds of court orders, but at the present time I do not have the funds to pay for that program.
Mrs. Grier: The minister is quite right. This program has been running on voluntary funding since 1981. But the minister may also be interested to know that on November 15, the United Way of Greater Toronto turned down an application for funding by the program because, as it said, “90 per cent of the agency’s clients are court-referred.” Is it not reasonable that the Attorney General and this minister should work out a funding mechanism for what is clearly an important provincially directed program?
Since October there have been 36 cases turned down by Access. Twenty-seven of these were ordered by the courts and one of them was directed to the program by the Ministry of Community and Social Services. How can the minister refuse to accept responsibility, refuse to acknowledge the value of the program and refuse to keep the program alive, at least servicing the clients who are referred to it in Metropolitan Toronto even if he is not prepared to extend the program across the rest of the province?
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Hon. Mr. Sweeney: Contrary to what the honourable member just indicated, I have not at any time said this is not a valuable and needed service. I have simply said that like many other valuable and needed services, I do not have the money to fund it.
Part of the difficulty I have is that when the honourable member raised this question with me the last time -- as I said, I believe it was on October 27 -- she indicated that the amount of money required by Access was $34,000. I believe that is in Hansard. I understand that at a news conference today, Access said what it needed from my ministry was $85,000. That is more than double. I certainly do not have that amount of money either. If the cost keeps increasing at that rate, quite frankly, I will never have that amount of money.
AIR AMBULANCE SERVICES
Mr. Pope: My question is for the Minister of Health, the same minister who is presiding over the discontinuance of the homemakers’ service and the needless conflict with the Red Cross, for which she should be ashamed.
My question to the Minister of Health is with respect to the air ambulance service. In Timmins, we still do not have a dedicated jet aircraft in use; the dedicated jet aircraft is in the hanger. We still have no apparent transition provisions to maintain the availability and quality of service of the jet air ambulance for the people of northeastern Ontario. Since the Chapleau accident a week ago, who has operated the air ambulance service in Timmins?
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: The member’s categorization is inaccurate on just about every count. There is a public inquiry, in fact two of them, that are being conducted right now, one by the Canadian Aviation Safety Board. I think many of the questions that have been raised will be answered in that forum. As well, we know that the coroner’s office has called an inquest and there will be an opportunity there as well.
I can tell the member that Ministry of Health officials attended the funerals of the two very experienced pilots, and their families are experiencing the kind of pain and anxiety that the member’s kind of question can only exacerbate. I am ashamed to be in the House where such a question would be asked.
Mr. Pope: For all the minister’s moralizing, we are ashamed of her performance as Minister of Health, protecting the people of the province of Ontario. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, minister, no one else; yourself.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have reminded many members on previous occasions that if they wish to point, they can point at the Speaker and direct their questions through the Speaker.
Mr. Pope: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it is important for the people to understand that the minister did not answer the question with respect to who was operating the air ambulance system in Timmins for the past week.
On Friday night, Tom Morrish had an accident in his home and severed part of his hand, including his thumb. He was brought to St. Mary’s General Hospital at approximately 8:30 p.m. The doctor in charge at St. Mary’s General Hospital asked for an air ambulance to transfer the person to Toronto to have his hand reattached and was told, which was passed on to the patient, that the service had been discontinued. It was three and a half hours before an air ambulance arrived in Timmins to transport that patient to Toronto.
That is the system the minister put in place. She is negligent and incompetent and should resign.
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: Does the member have a question?
Mr. Speaker: I do not believe I heard a question.
COMMUNITY SAFETY
Mr. Faubert: My question is for the Solicitor General. The minister will be aware of a much publicized skirmish that took place in the Scarborough Town Centre in August. Reports on this occurrence were diverse and contradictory, and the ensuing press that resulted raised concerns in the community about what is perceived to be an increase in youth gang activity.
In the recent municipal elections and in my day-to-day communication with my constituents, I have noticed that concern about safety and security in the community has been growing. Recent events throughout Metropolitan Toronto, including reports of disturbances and confrontations between high school students and youth gangs, among other outbreaks of seemingly spontaneous vandalism and looting, have further raised community concern. Can the minister advise this House what is currently being done to deal with this most unfortunate problem.
Hon. Mrs. Smith: The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere will be interested to know that Metropolitan Toronto police have indeed been keeping a close tab on these gatherings of young people, which as the member mentions, have a tendency to alarm people about their general safety. In fact, as far as can be determined, these seem to be more spontaneous incidents that arise out of certain given circumstances rather than any organized gang activities.
The reported incident in Scarborough was the result of a great many young people gathering to get into a movie theatre where the rates were cut in half. These incidents will occur and the police are doing everything possible to be always on top of such incidents. They take seriously the possibility of gang incidents, but have seen no indication that would let them believe this is happening in Metro Toronto.
Mr. Faubert: I thank the minister for her answer, and I am sure it will be reassuring to my constituents. By way of supplementary, can the minister advise this House if she feels there is a need for a Metropolitan Toronto-wide review of this alleged gang activity?
Hon. Mrs. Smith: As I indicated, the Metro Toronto police believe that it is alleged rather than real, that gang activity is not occurring here among the young people. However, in this area, and in the area of young people and drugs, they are being very vigilant. I recommend to the member that he take his concern to the new Metropolitan Toronto council, which I am sure will be interested in addressing it on his behalf. In my ministry, I do not get directly involved in these matters unless there is some reason to believe it is not being dealt with properly by the local authorities.
ACCESS TO CHILDREN IN CUSTODY
Mr. Hampton: My question is for the Attorney General. The Attorney General has before the House Bill 124, his access enforcement legislation. The Attorney General knows that the Canadian Bar Association, in its submissions on the bill, said that there are some access enforcement problems but that the bill may create problems that did not exist heretofore. For example, there will undoubtedly be more litigation as a result of the bill.
Can the Attorney General tell us why he is committed to an access enforcement bill that will increase litigation and increase conflict? Instead, why will the Attorney General not fund the kind of program the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore (Mrs. Grier) has referred to, an access agency that provides a mechanism so that divorced and separated parents can exercise access meaningfully rather than fight about it in court?
Hon. Mr. Scott: I do not accept the general proposition that this bill will increase litigation. The reality is that access orders are already made in divorce proceedings or in custody cases, or access provisions are found in separation agreements. The simple purpose of this bill is to develop a way for the court to effectively arbitrate disputed access occasions.
Mr. Hampton: That fundamentally illustrates the misguided nature of this bill. If the Attorney General had taken the time today to come and listen to some of the parents who have to deal with the legislation and who will have to deal with his proposed legislation, he would have heard them say: “Do not give us more legislation. Do not put us back in the courts. Fund an access agency so we can meaningfully exercise access. We do not want to fight about it. We do not want another piece of legislation.”
Why will the Ministry of the Attorney General not fund this kind of access agency that allows parents to exercise access instead of fighting about it in court?
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Hon. Mr. Scott: I take it from what the honourable member says that he is anxious to participate in a debate on this bill, which I think would be useful. I look to him to honour his party’s obligation to see to it, and this is expressed in writing, that this bill is debated this session. Then we can decide what the appropriate response is.
I want to bring to the honourable member’s attention the fact that the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) is already funding a pilot project to determine whether access referral systems of the type to which he refers are useful and whether, as a program, this kind of referral system should be carried, obviously at very great expense, to every town and city in the province.
The minister and I await the outcome of that pilot project in order to make the appropriate determination.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Mr. Harris: I have a question to the Minister of Housing. Last October, when I first raised the question of lot levies, the minister told me: “The honourable member will be pleased to know that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs has been conducting, along with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and some representatives of the industry, an inquiry into the whole question of lot levies and how they are to be handled. He will be hearing the results of those discussions very soon. I believe those will be much more helpful for the whole question of affordable home ownership than they have been in the past.”
That was the response to my question in October. Now we see what the results of those discussions were.
Mr. Speaker: Do you have a question?
Mr. Harris: My question is this: Could the minister stand in her place today and tell the people of Ontario how adding even one single dollar, let alone $8,000 to $10,000, to the cost of every new home built in this province is going to be helpful to the cause of affordable housing?
Hon. Ms. Hošek: I would like to refer that to the Treasurer.
Hon. R. F. Nixon: I appreciate the confidence that the honourable member has in me and I think it is quite appropriate that she refer it to me. I think also that her answer yesterday to this House was quite appropriate, that there are many areas in which we want to improve our ability to provide service to the municipalities and to the people who are under consideration, but until the time comes when we can announce government policy, it really is not appropriate for me to give any particular, specific answer to the honourable member.
Mr. Harris: I find it interesting that the Minister of Housing wants to refer affordable housing questions to the Treasurer.
Let me, by way of a supplementary, indicate to the Treasurer that last May, in response to a question from my colleague the member for Burlington South (Mr. Jackson), the Minister of Housing referred to a meeting that she and the Premier (Mr. Peterson) had with regional municipalities. She said that that meeting had focused on a variety of things that “. . could make a significant impact in the provision of housing that was affordable.”
She went on and said, “we are moving very swiftly in the right direction together.” Now we find out what the Treasurer and what the Premier had in mind as the right direction for affordability -- stick it to them with another $8,000 to $10,000.
I would ask the Treasurer, if the Minister of Housing loses this battle -- and it appears as though she is all by herself with the exception of me in fighting it -- will he suggest to her that she reflect on her words when she fired John Sewell? Those words were, “It is time for someone else to have a turn.”
Hon. R. F. Nixon: I can only say what I have already said, that the policy of the government is to provide adequate housing for all parts of the province at an affordable price, that we want to assist municipalities in their responsibilities not only to develop housing but also to provide education and the infrastructure that is necessary as our modem community expands.
I would expect that the honourable member and his colleagues would be enthusiastic as we approach new, fair, equitable and imaginative ways to see that this responsibility is fulfilled.
RETAIL STORE HOURS
Mr. Offer: My question is to the Minister of Labour. It refers basically to an article which was in a newspaper today and certainly with respect to certain inquiries that I have had at my constituency office.
“The Retail Council of Canada says that, legally, Boxing Day sales should be held on Tuesday, December 27, because most employees are entitled to Monday, December 26, off because Christmas Day falls on a Sunday.”
It goes on to state, “.. If past experience holds true, many stores will open on Monday, December 26, essentially leaving employees without two days off for Christmas and Boxing Day.”
My question to the minister is: On the basis of Christmas Day falling on the Sunday and Monday, December 26, being Boxing Day, what are the rights and what is the worker entitled to this year?
Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I want to thank the member for the question and just advise him that under the current law, the Retail Business Holidays Act, Boxing Day is a holiday under that act. But there is a lack of congruity between that act and the Employment Standards Act, so that currently, under the Employment Standards Act, Boxing Day, December 26, is not a holiday. Bill 114, which is still in committee as I understand it, does make Boxing Day a holiday under the Employment Standards Act. Under those circumstances, it would give rise to a paid holiday for all workers in Ontario.
Mr. Offer: On the basis of Christmas Day being on December 25 and Boxing Day on the Monday, are workers obligated to work on the Monday, Boxing Day, in this province?
Hon. Mr. Sorbara: It is an interesting, and really important question as well, because I want to point out that under the Retail Business Holidays Act as it currently stands, Boxing Day requires most stores in the province to be closed. This Legislature passed Bill 51 several months ago and that gives an absolute right to workers to refuse to work in a premise that cannot be open under the Retail Business Holidays Act, so to the extent that a store does not have permission to open, no worker is obviously required and cannot be disciplined for not working on that day in that sort of store.
ASSISTIVE DEVICES PROGRAM
Mr. R. F. Johnston: My question is to the Minister of Health. It concerns Bob McLaren, a musician who lives in my riding who had a leg amputated in 1952, the first child to befitted with a limb at Sunnybrook Medical Centre after the war vets. He has been paying the full cost of his artificial legs for 36 years. He therefore hoped that when the new extension of the assistive devices program came through in July 1986 that he would be eligible for some assistance.
Unfortunately, the then minister, the member for Bruce (Mr. Elston), said that he had taken delivery of his definitive Symes prosthesis on February 20, 1986, preceding that date, and therefore would not be eligible for assistance. In fact, he did not receive his final leg, if I can put it that way, until March 1987. He has now had a collection agency chasing him for the remaining money.
May I say to the minister in the spirit of Jacob Marley: “Ebenezer, please free up some money to protect people like this and give them the assistance they deserve”?
Hon. Mrs. Caplan: In fact, we have made great strides in expanding the assistive devices program. I am not familiar with the individual case the member mentions and would be pleased to receive a copy of the documentation he has to investigate that, as there seems to be some discrepancy regarding dates.
Recently, coverage has extended to prostheses and ostomy supplies and mobility aids to residents of all ages and we are anticipating further expansion. In fact, it is one of the concerns we have because the program is experiencing some growing pains. We are finding it is a very important program. However, one of the things we are attempting to do as we expand that program is to make sure that we do it appropriately so that people have access to the appropriate devices, and I have been seeking advice from the Assistive Devices Advisory Committee, as the member knows.
PETITIONS
USE OF LOTTERY PROFITS
Mr. Adams: I have a petition from 70 people residing in Peterborough and the surrounding area. It reads:
“We agree that Ontario lottery funds should be used to improve hospital and medical care.”
SCHOOL OPENING EXERCISES
Mr. McLean: I have a petition signed by 173 members of Faith Missionary Church.
“To the honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
“We, the undersigned, are opposed to the use of multifaith prayers and readings in Simcoe County Board of Education schools.”
I have signed that.
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Mr. McLean: I have a petition signed by 31 members of the Women’s Missionary Society of Central Oro Presbyterian Church:
“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor of the province of Ontario:
“It has come to our attention that it is no longer permissible to recite the Lord’s Prayer as part of our classroom activities in Ontario public schools. As a Christian organization, we find it very disturbing that a minority group is able to control the actions of the majority.
“We, the undersigned beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
We ask that the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer be reinstated in our public school system.”
TAX INCREASES
Mr. McLean: I have another one. I am pleased to table a petition to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, signed by approximately 100 residents of Ontario, objecting to the tax increases imposed by the Peterson government.
TEACHERS’ SUPERANNUATION FUND
Mr. D. W. Smith: I have a petition:
“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
“To amend the Teachers’ Superannuation Act, 1983, in order that all teachers who retired prior to May 31, 1982, have their pensions recalculated on the best five years rather than at the present seven or 10 years.
“The proposed amendment would make the five-year criteria applicable to all retired teachers and would eliminate the present inequitable treatment.”
This is signed by approximately 555 names, to which I have attached my name at the bottom, and these are primarily all working teachers.
SCHOOL OPENING EXERCISES
Mr. Cureatz: I have a petition from 71 people from the city of Oshawa and surrounding area, that reads as follows:
“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
“To retain the Lord’s Prayer in Ontario public schools.”
AMBULANCE SERVICES
Mrs. Marland: I have a petition:
“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
“This is a petition to the provincial government and the Ministry of Health to resume normal ambulance service in our community for our local citizens so that no one’s life is endangered needlessly.”
