Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House met at 1330.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

EDUCATION FINANCING

Mr Beer: If people had been expecting this government to make a priority of education, events since the election have shown that this simply is not and will not be the case. Last fall in the government's throne speech little was said about education and its importance to the wellbeing of society.

Then, last month, the government announced that its overall support for education has fallen from 41.5% of total operating expenditures in 1990 to 40.8% in 1991, all this after making a clear and specific promise last summer to raise the provincial level of support to 60%.

To make matters worse, the minister, in testimony before the standing committee on finance during its prebudget deliberations, stated that what the NDP meant by 60% two years ago, last year and especially during the election is no longer its position. Now the minister says that they will add various expenditures which were not previously included to make their overall percentage support look better.

To make things even worse, again, the minister admits that there are serious problems with the overall system of educational financing and that the NDP tax commission will examine this issue but, and it is a big but, she says this review will take three to four years. Clearly, whatever the educational financing problems are, they cannot be that serious, in the government's view, if it can take over three years to solve them. Local school boards and local ratepayers need a much clearer and more specific plan of action.

We have heard six months of NDP rhetoric on education. Now we have seen the action, or should I say the inaction. Holy zonkers, education is not a priority for this New Democratic government.

CUSTODY AND ACCESS

Mr Carr: My statement is to the Attorney General. Later today the standing committee on administration of justice will once again be examining Bill 17. We feel this is an important piece of legislation and one which must be dealt with immediately. When we go into clause-byclause, our party will be proposing a number of amendments.

Unfortunately, another concern will not be dealt with by this government in this piece of legislation. I hope the Attorney General will be moving quickly to outline the government's position with regard to access. We have heard moving testimony from parents and grandparents who have been deprived of access to their children and grandchildren. Support is an important part of the equation; access is also important and the failure of this government to deal with both sides of the legislation goes to show how insensitive it is.

The right of parents and grandparents to access is something which this government should proceed with as soon as possible. In order for society to deal with the problems of support, custody and access, the government must show some backbone to deal with the whole equation. I urge this government and the Attorney General to prepare a plan to ensure that parents and grandparents are allowed to see their children and grandchildren.

HANSARD REPORTING SERVICE

Ms Haslam: If everyone has looked below their desks, they will notice that in the official records of Hansard we actually have the official report of debates from yesterday. Rough transcripts, for those who have been here before, used to be available on the day after, but a final printed version used to take three to four days. As of yesterday, 18 March, the final printed version will now be available by 11 am on the following day.

Mr Jackson: Oh, we have a private second printer, is that it?

Ms Haslam: The member for Burlington South is interested. A disc recording each day's proceedings goes out at the end of the day and the printed copy is produced literally overnight. The Hansard office is justifiably proud and I commend it on its efforts on our behalf.

CURLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Mrs McLeod: Sports and recreation are enduring passions in my community. Individuals and teams from Thunder Bay often attain national championships, Olympic medals and other sporting achievements. I am proud today to tell the members of this House that last week two more teams from Thunder Bay brought home national championships.

Skip Eila Brown and her teammates Bette Toskovich, Eileen Shiver-Wilson and Arline Wilson captured the senior ladies' curling championship in Victoria. Jason Repay and his teammates Trevor Clifford, Scott McCallum and Aaron Skillen curled to victory in Leduc, Alberta, at the Canadian junior championships. Jason and his teammates were coached by Jim Glenn.

Both rinks had impressive records en route to their win. Eila Brown's rink achieved an unbeaten record throughout the tournament round robin, a rare feat in curling championships. Jason Repay's rink had eight wins and three losses in its round robin.

I am very pleased to be able to acknowledge another example of excellence from my community, and indeed, from Ontario. I know all members join me in offering my congratulations to both of these teams.

DEVELOPMENT CHARGES

Mr Tilson: I read with interest recently that the Premier and the Minister of Education endorsed the use of lot levies as an effective way of financing new school construction. I find it amazing that this new government embraces a policy it so heartily opposed as recently as August.

On 21 August 1990 the Leader of the Opposition sent his response to the Toronto Home Builders Association election questionnaire. When asked about whether he felt lot levies were an effective way to fund new school construction, he stated and I quote: "I strongly disagree. Lot levies are simply a new method devised by the Liberals to duck responsibility for the provision of important services around the province. Lot levies are a method appealing to Liberals because it gets them off the hook and dumps the cost on to new home buyers."

In government, the NDP has proven that its memory is as poor as its judgement. The flip-flop Premier is now comfortable ducking his responsibilities and dumping the costs on to new home buyers. "What was then? This is now" has become a motto of this government as it breaks a promise a week. The tired Agenda for People should be renamed an "Agenda for Power."

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STUDENT EXCHANGE

Mr Drainville: In the effort to bridge the gap between North American society and the emerging democracies of eastern Europe, it is not only the work of governments such as ours that should be recognized.

I am pleased to bring to your attention the foresight of the Kiwanis Club of Lindsay in sponsoring a student exchange with Czechoslovakia. This is the first such effort by the Kiwanis organization in eastern Ontario. On 20 June, Petra Dohnalova will start her 41-day stay with Melissa Gillogly. Melissa will then journey to Prague on 31 July for the second part of the exchange.

Melissa Gillogly was chosen from a field of eight applicants in Lindsay Collegiate and Vocational Institute for her high academic standings as well as for her commitment to community service. Currently she is participating in a co-op education program with a local law firm and is actively involved in organizations such as Students Against Impaired Driving, Toc Alpha, an international youth and citizenship group, and HOBY, an international youth leadership group.

I have taken this opportunity to highlight just one of the many efforts taking place in my riding of Victoria-Haliburton, and indeed right across our province, to promote understanding and goodwill by our citizens. These efforts show the foresight of a workaday people that solutions to large problems can be found through simple acts of kindness and generosity.

I want to take this opportunity to thank them.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr McGuinty: This House heard the disturbing news from the Treasury yesterday regarding our province's economy and the devastating impact the recession is having on employment. The Treasurer provided us with further depressing statistics regarding the number of jobs lost.

Statistics can help us to better understand the impact of the recession, but only in a limited way. Statistics are scientific in nature. They are abstract. They are cold. They make reference to numbers, and if we rely solely on statistics for our impression of the effects of the recession, we can lose sight of what should be the most riveting and tragic dimension, the human dimension.

The cost of job losses to men and women, families and whole communities goes far beyond those that are economic in nature. Studies have shown that an unemployed man or woman suffers from tremendous stress. The outlet for the stress is too often violence and too often it is violence within the family. This stress can also result in other kinds of crime, including theft. We also know that an unemployed person suffers a loss of self-esteem and selfconfidence, and this regardless of the fact that the cause of unemployment was completely unrelated to the person.

A person who loses his or her job is much more likely than a person who kept his or her job to become physically ill, to be admitted to a psychiatric institute, to become an alcoholic, to go to jail and to commit suicide. Within the family unit itself, unemployment works away like an insidious cancer, putting a strain on relations between spouses and between parents and their children.

I urge this government, I implore this government to develop and implement a program immediately to address the very real and specific needs of those affected by loss of employment.

LONG-TERM CARE

Mr Jackson: The NDP's long-term care policy remains a mystery in this province. Seniors and persons with disabilities feel let down by a government that has not announced any major long-term care reform initiatives in the seven months it has been in power.

Recently, the mediator in a collective agreement with 44 nursing homes said he would not arbitrate further disputes in the nursing home sector again until the government reforms the system and provides improved funding to Ontario's 300 nursing homes.

Justice Holland, in his recent judgement which considered whether funding of nursing homes violated the charter, stated, "It would be appropriate to base funding on individual need, whether the individual be a resident in a nursing home, a home for the aged or in a private home." The PC Party has long believed that the current extended care system for the elderly in nursing homes is outdated, for the existing system does not recognize the changing conditions of residents.

In 1986, I introduced an amendment to the nursing home residents bill of rights to ensure that residents' assessed needs are met, yet the NDP and Liberal parties voted against those amendments, even though it would have ensured a life of dignity for institutionalized seniors with expensive and challenging needs.

The Bob Rae government has demonstrated a willingness to avoid issues of importance to seniors and persons with disabilities, and it is unacceptable that there is so much uncertainty surrounding long-term care services in Ontario, and even more so that the ultimate losers are seniors and persons with disabilities or, put another way, all the citizens of Ontario sooner or later.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

The Speaker: Before proceeding to statements by ministers, on 20 December last the honourable member for Markham rose on a point of privilege, complaining of statements made by ministers outside the House and not during the period normally reserved for statements by the ministry under standing order 31. I want to thank the honourable member for his detailed presentation, which reflected a good deal of research in order to demonstrate the rightness of his case.

However, I must find, as many Speakers before me in this House and other Houses have found, that it is not a question of privilege, nor is it a point of order, for a minister to choose to make a statement outside the House. In effect, our standing order 31(a) states: "A minister of the crown may make a short factual statement relating to government policy." The member will realize the important word here is "may."

Finally, I would like to quote Speaker Lamoureux on 30 October 1969, when he addressed the House of Commons on this very matter:

"The question has often been raised whether parliamentary privilege imposes on ministers an obligation to deliver communications to the public through the House of Commons or to make these announcements or statements in the House rather than outside the chamber.

"The question has been asked whether honourable members are entitled, as part of their parliamentary privilege, to receive such information ahead of the general public. I can find no precedent to justify this suggestion. There may be in such circumstances a question of propriety or a question of courtesy. There may be a grievance, but in my view there cannot be a question of privilege."

Again, I thank the member for having brought this to my attention.

ADVERTISING BY MEMBERS

Mr Elston: On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: I want to bring your attention a violation of the privileges of the members of this House with respect to some activities carried on by the member for Downsview. As you will know, part II, article 6, section (f) of the guide tells us that we are not supposed to be using partisan material in terms of our Queen's Park reports. The front page of the report of the member for Downsview, which clearly shows "Queen's Park Report" with a picture of Anthony Perruzza with the following caption, "Anthony Perruzza, MPP, Downsview, NDP," with their insignia, has been mailed out and in fact is a violation. I would ask you to look into this and correct the error.

In fact, Mr Speaker, I think that in this case, because these events are taking place on numerous occasions in the caucus of the government party, you should ask that the expenses for this mailout as a partisan piece of political material be reimbursed to the Legislative Assembly.

The Speaker: I appreciate the point of privilege raised by the member, and perhaps he would be kind enough to send me the material. I will look into it and I will report back to him at my earliest convenience.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

PROTECTION OF IN-CARE RESIDENTS

Hon Mrs Akande: On behalf of myself and my colleague the Minister of Correctional Services, I would like to advise members of the action that our government is taking in response to the recommendations of the Review of Safeguards in Children's Residential Programs.

The previous government commissioned this report after the serious allegations of physical and sexual abuse to children and youth who were residents of training schools in the 1960s.

The review team, headed by Joanne Campbell, who was then chair of the Social Assistance Review Board, was asked to investigate the systems and safeguards that were currently in place within government-operated or government-sponsored residential programs. As members know, we received the report in January and distributed copies to every member of this assembly.

We are using the recommendations to help us focus and reinforce the government's efforts to do everything possible to ensure the safety of children and youth in residential programs.

Towards this end, the government is providing additional training for agency investigators who deal with allegations of abuse, staff who license residential programs, and those working in young offender programs administered by the Ministry of Community and Social Services.