This addresses the area of Halton and Mississauga.
TAX INCREASES
Mr. Harris: I am pleased to table a petition signed by approximately 100 residents of Ontario, objecting to the tax increases imposed by the Peterson government:
“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:
“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:
“Bob Nixon, I demand you roll back the sales tax increase. This heartless imposition makes my dollar worth less at the store and in my payroll. You have effectively reduced my salary and I am mad about it.”
I have affixed my signature to this.
REPORT BY COMMITTEE
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Laughren from the standing committee on resources development reported the following resolution:
That supply in the following amounts to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Natural Resources be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1989:
Ministry administration program, $75,429,400; lands and water program, $153,823,100; outdoor recreation program, $111,691,400; resource products program, $193,972,600; resource experience program, $7,612,300.
INTRODUCTION OF BILL
CITY OF SAULT STE. MARIE ACT
Mr. Morin-Strom moved first reading of Bill Pr75, An Act respecting the City of Sault Ste. Marie.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION TO SET ASIDE ORDINARY BUSINESS
Mr. Runciman moved that pursuant to standing order 37(a), the ordinary business of the House be set aside in order that the House may debate a matter of urgent public importance, that being recent reports indicating that drivers in Ontario will be faced with massive auto insurance premium increases as a result of the Liberal government’s mismanagement and as a consequence of its failure to honour its commitment to introduce “a very specific plan to lower insurance rates” as promised by the Premier (Mr. Peterson) on September 7, 1987.
Mr. Speaker: Members have heard the motion by the member for Leeds-Grenville pursuant to standing order 37(a). Notice was received in time; therefore, I believe it to be in order. I will listen to the member for up to five minutes as well as representatives from other parties for that same length of time.
Mr. Runciman: I do not think there is any question that this is indeed a matter of urgent public importance. The news reports and the comments in this House yesterday and today clearly indicate that consumers in this province could be faced with rate increases for their auto insurance in the order of an average of 35 per cent to 40 per cent. That is simply not palatable to the consumers of this province. We are hoping, through this debate, if the debate indeed is approved, to send out a very clear message to the government that action has to be taken.
I guess what we would like to see occur is a commitment on the part of the Premier to honour a pledge made during the 1987 election campaign that, as has been said on a number of occasions earlier today, he would introduce “a very specific plan to lower insurance rates.”
Mr. D. S. Cooke: How would he honour that -- by doing it over seven years?
Mr. Runciman: I will get around to that.
Up to this day, up to this point we certainly have not seen anything that will follow through on the Premier’s promise. He is obviously being very much inconsistent, which is not surprising.
He cannot honour his commitment by simply allowing the Mercer report to go to the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board without comment or recommendations or some sort of input from the government, or he is unwilling to honour his commitment. Up to this point, he has not indicated any intention to intervene. We believe it is imperative that the government take action at this stage.
Obviously we believe, as I have said, he is being inconsistent and the government is being inconsistent. If they are going to stand by the statement, they have to ultimately reject the Mercer report. They simply cannot have it both ways. We are not going to allow that. We are talking about increases that could range up to 142 per cent.
I mentioned a case earlier today in respect to a single girl -- I believe Markham was the location -- who could be facing an increase of 142 per cent. The example given in the Mercer report is a 22-year-old girl, with no claims, no convictions and currently paying $800, facing an increase in the magnitude of $1,100. There does not seem to be any real recognition of the impact that these recommendations might have on consumers in the province. Individuals like this, people who are on modest incomes in many instances, having to come up with $1,100 in increased auto insurance fees is simply out of the question. Many people are simply going to have to give up driving, and we do not believe that is acceptable.
At the other end of the spectrum, we can talk about the impact this is going to have on seniors as well. An example brought forward in the Mercer report is a 66-year-old principal driver who has been driving for 40 years with no claims or convictions for six years, pleasure driving only, and the rate goes from $765 annually to a little over $1,000, a 32 per cent increase. This is obviously not acceptable. People cannot be expected to pay these kinds of increases, especially in a one-year period.
Any changes have to be done on a fair and reasonable basis. Now that we know the kinds of costs that are coming out of this government initiative, we have to fix it, even if it means new hearings. We are prepared to support new hearings. We cannot have these kinds of impossible increases foisted on the consumers of this province, forcing people with unblemished records to give up driving.
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When we talked about Bill 2 last year and early this year, there was no question that severe dislocation was going to result from the changes with respect to the rate classification. We were criticized earlier when we suggested that perhaps we should be looking at phasing in. I suggest that my party is trying to recognize the reality of this Legislature. We are in a majority situation. It is one thing to continue to stand up and spout the party line, whether it be a government-run program or what have you, but I think we also have to do things and suggest things that are productive and can benefit the consumers of this province.
Mr. B. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I want to simply say to the House and to you, sir, that in the course of the debate on Bill 2, dealing with the establishment of the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board, we told you and the people of this province at second and third reading exactly what would happen.
We said that the insurance board would do two things. It would, first of all, create a classification scheme that would ensure increases for many drivers. The second thing we said -- and I do not think this has been sufficiently understood by the House and appreciated by people as yet -- was that the board would specifically increase the profit rates of insurance companies and thereby ensure that there will, in fact, be an increase in the rates for drivers. That would be an exponential rate that would be far higher than anything paid in the province before and would be a skyrocketing increase in comparison with anything we have experienced in the past. That is precisely what we said would happen, and now we see that is precisely what is happening.
The member who has just spoken did not indicate what the highest increase would be. I hope the Liberal members who campaigned in the last election under the banner of the leader of their party, who said he had a specific plan, will explain to the 22-year-old married male principal driver, licensed six years with driver training, and his 21-year-old spouse, who has been licensed three years with driver training, who have a 1985 Ford Escort GL, four-door, no other vehicle, pleasure use only, annual driving distance 20,000 kilometres, why they, if they were insured by company A as described in this report, would be expected to pay an increase of 189 per cent over what they were paying to their own insurance company.
We did not need regulation to get this kind of increase. We could have followed the practice of the Tories when they were in power and simply left the insurance companies to gobble up those kinds of dollars on their own, which is what they did between 1981 and 1985.
The whole purpose of the change that was promised by the Liberals before the election in 1987 and again by the Premier during the election was in order to get the rates down and under control. That was the entire purpose of public policy. That is why they appointed the Osborne committee. That is why they brought in the changes that were announced by the now Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. Kwinter) at a press conference in April 1987. How well I remember it: “We are going to cap rates. We are going to do this, we are going to do that.”
Then, in his response today, the Premier has the temerity to say that other provinces were guilty of a political manipulation of their rates. No leader and no politician in this country has been more guilty of wilfully politically manipulating insurance rates for his own political benefit than the Premier of this province, the leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario. No one in this country has been as guilty of specifically manipulating the rates, of freezing them at one point and then letting them rip after the election, as the Premier of this province.
He made a commitment to the people of this province that he had a plan to reduce rates. He said he had a specific plan to reduce rates. If the Premier was telling the truth when he made that statement, he has an obligation now to tell us what that plan was and why he did not put it into effect on September 10 and 11. He has an obligation to be straightforward with all of us in this House and say why what he is doing now is the exact opposite of what he promised the people of this province during an election campaign.
The Premier thought that he could defuse the campaign for a better and fairer system by simply promising the people, in very general terms, that he had a better way. I am here to tell the members that he did not have a better way. I am here to tell the members that he did not have a better way during the election campaign, but he said that he did. I am here to tell the members that this party, his party, the Liberal Party of Ontario, will be judged accordingly for having very clearly and emphatically broken faith with the people of this province.
Hon. Mr. Conway: I might begin my remarks by simply asking the members to reflect upon what the very distinguished Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae) has said. I always enjoy the Leader of the Opposition in debate, but if I used the phrase “wilful manipulation,” I would at least expect to be in breach of standing order 19 of this Legislature. I am not the Speaker, sir. I would ask you to reflect upon those words. I think, upon consideration, my friend the member for York South (Mr. B. Rae) would probably agree with me, but you are the referee and the arbiter and --
Mr. B. Rae: Not a chance.
Hon. Mr. Conway: All right. I would like your judgement, Mr. Speaker, because if I used language like that in this chamber, I would expect to be ruled out of order.
Mr. B. Rae: It is the kindest way I could put what I had to say.
Mr. Wildman: We are concerned about a breach with the people, not a breach of etiquette.
Hon. Mr. Conway: Well, I am interested to hear the opposition. I am somewhat surprised to have this resolution this afternoon from the member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman). I admire the relative success by means of which he has stolen this issue away from the Leader of the Opposition. I have to give him some credit and some credit to his party leader who yesterday, with some stealth, in effect managed to pull this away from the official opposition.
I do not know what was going on in the New Democratic Party yesterday. There must have been an important conference, because it is not like the NDP members to allow someone so ideologically different from themselves as the member for Leeds-Grenville, with the help of his colleagues from places like Perth, Sterling and Mount Forest, to seize this issue from the New Democrats; and now to have the member from Brockville, the member for Leeds-Grenville here today as the champion of this issue is itself quite a remarkable achievement.
You know, to listen to the New Democrats is to be reminded of what Stephen Lewis said to all of us who read Maclean’s magazine. If members have not read this week’s Maclean’s magazine, they will want to read where Stephen Lewis says something like, “It’s clearly the role of the NDP to agitate, not to govern.” I have to say that with every day of listening to my friends in the official opposition -- and they are hardworking, diligent, passionately ideological types, most of them -- I have to agree that the former distinguished leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party is more likely right than wrong in this connection.
About their own moral rectitude, about their own consistency, I am always reminded, and I am reminded on an hourly basis as I see the New Democratic Party in western Canada, now that the federal election is over and I see them running from their well-established constitutional position, I say to my friend the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Morin-Strom), I do not know how disposed I ought to be to listen to them lecture me on the failings of human nature in other political parties.
Mr. Laughren: This has nothing to do with auto insurance.
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Hon. Mr. Conway: But the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) is right: What does this have to do with this debate?
I just want to say that the government is quite happy to discuss the whole question of insurance. We had organized other business today. My friend the opposition House leader asks, “Are you going to allow this debate to proceed?” He and his friend the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) must surely know the answer to that. We have really no choice, and I am quite prepared to accede to the opposition on these matters.
I want to say that the opposition is discussing the Mercer report as though it were government policy. It is not government policy. It is a report that has been commissioned by an independent board, which board is going to take that report and have it clearly and carefully analysed and responded to by the public at large.
The Leader of the Opposition must not expect to be taken seriously, and he would not want the Legislature or the viewing audience to be under any wrong impression, that the Mercer report is government policy. It is not government policy.
The government policy is clear in this respect. We have established a process. We have moved very effectively in that connection to discharge our commitments, to meet our responsibilities. Unlike the opposition, we have made clear our position and we are quite prepared to entertain the debate in this Legislature and outside on the position that we have taken, because we think it is a good position and we think, as in the election, the public will, of course --
Mr. Speaker: Thank you.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have listened very carefully to the three members who have spoken, and I am sure that all members here have done the same. We now come to standing order 37(d). After all have listened carefully, I will put the question: Shall the debate proceed?
Agreed to.
Mr. Speaker: Then I will listen to any member who wishes to participate for up to 10 minutes, until the end of the debate or until the clock strikes six.
AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE
Mr. Runciman: I want to respond quickly to a comment made by the government House leader and his feigning surprise that this party has taken the initiative with respect to concerns expressed about the Mercer report.
I want to say from the outset of this debate with respect to Bill 2 and the government’s massive intervention in the private sector that this party has stood fast in the interest of the consumers of this province. We have expressed from the outset our concerns about what is going to happen, what the implications of Bill 2 would be to the consumers of this province, what the implications would be of this government’s massive intervention into the private sector. We have been here front and centre, consistent in our position, our stand, our support for the consumers of this province. That is very consistent.
We want to talk about Bill 2 a bit, the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board. I want to remind members of the House of something I just said last week when the insurance board established a maximum 12.5 per cent profit level for companies providing auto insurance in the province. I responded by saying the announcement was not well received, but that should not be a surprise to the government, a government that forged ahead with this massive intervention in the private auto sector, apparently for, who knows, rather fuzzy reasons at best.
The Progressive Conservative Party has said from the outset that the establishment of the auto insurance board would not make anyone happy. Our party predicted it would not reduce auto insurance rates; that it would drive companies out of the business, limiting consumer choice; that it would establish a large and costly bureaucracy that consumers, one way or the other, would pay for; that it would ultimately, much to the glee of the New Democratic Party, lead us into the quagmire of government-run auto insurance; and that if this government were serious about reducing auto insurance rates, it would have taken steps to reduce the costs of settling claims. But the government, now in office for over three years, has done nothing to deal with claim settlements.
I want to talk about some of the impacts this has had. I mentioned a couple in terms of the 22-year-old female driver with no convictions, no traffic violations, no claims, facing a 142 per cent increase. The Leader of the Opposition used another example of a 182 per cent increase, I think it was, for a single male. There are many losers in this change in the classification system -- many, many losers, and to a significant degree.
We have talked -- and I mentioned this earlier on, and there was some criticism from the official opposition -- in terms of our proposal to phase in any increases that result from this dislocation, this change in classification. What I want to say is that we can be criticized for that, but we are attempting, as an elected political party, to accept the reality of a majority government. We cannot overturn the decisions of this government. We have to draw them to the attention of the public, obviously; there is a political role here to play. But we think we also have to be constructive.
There is some very severe dislocation occurring as a result of these changes. It is a catch-22 situation, a no-win situation. We do not know how justifiable these increases that Mercer has spent a great deal of time compiling are. They may be quite justifiable on a financial statement, but they obviously are clearly unacceptable to the consumers of this province. There has to be some middle ground.
If the Premier follows through on his election pledge simply to have no increases, I do not know what impact that is going to have on the insurance system across this province. But he is the one who made that promise. He has been very severely criticized for not following through on it. He has hemmed and hawed and has not answered the very legitimate questions that have been asked of him in respect to why he has not followed through on that promise. Again, he is the one who made that promise clearly in the heat of an election campaign, and he is not following through on it. He has much to answer for.
If we accept the premise that some increases are justified, how do we balance that? It is pretty difficult for us. It is pretty difficult for us to know what is right or wrong. We suggested that that would be the case when we got into this situation. We suggested many months ago that getting into a very heavily regulated environment is going to create problems like that.
We can go back to some of the debate early on, December 7. I would like to quote some of the comments I made.
“Regulation leads to lack of competition and leads to another kick in the pants to consumers. But, at the same time, down the road we are looking at perhaps gradually reducing the number of private sector insurers. We are going to continue to reduce competition significantly in that industry, and we may get to the point where the competition is so limited that the government has to look at stepping in to fill a void -- no other alternative ... “
Obviously, that is a scenario dear to the heart of the official opposition in this province, and we have suggested that from the outset. The government tried to find some magic solution in respect to going halfway by this very significant intrusion into the private sector, establishing a very expensive bureaucracy which consumers ultimately have to pay for in one way or the other. We have to pay for it. They have gone that way, which obviously has not satisfied the NDP. They have not gone the complete way, but that is going to happen.
Obviously, if this government continues in office, when we run into situations like this, where no one really knows what is fair, other than what is fair to insurance companies, if we want to keep the private sector operating in this province, or what is fair to insurers, we certainly know that increases of the magnitude of 142 per cent to 180 per cent in one year are clearly not acceptable. We will not accept them. The consumers of this province will not accept them.
Something has to be done. We simply cannot have this Premier sitting on his fanny and saying, “Look, I made these promises, but they don’t mean a heck of a lot.” We have this report, which is part of the process. They can say, “Well, this is not a government position; it’s simply a recommendation from a consulting firm,” but let’s face it. This is part of a process established by his government, part of a process to establish rates that are fair to insurance companies in this province in a severely regulated climate.
The government has to accept some degree of responsibility for that. They put this thing in the works; they established this bureaucracy. We did not. We were opposed to it. We felt there were other options, which we proposed to them over a period of months: a rate review process. A review process, not a rate-setting process, not a process with a very significant bureaucracy and government intrusion. We came up with an option that would indicate something like the Alberta system, with an outside maximum of four to five permanent employees, commenting on rates being proposed by insurance companies in this province.
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We also suggested very significant tort reform. Claim settlements in this province are averaging over $20,000. What has the government done to try to reduce the claim settlements in this province? Absolutely nothing. It has done nothing meaningful. All it has done is create a huge bureaucracy at great expense to the consumers and taxpayers of this province. What do we end up with? There are 140 to 180 per cent proposed rate increases. It is simply ridiculous. It is simply unacceptable.
Now they try to sit back and say, “We are not going to do anything about it.” Well, okay; we have suggested phasing in; we have not suggested phasing in 140 to 180 per cent increases. We have tried to be realistic. Some increases are inevitable. When you come up with a new rate classification system, there is going to be a bump and there are going to be winners and losers.
The New Democratic Party knew that. The government knew that. They both supported the change in rate classification. They supported it. Now they are saying, “You guys want to spread this over seven years.” We are saying they have to accept the reality that there were going to be some increases along with that system change.
What is legitimate or not, we do not know; we are not in a position to know. But we know 140 to 180 per cent is not acceptable and that a 35 to 40 per cent rate increase in one year is not acceptable. We have to do something that is going to allow these people to properly afford auto insurance in this province, but we also have to give the private sector an adequate return on its dollars to stay in operation in this province. I accept that this is extremely difficult, given the very severe, regulated environment this government has placed them in.
As I said earlier, it is a catch-22 situation. It is very difficult. We are trying to be constructive on behalf of the consumers of this province, but at the same time we are trying to ensure a healthy private sector. The government cannot continue to go back on its promises. The Premier made a commitment. Let’s see him keep it
The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): Are there other participants in the debate? The member for Algoma.
Mr. Wildman: Is it not a Liberal turn?
The Acting Speaker: There appears to be no Liberal who wants to speak.
Mr. Ferraro: I thought I was first up.
Mr. Laughren: Don’t be embarrassed.
Mr. Ferraro: I am not embarrassed at all.
I rise with anticipation to respond to some of the comments made by the member for the third party and to participate in this debate. It is important that when we are talking about the substance of this debate, we look a little bit at history. I can recall quite vividly because it was one of my main campaign discussions --
Interjections.
Mr. Ferraro: If members of the opposition will give me a chance, I will try to reciprocate by being calm when they speak.
I can recall during the election that it indeed was a very volatile issue. To recollect, the situation was that the private sector insurance companies were increasing premiums at a rate of one to two per cent a month. Automatically the opposition party, the so-called, if you will, conscience of the consumer -- and to some degree the third party -- stood up and said: “We have to do something about this, folks. We somehow have to deal with this problem of insurance because this one to two per cent increase per month is totally unacceptable.”
I think every politician in this room would agree that it was a very popular topic of conversation for obvious reasons, because of the financial ramifications. Quite a few people have to buy insurance, particularly auto insurance. I point out that a one to two per cent increase from the private sector would have amounted to well over a 50 per cent increase by this time if the government had not stepped in and put a freeze on, save and except the nine per cent it allowed for adjustment over a 12-month period.
Then to some degree, quite frankly, the argument boiled down to philosophy. The opposition, socialist in nature, which I respect but do not necessarily agree with, said that the answer was government-run auto insurance, that the government should take over the auto insurance business and thereby the consumer would get the net benefit, to a greater degree of equity, if you will.
In my view and in the view of my party, that simply does not work. I could stand here and relate the disastrous horror stories that transpired in British Columbia and the massive infusions of hundreds of millions of dollars into its auto insurance plan. I could reiterate what happened in Manitoba in the first six months of 1987, a massive infusion of millions of dollars into its government insurance plan. I could reiterate the tremendous amount of bureaucracy that was created by the government in government-run auto insurance plans. But I will not, save to say that my view of free enterprise is in direct opposition to the socialists and that I do not believe the government can do anything, quite frankly, cheaper than the private sector.
If you dispel that point of view, it goes over to the third party, the champions of free enterprise. The member for Leeds-Grenville stands up and says, “We told you Liberals that you should never have created this insurance board, that you should have kept your nose out of the private sector, that every time you get into the private sector, it ends up costing the consumers more money, and that it is wrong.” That stalwart free enterpriser over there says that the government should keep its big nose out of the private sector -- end of discussion, end of argument.
That is the same party that in 1975 brought in rent controls. That is the same independent, free enterprise party that brought in rent controls and said, “We have to manage the rental market.”
Is this a revelation that overnight the Conservative Party all of a sudden says that free enterprise is the right solution to all our social ills? I suggest, with great respect, that they are speaking out of both sides of their mouths.
What was the alternative? Our alternative, as indicated by the Premier, was quite simple. Something had to be done. People were getting gouged, if you will, by the insurance industry. There were essentially three alternatives. Either you did nothing which is what the Conservative Party wanted us to do, or according to the opposition, you took it over and increased the socialist aspect of the insurance industry and of our government, or you set up an independent board of experts to look at the situation.
The leader -- the member, rather; maybe possible leader -- of the third party indicated that what they wanted was a rate review process. Let’s look at that. This insurance board in fact has done that.
What did it look at? It had hundreds of public hearings and it has rendered decisions already on a uniform class plan, on a rate-making methodology, and indeed, on industry profitability.
As required by law, it has adopted a class plan that eliminates age, sex, marital status, handicap and family status. All those are criteria that were used to establish rates. What is now being proposed, in my view, is a much fairer system, that an individual’s insurance premium will be determined by the individual’s driving record. I think that is fair.
The stage we are at is that the rates and the range of rates will be determined, not in the back rooms, in the boardrooms of insurance companies, but by this independent board -- independent of the government, independent of the Insurance Bureau of Canada, independent of the insurance companies, independent of the insurance brokers -- a separate entity that will determine, based on all the information it has accumulated, a fair and reasonable rate that can be charged the consumer.
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What is the biggest cost we found in this rate review process? I point out that this board costs about $6.5 million. The member for Leeds-Grenville indicated that we have created this massive bureaucracy, that we should have kept our nose out of the private sector and that there is this massive bureaucracy we now have to pay for.
That works out to about $1 per premium. I suggest that the people in my riding of Guelph are quite willing to pay $1 for an independent board of experts to sift through all the information and gobbledegook you get from insurance companies, insurance brokers, accountants and economists, and to come up with a fair, just and independent rate of premium to charge. I do not think that is unreasonable.
It was the mandate of Mercer, of this independent consultant hired by the insurance board, to determine not lower insurance premiums -- it was right in the mandate. Now, all of a sudden, the opposition is standing up and saying we promised lower insurance premiums, but when the mandate came out it did not say to lower insurance premiums, but rather to ensure that rates were fair and that there was no price-gouging of consumers by insurance companies.
I think that is reasonable. I reiterate that perhaps one of the greatest benefits of this process is that now the average consumer is at least going to know, and it will have to be justified, where the rate is coming from and to what degree.
Out of every premium dollar, 80 cents is spent on the cost of claims. I will agree with the member for Leeds-Grenville that the real, tangible item to deal with in lowering insurance premiums is going to result in dealing with the cost of claims. That is the only point in contention, and we are looking at processes and reports -- Osborne, the Waddams report, the Zuber commission -- to deal with that.
Tort reform, quite frankly, is a joke. The cost of tort reform, based on that 80 per cent, is less than three per cent. There is all this crying and yelling about tort reform being the solution; it is not.
I say in conclusion that we have taken the most viable option, and that is to get an independent board to look at the insurance problem in this province. They have an independent consultant who has made a recommendation, and only a recommendation, to this board. Public hearings start December 12. I am sure that when the rates come out in January, they will be fair, equitable and understandable by the consumer.
Mr. Kormos: There is some great concern here, because there have been words used in the legislation, words like “fairness” and “equitability.” Perhaps there are some who perceive the conduct of the board to date as being fair. If it has been fair, it has been fair to the insurance industry and to literally nobody else.
There are some things that must be kept in mind. The board itself noted that in its third stage of preparing the report on profitability standards there was no consumer input. There was no opportunity, because of the absence of consumer input, to provide information, facts and figures, that would, one, rebut the facts and figures provided to the board, and two, provide a human facet to it.
It remains that the board at that point in time -- Mr. Kruger warned all those present when he revealed that report that this was not going to result in a decrease in premiums. Indeed, he was not so bold as to say it was going to result in any sort of stabilization of premiums. What he virtually guaranteed was that the report of the board was going to result in an increase in premiums. That was inevitable because the fact remains that the board established, as a standard of profitability, a return on equity that was anywhere from three to four times the existing return on equity enjoyed by insurers.
One of the difficulties the board itself acknowledged was that it had difficulty coping with the figures. The fact is there was talk of not just hundreds of thousands, but millions of dollars being misplaced in the course of calculations. In some of the questions that have been asked right here in the recent past, one of the issues has been that, obviously, the board is prepared to take a stance whereby it guarantees profits and that it encourages inefficiency.
In the Mercer report, one of the comments made is that as a premise, during the course of establishing the range of rates, consideration was given to increasing the attractiveness of Ontario as a place to conduct the business of automobile insurance. In other words, the authors of that report wanted to make sure Ontario was a good, profitable -- indeed, guaranteed profitable -- place for insurance companies to conduct their automobile insurance business.
Another premise they adopted was a recognition of the differences in skill levels in underwriting and claims and in operating efficiencies among insurers. Basically, what they are acknowledging there is that not all insurers are equal. Indeed, they are not only acknowledging inefficiencies, but they are very much suggesting that inefficiencies are the norm and ought to be encouraged.
One of the questions asked in the recent past of the Minister of Financial Institutions (Mr. Elston) was: “If the government is prepared to consider, as part of its own board’s recommendation, that it guarantee profits, is the government going to guarantee service? Is the government going to guarantee that every driver in the province has access to auto insurance?” The minister declined to answer that. In fact, the proof is obvious. It is in the press and it is in people’s refusals when they attend at their insurance brokers seeking auto insurance.
Co-operators General Insurance, we know, has declined and declines to write insurance policies here in the city of Toronto. I am advised by brokers that Wawanesa joins it in discouraging brokers in the process of selling auto insurance, and that Advocate General joins them in discouraging brokers from writing auto insurance.
In the Hamilton Spectator on November 5, 1988, “David Coons, a Burlington-based broker, says that the decision by Co-operators to stop writing new business in the Toronto area could mark the beginning of the end of private car insurance in Ontario. Mr. Coons, a broker in the Hamilton-Burlington area, indicates that he speaks not only for himself but he speaks for a number of brokers in the same area.”
The important thing is to regard the impact on families and on workers in the province by virtue of the proposals contained in the Mercer report. We look at a 22-year-old married male, licensed six years, with a 21-year-old wife, licensed three years, with no claims or convictions for either of them and no bad driving records. These people will suffer an increase in rates ranging anywhere from 85 per cent to 189 per cent. When one speaks of this proposal as being punitive, it is hard to argue that it is not when one regards the impact the rates will have on this particular family.
One looks at a 22-year-old single female principal driver, licensed six years, with no claims or convictions since licensed, who has been with the same insurer, driving a modest automobile and commuting 20 kilometres one way with annual driving distance of 30,000 kilometres. This young woman will suffer insurance increases ranging from 56 per cent, more properly perhaps in the range of 81 per cent, 88 percent, 97 percent, climbing to 111 per cent or 118 per cent.
Another family scenario is the case of a single male, somewhat older, a 30-year-old principal driver, licensed 10 years, no secondary driver; once again, no claims or convictions; once again, a modest automobile, a 1985 Ford Escort; once again, with the same insurer since licensed, living in a small community in eastern Ontario. This driver will suffer increases ranging from 32 per cent all the way up to 47 per cent.
The list goes on and on. Young people are being punished. Women are being punished. The province is condoning it. The province is guaranteeing these profits and these increases for auto insurers here in the province.
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It is strange that the government itself would decline to accept responsibility for generating discussion about government auto insurance. Indeed, the Toronto Star in its editorial on December 3, 1988, did not condemn the auto insurers for the huge increase in premiums, because it acknowledged that these people are interested in profits as large as they can make and that if a government is going to invite them -- indeed, not only invite them but permit them and also protect those profits -- then who is to blame for the increase in auto insurance premiums?
Not the insurance companies. Not the tort system, because insurers in general have for too long used the $6-million Brampton judgement as a rationale for increased premiums, when indeed what has happened, and we know this well, is that the Ontario Court of Appeal has struck that down and there has not been $6 million paid out.
The people to blame are, as the editorial in the Toronto Star indicated, the Liberal government, which refused to consider and acknowledge a government automobile insurance system as a viable alternative; indeed, the only alternative, in view of the fact that insurers on the one hand cry poverty, cry that they are not making any money.
We know that to be incorrect on the basis of the third stage, the profitability standards report of Kruger. They argue now that the increases are not sufficient, even though they constitute up to 300 per cent, possibly even 400 per cent increases in profitability. They are not prepared to desert the arena, because they have not thrown in the gauntlet yet.
Indeed, they spent and continue to spend considerable amounts of money preserving their right to provide this business in the province. In the last provincial election, the auto insurance industry spent in excess of $118,000 in this province in donations to Liberal candidates, the largest single donation to Liberal candidates.
Mr. D. R. Cooke: Which candidates?
Mr. Kormos: The member missed out on it.
The largest single donation was to the unsuccessful Liberal candidate in Welland-Thorold riding, who, of course, was running against Mel Swan, who has championed the cause of public auto insurance in this province for some considerable period of time.
They are not only prepared to fight tooth and nail to retain the right to provide this auto insurance; they are prepared to spend a considerable amount of money doing it. They are all the more gleeful now that the government is in a position whereby it is going to be guaranteeing them profits; guaranteeing that they can operate with high levels of inefficiency, yet maintain the same return on equity as they would have had without that inefficiency; guaranteeing that they do not have to adequately insure all the drivers of the province, but guaranteeing that they will maintain the same return on equity.