We are improving information programs for children and youth on how to use complaint procedures and other safety measures that are in place.

We are reviewing organizational structures and staffing practices for young offender programs in Correctional Services, as recommended.

We are introducing and monitoring new standards and procedures for investigating allegations of abuse of children and youth with developmental disabilities.

We are improving advocacy programs for children who cannot speak for themselves. This will be done in consultation with the Ontario Association for Community Living.

We are reviewing in the Ministry of Correctional Services its young offenders service delivery philosophy, reinforcing positive attitudes towards young persons with special needs and continuing to promote its commitment to the provision of the Young Offenders Act requirement for separate and apart facilities.

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The government also intends to review how the Young Offenders Act is being administered in this province.

This action plan is already under way. Components will be carried out in phases.

The Ministry of Community and Social Services has identified $1.5 million from existing funds to begin the implementation. Overall costing will depend on the options chosen for action. For instance, the model for advocacy for the developmentally disabled will have to be finalized before costing can be completed.

As a further commitment to make sure that this action is carried out, we have asked the office of child and family service advocacy to monitor the implementation of these initiatives, and both ministers will undertake to keep the House informed.

This government is already acting to improve the safety of people in many different, potentially violent situations. We are acting on the issue of wife abuse and investigating the needs of such vulnerable people as the elderly or the developmentally disabled who live in unlicensed boarding homes. We are looking to improve the system of advocacy for people who are at risk of abuse but need support in speaking up and speaking out.

I know that I am speaking on behalf of every member of this Legislature when I say we all want to ensure that young people are safe in this province's residential programs. Further, we want everyone to have confidence in the existing complaints procedure and its ability to deal fairly with any allegations that arise. These are the goals and in this situation, as in the others I have mentioned, this government will do everything it can to achieve them.

RESPONSES

PROTECTION OF IN-CARE RESIDENTS

Mrs McLeod: We appreciate receiving the joint response of the ministries to the Review of Safeguards in Children's Residential Programs, a response which we have been awaiting for some time since the review was initially released.

I would guess the first comment that I would like to make is some concern about the funding resources that will be put behind the initiatives that the minister has proposed today. It concerns us to see that the $1.5 million which is indicated in the announcement as the financial resource to back these initiatives is to be found from existing programs. I would have to ask in all seriousness where $1.5 million can be found within those ministries, given the fact that there are some severe funding pressures on virtually all of the programs within those ministries, and in particular the area of child welfare, in which there is truly a growing funding crisis.

Certainly I think the response is an indication of a receptiveness to the findings of the Joanne Campbell review and the need for the ministry to establish very clear standards and very clear protocols and practices for following through on the part of staff. We will look forward to seeing those standards established and look forward to understanding the kind of monitoring procedures which will be put in place.

We are appreciative too of the fact that the minister has responded to the clearly identified need for increased staff training. That will be fundamentally important to ensuring that the safeguards can be put in place. There is also an indication, again following the recommendations of the Campbell report, that there will be greater empowerment, greater advocacy, on behalf of children in residential settings. I would have hoped perhaps that it could have been somewhat more specific because the report, the review on safeguards, was very specific indeed, that "MCSS and MCS require that all service providers establish procedures to notify the parent or guardian of a child/youth in their care of a young person's rights and responsibilities and the agency/facility complaints procedures," and, further, that those "standards, policy and procedures be revised to require that the rights and responsibilities be reviewed with children and youth every six months."

Perhaps one of the greater concerns we have that the minister has not responded to is that there is no indication that there is an intent to look at the recommendation to end the split jurisdiction between the Ministry of Community and Social Services and the Ministry of Correctional Services for their jurisdiction for young offenders. This was clearly a recommendation of the Campbell review, that both ministries should look at this with a view to ending the separate practices and separate approaches and in fact the split jurisdiction.

We are also concerned that there is no indication of whether or not there is an intent to proceed quickly with a further recommendation of the Campbell review, and that was to proclaim the sections of the Child and Family Services Act dealing with intrusive procedures. Clearly, in that review that has been tabled it was felt that this would be a significant part of establishing protocol and practices and in fact training for staff.

There is also a concern that we feel that many of the reforms that are needed are dependent upon the involvement of our child welfare agencies, that they will in fact have greater responsibilities. That leads to the concern again about funding resources and the fact that there is indeed a growing crisis in child welfare agencies now. We are very much concerned that there have not yet been transfer payments to the child welfare agencies announced and we are indeed alarmed that there has been no response to the recommendations of the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies that there be a significant reallocation, realignment of policies, programs, objectives and indeed funding.

When this review was undertaken, it was in response to very serious allegations of abuse that we responded, when we were then the government, by setting up this review of safeguards for children in residential settings. There was at that time a very strong call on the part of the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Premier, that there be an independent inquiry into the issue of safeguards in residential settings. We felt that we were unable to undertake that at the time because it was under investigation. There is now a judicial process under way, and in no way would we want to prejudice that judicial process, but we do believe nevertheless that there continues to be at the end of that judicial process a need for the government and its ministries to undertake that independent inquiry so that we can ensure that the concerns of residents in residential settings and the concerns of their families are fully aired and fully responded to in as sensitive a way as possible.

Mr Jackson: I am concerned as I rise to respond to the report of the Minister of Community and Social Services to the House today. I am concerned because I find that as lacking today in information as it was when the minister was before the standing committee on estimates less than a month ago, when substantive questions were raised to her with respect to her government's plan to address these important issues. I am quite concerned about what I am seeing and not seeing in this report, so let me share with the members of the House some of the areas of concern that I think the minister will hear from the community at large, with its continued concerns unaddressed here.

First of all, there are 67 recommendations in Joanne Campbell's report, and from my nearest examination of this report we have less than six of them addressed as part of the minister's statement today.

One of the most important ones is the issue of staffing in these institutions. We know that a young woman, Krista Sepp, gave up her life in this province and brought to the public's attention the concerns of understaffing, of nightshifting, and we do not have a clear statement from the government where it stands. I have heard informally that perhaps if older males were to be on staff we would not need to have younger women involved. I find that kind of approach offensive and I certainly do not appreciate, nor does my colleague critic the member for Oakville South appreciate, the notion that we should just review organizational structures and staffing plans at this time.

I can tell the minister that the disabled community is most concerned. If the minister is going to introduce new standards to protect against the abuse of children and youths with developmental disabilities, then I remind the minister that People First, the organization that advocates for disabled residents in institutions in this province, has asked her for standing before the inquiries into the deaths of friends and her government has so far insisted that it not have standing.

I want to tell the minister of her point that there will be advocacy programs for children who cannot speak for themselves, and yet her ministry was dead silent on the issue of providing language and speech pathology services to children with Down syndrome and who are with members of the Association for Community Living in this province. The government will provide an abundance of funding for children to learn a third language in this province, yet we cannot provide the funding for speech therapists and speech pathologists for these children to learn one language to communicate. It is a shame that this government had nothing to say about it.

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What did we get in this report? The minister is going to improve advocacy. Maybe she should spend some money on an internal adviser who can talk to her as minister about the needs of these children so that some day they can at least communicate in one language in this province.

Perhaps the most important concern that we have is the very veiled reference to reviewing the Ministry of Correctional Services' young offenders service delivery philosophy. I have stood in this House and warned members that in Children First we have some very dramatic recommendations that we transfer the responsibilities for young offenders -- 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds with criminal conduct -- and that report recommends that they be moved from the Ministry of Correctional Services into the Ministry of Community and Social Services. If that is the true agenda of the minister, please come out and say that. Do not veil it with, "We're going to review a delivery service philosophy."

These are matters of substance. At least, they are in the community of Burlington South, where we have at least two residents who are currently incarcerated for committing murder, and I can tell the minister that my community will be most anxious to get some straight answers as to whether or not these young offenders belong in a social service agency or belong or should be tried in adult court. These are matters of substance and matters of concern, and I find, I am afraid, the $1.5 million to continue to look at the problem sorely lacking.

Mr Carr: I just want to say that I am very pleased that we will be reviewing the organizational structure. I actually had a little bit of an opportunity before Christmas to spend some time at the Syl Apps Youth Centre and actually spend some time on an information picket line while some of the workers were concerned about some of the staffing and procedures. So I hope the minister will take some time to spend and look inside exactly what the procedures are. I actually had a tour to see the facilities and to judge at that time, so I am hoping the consultative process will take place with the workers as well.

ANNIVERSARY OF MEMBERS' ELECTION

Mr Sterling: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Just prior to question period, I would ask for unanimous consent to celebrate a very important day today for seven of our members and I would ask everybody to consent to that.

Agreed to.

Mr Sterling: I believe it was somewhere around approximately 28 new members who were elected to this Legislative Assembly 10 years ago, on 19 March 1981.

Mr Sorbara: A dark day.

Hon Mr Cooke: Wasn't that one of the realities of March 19th?

Mr Sterling: Some called it a dark day; some called it a day of enlightenment.

Seven members from that election still remain. They are my leader, the member for Nipissing; the member for Parry Sound; the member for Markham; the member for Simcoe East; the member for Leeds-Grenville; the member for Bruce; and the member for Parkdale.

Mr Speaker, in this last election, which I know you enjoyed much more than the 1981 election on a personal basis, you will have noted that there were 70 new members to this Legislative Assembly. That means that if ensuing elections produce the same kind of result, there will not be many 10-year anniversaries that come to many members of this Legislative Assembly.

I think all of these members have shown an ability to be not only elected the first time and represent their constituents in an exemplary way, but they have proven to their constituents on four occasions that they are in fact worthy representatives, and I think they are to be congratulated on this anniversary of their 10th year as members of the Legislative Assembly.

Hon Mr Laughren: I recall that recent event back in 1981. I recall that the election was called, I believe, on 2 February for a 19 March date. I remember it because it was a bitterly cold day and then a cold wind swept across Ontario yet again on 19 March that same year.

But I do want to congratulate the members who were elected on 19 March 1981. There is --

Mr Harris: Nobody.

Hon Mr Laughren: Nobody among my colleagues who was elected then, but I do wish to congratulate those members who were elected on that date.

Mr Nixon: I too want to extend my best wishes to this residue.

Mr Eves: That is the nicest thing the member has ever said about me.

Mr Nixon: I too remember the election, and somebody interjected when the unanimous consent was granted that as a result of that election, the byword for the next many months, in fact years, was "the reality of March 19th," which was supposed to satisfy the people sitting on this side that the democratic process had worked and the government's restored majority, the Progressive Conservative majority, had the right to do whatever it wanted.

It is interesting, there is sort of a little phrase that seems to catch with each election. I can remember a previous one when there was a very substantial Progressive Conservative majority. The Premier used to rise in his place in response to criticism and say, "That is why you are over there and we are over here," and I used to find that a little bit galling. But the one that is now becoming the earmark of the present administration is, "That was then, this is now." So I think probably the NDP have found their watchword, their totem, their slogan.

But in spite of all this, of course, we are honoured indeed to be associated with these kind of semiveterans. In our own instance, both members are highly respected and good friends who have accomplished a good deal here.

ROBERT FISHER

Mr Nixon: I think, just in passing, we should also mark the 10th anniversary of a member of the press gallery who came into these precincts just a decade ago, probably the most moderate and perceptive member of the electronic media, a person who has shown a lot of good balance, and I simply ask you to guess who it would be, Mr Speaker, but his initials are Robert Fisher.