They cannot have their cake and eat it too. The fact is that there is, and the Liberal member should know this, a consumer revolution storming outside of these particular chambers. The fact is that the people of the community will speak and they will speak loudly and clearly. Their option is government auto insurance. It is one that this government should be prepared to provide.
Mr. Cousens: I am pleased to rise and speak in this very important emergent debate. I would like to stop and give recognition to the member for Leeds-Grenville for the way in which he is giving leadership to the province and to our party on this very important issue.
This morning in our caucus, we were discussing another bill, An Act to amend the Trespass to Property Act, Bill 149, which the people of Ontario will soon learn the consequences of once it comes up in the House for debate. The member for Leeds-Grenville addressed caucus and said, “I would like to interrupt the proceedings of this caucus meeting about an emergency debate this afternoon.” He had spent some time last night working over this special report prepared by William M. Mercer Ltd. that was tabled yesterday, and he said, “This has to be taken as an emergency for the people of Ontario.”
I would like to just stop and give great recognition to our colleague the member for Leeds-Grenville for causing this House today to stop in its tracks and look at what the Mercer report is all about. It is very fortunate that in spite of the fact there are only 17 Progressive Conservatives in this House, each one of us who carries a heavy load of responsibility against the 113 other people out there is endeavouring to do the right thing for the people of this province.
I have to say, as I look at a speech made by the member for Leeds-Grenville in this House on December 7, 1987, just one year ago tomorrow, he had a number of things to say about the insurance industry and what this government was doing to it. He said, “a government-run auto insurance program for this province down that very slippery slope and one about which we have a great deal of concern.”
In another quote from the member, and this is a year ago, before we got this report, he said, “Females under the age of 25 could be looking at increases of up to 50 per cent, and 10 per cent across-the-board increases for those over 25.”
He saw into the future, but he did not see it being as bad as it is turning out. We are talking about significant increases of which the silent majority out there are really not aware at this point. They are not aware of the problems that consumers in this province are going to face because of initiatives for which this government has to take complete responsibility.
He was a prophet a year ago and if we start looking at what he said, it is coming true. I want to stop and give recognition on behalf of the members of our party in this House and say thank you, Mr. Runciman for stopping the House in its tracks to consider what this government was about to do.
We just have to look back in history. It does not take long to go back to April 28, 1987, to the speech from the throne, which is the statement of government policy and government plans for the future, when the Honourable Lincoln Alexander said these words for the government. I want to put them on the record again, because they are there and I want you to be reminded, Mr. Speaker, and other honourable members of this House. He said: “My government will protect Ontarians from unfair and arbitrary practices in the marketplace. In doing so, we will take steps to promote increased consumer awareness.”
They are going to be so aware of what this government is doing to them when they start getting the bills. They are going to have a new sense of awareness that there is a Liberal government in power in Ontario. I do not think the Lieutenant Governor meant it that way, but it is a fact.
He then went on to say: “We recently announced a comprehensive package of new auto insurance legislation. Among other provisions, the program will cap auto insurance premiums and establish a public review process under which insurance rates must be justified.”
Not only has it set a new cap, but the cap now means that some people, in the examples that come out of the Mercer report -- I have a situation of a 16-year-old single female driver who will face a 37 per cent increase in premiums. I have a situation of a 22-year-old married male driver who could face a 189 per cent increase in premiums. That is why we have an emergency in the House today. Yet the Lieutenant Governor, speaking for the government in the speech from the throne, said, “Yes, we’re going to review the process and bring out new rates.”
We were alert to the problems we would have as soon as this government started interfering with the insurance process. The member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Kwinter), who was the Minister for Financial Institutions at the time, back in April 1987, said in the House -- and I want to put this on the record, because these people who are now the government of the province have forgotten about the commitments they made a year ago -- in response to a question by the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party:
“The position we have taken on the issue is one of equity and fairness. There is a great number of motorists in Ontario whose rates have been arbitrarily set and who have been upgraded in their ratings for no apparent reason. We will bring some equity to that system.” The new equity is that everybody is going to have massive increases, except for a very small number of people.
The then Minister of Financial Institutions said: “Again, and I have said this before, we will provide a fair, equitable system that will protect the insured in Ontario, but that does not mean the rates will necessarily go down. They could go down, but we are not guaranteeing it.”
I do not think we could get a guarantee out of this government for anything. Last year we debated about Christmas shopping around Christmas. We have the same problem coming up this year. Anything they have touched seems to go sour.
So when the Minister of Financial Institutions went to talk, here he is making the prognostication. He said further: “I announced several government initiatives intended to bring fundamental fairness to the automobile insurance system for consumers.”
What we are seeing here now is the very thing we warned would happen. The member for Leeds-Grenville, who was formerly Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations and who is now critic for this important area, said there was going to be a problem and we are seeing it right now. It is self-evident.
What is the government going to do about it? I am fascinated. I think they are going to try to slip it through as fast as they can, so that the public will forget about it two or three years from now when they come along and face the electorate again looking for a mandate.
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We depend on our vehicles and on our transportation to get around in this country. We cannot just hop on a horse where you do not need to have a licence to drive. You hop in your car and you go from A to B, and if you are doing any kind of driving or any kind of travel, you are going to have to make sure you are protected.
I believe we have done a lot of the right things in providing protection for vehicles. We want to protect people from injury, we want to have a compensation program for them, but we also have to do it through a responsible program of premium setting and insurance. What we are seeing here now is an increase in rates for drivers of up to 40 per cent.
I guess that is really the cost of having a Liberal government, that there is always going to be a cost attached to it. They have a very attractive way of saying, “Oh, we’re going to do good things for you, we’re going to do all the nice things.” I quoted those statements from the speech from the throne and from the Minister of Financial Institutions last year. A year later we are seeing the same kind of thing.
The insurance industry is soon going to be so crippled and so thwarted in trying to perform a service for the people in Ontario that many providers of that service could well withdraw their services from the province. Instead of just a little bit of government regulation and a little bit of an increase now, which for some people amounts to as much as a 189 per cent increase in premiums, we are going to see a continuing escalation of costs. It is something that is going to go through the roof.
Before that happens, this House has a chance to react in a responsible way. I am confident that, through this emergency debate we are having today, the government will stop, pause, look and listen to what we are saying, realize there is still time for it to go and review the considerations that have come from the Mercer group and go back to its advisers, go back to the insurance people and try to work out a system that can somehow phase in responsible methods of handling these cost increases.
I do not see this government willing to listen. I see the honourable minister who is responsible for this shaking his head, almost laughing, as if to say, “We don’t need to do it.” I guess they do not, because they have the majority. They can do what they want, when they want, how they want.
This is just another nail in the coffin for the Liberals in Ontario and it is one that every person who has to pay auto premiums is going to remember. They are going to remember when it was lower, they are going to remember when it was higher and they are going to know whom to blame. They are going to blame the Premier and the Liberal government of Ontario.
The Acting Speaker: The next speaker, the member for Oakville South.
[Applause]
Mr. D. S. Cooke: Not much enthusiasm.
Hon. Mr. Elston: I am enthusiastic.
Mr. Carrothers: I appreciate the support.
I want to thank the member for Markham (Mr. Cousens) for his message of doom and gloom today. I also want to say to him in no uncertain terms that I think the government has indeed kept its promise.
Interjection.
Mr. Carrothers: One can be. Let me point out some of the problems this is dealing with. The government has indeed kept its promise to bring forward a program to give us fair, equitable and understandable rates.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: No, no; they promised lower rates.
Mr. Carrothers: That was not the commitment.
I want to address my comments to a theme that my colleague the member for Guelph (Mr. Ferraro) brought up, and that was what the fundamental problem has been in our insurance system in the past few years.
Mr. Pouliot: We’re being ripped off. That’s the problem.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: You’re going to legalize the ripoff.
The Acting Speaker: Order, please. We would like to hear the member.
Mr. Carrothers: On the one hand, the insurance system in this province has suffered from excessive rate fluctuations over the years and from an unfair rate classification system. The end result was that drivers were experiencing unstable premiums year to year and those premiums were being charged against them on a classification that was unfair.
We have received two suggestions as to what might be done. One I would call cosmetic, a rate board with four employees, which I think the member for Leeds-Grenville suggested. That is the kind of program they have in Alberta and a couple of other provinces, sort of a toothless tiger that merely brings in and legitimizes the inefficiencies that the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Kormos) was talking about. One simply approves things as they are brought forward. The other one is a dogmatic one. This goes to the question of ownership and indicates that the government should run the system.
I do not think either of those suggestions is the solution to the problem, because neither of them gets at what is the difficulty. It is not a question of who controls the company; it is not a question of who owns it; it is a question of how the rates that are charged are set.
We have had in this province over the past year something which has often been called cash-flow underwriting by those who observe the insurance industry.
Mr. Pouliot: Some of your clients?
Mr. Carrothers: Yes, maybe some of my clients. Regarding cash-flow underwriting: Excessive competition in the marketplace from people who can do contracts with offshore companies that will take the insurance, come into the marketplace and drop their rates, buying business and basically causing those in the insurance industry, the more legitimate and larger companies, to have to drop their premiums in order to compete.
This results in a cyclical phenomenon in insurance rates. It often runs over six or eight years, where you see premium rates dropping until the companies that have got those contracts to reinsure find they can no longer run it off. Their costs of claims have gone up above the premiums taken in. Then they get out of the marketplace and the companies left in the marketplace bring their premiums back up to recuperate and get those lost costs.
This has resulted in the instability which this rate board is meant to go after and solve. With a new classification system not set by the companies but set by an independent rate board, a fair classification system that gets rid of a number of the features such as sex, marital status and soon, we will know and the public will be able to understand how those rates were set. Those companies operating in the province will have to do so on a fair basis.
The alternation between the bargains that people were receiving in the past on premium rates and then paying too much in order to get back the lost profits has created the kind of situation that I believe we are all concerned about. Certainly, I have been concerned about it over the years. Many of my constituents come and talk to me about the kinds of increases they suffer from time to time.
I think once this board comes into place, once the decision -- and I should remind the members that we are talking here about a report of the Mercer agency which has been brought in and commissioned by the board as the starting point for a discussion. We have been talking in a debate today as if the decisions have been taken, as if the rates which are set out in this document are the ones that are going to happen. I have to underline to the members here that that is not what is going to be taking place.
Public input will be starting next week. I can recall, and I am sure many members saw, advertisements in the Toronto Star. I have heard ads on the radio. I have heard much discussion about the amount of public input that is going on. I am confident that once this board has made its decision, it will come forward with fair, stable rates in this province that we know we can count on. We will not be subject to unfair and unpredictable rate increases year by year.
I think the result will be a fair and equitable insurance industry in the province. The goal that has been set out in Bill 2, which was the one setting up this rate board and mandating the board to set rates that are in its opinion “just and reasonable and not excessive or inadequate,” is a goal that we all have in this province.
A government insurance company as well as any other would have to face the realities of the cost. I think my friend the member for Guelph commented on that already. We have seen large increases in the other provinces because the temptation is to, shall we say, manipulate the rates that company causes for purposes --
Mr. Pouliot: Still 25 per cent lower, established by the New Democrats. Let’s call this what it is.
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. Pouliot: With the same coverage.
Mr. Fleet: The New Democrats were politically interfering with the auto insurance business in Manitoba.
The Deputy Speaker: Order. One member at a time, please.
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Mr. Carrothers: I would have to disagree with my honourable friend that the government insurance plan cannot guarantee lower rates. This is something which we have seen in many reports.
I would also remind my friends that the size of the program that would be brought in if the government should take over the insurance industry in this province would be massive. I would suggest to them that if they like the operations of the Workers’ Compensation Board then they would love how a government plan would work in this province because it would create the same kind of monster.
When I go in and purchase insurance I like the ability to choose whom I am dealing with. I like the ability to choose another company, if I do not have proper claims treatment. This is something they would be prepared to deny the citizens of this province, by going into a government scheme. That is not the solution.
The solution to the problem that has been facing this province is how the rates are set. The board has been set up and is operating, and we are in the middle of the process of seeing what happens. I would suggest perhaps we are even premature in having this debate since we have not seen what that board is going to suggest. The solution is going to produce a system where we get stable rates in this province and get the kind of automobile insurance we all want.
Mr. Wildman: It has been interesting to listen to this debate this afternoon. It is obvious, after the number of speakers we have had, that we have really three choices being presented to the people of the province.
On the one hand, we have the Conservative Party, which says it does not want to interfere in the private sector; however, it would like to have an insurance review board which would look at rates. The member for Leeds-Grenville then says that system would lead inevitably to higher rates, to rates that would be raised consecutively for seven years. That is one choice that is being presented.
We have also the New Democratic Party, which clearly for the last number of years in this province and across Canada has advocated a driver-owned plan, a publicly owned plan that would be run at cost without private profit involved, to ensure that the drivers of the province get the coverage they need and the service they need without excessive rates.
The third option is being proposed by the government. It is a system which leaves automobile insurance in private hands -- the insurance companies -- but sets up a regulatory system with a board that is responsible not just for reviewing rates, as is being proposed by the Conservatives, but for setting rates.
I submit that with this third option that is being accepted by the government we have the worst of both worlds. As a New Democrat, I believe we have a terrible situation if we leave it simply to the private sector, as the Conservatives would do, because as the member for Leeds-Grenville has indicated, inevitably that means higher rates. He suggests higher rates consecutively over seven years.
It does not provide service at cost, as the New Democrats advocate, because the board that has been set up by the government would guarantee the private insurers a 12.5 per cent profit, or at least the board would ensure that the insurance companies get a “fair” return on their equity; that, in effect, means higher rates.
What we have is the bureaucracy of a board to look at the rates and then to set higher rates. We do not have, as is advocated by our friends in the Conservative Party, the private sector determining the rates, which I think would be a bad thing; but at least the Conservatives have been consistent in saying that is what they want.
We also do not have a system that provides the service and the coverage at cost as a service to the public. We have a system that still is going to set higher rates and ensure that the insurance companies, the private insurers, get a “fair” return on their equity.
What we have now in this province and what is proposed by the Mercer report to the board is not in any way similar to what the Premier said in September 1987. At that time, the Premier said he had a specific plan to lower insurance rates in Ontario. What has happened since that time with the regulatory program that has been set up by the government?
What has happened is we have had the unfreezing of rates after the election, the increase of nine per cent to the insurance companies, a guarantee of return on equity of about 12.5 per cent and now a report by the private consultant Mercer that says we should have on the average of 35 per cent to 40 per cent increases in insurance premiums in this province. That is an average, of course; some of the premiums would double for individual drivers in this province.
The government has made a great to-do about the fact that this is just a consultant’s report, that it is a report that was commissioned by the regulatory board but it is just a report and that the board has to and will decide. According to the Liberals in this House, the board will decide to ensure a fair, equitable and reasonable rate structure.
I listened very closely to Mr. Kruger, who is on that board, I believe.
Hon. Mr. Elston: He’s chairman of the board.
Mr. Wildman: Chairman of the board, yes. He said that while no decision had been made, the Mercer report recommendations would be the framework about which the hearings would be held and on which the rates would be set. That inevitably means higher rates -- not lower rates, as the Premier said in September 1987, but higher rates. The increases may not be, and I hope they are not, 35 per cent to 40 per cent on average, but they will be increases.
I have yet to hear any Liberal in this House say that the Premier’s promise of September 1987 will be carried out by this government, that we will have lower rates. If that is indeed what the Liberals believe, then I challenge them, one of them at least, to get up in this House and tell us that the board will set rates lower than we are paying now, which is what the Premier said was going to happen in September 1987.
If the Premier was telling the truth, he had a plan for lowering the rates, not a regulatory plan that would inevitably mean higher rates for most people, not a plan that would lower rates for a few drivers in the province and raise rates for everyone else, but a plan that would specifically lower rates.
I can only conclude along the lines of a periodical I read from time to time and which is not usually known to support the New Democratic Party. It is the Toronto Star. On December 3, it had an editorial headed “Peterson’s to Blame.” I will quote from it:
“A decision to allow private automobile insurance companies to earn a 12.5 per cent return next year is fair enough, even though the industry says it’s too low.
“The limit on profits -- a 400 per cent increase over the last year -- was set by the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board, which was created by Premier David Peterson’s government to put a lid on sharply rising auto insurance premium costs.
“So consumers will have to pay $504 million more in premiums next year. How much more each driver will pay has yet to be determined.
“Don’t blame the insurance companies. If they’re going to provide auto insurance, the private companies have every right to expect a reasonable profit. After all, that is what Peterson’s ‘free enterprise solution’ to auto insurance is all about.
“But you certainly have a right to blame Peterson for the $504-million premium increase.
“Had he set up a government-run auto insurance plan in the first place, there would have been no need for his government to make a profit at all.
“That idea’s still worth considering. Take note, Premier.”
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I agree completely with this editorial by the Toronto Star. We cannot blame the insurance companies for wanting to make a good profit; that is what they are in business for. But if we had set up a government-run plan, the government plan would not have to make a profit; it would be set up as a service to the public.
Just as the government health care plan in this province is not set up to make a profit at the expense of the people of this province, a government-run auto insurance plan would be set up to serve the public, not to gouge them. Instead, we have a regulatory policy of this government that sets up a board.
Frankly, we now know that the board will inevitably gouge the public on insurance rates. We are going to get higher rates, not lower rates. The Premier has broken his promise. He promised in September 1987, just before the election, that he had a plan to lower insurance rates. We now know that those rates are going to be higher. The only thing we do not know is by how much.
Mr. Harris: I will not be very long, Mr. Speaker, because you do not give me a very long time in this forum to speak, but I am pleased to have the opportunity today.
I want to congratulate my colleague the member for Leeds-Grenville -- I said before, in fact, when I looked at Hansard that I always forget whether it is Grenville-Leeds or Leeds-Grenville -- I congratulate my colleague for introducing this motion. I think it is important that we talk about this today.
I think it is also important that in my remarks I refresh the government on some of the comments I made on second reading of this silly, silly bill they brought in. I understand the comments from my leader today and from the New Democratic Party that the Premier played fast and loose with the truth during the last election campaign. I understand that. Obviously, on September 7, when he told the people of Ontario that he had a plan to reduce auto insurance rates, he did not have a plan. I think that is evident now. The plan that he had in mind was to tell the people what he thought they would like to hear.
Mr. Wildman: We want fair, higher rates.
Mr. Harris: He promised lower insurance rates. He said, “I have a plan for it.” Obviously he did not have a plan for it. That does not surprise me, because throughout this Premier’s career, and particularly in the last three years, he has said on many occasions: “I am going to do this. I am going to solve this. This will be better. This is what we are going to do.” He has broken his word every time.
It does not surprise me. Quite frankly, it does not shock me at all. I guess when you are faced with misrepresentation repeatedly, time after time after time, maybe you get a little callous and you get used to it. I do not want to dwell on that argument, but it is a fact of life. That is what we are faced with this particular Premier.
What do we have when we look through the press clippings? Do we have lower car insurance rates, as were promised? No, we have headlines such as “Thirty-five to 40 per cent jump...urged by report.” This is the report of the board that was set up by the government, as their plan. We also have, “Car Insurance Could Cost 40 Per Cent More,” “Auto Insurance Premiums Should Rise by 40 Per Cent: Study” and “Premium’s on Pain.”
I do not like to say “I told you so,” except when I did tell you so. I think at this particular point in time it is important to reflect on this legislation.
The government has rent control legislation it brought in which was supposed to do this, this, this, this and this, and I think it would be honest and acceptable politically, when after two years the objectives which were put forward as the rationale for a piece of legislation clearly were not being met, to stand up and say: “Hold it here. We made a mistake. We were wrong,” rather than blindly defending something that obviously is not working.
This legislation, the auto insurance legislation the government jammed through this House with its majority, clearly is not working. The government said it was going to have a plan to reduce auto rates. It brought in a bill. This was the response to its election commitment. We have already had nine per cent in one year, and now it seems we are looking at, on average, 30 or 40 per cent to 45 per cent. So it is not working.
It strikes me that the honest thing to do, and I think the politically acceptable thing to do, instead of defending this charade, is to say: “We were wrong. We made a mistake. It’s not working.” Indeed, if the Premier stood up and said, “I did think I had a plan that would work, but I was wrong,” that would be better to me than blindly carrying on and pretending that he actually had something. That would be politically acceptable to me. I would probably still be critical and say, “I told you so,” but to keep defending this system blindly is really a joke.
What we have is a bill which, as I stated on February 11, applies monopoly logic to what should be a competitive industry, and a bill which gives us the very worst of two systems. No system is perfect. The free market, competitive system is not perfect. I think it is the best system. I think it leads to the fewest complications, the fewest problems, and invariably it leads to the lowest rates to have as free and full a competition in the marketplace as is possible.
When you do that, and when you have a Progressive Conservative philosophy, the Conservative part says we have a full market system and the market will provide the competition which will provide the lowest rates. The Progressive side of my party and the progressive side of me says, “That system will have the fewest losers but there may be some losers.” Then the Progressive side says: “We’ll take care of those people. We will help those who need help.”
I apply that logic to every bill. I apply it to every problem we face: “Come up with the system that creates the fewest problems, creates the greatest fairness, provides the most competition.” That is the conservative side of me. The progressive side of me says, “Then, through social programs or through assistance, help those who aren’t able to survive in that system.”
What did this government bring in? It brought in the worst of a monopoly. It set up a monopoly situation. It said: “We’re going to treat this insurance industry, with all these insurers, as if it were a monopoly.” There are grave problems with monopolies, and some of them are necessary. I understand utility monopolies that appear to be necessary in our society, and we try to regulate it. We try to control them. Indeed, we are not able to very well, because, like most social theory, it does not work. What happens with these socialist policies is that you put them down and they look nice and neat and they all fit, but they do not work. They just do not work. We see that time after time after time.
Why, when we do not have to have monopolies -- well, members know what happens. Hydro hires all the lawyers and all the tax experts, and they go and they buffalo the board. It is a pass-on-the-costs type of day. It is the only way we can control them, but there is no control on costs. When you try to put controls on costs, they are able to hire all the expert people who can go to the board and justify these costs.
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Now we have applied that logic to what used to be a competitive industry. That is why -- and I am not surprised -- you have 30 per cent, 40 per cent, 50 per cent. Next year it will probably be another 20, 30, 40 per cent. These guys are not stupid. They are some of the smartest people, and tax experts and legal experts and accountants, so they know how to play the system.
I agree with my friends from the New Democratic Party when they say it is not the insurance companies’ fault. What this government did to them is that it said, “You can’t compete any more; we’re going to take the competitiveness out of it, we’re going to treat you as if you are a monopoly,” so those are the rules that they play by. They are playing by them very well, and who can blame them? This is the system the government asked them to operate under.
It will not work, and until the government faces up to that and says, “We were wrong; we’ve got to withdraw this bill, we’ve got to change the legislation, we’ve got to restore the competitiveness into the marketplace,” this problem will get worse and worse and worse.
Ms. Hart: If I may, I would like to shift the focus of this debate away from the words that may or may not have been said. There has been a lot of focus on words. I would like to change that focus to the actions of this government.
Unlike some of my colleagues on the other side of the House, I do not consider myself an ideologue. I do have a preference for a private sector kind of solution to the many problems that we all know exist in the auto insurance industry, but I do not think, like my friend opposite who was just speaking, that the free play of market forces is necessarily a panacea to these problems either.
What I would like to have happen, before we wipe out an industry that is a very large employer in this province, is taking our best shot at a private sector solution, dealing with some of the problems and coming to grips with them, the aim being that we are trying to improve fairness and equity to consumers. Such sentiments as these led this government to set up the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board.
We have heard lots of arguments on the other side, but let’s just remember for a few moments what was happening in the auto insurance industry just a short year ago.
Rates at that time were set not openly but in the corporate boardrooms of the insurance companies. The consuming public, the consumers, like all of us here who drive, had no say at all in the setting of those rates. We had no way of knowing -- even the industry association, which made representations to this government did not know -- the cost of claims to the industry. Their data were very patchy indeed, and we know for sure that the cost of claims is the biggest factor in the setting of premium rates.
A year ago there was discrimination in rates. The companies could discriminate however they pleased: on the basis of sex, on the basis of age, on any other basis they chose.
Each company set its rates differently. We had no way of discovering the rationale for the setting of those rates. I suspect that there was some similarity to the way rates were set in the trucking industry, which has a lot of hocus-pocus to it. In fact, I suspect that a lot of those rates were set on the basis of what the market would bear and there was no other rationale to the setting of those rates.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: Now what are you going to do? You are just going to raise them.
The Deputy Speaker: One member at a time, please.
Ms. Hart: In April 1987, the members will recall, the rates were increasing at a rate of one to two per cent a month with no end in sight.
Mr. Ferraro: A month?
Ms. Hart: That is a month.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: How much have they gone up this year, Christine?
The Deputy Speaker: Would the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. D. S. Cooke) please --
Mr. D. S. Cooke: They have gone up nine per cent this year.
The Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
Ms. Hart: To address those problems, the government set up an independent board and gave it the mandate it needed to bring fairness to the rate-setting process. The independence, as all members know, is an important aspect to this board. There is no interference in the mandate of the board. There is no interference by any of the interested parties, including the government. That is something that enables the public to have some trust in the process that the board is going through.
The board was given the powers to make a judicial determination. That is very important in the legal sense, although my friends may not appreciate that importance. It must hold a hearing; it must advertise widely; it must hear evidence from the public, from the industry and from experts in various fields. Then it is charged, by its legislation, to come to a reasoned decision based on the evidence that it has heard.
The process itself is very important. It demystifies the rate setting process. The public now is in the position of knowing how rates are set. It opens up the process. It has ended the discrimination on the basis of age and sex, and now something that makes sense, a driver’s record, is the primary determinant of premium.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: The Premier said he was going to lower the rates, and now they are going up.
The Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
Ms. Hart: That factor makes sense, because all of us know, can understand, that bad drivers, drivers with bad records should pay more. That is fair. That is one of the things that the board brought to this province. In the opening up of the process, it made it more understandable to consumers, a lot less hocus-pocus.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: Who wrote this for you? Come on, the Premier promised to lower the rates, and now they are going up.
The Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
Ms. Hart: If I am a driver, as I and many of us here are, I know that if I have my third accident in a year, my insurance premium is going to go up.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: I don’t know why the member is supporting this lack of integrity.
The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. May I remind the members of standing order 24(b). Thank you.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: Isn’t there something that talks about integrity when a leader says one thing --
The Deputy Speaker: There is a period for questions and comments afterwards. One member at a time, please.
Ms. Hart: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is hard to quarrel with the fact that bad drivers pay more. Presumably there will be other factors as data are developed. For example, one that has been much neglected is the type of cars that have more accidents or need costlier repairs. They will have a direct impact -- these findings and this database that will be built up by the board -- on a manufacturer of cars when designing new cars for the market. Just maybe, that will lead to safer cars on our roads.
Another big plus for consumers lies in the mandate of the board to control not just the rates themselves but the whole process of rate-setting, which includes the levels of costs. Opening up the industry’s costs to public scrutiny is, in my view, going to be what brings down our premium rates over the long haul.
It is not a quick fix. People know that there are not any quick fixes. Any good solution for a complex problem never happens overnight. But loss costs are the biggest factor behind insurance premiums, and loss costs include such things as repairs, legal costs, adjustment costs, administrative costs and damages. The board has indicated that it wants to look closely at loss costs and how they can be better controlled.
For example, they might want to look at various alternatives to our fault-based system of compensation. If we did not begin by opening up the whole question of costs to public scrutiny via the board, the next step, the containment of those costs, could not be usefully undertaken.
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This debate has been sparked by the Mercer report numbers. That is just one of the pieces of evidence that the board will be examining at its hearing, which begins on December 12. It is one of many pieces of evidence. It has advertised widely. I saw in the press the ad with the graphic of a car. I am sure all of us saw that ad. It invites the public to come and speak to the hearing process, to let its views be known.
Let’s not prejudge what happens at that hearing. Let’s stand back and allow the board to do the job that it is eminently qualified to do: to listen, to analyse and ultimately to decide in a fair and open way the range of rates for 1989.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am also upset that this is not a time for questions and comments on members’ statements. It is really quite incredible.
I think when people look back on this day, December 6, 1988, commentators, editorial writers and columnists are all going to point to this day as the day that the bubble burst for the Liberal reform mythology in Ontario and the honeymoon finally started to evaporate.
What an incredible mix of issues fell apart for the Liberal government today. We have this insurance debacle, where the promises of the Premier in the dying days of the election have come back like mud to stick to him and his party, showing the incredible cynicism with which they approached the voters in that last election.
We have the lie being put to the Liberal Party’s environmental policy in what is happening in Temagami. The whole notion that this was a civil libertarian government, that this was a government concerned about native rights, was fundamentally destroyed today. This was the day, in point of fact, when the government looked bad on all fronts, when the whole question of its integrity as a government was in question and on which it was found wanting.
It seems to me that people will remember this day for a long time when they reflect back on the smirks, the smugness and the complacency of the new Tory government over there. It is not a surprise that most of the red ties even have disappeared. It is only the hardliners like the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Fleet) and the member for Sudbury (Mr. Campbell), who have been lost in the back benches, who even make an attempt to keep that hue. Blue is absolutely in over there these days.
The third item that befell those members today, and I do not think they even seem to understand yet the importance of what this watershed has been, was the announcement by the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) today. He put the lie to their being social reformers. He came in here with his tail between his legs, having been pole-axed by the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) last night.
Mr. Fleet: Oh, what nonsense.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: This is not nonsense.
Yesterday he said he gave three proposals to the cabinet and the Treasurer and he was hoping for the best. He was hoping they would accept what he was saying, which was, “If we turn down Judge Thomson’s request for minimal increases for the poor in this province, we will be seen to have no integrity around social issues.”