The Speaker: Electoral anniversaries, of course, are a very important thing to try to remember and recall, and the kind remarks are certainly appreciated. As you know, the Speaker will at some point in the next little while enjoy his decade of elections. However, based on his career, it is almost impossible to determine when the 10 years will actually happen.

Mr Nixon: Perhaps Mr Speaker could send a copy of the remarks to the grieving families.

ORAL QUESTIONS

MEMBERS' CONDUCT

Mr Nixon: My interest in the matter of first ministers' cabinet judgements is similar to that of the former Leader of the Opposition, and on that basis I would like to ask the Premier for some further information on the basis of his judgement to fire the former minister, who has just completed an hour on the CBC phone-in, which I am sure will give plenty of grist for tomorrow's question period.

The comments attributed to the Premier have been varied in this regard. The one that I think is most important and the one that should give his colleagues pause is reported in today's Toronto Star: "It's a matter about my judgement... And that's really the beginning and the end of it." Just remember that one.

In fact I can understand the Premier's views on this, but one that I want to ask him about is the following, "We simply can't have a situation where ministers are volunteering all kinds of policy ideas and the next day it's described in one of the papers as the Rae plan." I wonder if the Premier will tell the House if in fact that is a valid reason for dismissing somebody from cabinet and if he can comment, since it is his own words that are reported, as to whether that was a basis for the dismissal of the member for Welland-Thorold.

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Hon Mr Rae: I do not think I have much to add to what I said yesterday in answer to a number of questions. What I said in the House yesterday and what I said in answer to at least two press scrums was I think consistent with the view that I have long held, and that is that this government has to work together as a team and that as the Premier I have to make a judgement as to the makeup of the team and how it can work most effectively. That is my political responsibility; that is the responsibility that lies with me.

I really do not think it is necessary and I do not have a whole lot to add to what I said yesterday in answer to what was a pretty full question period of very specific questions that were put to me, to which I gave a similar answer, and that is still my answer.

Mr Nixon: I would agree that the Premier's comments in here have been consistent, but his comments to the press have not. He has been much more forthcoming with them, and I can understand why, because in fact they can continue to ask questions and pursue him in this, but he clearly indicated and is reported to have indicated that he was upset with the former minister's behaviour in talking about matters pertaining to cabinet discussions, which was inappropriate, and it is interesting, since the only one that could be, surely, was his outspoken view on sexism in beer advertising and tobacco ads. The Premier's Minister without Portfolio responsible for women's issues was just as outspoken and perhaps even more effective, and yet that did not seem to bother him in any way.

Since he clearly indicated to the public, if not to the members of this House, that that was a concern of his, would he indicate why it was all right for the minister responsible for women's affairs but was tantamount to reasons for dismissal in the case of the other minister?

Hon Mr Rae: I think, if I may say so, the Leader of the Opposition, who is a person with more experience in this place than almost anybody, will know that he is looking for a specific incident or saying, and I say to the Leader of the Opposition, I have to make a judgement about the overall makeup of the cabinet, about overall conduct, about the way the cabinet is working, and I say very directly to the Leader of the Opposition, that is a judgement that I have to make, that is a judgement that I exercise.

It was not easy. It was a judgement that was necessary, in my view, in order for the government to have the strongest possible team as we face this legislative session and as we face the future in the province.

There will be other changes. Cabinets change. Over time cabinets change. People who were here in 1981 will know that there were many cabinet changes between 1981 and 1985, there were changes between 1985 and 1987, there were changes between 1987 and 1990, and I can only say to the Leader of the Opposition that I have made a change for the reason that I have given in this House and that is as clear a reason as I can possibly give.

Mr Nixon: I accept the fact the Premier has the power and he exercises it, but we are interested not that he made the decision, but what was the basis of his judgement. Surely that phrase must recall to the Premier his days in opposition, where the sanctimonious approach that he took in that regard probably more than anything stimulates me to pursue the issue.

Since he was prepared to fire the member for Welland-Thorold over that matter and retain his minister of women's affairs, since he was prepared to fire the member for Welland-Thorold over that matter and retain the Minister of Colleges and Universities and the Minister of Transportation, who had clearly conveyed cabinet secrets to NDP cronies in Hamilton, then it really comes to this -- actually, it is exactly what the Premier himself has repeatedly put forward in this House, and I quote him, "It's a question of what the Premier's standards are." That is what he said to Peterson: "Would the Premier not make the decision between the behaviour of some and the behaviour of others and clearly tell us what his standards are?" I quote the present Premier. Will he clearly tell us what his standards are?

Hon Mr Rae: Let me just say to the Leader of the Opposition that I can understand his emotion with respect to what has happened in the past and I just say to him that I think I have set out my standards as clearly as I possibly can. I said I want the caucus and the cabinet to work together as a team, that I think it is necessary for us to express in everything we do a sense of solidarity, a sense of partnership with each other and with all the people of the province. That is certainly a message that I have delivered ever since I was elected on 6 September and ever since we took office on 1 October, and that remains the standard today.

ECONOMIC POLICY

Mr Nixon: Well, the Premier declares that he has got some esoteric standards that cannot be conveyed to the House and that he makes a judgement and that is the end of it and everybody better beware.

I have a further question for the Premier, that I was impressed, actually a bit frightened, by the Premier appearing on the steps of the Parliament Buildings last Saturday with a number of vice-presidents of the New Democratic Party, who are also presidents of the major labour unions of the province, to castigate the government of Canada for its policies, which according to the Premier have led to unemployment in this province.

What his motives were in that connection the rules do not allow me to discuss, but I would like to ask him this: While he was blaming the government of Canada for all of the economic ills of this province, did he tell the rally that Ontario has lost 282,000 jobs since his government took power last 1 October and that Ontario has the worst job creation record in the country this winter?

Hon Mr Rae: I think the people who were there know far better than either I or, I would suggest, the Leader of the Opposition, how many jobs have been lost. Many of the people who were in the crowd themselves were unemployed. They did not need a lecture from me on what the numbers were. They know those numbers. They feel them every day. Their families experience them.

If the Leader of the Opposition is saying that high interest rates and an overvalued dollar have nothing to do with the problems that we face today, then I would suggest that perhaps he might compare notes with his Treasury critic yesterday, who made that case extremely eloquently in the House.

Mr Nixon: The Premier would know since, as he says, he is well aware of these facts, that six of the provinces, which are also subject to the same incredibly bad policies of the government of Canada, had employment increases year over year which are well established statistically, that the province of Ontario fared worse than all the others.

Presumably, however bad the government of Canada is its policies apply equally across the nation, and in my view he should have been fair in talking to this NDP claque that was gathered out on the front steps here with his imprimatur. Did he tell them, as a supplementary, that for example in Hamilton alone, a community that has been hard pressed by the downturn in the economy, his policies to stop the Red Hill Creek Expressway specifically did away with 11,000 jobs that were clearly planned and financed by decisions made previously by the government of Ontario?

Hon Mr Rae: I just want to say to the Leader of the Opposition that I think his bitterness about a meeting of trade unionists and his bitterness towards the leadership of the trade union movement is really -- I mean, he is entitled to his views, but it is really not a very progressive attitude to reflect in a province in which we are trying to say positive things about business and labour at the same time. Let's face it. It reflects the views of another era that really do not have much place in the partnership that we are trying to create in the 1990s.

Let me say in answer to the question, which was specifically to do with the Red Hill Creek Expressway, that from the day the decision was taken it has been made very clear to the regional municipality in conversations that I have had personally with Mr Whynott as well as with the mayor of Hamilton, Mr Morrow, conversations that have been had with the Minister of Transportation as well as at the staff level, that we are prepared to put all the money that was supposed to go to the Red Hill Creek Expressway, all that money can go to other projects and we are prepared to advance those projects and to advance the money. We have made that very, very clear to the regional authority in Hamilton.

1420

Mr Nixon: The Premier is well aware that the work was about to start, and with his approval it was stopped. What happens in the future we will look at very carefully. But on his decision, the work and the investment was stopped and 11,000 jobs are not found in Hamilton.

I want to ask as a final supplementary, is he aware that the $700-million program to create jobs, which is often phrased by not the Treasurer but the Premier and others as a billion-dollar program to create jobs, is in fact going to spend only about $34 million or $35 million this year, although he has had all the press releases and the benefits of the announcements that will be spent in the next fiscal year?

He would be aware then, being closely associated with the Treasurer, that in fact we take in, in just a bit under two hours in the cash flow that comes into the Ministry of Revenue and under the direction of the Treasurer, the amount of money that the Premier, under his direction, is spending on creating jobs this winter.

That is a little complicated, but I simply put it to you, Mr Speaker, because I have the following quote from the Premier himself, 18 November 1982, a period of time directly compared by the Treasurer with what we are having now by way of economic downturn. The now Premier, then leader of the third party said: "I wonder whether Frank Miller does not think that job creation is worth spending more than two days of provincial revenue. We lost 28,000 jobs last month."

We are losing 50,000 jobs a month on average with the labour-socialist government that the Premier leads. Does he not think that perhaps we should be a little more effective and efficient in allocating money, rather than just making the announcements, so that it is spent when the people are unemployed and need it?

Hon Mr Rae: I would say to the former Treasurer that it is true that up until the end of March of this year, of 1991, $34 million will have been spent.

Mr Nixon: That is eight months of this government.

Hon Mr Rae: No. Some $500 million has already been allocated as of now and will be spent through the year, and that additional $700 million, which is going to generate, according to the agreements that we have already arrived at with the municipalities, $940 million by the end of the next fiscal year. That represents, together with the $500 million in tax relief on the retail sales tax not being added to the GST, the most substantial --

Mr Elston: You are not going to lose $500 million; there is revenue coming in.

Hon Mr Rae: We are the only government in Canada that is taking this approach as aggressively as we are and we are being criticized for it by other parties and other people. We are putting more money into the economy precisely in order to generate those jobs.

It is a very tough time for the province. We are in a difficult recession. It is having an impact on everybody's budget, including ours. But I want the Leader of the Opposition to know that nothing has a higher priority, for me personally and for our government, than to see that this investment program works and that we do everything we can to attract investment, new jobs, new job creation in the province. That has to be the message from this point on.

Mr Harris: And the more you spend, the worse it gets. But neither one of you seem to have learned anything from this.

Interjections.

Mr Harris: Well, 1982. That was then and this is now. Members heard that, so that is what is happening.

MEMBERS' CONDUCT

Mr Harris: My question is to the Premier. Yesterday and today the Leader of the Opposition and I have attempted to -- we tried and failed to understand just what is or what is not acceptable behaviour and what standards there are that could be understood by the cabinet, by members of the NDP caucus, by members of this House and by the public, and I would like to focus on that for now.

In December it was all right for ministers to breach cabinet confidentiality. "They were only making a mistake." That was his quote. Yesterday we learned that is not necessarily the way things are. It is all a matter of the Premier's judgement. I would like to ask the Premier, since he has given himself the right to sit in judgement on these issues in the absence of clear guidelines, is it good judgement, for example, for a member of his cabinet, already well paid by the taxpayers, to be living in taxpayer-subsidized housing?

Hon Mr Rae: I think the question that the member is referring to is the fact that the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who I appointed yesterday, the member for Riverdale, is now, has been for many years, long before she was in politics and after she was elected in politics, a resident in a co-operative development in which there are people of different income levels, which has been the approach of the co-operative movement which has been supported both by the federal government and by the provincial government -- and by the member's government and by the previous Liberal government -- so that we have to avoid the possibility of ghettoization.