He gave us three potential scenarios to follow, and the Treasurer stuck him with the worst. He stuck him with just a flat five per cent increase:
“That is the best you are going to get. Forget the Thomson commission.” In fact, all the government can say is that, “As of today, for the next three months you can start to negotiate with us, as the rest of cabinet, around Thomson.”
Three major issues -- the environment, protecting the middle class and their concerns about auto insurance and protecting the poor -- have all collapsed on the government today and its true colours have come through. This is a very important day, which I hope will never be forgotten.
I want to come back to the issue that is specifically at hand, and that is the motion, ironically, put forward by the Conservative caucus on auto insurance, which reminds us of that commitment by the Premier in Cambridge, with three days to go in a campaign, feeling that perhaps the one weakness in stopping him getting his massive majority might be that auto insurance plank. In responding to our party’s very specific platform, a public auto insurance plan, spelled out as it was prior to this, he made a commitment in Cambridge which says, “I have a very specific plan to lower insurance rates.”
He attacked us as a party continually at that time, if I can find the report from the Cambridge paper -- in fact, it is not from the Cambridge paper; it is from the Toronto Star, the government’s paper -- which basically attacked us for being inaccurate, for being pie in the sky, for not dealing in reality, and then basically said he was dealing with specifics; he had a specific plan that would lower rates.
Mr. Mackenzie: Lower?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Lower rates.
Mr. Wildman: Not higher.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: If he had meant it -- and he would not admit even today whether he had meant honestly that he was proposing that and it was not just a tactic to diffuse the one issue he was concerned about that might hurt his chances of getting a massive majority -- but if he were honest, then he would be admitting today:
“I’d hoped that we could do that, but the plan that I have been putting forward, in fact, has been an abject failure. I can’t see us getting away with less than the nine per cent increases we have already seen. I am presuming that some kind of accommodation of this latest report, these mammoth increases of 35 or 40 per cent that are looking to be very likely is an offshoot of our policies that I did not think would end up in these terms.”
Instead of being an abject apologist, like the member for York East (Ms. Hart) today, he would be saying. “We’ve made an error.” We understand how serious this is, because we know what happened in Manitoba when the Manitoba New Democratic Party government made a major error on this kind of issue.
Instead the Premier is being, if I dare use the term in my new incarnation, barefaced about this. He is now basically saying that this is what the plan was:
“That is the way it is in the game of politics. We make some promises that we mean. We make an awful lot of others that we do not mean at all. You, the people of Ontario, have been taken by us, the Liberal Party. You have been taken to the cleaners by the Liberal Party of Ontario, and it is too bad if you bought our mix of fabrication that we perpetrated on you, whether it was around educational finance, whether it was around the fact that we are social reformers, whether it was around the fact that we are environmentally concerned, whether we really want to protect native rights in Ontario or whether we were going to do what we said we would do, which was to lower rates for auto insurance and ‘We have a specific plan to do so.’ You should never believe a Liberal, because we do not mean what we say. We say what we say just to get elected, and when we are there, we will do whatever the heck it is we want to do.”
That is a lesson which has come home to roost on December 6, 1988, in a way in which I do not think any of the Liberal members would have expected it to happen, which is going to be a cloud from under which it is going to be very, very difficult to clamber out without a great smell hanging over them for a long time about what they are willing to stiff the people of Ontario with.
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If they think they are going to get away with the kind of increases that have taken place, the kind that are about to take place and the kind that the Premier promised us would not take place and that they are going to get off scot-free with this, they are crazy. Because the people of Ontario will know who they really are, will understand why their ties have changed to blue and in the next election will look for a real social-reform party, will look for a party that will really protect the average driver in Ontario and will not be choosing the Liberals.
Those backbenchers who thought they were Liberals and part of a Liberal government, better get at this cabinet before it is too late and make them understand what it means to be Liberal and what the symbols of liberalism are all about. If they do not do that, there are not going to be 94 of them next time; they will be lucky if there are 24.
As an opposition member, I revel in this kind of day on which they can make such profound errors and on which the Premier could get up with such profound arrogance to try to outmatch William Grenville Davis at his best.
Mr. Pope: It is a privilege for me to participate in this debate and to say to the people of Ontario that we are here today debating car insurance rates that the men and women of this province will pay over the next few years because of a decision of the Premier and the Liberal government of Ontario.
We have had in recent media reports over the last few days in the city of Toronto and throughout Ontario, startling headline news that men and women of this province will pay up to 40 per cent more for automobile insurance in Ontario over the next two years because of a decision for which the Liberal Party and the Liberal government of Ontario is responsible.
For the second time in two years, we have the prospect of a provincial government in this country making a damaging mistake about the people’s response to substantial increases in automobile insurance rates. It was the number one issue in the Manitoba provincial election, which was held earlier this year, and which led to the defeat of the New Democratic Party government in that province when there was a rate increase in automobile insurance and additional cost in the government-run plan that the people were not prepared to accept. They demonstrated on the steps of the Legislature of Manitoba and voiced their objections to the rate increases proposed by the Manitoba New Democratic Party government and put the New Democratic Party into third place in the Legislature because of it, I believe.
Now we have the prospect of a Liberal Party government in Ontario proposing to do exactly the same thing: give unwarranted permission for unwarranted increases in insurance premiums of up to 40 per cent that everyone in this province will pay to drive their automobiles in the next couple of years. That is 40 per cent more that men and women in this province will pay for the privilege of driving an automobile. It is an unwarranted increase.
What is the response of the Premier, as quoted in a Toronto newspaper yesterday? He says he will leave the decision in the hands of the insurance board under Mr. Kruger and will see what happens. That is the leadership that the Premier is prepared to give to this issue. That is how much he is prepared to intervene for the men and women who are driving automobiles across this province. He will leave it in the hands of the board and will see what happens. That is his response. He will not step in to protect men and women driving in this province who are paying these insurance premiums. He will leave it in someone else’s hands.
I would remind members that this is the same Premier whose only response when there was criticism of high automobile insurance rates in this province was to set the system into place to have a rate review board to give them this authority and allow them to make the decisions that will increase their automobile insurance rates by up to 40 per cent. That is the Peterson formula, to let that board exist, to give it the criteria that allows it to do this and to put in place the studies and the mechanisms to increase your automobile insurance rates by 40 per cent in different pans of Ontario. That is the Peterson formula. That is what the Liberal Party is offering to you, the people of Ontario.
What is the basis of the complaint of the opposition members, the members of the New Democratic Party and the members of the Progressive Conservative Party? I think it is very important that the people understand the context of our objection to this system and the consequences for the people of Ontario.
On September 8, 1987, during the course of an election campaign in Cambridge, the Premier speaks on automobile insurance. The headline of the article is, “New Democratic Party Basing Insurance Plan Just on Wishes, Premier Says.” This is the article, I say to the people of this province, that contains the direct quotes of the Premier on what his goals, as a majority government, will be for your auto insurance rates for the next four years. This is what he says:
“‘If the Liberal government is returned to office in Thursday’s election, it will reintroduce legislation to freeze insurance rates, require rates to be set according to drivers’ records, not age and sex, and roll back by 20 per cent rates for taxi drivers and young male drivers who now pay the highest premiums because they are considered a high-risk group.’ Dismissing raised charges of being an insurance industry apologist, Petersons says, ‘I have been called lots of worse things than that. We have a very specific plan to lower insurance rates,’ he said, although he refused to estimate how much his plan would reduce rates.”
I want to repeat that quote: “We have a very specific plan to lower insurance rates.” That is what the Premier is reported to have said in the newspapers across this province on September 8, 1987. He has never reduced auto insurance rates since he was elected. He is breaking his promise. He allowed a nine per cent rate increase in the first year he was in office and he is now prepared to sit back and let the chips fall where they may as 40 per cent auto insurance rate increases come in for the people of Ontario.
This is the same man who 15 months ago promised he would reduce rates. He promised he would reduce rates and now he is going to allow them to increase. These Liberal promises made during the election campaign have been broken time and time again, and the Premier does not even apologize for saying one thing during an election campaign and doing exactly the opposite when he gets into office.
It is not just with this; it is with so many other things. Not only that, he has not ended, even in this proposal, the discrimination against drivers in various parts and districts of Ontario based on where they live. He has not ended that discrimination at all. You will recall that the specific complaints in the 1987 provincial election, raised by members of the New Democratic Party and by others, had to do with auto insurance rates in northern Ontario, particularly in northwestern Ontario, as the members of that party will tell you.
What do we now have in the Mercer recommendations? We have something called proposed differentials on the basis of board territories. What does it show? On a province-wide average of 1.00, if you live in territory 20, which is the district of Cochrane, that is, Timmins, Iroquois Falls, Black River, Matheson, Hearst, Mattice, Kapuskasing, Smooth Rock Falls and Cochrane, if you live in Algoma, if you live in the district of Manitoulin, if you live in the district of Sudbury, if you live in the district of Nipissing and if you live in East Ferris, your differential is going to be 1.38, or in Windsor, 1.36. That means, compared to a base rate of $621 in Belleville, you will be paying $975 if you live in Windsor or if you live in the district of Cochrane.
How about if you happen to live in northwestern Ontario, the very region of the province where the highest insurance premiums were being paid, that led the members of the New Democratic Party and others to object to insurance premiums being paid by the people in northwestern Ontario? Let’s look at that because that is territory 23.
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Territory 23 is the district of Kenora, the district of Rainy River, part of the district of Thunder Bay, the corporation of the townships of Oliver, Shuniah and Gorham. That is all territory 23 northwestern Ontario outside of the city of Thunder Bay. You will be in territory 23 and your differential is 1.63, the highest in the province.
In spite of the fact that this is the problem the Premier promised to address, that the Liberal Party promised to reform when they got into office, it still has the highest differential rate in the province and it will continue to be so. The Premier will allow it to continue. There will be no help for the driving public of northwestern Ontario because the Premier is going to leave it in the hands of the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board, and we will see what happens.
That is not leadership. That is not what the Premier promised on September 8, 1987. Once again, he has broken his word. It is time that the people threw this crew out because they will not live up to their promises and they will not honour their commitments made to the people during election campaigns. They do not deserve the support of the people of the province.
Mr. J. B. Nixon: I was surprised that I would even have an opportunity to speak on this issue today. I had a very busy schedule. None the less, I think that the third party decided this was the time for an emergency debate, so here we are today addressing a matter which they consider to be an emergency.
I ask myself, why is this an emergency? What happened that caused them to think that somehow, somewhere, something in this domain, this province, had happened to suggest that there was an emergency? What happened? Let’s look at it. An independent consultant delivered a report to a quasi-judicial tribunal. The report says various things. Various members in this House have said various things. The board is not bound by this report. The board can throw it out just like that. It does not mean anything more than we want it to mean. But unfortunately, the opposition wants it to mean a lot.
I say to the opposition, the board has a job to do. Quite specifically, its job is to set rates which are fair, neither excessive nor inadequate.
Mr. Wildman: The board isn’t going to lower rates and the board said they were going to have lower rates.
The Acting Speaker: Order. The opposition will have an opportunity to speak in another 10 minutes,
Mr. J. B. Nixon: That is its mandate. That is the mandate which it will apply to the job it has to do, regardless of what any independent consultant says, regardless of what the members opposite may say or may want to say.
In fact, I was looking at the newspaper yesterday. An advertisement was placed by the board: “Auto Insurance Rates Proposal. Public Hearing. The auto board will commence a public hearing beginning December 12, 1988, to consider auto insurance rates to be effective in 1989. Independent consultants have now issued their proposal for these rates. Copies are available.” There is your copy. You have read it and we have read it.
The board is not bound by this proposal. You read it. Public participation in the hearings is essential.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: The rates are up nine per cent already, without the board.
Mr. J. B. Nixon: The member for Windsor-Riverside should listen. I repeat. I ask him to listen. Public participation in the hearings is essential. He has the right to be heard. He should go up there and be heard if he objects.
Interjection.
Mr. J. B. Nixon: I am glad to hear that. He will be there. In fact, what surprises me is who has brought this emergency debate to this House. It is not the official opposition, it is the third party. You remember that this legislation went through committee hearings, the standing committee on the administration of justice toured the province under the able chairmanship of the member for Brampton South (Mr. Callahan). They were extensive hearings, indeed.
The third party was there. The member for Leeds-Grenville was there. What did he say when he heard about this bill during the course of the committee hearings? He was upset about its police powers. He was upset that it had the same powers as the Ontario Securities Commission and various agricultural boards. That is what upset the member for Leeds-Grenville. He thought this legislation was too intrusive, that government should not be involved in the business of auto insurance, that the government was treading the slippery slope to socialism. He thought the free market should prevail, the free market where rates were going up exponentially in 1985 and 1986. He said: “Let the free market prevail. It does a good job. We don’t need a board to review and set rates.”
Where would we be without the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board, I ask? The 35 per cent to 40 per cent a consultant says is needed might be minimal compared to what the free market would have dictated. That is what the third party wanted: the free market. It is hypocritical, indeed, for members of the third party to bring before this House an emergency debate on legislation which they, quite fairly, opposed in the a standing committee, but opposed it because they believed in the free market.
They never stood up during the election and said: “Let’s watch those insurance companies. They’re gougers. They’re ripoff artists.” The member for Nipissing never said that. The member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope) never said that. They ignored the insurance companies and they ignored consumers because it is not in that party’s interests. This emergency debate is purely a political shenanigan, indeed, sham, because one consultant has issued a report calling for substantial rate increases to an independent board.
Now let’s talk about the official opposition. What does the opposition party want to do? They want to take over the insurance companies. They want to run them themselves, because these men of the opposition can run the insurance business better than the business which has been doing it for 60 or 100 years.
What happens, I ask, when they do? When they do take it over, as they have done in Manitoba, as they have done in Saskatchewan, as they have done in British Columbia, we find that not only do rates increase more than 20 per cent a year as approved by cabinet in those socialist, I might add, provinces; what is worse, you get ministers of the crown fiddling with the books, telling the auditors not to disclose liabilities on the order of $60 million or $70 million. It happened in Manitoba. That is what an election was fought over: auditors being told by a minister of the crown to bury the losses of the Manitoba Public Insurance Corp. That is the solution of the opposition party.
I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that there is only one party which has come forward with a solution, and it came forward with a solution which will bring to this province automobile insurance rates which are fair, neither excessive nor inadequate. The board has a job to do, without political interference. It has been doing a good job and it will continue to do a good job, because there are very able and intelligent men and women on that board, supported by an excellent staff, who will have the benefit of full public hearings that none of the members here will have.
I dare say I am concerned that the member for Windsor-Riverside may not appear at those public hearings, even though he is invited to. That is his job, to represent the public, but I do not hear him saying: “I’ll be there.” It is much easier to sit here in the House and debate an emergency that really does not exist at all.
The members are right. The Premier did say something about automobile insurance rates in the election, and the member for Windsor-Riverside wants this debated. I am happy to do that. The Premier said he had a very specific plan, and the plan is composed of many, many elements. The members ain’t seen all of them yet.