Now, the member for Riverdale, when she was the member for Riverdale, announced a couple of months ago that she was moving out. She indicated that to the co-op. She is moving out in a very few weeks. That is a personal decision on her part. But I would say to the leader of the third party that the fact that there are people of different income levels who are living in co-op housing is in fact part of the purpose of co-operative housing, where you have subsidized units and market value rents and rents that are at non-market value. That has been the policy of both federal and provincial governments, and she has made a decision to move out. That is our position.

Mr Harris: I would point out to the Premier that all of the units are subsidized massively, as he knows, by government. In fact, the minister said last summer before she was elected, she was just on municipal taxpayer dollars, she was embarrassed then to be living in "government-subsidized housing," not embarrassed enough to move out but embarrassed then, and still there.

But we are trying to get a handle on the Premier's standards. Let me ask him this. We know, and some of it has been reiterated, what the Premier considered to be good judgement when he was in opposition. I would like to know if he thinks it is acceptable and good judgement to appoint an individual as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of the Environment, knowing that her spouse worked as a consultant for both Laidlaw Waste Systems Ltd and Tricil Ltd as a main source of income? As the Premier well knows, both these corporations have major investment and interest in government decisions on environmental issues. I wonder if the Premier considered that good judgement.

Hon Mr Rae: Let me just say to the leader of the third party that the member for Riverdale has demonstrated in my view great capacities in her responsibilities as parliamentary assistant for the Minister of the Environment. I am very proud of the work she has done for the Ministry of the Environment. Our guidelines with respect to spouses are published and are clear. I do not want to go back to an era, and I would hope that the leader of the third party would not want to go back to an era, where spouses were prevented from carrying on the work that they have done for a lifetime in terms of where they have been.

Mr Eves: That is not what you said about Elinor. Talk about a double standard. That was then and this is now. Talk about an arrogant attitude. Back to the oneparty system.

Mr Bradley: Too bad they do not burn Hansards. Too bad for you.

The Speaker: I am sure that the leader of the third party is pleased that his questions have evoked quite an interest. He would like to place another supplementary.

Mr Harris: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Mr Sorbara: Let's have an apology right now, because we do not want to go back to that era, except for an apology.

Mr Bradley: Let's go through the old Hansards.

Mr Eves: That was then and this is now. Welcome to the one-party system in Ontario.

Mr Sorbara: Let's never go back to that. We never want to go back to it. An apology would be appropriate, nothing more, just "I'm sorry for doing it." We just want an apology. "Elinor, we are sorry for what we said and did."

1430

The Speaker: The leader of the third party has waited patiently to place his supplementary. One member in particular has caused the elapse of 30 seconds from the leader of the third party's time. I would ask that we replace 30 seconds on the clock. Please allow the leader of the third party to place his supplementary question.

Mr Harris: I think we all understand that that was then and this is now. I would like, however, to ask the Premier about another matter of judgement, one that I raised yesterday. I want to quote to the Premier from the judge who handed down the sentence on the Premier's chairman of caucus, the member for Vlctoria-Haliburton.

The judge said, "Here is a person who is an elected member of our provincial Parliament, has allegedly sworn his allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen, and yet displays very little respect or recognition for the rule of law which is the very foundation of the system which elected him in the first place."

After the judge saying that, I was a little surprised to read the headline in the North Bay Nugget, "MPP Drainville Gets Posting After Jail," and this quote from the Premier, "'Dennis Drainville has demonstrated his commitment to this government and to the native peoples of this province,' Premier Bob Rae was quoted in the announcement of the promotion for his action that led to the judge's statement."

I would like to ask the Premier if he does not realize that having different standards when he was in opposition, different standards now even as he is Premier in handling different members of his cabinet, is in fact sending very mixed messages, not only to his cabinet and to his caucus, but to this House and to the people of the province of Ontario.

Hon Mr Rae: I have heard the question with care and I can only say to the leader of the third party that I think the standards are certainly clear to my colleagues in cabinet, clear to my colleagues in the caucus and clear to the people of the province. Obviously I have discussed them with others. I have discussed them with Judge Evans. Judge Evans discussed the appointment of all the cabinet ministers as well as all the parliamentary assistants. We have gone through that process.

I have gone through a period in the committee where I went and answered questions, where I am waiting for a report from the committee. I am looking forward to that report and to that discussion. If there are improvements to be made in conflict guidelines of any kind, then obviously that is something the government will be paying attention to, but I think that the standards that we have set down are pretty clear.

Mr Harris: I do not know how the Premier can conclude that. Obviously it is a cause he agrees with. He can do anything, including breaking the law, going against whatever. He obviously disagrees with the judges who are trying to uphold and administer the law with an example like this running around the province.

My second question is also to the Premier and I want to say to him that I hope he understands that I and I think all members, at least on this side of the House, and I know a number of his members, because they talked to me yesterday, are a little unclear about what is acceptable and what is not in what he has told us over the last few days.

I want to go back to something I think the Premier did say. Perhaps he could confirm this for me. When we were talking about the Red Hill Creek Expressway issue in December, when two of his ministers gave the cabinet information to NDP aldermen, he said that was no breach of guidelines, none of that, and we may disagree on that, but he said that it was inappropriate and he said that an apology was necessary.

Would the Premier clarify at least that much for me, that that type of behaviour, releasing the information to the NDP aldermen, was inappropriate and required an apology, which the two ministers gave, and would he not expect, after having done that and gone through that in December, that this type of behaviour would not be repeated? How many times is a repeat of this type of behaviour -- when do his guidelines suggest that it goes beyond just being inappropriate and is in fact unacceptable to him?

Hon Mr Rae: First of all, let me say to the leader of the third party that, listening to the example that he gave, I am not sure what exactly it has to do with guidelines. It has to do, it seems to me, with one's relationship with municipal authorities.

I made it very clear in my discussions with both Mr Whynott and Mr Morrow that I did not feel that the government had handled it all that well and I apologized to them, at which point we then returned to the substance of the conversation, which was their concern about the decision, upon which we naturally, as I think is well known, have two different opinions. But perhaps I could wait for the supplementary before answering a hypothetical.

Mr Harris: I will send over to the minister a copy of a press release. I would like the Premier to take a look at this press release which states: "For immediate release: Tony Peters, NDP association president, today announced that three communities in his" -- note "his" -- "Simcoe West riding have received capital conservation grants," etc.

Now this is New Democratic Party letterhead but this is government money. This is some NDP hack in the riding, not the member, it is not his riding -- in fact, the member for Simcoe West is sitting in this House right now -- making the announcement on behalf of the Minister of Tourism and Recreation.

I would ask the Premier whether he thinks that this hack even knowing about it is appropriate and whether it is appropriate that announcements are made of government money by any old NDP hack in any riding of this province, even though he is not capable of getting elected in that riding.

Hon Mr Rae: The leader of the third party has asked a good question, and I will obviously have to look into the facts behind it. Obviously if an announcement has been made on behalf of the government by somebody of a partisan kind, that is quite inappropriate. I would quite agree with the member on that.

Mr Harris: I hope that the Premier is getting the message that not only do we not understand what guidelines or what rules, but his own cabinet obviously is not clear, even after the Red Hill Creek Expressway disaster and a number of others that have been brought to the Premier's attention. This press release also says, "If you want more information, contact the NDP riding association." They will tell members about government money.

This press release was issued, and I appreciate that the Premier wants to investigate it. I would ask him, upon investigation, if he will call or talk to his Minister of Tourism and Recreation about the total inappropriateness of this and if he will have him apologize in this House to the true and actual member for Simcoe West.

Hon Mr Rae: I think it is incumbent upon me in all fairness to ask for the facts surrounding the press release which the leader of the third party has shown me. Let me say to him that I do regard it as inappropriate, and when I have looked into it, I will get back to him.

1440

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Mahoney: My question is to the new Minister of Financial Institutions. Might I begin by congratulating him on his new posting. I do not know if he has had an opportunity yet to walk a mile in the former minister's boots, but I am assuming that he is going to have that opportunity in the near future. That is a simple message, very clearly.

As the minister knows, early last month the US-based insurance company, Safeco corporation, whose Canadian head office is located in my riding of Mississauga West, announced that it was going to stop doing business in Canada. Safeco employs over 300 people, many of them right in the Mississauga West community, and most of the more than 10,000 auto insurance employees across Ontario whose jobs could be at risk due to this government in fact are women on top of that.

In a letter to all Safeco employees and brokers, the corporation president, J. W. Cannon, wrote: "The publicly acknowledged intention of the newly elected NDP government to establish a government controlled and operated automobile insurance system makes it very clear that we can no longer justify continuing to do business in Canada."

In addition, the Metropolitan Life insurance company announced in January that it will be shutting down its automobile and home insurance businesses in Ontario and Quebec, affecting 229 employees who will be laid off this year.

Clearly, despite the fact that Dominion of Canada fortunately has at least agreed in principle to acquire Safeco's Canadian operation, there is little confidence in the future of the private auto insurance industry in this province.

Mr Harnick: Where is the question?

Mr Mahoney: The question -- do not get too excited. I am getting to it.

Mr Harnick: We are falling asleep here.

Mr Mahoney: Well, I think you have been asleep for the first few days of this House. Mr Speaker, I am sorry, I will direct it to you.

Will the minister explain to this House, is he simply going to follow the ill-fated lead of his predecessor -- because we can only assume that is one of the reasons that he was fired -- and how is he going to justify to the people of this province introducing a costly governmentrun auto insurance scheme given the current economic situations and the numerous jobs at stake, particularly when all indicators are that the present system is working to the satisfaction of the driving public, insurance brokers and indeed the companies?

Hon Mr Charlton: I would like to thank the member for the question and to try and deal with the comments that he has raised in his long preamble to the question in a number of ways.

First, there have been dozens of insurance companies go out of the auto insurance business in this province over the course of the last five years. It has been clear throughout the last half of the last decade that the insurance industry has not been happy with its place in the auto insurance sector and with its ability to earn money under the insurance system in this province of auto insurance.

I recall that the Premier said yesterday that we still intend to proceed with legislation this spring. As we proceed to develop that legislation, the job loss potential, which the member is correct in saying is real, is a major part of our consideration in that process, and we will deal carefully with that aspect of the proposals as we develop them.

Last, in terms of the issue of whether the Liberal plan is working, the member will perhaps know that organizations meeting as late as just this morning and making press releases this morning around those that are being hurt by the current legislation and left outside of the system is going to be a growing concern with each and every day that we allow to pass without reforming that system.

[Applause]

Mr Mahoney: Is that applause for the answer or is that for my supplementary that is about to come?

An hon member: For the supplementary.

Mr Mahoney: For the supplementary. That is what I thought. I do appreciate the minister's answer, his first answer in this House, long overdue, by the way. I thought he should have been appointed to cabinet right off the bat, but clearly the Premier did not consult me.

My supplementary is that this government very clearly has a fairly lengthy mandate. I believe there is at least, what, four and a half years, plus or minus, left? I do not think we are going to an early election under the Premier. So it has a long period of time and I would ask, as I asked the former minister and the Premier in an open letter, if he will consider allowing the current system to run for at least two years during this mandate, at which time he could make a decision as the minister -- not the Premier, but as the minister -- as to whether or not there were some adjustments that were needed to perhaps correct some of the problems that might be identified in the Ontario motorist protection plan over the next two years. If they truly are totally unhappy at the end of that two-year period, they would still have the balance of their mandate and I assume that they could, within two years, bring in legislation. They would have the time to bring in government-run insurance for debate in this House. But give the current system a chance to function for the next two years. The minister has a chance to show some real leadership without getting into trouble like the former minister.

Hon Mr Charlton: Again, I thank the member for the supplementary. I do not have any intention at this point of getting into any serious trouble, although I have been known to in my life. The member should understand, though, on the one hand, the comments I made in my first answer, that there are people being hurt on a daily basis by their inability to be served by the current legislation.

Second, the member should understand fully the legislative process around this place. The introduction of legislation this spring, a public hearing process which this government is committed to and then an implementation process, in terms of any new legislation, will push us close to two full years of operation for the Liberal plan anyway and it will be clear, in absolute terms, that that plan does not work.

MEMBERS' CONDUCT

Hon Ms Churley: On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: It has been alleged in the House today that my spouse and I may have been in conflict when I was appointed as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of the Environment. I want to make it very clear that my spouse immediately resigned from his small contract job that he had with Tricil. Laidlaw bought Tricil out and that is why both of the companies were mentioned. In fact, it is one and the same company that he had a small contract with while he was writing a book. He immediately resigned from that contract. That can be easily confirmed. So I would just like to clarify that my spouse gave up his only source of income, as a matter of fact, during that time and I would like that on the record.

The Speaker: I certainly accept the member's point of personal explanation and we resume question period.

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AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Runciman: My question is in relation to auto insurance again and I would like to direct it to the Premier. I was heartened somewhat by the answer of the new Minister of Financial Institutions, but the former minister was on CBC Radio today at noonhour and I would like to quote from that. "Look, there's no big secret about auto insurance. In the caucus and in the cabinet there is a division. There is no secret about my strong association with what you might call the pro-tort group or the pro-tort faction and the fact that it is highly unlikely that I would succumb or change a great deal in that regard. And in that respect, heck, if this hadn't happened now, there would have been something tantamount to it, I suspect, down the road."

That raises serious doubts with respect to the response the new minister made. In April 1987, the Premier co-authored a document on auto insurance entitled Highway Robbery and it said on page 1, "We also believe, just as strongly, that people must retain their right to sue." Last November, the Premier was quoted in the Toronto Star, "There will be fair access to the courts." Last November, he was quoted in the Law Times, "Access to compensation has to be enhanced." And last November he was also quoted in the Globe and Mail, "The new legislation must ensure that people get the right to compensation for pain and suffering."

Will the Premier tell us whether he intends to keep his promises to the people of Ontario by restoring the right to sue for innocent accident victims?

Hon Mr Rae: I think the minister, who has responded very capably today, has indicated as clearly as possible the position of the government. I want to say to the member that the government is obviously in a process now of discussing and considering legislation. No decisions have been made. I can assure the member that the system that we will present to the House will be a fair system that will do, we believe, justice for the people of the province, and I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment beyond that until such time as the cabinet itself has had an opportunity to make a decision. I think that is fair.

Mr Runciman: I do not know how the Premier has the gall to stand up in the House today and waffle the song and dance that he is giving us. We have innocent accident victims sitting in this gallery. The new minister professes concern for those people. We had a 17-hour filibuster in this House during the last session expressing their concern about innocent accident victims in this province. Now he will not stand up in this House today and tell these people and tell people, thousands of them across the province, that he is still committed to restoring the rights of those victims. Will he not do that? We are looking for a simple yes or no. Will he keep the promise?

Hon Mr Rae: It is precisely because of the interests of the people who are in the gallery and many other people throughout the province -- I think our party has been working on behalf of them for a very long time -- that we intend to bring in new auto insurance legislation this spring.

BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

Ms Haeck: My question is for the honourable Minister of Culture and Communications. As the minister is well aware, the year 1992 is the bicentenary of this great province of Ontario. With respect to that and to the fact that the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake in the riding of St Catharines-Brock was the first capital of the province, a number of my constituents are curious about what celebrations are planned to acknowledge the historic importance of Niagara-on-the-Lake in this province's bicentenary year. Will the minister please tell this House and the province if there are plans for bicentenary celebrations and if those plans do include a role for Niagara-on-the-Lake?

Hon Mr Marchese: I would like to thank the member for the question and say that my ministry is very interested in celebrating the heritage years, 1991 to 1993, and we are looking to 1992 as the year to celebrate those events. Indeed, 1992 marks an important year in which the political and legal entity of this province was established 200 years ago. The constitutional act was enacted in 1792 and in 1792 it was the first year in which the first session of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada was opened in the current-day Niagara-on-the-Lake.

There are many other celebrations that will happen in 1992. For example, 1992 marks the 75th anniversary of Ontario women first exercising the provincial franchise, an important event, an important day. The year 1992 is also the 125th anniversary of Confederation. So 1992 will --

Mr Sorbara: Read on, Rosario, read on.

Hon Mr Marchese: Thank you very much, thank you. So 1992 will also give us an opportunity to celebrate those years in a way that I think will give sense to our collective history. I do not have a specific answer to what we are going to do to --

Mr Stockwell: You guys placed the question; you don't even know the answer.

Hon Mr Marchese: They are obviously taking some initiatives which I support. There will be celebrations across Ontario and I cannot give a --

Interjections.

Hon Mr Marchese: I have instructed my staff to develop --

The Speaker: Will the member take his seat, please? None of us may be sure if the history lesson is complete or not. With some trepidation, I ask if there is a supplementary?

Ms Haeck: Mr Speaker, there is not.

WOMEN IN FILM

Mrs Fawcett: In the absence of the Minister without Portfolio responsible for women's issues, to whom we all wish a speedy recovery, my question is for the Premier.

Ministers in the Premier's government recently announced their intention to eliminate beer advertising that is sexist and inappropriate in the 1990s and stated that "New regulations would be developed in order to tighten government controls in the alcohol advertising industry. The government clearly believes that beer ads are the worst offenders when it comes to portraying women in a sexualized and degrading manner."

Can the Premier explain the apparent inconsistencies between his government's strongly expressed views of sexism in advertising and its failure since taking office to give any direction to the Ontario Film Review Board regarding the widespread availability of explicit sex videos, particularly in the light of police and public concerns about this issue?

Hon Mr Rae: I must say to the member that I am sure the minister will appreciate her best wishes, and they are certainly shared by all of us on this side.

Let me try to answer the question. I am trying to get into the specifics of the question with respect to beer advertising. I have asked the new minister to meet with the industry to discuss the current guidelines that are in place and to have a serious discussion with him about concerns that have been expressed not only by members of this government but by others, and to say, as well, to the minister that the view -- and I want to express my appreciation to the page for having helped me out with respect to the second question because I can say to the member what I have just been advised by people, that the decision of the film review board is essentially, as I understand it, as a matter of principle, that the question of obscenity is to be determined by the courts and is to be determined under the aegis of the Criminal Code.

It is a fact that the police are still laying charges. That is their right and responsibility under the Criminal Code. They obviously have an obligation to follow the terms of the Criminal Code in that regard, and there are now two Ontario Court (General Division) decisions which appear to be opposed on this issue; so, obviously, we are waiting for clarification from the Ontario Court of Appeal with respect to whether material that is sexually explicit is in and of itself necessarily obscene, and we are trying, through the Attorney General's ministry, to expedite those outstanding appeals.

Mrs Fawcett: There still does seem to be much confusion that we hope in the near future could be eliminated. All members of this House agree on the importance of portraying women in an appropriate and egalitarian fashion in all media forms. However, this government must realize that a full and open review of its policies in these sensitive areas must be undertaken and that the government must not act unilaterally or arbitrarily in taking steps to remedy inequities.

Will the Premier commit today to ensuring that his government engages in extensive and open consultations, not behind closed doors, with respect to these issues and when we might expect these consultations to take place?

1500

Hon Mr Rae: In a word, I think there should be consultations. I think they need to be open. I think the direction in which we want to go is clear, and the need for us to have an approach which is sound and which is credible and which is understood by everyone is necessary.

In answer to the member's question, I can say to her that one of the first things I asked of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations was that she begin a process of really talking to people so that we can begin to understand the issue better.

GOVERNMENT'S AGENDA

Mr Stockwell: My question is to the Premier. Six months ago he got elected as the Premier and government of this province and he got elected on a lot of reasons, but the Agenda for People was one of the specific platforms his party put forward that seemed to be accepted and bought by the electorate. There were a tremendous number of promises made in that Agenda for People that a lot of people suggested could not be accomplished. He stood and he expressed his opinion on a lot of those issues. He came forward and said that they would implement these, making a lot of statements with respect to previous governments and not keeping promises. The people of Ontario voted for him hoping he would implement those promises.

The Treasurer was quoted during our hiatus as suggesting: "It would really be misleading to say we intend to implement the Agenda for People in this term of office. No politician likes to live with broken promises." How does the Premier respond to the statement by the Treasurer and what does he have to say to all those people in Ontario who voted for him, believing he would implement his promises and today finding out that he will not?

Hon Mr Rae: I do not think that is what the people of Ontario have experienced. I do not think that is a fair description. I think what we are saying, and I think we are trying to be as candid with people as we can about the economic situation in which we now find ourselves as a province, is that we are going to do the very best we can to implement the commitments we have made. The throne speech program is very clear and we are following that timetable as rigorously as we can and that is the process that has begun. We have put the money into the economy that we said we would do in the throne speech; we are following through on the agenda that has been established. The only thing I think that has been said, and I have said it as well, is that obviously the impact of the economy is such that we have to look at the timing as to how we do things.

There is also the question of consultation. We get criticized if we consult. We get criticized if we delay. The fact of the matter is that if we consult, things take a little bit longer and that is the fact of the matter. I think most of the people in the province who look at this on a non-partisan basis understand that very well.

Mr Stockwell: The Premier was quoted on 31 July 1990 as saying: "So I don't see that I have any alternative but to say that in the last election, Mr Peterson lied to the people of the province of Ontario about car insurance, about taxes and about free trade. I think the record is one the people of the province are entitled to hear about. I think the people will find it rather refreshing to find a political party telling it like it is and calling it as they see it, which is exactly what we are going to do."

Does the Premier stand by the statement that the exPremier, Mr Peterson, was a liar, and when he breaks his promises he is a liar? When the Premier breaks his, is it a responsible government? Some suggest that is a double standard from within his own party. I think it is a double standard too. The question to the Premier is, if Mr Peterson is the liar today that he suggested he was, what does that make him?

Hon Mr Rae: Let me say to the member -- and I am delighted that he has brought the colourful style of Metro council to this august chamber -- that what I said in the statement he has made with respect to telling it like it is, is exactly what I tried to do in the answer I gave him in the beginning, and that is that we confront the most serious recession since the Second World War. It would be strange if the first thing we were to say is that we are just going to let everything go, that we are just going to let her rip and in the space of 18 months do things that in the circumstances are not possible to do immediately. However, there are lots of things that we are doing and there are lots of things we are going to do in meeting our commitments and in meeting the agenda we have set out.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Huget: My question is to the Solicitor General. I and several church organizations and labour organizations have been disturbed by recent media reports which indicate that for the first time ever in Ontario several large retail chains intend to open for business on Good Friday.