The problem is that all they have to rant and rave about, unfortunately, is an independent consultant’s report. Unfortunately, it is pretty thin material to make a speech on. It is even thinner material to have an emergency debate on. None the less, the members opposite seem willing and to desire to entertain themselves on the basis of -- once again, I add -- an independent consultant’s report.
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Be that as it may, one of the jobs of the board is to establish risk criteria that accurately reflect the risk associated with individual drivers and car owners, something that every insurance corporation, whether it is public or private, does and will continue to do.
I do not find that objectionable. What this government found objectionable was the use of age, sex and marital status as a basis for discrimination -- and disability, I might add. We found that objectionable, just as, in the 1950s in the United States, the Supreme Court found the use of race and religion to be objectionable as risk criteria in insurance. We agreed and got rid of those objectionable risk criteria, because we thought it was right. That is important.
Another thing that we are doing is setting a set of risk ranges for prices to be charged which cap the top rate that will be permitted to be charged for any risk criterion, something that has never been done before.
In the course of doing that, the board has to look at what drives the cost of premiums. Whether you are looking at a public insurance corporation or a private insurance corporation, it is the cost of claims that drives the cost of premiums. I would submit to the House that that is what the president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada said, the president of Autopac, and what the private insurers here will say. It is a problem that we all have to address. But I say in terms of this independent consultant’s report, it ain’t over until it is over. Hold your breath and wait for the decision of the board.
Mr. Mackenzie: The issue at stake here is one, very clearly, of both the credibility and the integrity of this government. What has happened today just adds to a long list of serious questions the public can ask in terms of just how long the people can be lied to and whether it will wash.
Let me say very clearly that both of the old parties have opposed the position this party has taken in terms of public auto insurance. We fought the last campaign on it. We made no bones about what we believed. We argued that the nonprofit way was by far the best way to insure people.
I would like to point out that Mel Swart, my colleague, tried desperately to get this Liberal government to study the western provinces where they have the plan in place. We have heard some criticism of it here today. This government flatly refused to widen that inquiry to cover the three provincial plans. That was the Liberal government that refused to consider those three provincial plans.
I want to make a point. I will leave it there with the members of this House. There have been Conservative, Liberal and Social Credit governments elected in those provinces after the New Democrats put in place public auto insurance. Why have they not, in a single one of those provinces and on a single occasion, tried to rescind those public auto insurance plans? I will tell members darn well why they have not: because they would not get away with it, because the people like them. Sure, we made a mistake in Manitoba. We had gone several years without an increase, as most of the members know, and it was a stupid move, I suppose, doing it all in one year. But it was done publicly, the public knew what was going on and we paid the price for it. The facts are that all three of those provinces have plans that are cheaper than the auto insurance for the people here in Ontario, considerably cheaper.
Now let’s take a look at something else. This government was under fire in the last election, before it got its big majority, on the auto insurance issue probably as much as on any issue and, thanks probably to my colleague Mel Swart more than anybody else. It got through to them.
I want to quote from the April 23 statement that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology made: “It is clear to the general public and it is clear to me -- the automobile insurance rate structure is arbitrary,” said the minister at a Queen’s Park media conference. “While overall profitability increases, some consumers continue to pay unjustifiably higher premium rates with no recourse for their shabby treatment in the marketplace.”
The minister said the government had deliberately given the insurance industry both the time and the opportunity to voluntarily improve market fairness, but the response has been inadequate.
Never mind. Let’s just deal with that for a minute. Whether he liked it or not -- because it is obvious now that this government is an apologist for the insurance industry -- he had to admit that there were real problems in terms of the private coverage of automobile insurance purchasers in Ontario.
The Liberal Party made a major commitment, most of it towards the end of that election campaign, based on the campaign that we had launched and the fact that people were asking questions -- I know they were asking them in my own riding and across this province -- about public auto insurance vis-à-vis the problem we were having with private insurance coverage in Ontario.
That led to some rather strong attacks on our party by the leader of the Liberal Party, now the Premier. I do not think it can be stressed too often, and I hope the public is listening and I hope it registers with all of the citizens in Ontario, that in acknowledging that there were problems, but denying that our approach was the good one, the Premier did say, “We have a very specific plan to lower insurance rates,” although he refused to estimate how much his plan would reduce the rates.
There is no question exactly what the commitment was of this Premier. I could go on to some of his other quotes, in which he said, “Hey, your approach is not right.” In effect, a little stronger than that: “We’ve got better answers to the problem.” And he set up the board.
It is interesting. When this board was set up by this government, what do we find? We find that the figures they have used to come up with the possibility of as much as a 40 per cent increase were supplied by the automobile insurance industry. Now, that may be all right as far as both the Liberals and the Conservatives are concerned, but I know from my own dealings in trade union negotiations that you do not just automatically accept the company’s figures. You look for some independent verification. We did not have that. What we had was holus-bolus acceptance of the insurance industry’s figures. And what do its figures say? Well, its figures say that, of total premiums earned, of $3,149,000,000, a 40 per cent increase would mean $1,260,000,000 more in gross earned premiums. The insurance industry also said in 1987 that it had lost money. It did not. That was not the truth either.
We get this kind of figure, this kind of potential increase, which this government is willing to run with at the moment. It may not be what finally comes up. That may be part and parcel, I guess, of the job we are trying to do here today to bring back a little bit of honesty to this government, but that is what it comes up with in the report that is the reason for this debate.
All members of this House will forgive me if I say that we know where the Tories stand on it, honest and upfront, although I totally disagree with their position on it. You know, the real battle is with the Tories, who say, “Hey, we don’t believe in a public plan.” I think this debate is a little bit phoney in the way it has been conducted, but they say that very clearly. They never have. We have always known where they stood.
The facts are that the Liberal Party does not believe in it any more than the Tory party does. The real problem is, who is getting the biggest donations from the insurance industry? Take a look at some of the returns. That is really what is at stake here.
The difference in the two parties is an absolute opposition to a public plan from the Conservative Party, and the Liberal Party, whose members talk like New Democrats when they are up against it in an election campaign and say: “Hey, we’ve got to do something. There is something wrong with the auto insurance plan. We’re going to come up with a board.” But the minute they are elected with a big majority, that has gone right down the drain and they show their true colours, that they really did not mean it. They will talk like New Democrats, but they will not act like them. They act even more right wing than the Conservative Party. I think that message has to get through to the people in this province.
I think the other thing that we should take a clear look at is what has really happened. I think my colleague the member for Scarborough West was right on today when he said that today was not a particularly good day for the Liberal Party.
Mr. Laughren: He said there was an odour.
Mr. Mackenzie: An odour is probably the mildest way to put it, but I ask the public in Ontario to take a look at this, to take a look at the Premier, the leader of the Liberal Party, and to take a look at the Liberal Party now that it has its big majority in these chambers and to take a look at what has happened over the last short period of time.
Sunday shopping: At least some of them supposedly were against it. All of a sudden, we are now having a long debate in this province over a total about-face from what the public thought was the position of this party.
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Sales tax increases: We had a debate just the other day on them. The Treasurer was always dead set against these. It is the very first major tax, a $1-billion grab, that he brings in after they get their big majority.
Workers’ compensation: Never before have we seen a bill as regressive, that is going to hurt workers as much. But all of a sudden it comes in from this Liberal government now that it has its big majority.
Free trade: We all remember the debates and the arguments we have had in this House: “There will be no deal if this and this and this commitment is not met.” They got their big majority and they have dropped the ball so fast it makes your head spin.
They have deceived the people of Ontario on every one of these issues. They have done it on plant closure and safety and health legislation. We have waited a year and a half now and we do not see the legislation; we are not hearing it at all. That was something this Premier put his signature to, and we are not seeing it in this House.
Now we have auto insurance. I could go back, but I will not, to his statement once again: “We have a plan, a positive, a definite plan to reduce the insurance rates for the people in the province of Ontario.” What is happening? We are seeing today, in the approach they have started to take, that this promise did not mean a bit more than any of the other promises that were made by the Premier and the Liberal Party in the province of Ontario.
I think the message -- and I think today probably did more to drive it home than any other day since the majority was elected to this House -- is that you cannot trust this Premier, you cannot trust this party. It seems what is happening is that the people of this province have been given a number of positions that, in fact, were not the truth. You really have to wonder how long they are going to get away with lying to the people of Ontario.
That is really what is at stake: the integrity, the honesty of the Liberal government of Ontario, which has backed off issue after issue that affects ordinary people, the latest one being the issue of automobile insurance, where it clearly has fumbled the ball here, just as it did on sales tax increases, Sunday shopping, workers’ compensation, plant closures and free trade. On every one of the issues where they made commitments, they have backed off, and that message has to get through to the people of Ontario.
The Acting Speaker: If I might just interject here a moment, we seem to be treading a fine line on parliamentary language. When a member has the floor, the member has the right to address the House without interjection. I hope that we would all respect one another and the rights of one another.
Mr. Villeneuve: I too rise with some degree of apprehension to discuss the Mercer report, which was used, in theory, by the Premier and by the Liberal candidates coming to the general election of September 1987 stating emphatically that the Premier had a specific plan to reduce auto insurance rates.
I find it somewhat strange that the member for York Mills (Mr. J. B. Nixon) would tell the Legislature and the members of this Legislature to be heard. Well, they are great people to tell us to be heard. I distinctly remember sitting on the standing committee on administration of justice listening to presentation after presentation regarding Sunday shopping.
This government was elected on an anti-Sunday-shopping platform. Immediately after, about a year ago, the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) made an about-flip totally. We now have the Premier doing a total about-flip. His quotes of September 7, 1987, bear repeating: “You can say anything you want, but the point is, if you aspire to government, you’ve got to be credible and base things you say on accurate information, not just wishes and theories.”
That is the credibility that this government and this Premier were talking about. It is what we are discussing in emergency debate today, a 35 per cent to 40 per cent increase in auto insurance rates when indeed the Premier told us he had a specific plan to reduce auto insurance rates. Under rather intense questioning today, he did not even skate well on the issue. He did not answer, and he certainly did not outline his specific plan to reduce auto insurance rates.
I come from an area of Ontario very close to the province of Quebec. They have a different type of insurance over there from what we have. I took time to phone a high-profile insurance agent in my riding who happens to be situated very close to our neighbours in Quebec. The plan over there is a combination of no-fault and private insurance. I specifically asked to compare the rates of a specific situation: a car owner-driver in the city of Montreal and one here in the city of Toronto.
In Montreal, for $1 million liability coverage, $250 deductible on collision, $50 deductible on comprehensive, the annual premium is $675. In Toronto, here in Ontario, for identical coverage the total premium is $567. That is a difference of more than $100. The real kicker in this one is that in Quebec, under a system where there is government intervention, the automobile driver, in order to obtain his driver’s licence and the licence on his vehicle, also has to pay additional insurance.
Therefore, with the interventionist situation in our sister province -- and no one has mentioned a great deal about Quebec -- they have considerably higher premiums, exactly what is happening here in Ontario after having received by this government, and particularly by this Premier, a short year and three months ago, assurance that we would not have an increase in auto insurance, that he had a specific plan for the reduction of automobile insurance premiums.
As we can see in Manitoba, the Pawley government went from government to third place less than one year ago strictly on automobile insurance premiums. It is rather ironic that we would be discussing this in this chamber today, because this is what will happen to this government. Inevitably, it must follow. When we see 35 per cent to 40 per cent increases on the same day the Minister of Community and Social Services scratches a great deal to find a five per cent increase for those people who are receiving some social assistance from this same government, I think it is rather ironic and certainly sad.
I have a couple of cases here that I think are worth mentioning, because they apply to yours truly very particularly. A 50-year-old driver from Scarborough: I happen to be that age, though not from Scarborough, and I have an 18-year-old son at home who also drives the family ear. The increase in automobile insurance premiums for this situation -- and this strikes home -- is an increase of 65 per cent. I also have two daughters, who were not being charged because they have not had accidents. They are stated on the insurance policy. I have two daughters, both under 25. They drive the family car. That is an increase of 37 per cent.
That is from the same Premier and the same government who told us they had a specific plan to reduce automobile insurance premiums. Those who are in the age bracket I am in can look around their kitchen tables tonight at those who are eating supper and just figure out the 200 per cent increase they will be paying if they happen to have a son and a daughter sitting with them.
This is the same government, the same Premier, who tell us they will have hearings. Great; he will have hearings. Again, remember the Sunday shopping hearings? Well over 90 per cent of the people who made presentations sincerely, earnestly and honestly believed they were being listened to. Go to the standing committee on administration of justice right now and see how well they were listened to. No one can even put an amendment in this particular legislation. No one in this government is listening.
They have 94 members and they feel that that gives them the absolute right, the absolute power, the absolute everything just to bulldoze their way through. They are not even prepared to answer questions that were put to the Premier today. He did not even skate well on the questions that were put to him.
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In summary, look at anything in any area where government has pried itself into private industry, private business. I do not care what they call it. They can call it no-fault. They can actually say and try to make the people believe that through some magic formula they will be reducing automobile insurance rates. The plan the Premier had is long gone. I would suggest that the plan never existed. The plan was there for a September 10 date with the public of Ontario. That was the plan. The result was a large majority, and the plan disintegrated immediately following the results of that general election.
In conclusion, I am very disappointed that this government sees fit to nail the public of Ontario with a 35 to 40 per cent increase following statements that just have a great deal of noncredibility. It is a rather sad day for this province. Certainly the people of Ontario are not about to forget the situation that occurred here on December 6 whenever they go back to vote on a government that did lead them down the garden path.
I conclude with the Toronto Star headline:
“Car Insurance Could Cost 40 Per Cent More.” If it were in any other paper, we might have some doubts about it, but it is coming out in the Liberal mouthpiece of the government of Ontario and we have to take it for what it is worth.
The Acting Chairman: The pages have asked me to draw to your attention the fact that the clock does not appear to be working. It is now well past 5:30 p.m. We will have to guide ourselves by the digital clock.
Hon. Mr. Elston: I was really prepared to go for as long as the clock stayed before six. I guess this means I have less time than I realized.
I have been quite interested in the debate as it has turned here today, because it really evidences for us some of the great weaknesses in our opposition colleagues. Where are they indeed when it comes to protecting the consumers?
Mr. Villeneuve: We are not misleading as the government is, Murray.
Hon. Mr. Elston: No, not in the literal sense. In the figurative sense, where are the members opposite when it comes to protecting the consumers of this particular province? Where are those people who are officially sponsoring this resolution? This is of course something interesting in itself, bearing in mind that these particular people are stealing -- at least apparently trying to steal -- the issue away from the official opposition. These people, the people in the Progressive Conservative Party, had been very quiet about this.
What are they talking about when they talk about protecting consumers, when they talk about this emergency debate we are designing here today to finish? They are talking about doing more, and not even doing more to consumers. They are going to implement over a time period of seven years or something some number they are not even prepared to tell consumers the adequacy of. They are prepared to let the industry do exactly as it has done before, without letting consumers come up with the data behind the rate-setting which has gone on to this date.