My question to the minister is, what action, if any, is the minister planning to take on this very important issue?

Hon Mr Farnan: I would like to inform the House that we can anticipate a ruling from the Court of Appeal some time tomorrow, probably at around 10:30. If the constitutionality of the current legislation is upheld, I would advise the House it is my intention that the law be applied and enforced. Now, on the other hand, we are faced with the possibility, given the media reports, of several large retailers who have indicated that had they the option they would open. I am meeting with these retailers, senior management, at 4 o'clock today and among those who have agreed to meet with me are The Bay, Simpsons, Loblaws, A&P, Dominion, IGA and Food City. I advise the House that I shall be asking from this group voluntary compliance in not opening on Good Friday.

MINISTRY OF REVENUE

Mrs Y. O'Neill: I have a question for the Premier regarding the Minister of Revenue's decision to hold a secret meeting on Metro Toronto's market value assessment plan inviting only NDP municipal and provincial politicians. Other non-NDP municipal politicians throughout Metro were outraged and certainly felt completely left out of a discussion they felt they should be part of. Toronto city councillor Michael Walker made a formal complaint on 22 February when he said, "I'd like to know what secret arrangements they are cooking up behind closed doors." The Premier responded to accusations of cronyism regarding the Red Hill Expressway last December in this House by saying, "This partisan, preferential access was something that I regard as a mistake and something that I do not want to see repeated."

Would the Premier please confirm to this House today that the Minister of Revenue also has made a mistake in her secret meeting with NDP supporters, especially on an issue as sensitive as market value? And has he made it clear to her, and will he confirm to this House, that he will not allow preferential access to the government's agenda?

Hon Mr Rae: In fairness to the Minister of Revenue, I really think I should let her answer the question directly.

Hon Ms Wark-Martyn: A similar question was referred to me yesterday by the member for Ottawa-Rideau. I cannot verify whether or not Mrs O'Neill was contacted directly about attending a meeting on market value assessment. I know both the leaders of the other parties were offered meetings for their caucuses. They declined. Earlier this year my office contacted the offices of the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the third party at least twice to offer meetings for their caucuses on market value assessment. Those offers were declined. The Leader of the Opposition's office at one point agreed to a meeting in February, but called back to cancel. My office was told they would prefer to address the issue when the House returned. I am sorry if these invitations were not passed on to any member of this House. Perhaps they should check with their leaders' offices.

I should also point out that the member for Etobicoke West offered to present his own views, but since I wanted to hear from all interested members, we agreed with his leader's office to postpone until their caucus had discussed the matter. If either caucus has reconsidered and would like to meet with me, I would advise them to please contact my office and I will meet with all of them as I have met with city councillors in Metro. I will also inform the members of the Legislature that I will continue to meet with New Democrats, with Liberals, with Conservatives on any issue which they wish to discuss with me.

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Mrs Y. O'Neill: Mr Speaker, on a point of privilege: This is the second day in a row that I think this House is attempting to be deceived. I am positive that the Minister of Revenue knows that we are talking about two distinct meetings. The meeting she is referring to that my leader was invited to was in January. I am talking about a meeting of Toronto city council in the month of February. She knows that, and I find it less than helpful that she is insisting I was invited to a meeting or should have been invited to a meeting. I have asked her ministry for my briefing on the Assessment Act. I have not been given this and I am now going to ask for a late show on this item because I think it is very serious.

The Speaker: The Speaker certainly appreciates any differences of opinion which occur. As the member knows, it is not a point of privilege. I take it the member realizes the rule with respect to filing at the table for the late show.

Mr Stockwell: I have a point of privilege as well. Again, we are talking about two specific meetings at two very different times. Now, I was never invited to this meeting in Metropolitan Toronto or Toronto city council, and the meeting was specific to members of the NDP caucus on Toronto city council. That was not offered to us; we were not allowed to attend and the suggestion that we were invited to this meeting should be withdrawn. We never were.

The Speaker: I certainly appreciate the member's point of interest and point of view. It is not a point of privilege, as the member realizes.

Hon Miss Martel: Mr Speaker, before you continue, I take exception to the word "deceived." I think that is not permitted and I would ask that you ask the member to withdraw that. If they want to take up this issue at the late show, that is fine, but I take exception to the use of that word which implicates that this minister has not told the truth to this House and it should be withdrawn.

The Speaker: To the government House leader: I appreciate your raising the matter. I listened very closely, and while I am not convinced that the phrasing was directed to the member personally I will, however, take a look at Hansard. I will be quite pleased to do that and I will report back to you later.

MOTION

COMMITTEE SCHEDULE

Ms Martel moved that the order of the House of Wednesday 28 November 1990 establishing the schedule for committee meetings be amended by striking out "the standing committee on government agencies may meet on Wednesday mornings" and substituting therefor "the standing committee on government agencies may meet on Wednesday mornings and Thursday afternoons following routine proceedings."

The Speaker: Shall the motion carry? No?

Mr Eves: I would like to speak to the motion, please.

First of all, I have not received a copy of the notice of motion. Second, it is my recollection from the House leaders' meeting that this committee was going to be authorized by the House leaders to have one additional sitting day upon the agreement of all party whips.

It is my understanding, from talking to my whip, that the whip of the Liberal Party and the whip of the New Democratic Party agreed. They held the meeting which my whip did not even know was taking place until the meeting was in progress, and after she was informed the decision had already been made. We absolutely do not agree, and I think it is going to be very difficult to find a time, in view of this attitude, that we will agree to.

Hon Mrs Coppen: On a matter of personal privilege, please, I would like to clarify it.

Mr Eves: Personal privilege? Nobody has suspended the whip's personal privilege.

Hon Mrs Coppen: Excuse me, the honourable member, the opposition --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Would the member take her seat for a moment, please. Sometimes we move into these procedures and people are not entirely clear. There is a motion on the floor which is debatable and we are entertaining discussion on that motion and I have recognized the government whip.

Hon Mrs Coppen: I would like to participate in the debate. The committee was called. The three whips: It was set up that we were to meet at a certain time, yesterday morning at 11 o'clock in the House leader's boardroom. The member for Mississauga West from the Liberals and I sat there until 11:20. No one came. We discussed, because we have this problem; the committee does have to meet.

So we came up with the arrangement and notification was given to the whip of the Conservative party. She and I just spoke about it a few minutes ago. My staff made a statement to her to her satisfaction and it is going to be taken care of tomorrow in committee.

Mrs Cunningham: Yes, I did get a notice of meeting. No, I could not be there and I did advise the office that I could not be there. I will say this, that we tried all day yesterday to solve this problem. I have just talked to the whip and we have both agreed that the Chairman of the committee, who is our member for Leeds-Grenville, will in fact discuss this with the committee tomorrow. So there is no problem. I believe the motion should be withdrawn.

The Speaker: Do any other members wish to participate in this debate? The government House leader.

Hon Miss Martel: Thank you, Mr Speaker. You have heard all of the facts as best I can describe them from what has happened. It seems to me that if an arrangement can be worked out, I would be more than willing to try to do that. It was my understanding that it had been clarified with everyone and that is why I proceeded with the motion, as we had agreed at the House leaders' meeting that the whips would decide and get back to us. So if there has been an error in that, I certainly apologize. But as to what had happened yesterday with respect to who called whom and who did not, I cannot comment on that. You have heard what the whip has had to say and what the whip from the Tories has had to say. It is my recommendation that I withdraw the motion. We will try to proceed with this tomorrow in a way that everyone will see it and be agreeable to everyone.

The Speaker: So the motion is withdrawn and the House leaders will undertake to resolve the matter at a later date.

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PETITIONS

ABORTION

Mr Cooper: I am presenting a petition from the Catholic Women's League of St Ambrose Parish in Cambridge signed by 272 members.

RENT REGULATION

Mrs Cunningham: I am pleased to table a petition to the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It is signed by 68 tenants of an apartment building on Huron Street in London who are opposed to Bill 4, and I have added my name to this petition.

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Mr Wiseman from the standing committee on finance and economic affairs presented a report on pre-budget consultation 1991.

Mr Wiseman: I would like to thank the members of the committee for the fine work that they did over the three-week period, listening to over 60 oral briefs and reading 30 other written briefs that were presented. I would also like to extend my thanks to the library researchers and the writers who worked so diligently on this report.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

Mr Jackson from the standing committee on estimates reported the following resolutions:

That supply in the following amounts and to defray the expenses of the following ministries and offices be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending 31 March 1991:

Ministry of Energy: ministry administration, $10,940,500; policy and planning, $4,956,300; energy development and management, $29,456,700; Ontario Energy Board, $5,704,100.

Ministry of Community and Social Services: ministry administration, 46,171,600; adults' and children's services, $5,799,612,300.

Ministry of Treasury and Economics: ministry administration, $9,530,700; Treasury, $6,102,500; budget and intergovernmental finance policy, $8,198,000; economic policy, $72,152,400.

Ministry of the Environment: ministry administration, $32,608,600; environmental services, $146,380,300; environmental control, $117,403,800; utility planning and operations, $352,289,500.

Office Responsible for Senior Citizens' Affairs: Office Responsible for Senior Citizens' Affairs, $8,432,600.

Ministry of Northern Development and Mines: ministry administration, $22,021,500; mines and minerals, $51,394,700.

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

CITY OF NORTH YORK ACT, 1991

Mr Perruzza moved first reading of Bill Pr54, an Act respecting the City of North York.

Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

REPORT, STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for adoption of the report of the standing committee on general government on Bill 4, An Act to amend the Residential Rent Regulation Act, 1986.

Mr Tilson: I do have a few concluding remarks from yesterday. Unfortunately, we of course had a short delay as a result of the fire alarm.

The basis of my remarks is procedural. We feel that this motion is premature. If the House recalls the terms of reference of what the committee is supposed to do, the committee was supposed to study not only Bill 4 but the green paper being presented by the minister, even though at the time of that resolution of this House the green paper had not been introduced.

I think, second, it was quite clear that there were a large number of individuals who wished to address the committee and who had not received an opportunity to do so. The basis of the green paper has caused us a great deal of concern. There had been, up until some of our comments earlier, a secret as to where these hearings were going to take place. We are now starting to receive telephone calls and messages, from this party at least, as to where these places are being held. However, now we are being told we cannot speak at these things. So bring out the cardboard cutouts. I guess that is all we can do.

I think the point of my remarks is that the process is greatly flawed. The Legislature requested the committee report on the green paper, and now the minister has interfered with the proceedings and is taking his own hearings around the province, some of which are public and some of which are not, none of which we are allowed to speak at. In fact, there have been some concerns by some groups. There is a newspaper report from Windsor which talked about comments that were made by a ministry employee who answers the 800 line dedicated to scheduling appearances. It was stated that private hearings are being arranged by invitation only and the public sessions are screened before a person can even make a 7- to 10-minute presentation, a most strange procedure from what is normally conducted by committees of this House. The news release continues by saying, worse still, that you can ask all the questions you want during your seven minutes, but as we found out in Barrie and Ottawa, the minister is not obliged to answer anything. So these presentations are being made but there is no consultation at all. Again, I repeat that the whole process is premature and the committee should be allowed to do what we were requested to do.

My concluding remarks, if I could continue, are that I would like to certainly admit that from my comments yesterday I was successful in getting at least one witness before our committee who really made an impression. I would like to remind the members of this House that back in 1982 the former Conservative government initiated the Commission of Inquiry into Residential Tenancies, best known to us as the Thom commission, and the first volume of the commission's report was released in 1984, while the final report came out in 1987. The former Liberal government did not wait on the findings of Thom before it introduced Bill 51 and the then Housing minister, Chaviva Hosek, immediately rejected the $3-million Thom report on the ground that it would cost tenants $300 million to implement. That, however, did not stop the Liberals from announcing a $3-billion Homes Now program with a projected operating subsidy of $300 million.

I do not want to go into Mr Thom's recommendations, but I think most members will agree that Mr Thom is one of the most foremost experts in the country on rent issues. For that reason, I moved a motion that we invite him to appear before us. I must say it is a rather sad commentary that this government did not even think of inviting Mr Thom, and Mr Thom told our committee that his appearance was the first time he had been invited to speak to an Ontario government committee or otherwise. Is that not incredible? Here was this incredibly knowledgeable man and he had never even been asked for his views on a commission that cost the taxpayers of this province over $3 million.

Mr Thom had much to tell us. He went into several issues that I would like to review with members. Specifically he talked about the problems that the tenants were having. He said:

"When the first volume of the report came out, it was received rather coolly by the landlords. They felt that I had given too much leeway to the tenant criticisms of the then-prevailing rent regulation system.... When we entered into the second phase to consider the future of rent regulations, for reasons which escaped me then and still escape me, the tenants were of the opinion that they could not expect from me -- I have to say here I guess -- an unbiased attitude to their problems.... I am of the opinion that the market is the basic mode of operation in this business, but as you will have seen from reports, the recommendations of which you have before you, it was recommended in volume II that there would be a rent regulation, rent control system that was even more stringent than the present system because there would be no pass-through, no cost pass-through."

These remarks were just ignored by the committee, and of course the committee is controlled by the NDP. He went on to talk about probably one of the most serious concerns that our party has with respect to this whole process, the whole process of Bill 4, the whole process of the green paper, the whole process of the potential permanent legislation, and that is that the whole relationship between the landlord and the tenant is adversarial. I mean, you have got the tenants on one side versus the landlords on the other, a most inappropriate way to approach a very serious social problem. Mr Thom addressed that issue in his comments to our committee. He said, and I am quoting from Hansard:

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"I would like to make another general comment -- at least, landlord and tenant relationships are almost by their nature -- tend to be adversarial.... The tenants like what the landlord does, the landlord likes what the tenant does, and how they treat his building, her building, but there is a basic sort of adversarial feature to the rent, landlord and tenant relationship.... This rent regulation system in Ontario...was specifically denied and still is, that the landlord and the tenant could negotiate the rents that should be paid and collected. Now, I think that was unfortunate. It was one of the reasons, one of the underlying thinkings behind the act of 1975. It is still there. In Quebec, if you have the opportunity to give further attention to their operation, it is possible to negotiate a rent relationship, a rental amount, and I think it has many virtues, because it does not then exacerbate what is, tends to be a difficult relationship."

Now, this is a reasonable thought for the committee to deal with, but we never were allowed to deal with it. It was all over. The NDP determined to ram this thing through without allowing us to review the thoughts of Mr Thom. We certainly did not deal in committee with how to remove this adversarial system. Mr Thom continued by saying:

"It was brought home during the course of the commission hearings, unfortunately all too often. The tenants regarded the landlords as fat, bloated capitalists, and the landlords regarded tenants too often -- I say too often, I have not -- I am not trying to suggest -- it is just too often to be comfortable -- as careless, thoughtless people who had no thought for the fact that they were living in someone else's property, which is a fact, and it resulted in bad feelings with -- made it very difficult to bring about a relationship that could -- lead to good results. However, that is another factor that has to be considered."

Now from the moment that this legislation was introduced, the moment that Bill 4 was introduced, the minister has continued to develop this adversarial system. He has stated in Windsor that he does not represent the landlords, and now they appear to be giving him an allergy. They must be giving him an itch. It is a most unfortunate position for a government minister to take.

The government, I believe, should treat everyone the same. It should treat the landlords the same as the tenants. It should realize that there is a social problem, and that is what our party has been trying to do. We have been trying to look at the overall social problem that has been caused and how to deal with it, but the minister continues to further that adversarial system even in our hearings, even in the hearings of our committee.

Mr Thom went on to say:

"The main reason -- not the main reason, but one of the key reasons for the difficulty you are having in trying to devise appropriate rules and regulations: landlords come in all sizes and shapes. There is the mom and pop operation. There is the single home owner who puts a couple of rental units in his house. That is very important to him. There is the larger -- smaller corporation who has perhaps two or three dozen or so in units. Then there is the big monster corporation. They all have one common factor. Now, this is what is basically where the market comes into the picture, into play, that they have to put into it -- and they now are this range of landlords -- a very substantial personal investment and they borrowed a lot of money which they have to pay back. The mortgage companies have no qualms about collecting their money on the dot and according to the contract. And interest rates have been high, as you know, all over. The landlords all have to meet a very substantial cost and they hope to get in return something, some return on their equity."

That issue really was not dealt with by the committee. In fact, it was really ignored. I think the other issue that Mr Thom raised was the fact that this is a very complicated issue. It was suggested by our party that perhaps an economist should come to the committee and reveal his or her thoughts as to this very serious social problem, and Mr Thom agreed with that. He said:

"Now, to understand return on equity is a matter I am not going to go into this evening. It is economics. The economic theory and principles of rental housing is a complicated one. It is worth, perhaps, you might think, to understand what you are trying to do and handle this difficult social problem, to have an economist come to you and describe and discuss with you the economics of rental housing as the market operates. And not very many people understand it fully. I certainly did not, and I am not even sure I fully comprehend it."

That is an admission from a very knowledgeable man, a man who spent many, many hours on this whole problem, and he is saying we should have an economist come and deal with this very issue, but the committee did not deal with it. I believe that before the committee reports back to this House an economist should come and talk to the committee as to the whole economics of the system.

There is nothing, in my view, that would encourage the landlords that they are getting their fair return. That issue was emphasized by Mr Thom. I would like just to briefly talk about that, and that was dealt with by some of the people who came to our committee. He says:

"But it is not one of the basic factors of rental housing, that if you want private money in rental housing you have to some time or other give landlords, investors -- call them investors rather than landlords at the moment -- a feeling they are going to get a fair return. Now, it is evident that they do not think today that they are getting a fair return. I am not going to report -- repeat, I mean -- some of the evidence that has been given to you by such persons as Julius Melnitzer and Jonathan Krehm, just to name two who appeared before you last month. The landlord community do not think they are getting a fair return on their investment, which is very substantial. You have to have a very large capital investment to get a $5-million income -- gross income -- per annum: up in the billions. And if you do not have that attitude of mind, that feeling of comfort, on the part of the landlords they are not going to stay in the industry."

I think that is the most serious issue that this committee really did not come to grips with.

I think it is becoming quite clear what the intent of the government is, and that is to make housing a public utility. Mr Thom spent some time on that and, to refer briefly to some thoughts he had on that, he said:

"Who is going to finance the costs of building, renewing, maintaining the rental units which are necessary to house the rental population of Ontario? It is an extraordinarily large sum of money -- and now I am going to perhaps step outside the range of my proper interest. This province, this country, has not got the money just to throw at rental housing without the support and input of private landlords.

"If you want to make rental housing a public utility, go ahead. Make it a public utility like Hydro. It will cost billions and billions of dollars. I simply do not think it can be done. I express now a personal opinion, but I think it is a fair one, that it is virtually important to the financial welfare of this province, let alone the welfare of the housing industry, that there can be a very substantial input of private funds."

That is the problem with the whole legislation. It has a grave effect on the overall economic picture of this province, the jobs that are being lost, the contracts that are being lost and the deterioration of the quality of life of the tenants.

One of the issues that we got into on this side of the House, as far as representation on the committee was concerned, was that of economic eviction. Mr Thom dealt with that subject and I would like to refer to that, because there was a proposal put forward, an amendment to the proceedings, but it was completely ignored by the government side of the committee.

Mr Thom said:

"That is one of the basic features of the problem before you: that private money is essential. If private money is going to stay in and come in in the amounts required, it has to have some expectation of return.... About a third of the tenants' households in Ontario are poor. That is not the word that is very popular -- you can use 'economically disadvantaged,' but they are poor. They cannot afford from their own resources -- incomes, whatever they have, jobs -- the rents required to pay economic rents to private landlords. That is one of the facts of life. It has been a fact of life, is, and will continue to be until there is some way of organizing the economic community in which we live."

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I think that is the great hypocrisy of the whole issue. This government says that it is interested in the tenants of this province, that that is the whole reason of its legislation, and yet 30% of the people of this province who are tenants cannot afford the very rents that are being paid. But this government does not care about them; it does not care at all. Bill 4 clearly favours none of those tenants. It favours the rich, which is rather ironic, considering the comments that have been made by the Minister of Housing.

Mr Thom says that: "At the other end of the scale -- oh, say, 10%. These figures are not established anywhere, but they are a fair estimate. You can have different thoughts. You can go up or down a few percentage points either way. About 10% of the tenant population are quite well-to-do. They want to rent because, well, they are older people who do not want to have the bother and hassle of a house. They are what they call empty-nesters, or were. They would rather be able to travel off to Florida in the winter. They just like renting. They do not want the bother of looking after a house. Rent is no problem to them. They can pay rents of $1,500, $2,000 a month; it is perhaps 10%, 12% of their income. Fine."

Of course, the committee did not deal with that. In fact, it was completely ignored as to the fact that this legislation freezes the rents of the rich, and I therefore again emphasize that the motion to bring back this matter to the House is premature because the committee has not properly dealt with it.

Mr Thom says:

"It has never been clear to me why tenants who can afford to pay economic rents with no problem should have the protection of rent control.

"I can give you what I believe was the thinking on the part of some tenants' spokesmen. I think they were misguided. They did not come before us in the second session to explain their thinking, some feeling that unless the totality of the rent regulation system was applied to all tenants, rich and poor, that in some way the landlords would have some kind of unfair advantage. I do not quite know what it is. I cannot explain it to you. I think it was a mistake to exclude the rich, the well-to-do -- to exempt them, I should say, from rent control."

So the committee did not deal with that, even though Mr Thom presented these thoughts and he spent a great deal of time, of the taxpayers' money, coming to those conclusions.

The final point I would like to refer to that Mr Thom referred to is he dealt with the subject of the very complicated legislation that this province has gradually been building over the years, and this committee did not deal with that issue, even though it certainly had an opportunity to do so, and in fact it has created even more complicated legislation.

Mr Thom says:

"The rent review legislation, and I speak as a person who at one time was involved in income tax, is one of the most complicated and difficult pieces of legislation and regulation that you can well expect. You have heard that from tenants and you have heard that from landlords. I do not think any regulatory system that has got itself in that condition can be considered to be a good system, and the minister, in his discussion paper, very properly points out that he is going to make an effort to devise in some way a regulatory system that will be simpler.

"Here I again become very personal: I think he is going to fail. I do not think that as long as you try to impose a cost-pass-through system you are going to get anything but more and more complicated legislation for the very reason that landlords who think they have to get more rents than they would otherwise get under the controlled levels are going to think of ways for increasing the benefits they want to get and think they have to get.