This particular auto board, which has done a lot to eliminate the mystery in the rate-setting structure, will provide the consumers with timely information so they can compare the products offered by various companies in the marketplace. In fact, the better informed the consumers are, the more productive and the more competitive the marketplace. I can say that type of activity is what we are looking to provide to consumers. Knowledge provides them with the benefit of an understanding which to this point they have been unable to find.
What about the second party, the opposition party at the moment officially? They are wedded to a system which they say has worked well in a couple of other provinces but which, they must now acknowledge, saw extremely high increases in premiums not that long ago. What they have failed to tell the people of this province is that with respect to those publicly operated insurance programs, there are certain expenses which have not been fully provided a public airing because they have been funded by taxpayers’ dollars.
They are hiding behind an inability to clearly set out the full costs of the management and running of those particular programs. I do not blame them for doing that. I do not blame them for clouding the issue and I do not blame the third party for attempting to cloud the issue.
I can tell the consumers of this province that we in the Liberal Party are dedicated to empowering them by providing them with the information that they need to make sensible, sensitive and timely decisions on the purchase of a product which is mandatory in this province: auto insurance.
This is not the only thing we are doing to assist the consumers of this province. We are providing initiatives in the Insurance Act which will see the end of certain practices which say, “We will give you deals in automobile insurance only if you give us the rest of your insurance business in the property line” -- the so-called tied selling.
That issue is to be debated fully later on, but I can tell members that we are prepared to empower the consumers of this province to understand fully the product line which is available to them, to be able to understand what company X, company Y and company Z have to offer, and they will make informed choices. They will manage to underscore the necessity of keeping a very highly competitive nature active in this industry.
Let me tell members a little bit about the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board and what it is charged to do. The board is charged to take away the mystery that surrounds an industry which has caused problems right through the North American continent for consumers. Only from this point, everybody is concerned about the cost of auto insurance premiums and the fact that they are escalating.
What the board has said is that this is a problem and it wants to understand exactly why the problem exists. The board has set down a series of hearings which have been open to the public, and do you know something, Mr. Speaker? In the course of each one of those hearings, the member for Leeds-Grenville, the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen), the member for Parry Sound (Mr. Eves), the member for any one of those opposition parties could have appeared in front of that board and said, “We want to tell you something.” But those people had nothing to say, though they have another chance.
They can appear in front of this board as it goes on with the hearings that will start to deal with the proposed rates which the Mercer report has provided to the board. They can go there on Monday, December 12, along with the rest of the people who want to find a solution and work creatively to ensure that the consumers of this province are not disadvantaged when they bring together the rates for payment of auto insurance premiums.
There is some thought that the creation of a public insurance program should be done because the government of Ontario does not have to make a profit. There are some people who pull that line out of a particular editorial and say that because it is government money there is no cost associated with it. I can tell the honourable members here that to set up a structure there are costs associated with government money just like any other money, no money is free. There are charges that are associated with putting money aside to deal with the types of reserves and other matters which are needed to fund any kind of an insurance program.
Let us just understand that there is nothing associated with this particular program, that is auto insurance, which can be delivered for nothing. We must have an understanding of the costs. The auto insurance board is providing not only the members of this Legislature with an understanding of those costs, but also the people of this province with the same understanding.
The people in the province can participate along with all the other players in this game, consumers’ associations, members of the industry, people who deliver the service through brokerage and otherwise, who have come constructively to this point in front of the auto board and provided timely and very helpful advice to the board as it has considered various issues along the way.
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What do we have today? What we have are a number of members who have at one point spoken, as the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) has, and who wish to speak again. But he has unfortunately been unable to appear in front of the board where these decisions are being made, to speak in a timely and helpful manner to assist the board in carrying out its mandate, which is to put a fair premium, or at least a range of rates, in place for people. He has been unable to find his way to go to this stage to make that presentation.
But the member can still go. Starting on Monday, December 12, he can appear and tell us what he knows about the insurance business and make a presentation in front of the board. In fact, as I have been told by the chairman, and it is underscored in other areas, the board is willing to sit evenings and even at other times to accommodate the member’s busy schedule, so that his helpful advice will be taken into account when we set the premiums through that board decision.
From my point of view, what we must understand is that the people of this province should know that there is no emergency in this province at this time with respect to auto rates. The board is doing what it was charged to do. They are holding the public hearings. They have a recommendation in front of them, a recommendation only, and their charge now is to take that recommendation along with other evidence that comes before them, along with other material, and assess whether or not the report and its recommendations are to be adopted.
They will do those things very professionally, as they have in the past; they will do those things very thoroughly, as they have in the past. As an example of what they have done in the past, I want people to understand that they took a classification suggestion at another hearing time and did a study on that, had their hearing on it and then modified it to fit the material which came before them. They did their job in a very professional and thorough manner.
I want the people of this province to understand that there is no emergency with respect to insurance premiums in this province at this time.
The Deputy Speaker: Thank you.
Hon. Mr. Elston: This particular debate underscores the fact that the opposition really is not being straight with the citizens of this province.
Mr. Allen: I would like to participate in this debate and to comment upon the nature of the emergency which escapes the Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet (Mr. Elston). In passing, by way of commentary on one of his little notes, it would appear that he is not just the minister in charge of Management Board.
He also appears to be able to manage the truth with some facility in order to perpetuate the myths that have been done year after year not only by the members opposite but by the members to my left, with respect to government-sponsored insurance in western Canada, the notion that somehow or other there are additional incomes that come into those plans from general revenues and costs that are not accounted and all the rest of it, in order to skew the rates that westerners -- in particular, British Columbians, Saskatchewanians and Manitobans -- pay for their insurance.
Let me just take the one simple example of what is always referred to, Manitoba, which in the late 1970s thought perhaps it would be useful and a very fair proposition to levy an additional tax on gasoline in order to make a charge across the users of the road system to provide for the costs of maintaining the road system. That was levied as a part
of the tax system in Manitoba. Because it was levied on gasoline and because it was levied on motorists, it was assumed that the tax was also attached somehow or other to the insurance system.
When the government received certain criticisms that this taxation might appear that way, it decided that the argument was not worth the candle and gave up the tax and that was the end of the story.
That has been used as the great example from Manitoba as to how it is that somehow the nefarious public plan, which the people in Manitoba love so well, somehow leans upon public taxation and incorporates that into the calculation of premium costs. It has nothing to do with it whatsoever, and yet it is trotted out by the industry and it is trotted out by ministers of the crown who ought to be somewhat more responsible in their use of the facts when speaking in this Legislature.
I want to read a quotation from the much-quoted article that appeared in the Toronto Star of September 8, 1987, which has been used so often in this debate. It is a somewhat different quotation, “Peterson dropped in on small town fairs yesterday, watching a hay threshing contest in Milton and seeing his wife, Shelley, flip a rubber chicken into a pot at the Paris fair after he failed,”
This might not seem to have any connection to the earlier material in this story, but for one thing, it might suggest that perhaps the Premier is not always successful in his enterprises and that perhaps he is bombing out on this one as well when it comes to automobile insurance. Certainly, all the earlier remarks make it quite clear why the Premier did not have the capability of flipping the chicken into the pot. It is quite obvious that the references he makes to what is necessary to be credible simply fall flat because his own promises of lower premiums, of a systematic plan to keep premiums low and lower for Ontarians, simply was unproven by the facts as they unfolded, and by time as it unfolded.
Perhaps the other comment one might make on that little aside is that the chicken, after all, even in Shelley’s hands, remained a rubber chicken and that what we have been given after the election by way of insurance fare is essentially the equivalent of a rubber chicken, nothing that would satisfy the consumers in Ontario with respect to their insurance rates.
Of course, it is true up to a point that the threatened rates that appear in the Mercer report, the 35 or 40 per cent, are not in place at this point in time, but anybody who knows the alarm with which Ontario drivers view their insurance costs, and anyone who views the practice of the board to date, namely, a constant drift upward in insurance rates, would realize that the important time to act and respond to this proposal -- which comes, one would have to say, virtually directly from the insurance industry to the rate review board -- is immediately we see this kind of proposal being made. No, it is not in place today, but it could easily be in place, figuratively speaking, tomorrow.
Since it is based on insurance company claims with respect to profitability, since the government made it quite plain when it set up the insurance review board that profitability would have to be kept in mind and since at that time the insurance companies, in spite of their profits, were claiming they were not profitable operations, we made it quite plain at that time that our expectation was that this review board would be the vehicle by which the insurance industry would be enabled to make its claims to profitability stick when it came to construing the rates that would be levied upon the drivers of Ontario,
There is every reason to fear at this point in time that what is being proposed in this most recent document by Mr. Mercer will come to pass and that we are in what might be called an incipient crisis, if not in a crisis that has immediately arrived, for the drivers of Ontario.
What we are also facing, of course, is a continuation of the kind of discrimination we have been trying to overcome, While in the past the discrimination has been sorted out in a slightly different way, what we have is a so-called new class plan that merely replaces age as a risk class with “years of driving experience,” which is to say exactly the same thing all over again in so many words -- as in point of fact, Mr. Mercer himself not long ago quite readily acknowledged, saying that “years of driving experience” was simply an exact surrogate or euphemism for age.
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As a member of a family that has two young drivers in it, one of whom is still in his teens and the other just escaped his teens, I have to say that “years of driving experience” amounts to precisely the same discrimination against two young drivers in our family who are thoroughly responsible, have driven many miles in the family car and have had no accident record whatsoever, and I do not anticipate any at their hands. Yet they still will continue to be discriminated against under the proposed rates that are being brought forward.
It is quite evident. Anybody who in any impartial capacity has ever examined the western plans against the auto insurance system in Ontario has come to the conclusion that they are fair, effective and cost efficient, that their returns for the premium dollar are unmatched in Ontario. That is in spite of the fact that the per insured automobile rate of accident and the per automobile rate of bodily injury insured in western Canada, in particular in Saskatchewan, are higher than in Ontario. That may strike some people as strange, but Ontario in fact has a low per insured vehicle rate of accident and bodily injury.
Why, given those facts, we should have a so much higher rate of auto insurance premium is simply quite inexplicable, unless one turns to the very structure of the industry itself, a competitive system through multiple deliverers that is quite inefficient, quite inappropriate and would provide much better service for us were it to be converted to a single public plan and operated as a driver-owned insurance system in Ontario.
Mrs. Marland: I must say, in rising today to speak in this emergency debate, that I would rather debate were not necessary on this subject. I would rather the Liberal government of Ontario was fulfilling its promises to the people of Ontario.
However, I do not have a choice because our Progressive Conservative caucus today found it necessary, in the interest of the people of Ontario, to move a resolution that we debate the report now before us in terms of the massive auto insurance premium increases that are going to be faced by the people of Ontario as a result of the Liberal government’s mismanagement and as a consequence of its failure to honour its commitment to introduce a very specific plan to lower insurance rates.
I suppose it is even significant that this report, Insurance Rate Proposal for Ontario Private Passenger Automobile, prepared by William M. Mercer Ltd., dated December 5, 1988, is bound in black. I think that in itself is significant.
I think it is significant that the people in Ontario today recognize this is a black day in Ontario, as it is every time we have something that comes before us that confirms again that the Premier and the members of the Ontario Liberal Party, as they campaigned around this province in 1987 with their promises of remedies and solutions for everybody’s problem, were giving promises and assurances they never intended to fulfil.
In quoting from a newspaper in Toronto on September 8, 1987, I think it is important for me to read this into the record because it outlines very clearly what it is the people of Ontario are now facing.
“Meanwhile, Peterson repeated that if the Liberal government is returned to office in Thursday’s election, it will reintroduce legislation to freeze insurance rates, require rates to be set according to drivers’ records, not age or sex, and roll back by 20 per cent rates for taxi drivers and young male drivers, who now pay the highest premiums because they are considered a high-risk group.
“Dismissing Rae’s charge of being an insurance industry apologist, Peterson said: ‘I have been called lots of worse things than that. We have a very specific plan to lower insurance rates,’ he said, although he refused to estimate how much his plan would reduce rates.”
I emphasize that he said “specific plan to lower insurance rates.”
I also want to quote a statement made by the then Minister of Financial Institutions (Mr. R. F. Nixon) in the Legislature on November 4, 1987, when he said:
“Our insurance board will be effective in meeting the needs of Ontario consumers. It will be a made-in-Ontario board with a fair hearing process open to full public scrutiny.
“The mandate of the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board will be to establish reasonable rates or rate ranges for all types of motor vehicle insurance within the risk classification system set by regulation and to hold public hearings on automobile insurance rates, inviting representations by all concerned parties.”
That was in November 1987.
Mr. Villeneuve: A 180-degree turn.
Mrs. Marland: In October of this year we hear again that, “Although in January the Minister of Financial Institutions, Robert Nixon, told the Legislature’s justice committee that the government had a very clear purpose in mind when it brought in the initiatives on car insurance, ‘that purpose,’ said Mr. Nixon, ‘was and continues to be to ensure the protection of consumers and to bring stability and equity to the motor vehicle insurance market. It is our intention that all the facts be out on the table so that the public can understand the factors that go into the making of insurance rates they pay.’”
I have to say that with all of those grandiose statements, today we are faced with the reality as printed in the Mercer report. Obviously, now that the truth is out, we know those have been hollow, shallow, meaningless promises and assurances.
The only good news about this situation today, of course, is that the Liberal Party of Ontario will never again have the mandate from the people of Ontario that it received in September 1987, because the people of Ontario are intelligent, fair and responsible people and do not deserve to be treated with the sham and betrayal this Liberal government is foisting upon them.
The fact is that we do have these broken promises, one after the other. It does not matter what issue you pick, whether it is the fact it promised not to change Sunday shopping hours or whether it promised to lower insurance rates and promised not to increase taxes -- promise, promise, promise. To suggest that the electorate in Ontario is so naïve it would fall for those promises ever again by the Liberal Party in Ontario is to be living in an unreal world.
I just want to say that in speaking about the real world that applies to my constituents -- a suburban community such as Mississauga, a city of 400,000 people, has many thousands of people who have to commute to work -- when I look at these insurance rates, it is going to be impossible for a lot of people in my community to be able to afford to drive their cars to work. The reality is that this Liberal government does not even believe in increasing the GO Transit service to give those people who cannot afford to drive and own their own motor vehicles an alternative as far as transportation is concerned.
The sad part about the incompetence of this government is that while they have made promises and broken them and while they have betrayed the people I represent in Mississauga, they are still going around with their big smiles, thinking they have this province under their own control. I suggest, with respect, that I hope in the future we will have more honesty from the government.
The Deputy Speaker: The time allocated for the emergency debate has now expired. The government House leader has a statement to make on the business of the House.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Mr. Conway: For the information of the House, I would like to indicate the business for tomorrow. We will deal with third readings of bills 160, 66, 78, 139 and 140, and with second and third readings of private bills Pr6, Pr9, Pr18, Pr32, Pr42, Pr53, Pr55, Pr63 and Pr65, after which we will continue with the adjourned debate on the revenue bills, Bill 121, An Act to amend the Gasoline Tax Act, and Bill 122, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act. Assuming the conclusion of those matters, we will take a series of stacked votes at 5:45 p.m. tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.