"It is just human nature. It is going to be what happens. It is like the income tax, which is now an enormously complicated statute because people seek to get the advantages, the benefits, the concessions from their payment of income tax. It is one of the features of control or, in this case, in the case of income tax, of a tax levy. Your regulatory system is going to become increasingly complicated. I do not need to produce witnesses in that regard; it has become increasingly complicated. Some of you may have had the opportunity to look at the volume of regulations in the statute. It is an unhappy situation. It makes everybody in the industry unhappy. It results in a very large bureaucracy of a very well intentioned, hardworking, intelligent people who might much better be employed perhaps in some other form of activity."

That was a very valid point raised by Mr Thom and the committee, in its wisdom, with the NDP control of the votes, chose not to deal with that issue as well.

If I could make just one final comment with respect to Mr Thom, that is that he asked the question as to what rent control has done for the tenants, because that, of course, is the foundation of the premise of the Minister of Housing, that it does a great deal for the tenants. He says:

"Which brings me, of course, to the very important point of what has rent control done for tenants apart from reducing the amount of rent they have to pay in total. A good thing perhaps. It is nice that they do not have to pay so much rent, I am sure. They can spend it on something else, and we all like to spend money on something else if we have it, but what has happened to their housing milieu is that there is no vacancy rate.... It used to be that if a tenant was not getting the kind of service, was not living at the kind of building he thought he should have for the rent he was paying, he could go down the street and there would be a vacancy available where he could make a deal with the landlord and get better accommodation. The absence of the vacancy rate, and that was brought home to you by the deputy minister last month, has been a very severe detriment to the tenants. On top of which they have suffered loss of services and poorer accommodation. Mind you, they pay less rent but they have not had compensating benefits. In fact, it is a nice question that I have got to answer to, where the balance lies, whether they really benefit, in net, by rent regulation. I am not talking about that middle range of tenants who cannot afford the high rents. By the way, there are lots of vacancies in the high rental market. They get lots of looked after; the landlords are begging them to rent."

That issue was not dealt with by the committee.

I would like to conclude by saying that our consideration of Bill 4 has been marked by frustration. We were all elected to do a job, and I really wonder whether even the government members of this committee can honestly say that they gave proper consideration to the over 200 written and oral submissions that we received. I submit that we did not, and I repeat that point, plus the very fact that the committee has not completed its mandate. It has not dealt with the green paper, as has been requested by this Legislature. It is only a partial report back to this House and the Minister of Housing is interfering with the committee's process and in fact is now holding in some cases secret meetings and in other cases meetings in which no one is allowed to speak. I think that that process must be stopped and that the committee must be allowed to continue on with its job and deal with the terms of reference of this Legislature.

Finally, of course, I think that the committee should be allowed to listen to the many people who have tried to speak to us, who have tried to make representation to us and have been denied that access by this government.

Those are my comments, and I would hope that the members of this House would consider them. I think that the motion is premature.

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The Acting Speaker (Ms Haslam): Pursuant to standing order 33, the member for Ottawa-Rideau has given notice of her dissatisfaction with the answer to her question given by the Minister of Revenue concerning a meeting on Metro market value assessment. This matter will be debated at 6 pm.

Further debate?

Ms Poole: I am pleased to stand on behalf of the Liberal caucus and make some very brief comments on Bill 4 and on the committee process that we have just gone through, and I will say that these comments will be brief, because we are quite anxious to get to committee of the whole House and debate the substance of Bill 4.

I would like to take us back to December 1990 when the minister introduced Bill 4 for second reading, which is the reading in principle. At that time the minister said that the intent of this bill was to provide tenant protection and a period of rental stability while the government was looking for long-term solutions in the rental areas. He also said the purpose of the bill was to limit outrageous rent increases, to stop luxury renovations and put an end to flipping.

We in the Liberal caucus are very sympathetic with those intents and we supported Bill 4 on second reading because of the fact that we believe in tenant protection and because we felt that, although there were serious flaws in the bill, they could be corrected in the committee process.

I would like to address briefly some of those serious flaws which we as the Liberal caucus felt from the very start the bill contained.

First of all, Bill 4 had absolutely no provision for capital repairs. Major repairs and renovations are crucial to our aging housing stock, and certainly in committee hearings members heard over and over again about how our stock is aging and how we have to prevent the deterioration of our buildings, but there was no provision in Bill 4 whatsoever. The minister seemed to feel that because Bill 4 was interim legislation, it was not necessary to have any provision for capital repairs.

But I can tell members that a number of buildings we have in this province, in fact many buildings we have in this province, are in a state of jeopardy right now where the health and safety of the tenants is in doubt and where the structural integrity of the building is certainly in a state where it needs drastic work done to it, but there was no provision for major capital repairs.

The second doubt that we had about Bill 4 was that there was no provision for maintenance and for securing maintenance for tenants. Certainly as a member with a large number of tenants in my riding, I can tell members that time and time again maintenance rivals rent increases as the number one issue. In fact, I think in many instances it overtakes rent increases as the number one issue; but again, no provision in Bill 4.

During the committee hearings, tenant group after tenant group came before us and said that the provisions in rent review regarding maintenance were inadequate, the provisions in the Landlord and Tenant Act. When I said to these tenants, "If we could say to you we will not delay the passage of Bill 4 by one day by providing clauses to increase and enhance the maintenance for tenants, would you like them in?" they said, "Absolutely." But this Bill 4 has no provision for securing maintenance for tenants.

The third item which gave the Liberal Party great concern was the retroactivity of the bill, where the rules changed halfway through the game and we heard many small landlords who would actually be forced into bankruptcy because they had done, in good faith, the repair work in their building. They had secured a loan from the bank in order to achieve these repairs and now were being told retroactively that they could not be reimbursed in any way.

These were the three major areas in which the Liberal Party was looking for amendments to this bill, and I will tell members that on the first day of hearings in the committee hearings, I said to the minister, "The Liberal caucus will have great difficulty supporting this bill on third reading unless there are substantive amendments made to it," and in all good faith, the Liberal caucus put forward amendments.

I would just like to tell the members about some of these amendments, and I think they will agree that they are very reasonable and that they would enhance tenant protection and that there is absolutely no reason why they could not be included in Bill 4.

First of all, we propose that capital expenditures be allowed with cost pass-through if they are necessary to ensure the structural soundness of the building or the health or safety of the tenants; or, on the other hand, if the tenants supported the work that was to be done by having two thirds of the tenants in the building agree to the work.

There were further tenant protections attached to this. The rent increases for such major repairs would be capped at 5% above the guideline. Costs could not be passed on if the work was necessitated by the fact that the landlord had engaged in ongoing and deliberate neglect which had caused the work to be done, and the quality of the work would be considered when determining the amount of the increase. These are all tenant protection measures which I think many tenants would be very happy with, but the government members in committee rejected this amendment.

A second amendment which we introduced which we felt would have been very helpful in addressing the maintenance problem would be that the tenants would have the right to withhold the guideline rent increase if a landlord fails to comply with municipal work orders. To do this, we proposed broadening the powers of the Residential Rental Standards Board, again a very reasonable amendment, a very workable amendment, and yet the government rejected it.

A third tenant protection that we had suggested was a cost-no-longer-borne provision so that, for instance, once a fridge and stove had been paid for through the rent increases over the years, the tenant would be entitled to reduce his or her rent by the amount that he had been required to pay for those appliances. Again, the government rejected this very reasonable and very tenant-protective measure.

The government did adopt several of our amendments. I would not say they went to the heart and soul of the amendments. They adopted one where the increase in municipal taxes could not be passed on to tenants if the work was necessitated by a work order where the landlord had failed to comply, the municipality had gone in and done the work and then put a levy, a charge on the taxes. That was one amendment that the government did accept from the Liberal Party. Second, the government did accept an amendment regarding conditional orders where people who had in effect gotten a guarantee from rent review before getting the work done could be reimbursed for at least part of that work.

The final amendment which we introduced would have dealt with the devastating effect of the retroactivity in the bill and yet provided for a very ample period of rental stability.

As the members can see, these amendments were reasonable, they were not radical, they were not meant to embarrass the government, they were meant for the sole purpose of providing additional protection and measures of fairness in this bill; and yet they were rejected.

As I said, the minister has been put on notice that if he is not to accept our amendments, the Liberal Party would find it difficult to support this bill on third reading. I will tell the members right now that the minister has virtually guaranteed that it is impossible for our caucus to support this bill on third reading.

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However, there is one more chance. This bill is now going to committee of the whole House. The minister and all members of this House will have a chance to reflect upon these reasonable amendments and perhaps we can reach a compromise where we have tenant protection and where we have balance and fairness in the bill. That is what we as members of this House should be seeking.

So Madam Minister -- Madam Speaker, sorry. I am sure you would not object to the promotion, or maybe, the way things are going these days, you wouId. I would just like to reiterate that I hope that when we do go to committee of the whole House all members will very seriously reflect on what this bill does and does not do and what it should do, and that they will then, as members of this Legislature, give their support to these very reasonable amendments and make it possible for our caucus to give support to Bill 4 on third reading.

Mr J. Wilson: I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the report dealing with Bill 4 today. After weeks of discussion and committee hearings on Bill 4, an act to impose rent controls, it greatly disturbs me that we are no closer to arriving at a mutually agreeable solution, a solution that needs to represent the interests and wellbeing of all Ontarians, not just a select few.

I have stood before this House on previous occasions and stated that responsible government can only be government that represents the interests of everyone in Ontario. But the rhetoric continues from the NDP government and effective legislation is sacrificed on the altar of paying back a political debt.

How can the interests of all Ontarians be represented when the Minister of Housing, the quarterback of this piece of legislation, admits that he is "allergic to landlords"? How can the interests of all Ontarians be represented when the minister makes a remark such as this? The minister's remark surely indicates that he has not been listening throughout all of the weeks to the legitimate concerns raised by landlords during the countless hours of committee hearings and during the numerous attempts made by my colleagues in the Progressive Conservative caucus to awaken the government to the fallacies of its shortsighted rent control legislation and through the glut of media reports that suggest that the government is acting unwisely. I would have thought that with this government's sensitivity to the media, it would read and listen more attentively to the editorial comments made over the last five months.

A quote from the London Free Press of November 1990: "Tightening rent controls would only make a bad situation worse."

A quote from the Windsor Star on 31 December 1990: "Landlords don't build rental units out of the goodness of their hearts simply because they have an altruistic need to see that all people have decent shelter and a nice place to live. They build rental units to make money and the day a landlord stops being profitable is the day private sector investment flies out the window."

The Ottawa Citizen of 5 December 1990: "Bankrupting landlords who were already in the midst of repairs, along with tradesmen who won't get paid, is no way to improve the supply of rental housing in the province."

From the Financial Post of 11 July 1990: "The Ontario experience with rent regulation since 1975 confirms what economists have always argued, that rent controls cannot be justified on either equity or efficiency considerations. Rent control is a poor way to redistribute income. Rent control does transfer money from landlord to tenants, but a large share of those transfers have gone to tenants who are not low-income householders. In fact, rent controls are generally more beneficial to more sophisticated tenants with stable incomes. Rent regulation tends to redistribute from those tenant households who most need assistance to those who least need it."

The Hamilton Spectator on 5 December 1990: "A rigid approach to improvement costs will benefit no one, first and foremost tenants, if it means major necessary repairs to roofs, windows, plumbing, balconies, parking lots and underground parking garages will be postponed for two years. If major repairs aren't undertaken, there is a real risk that Ontario will see more run-down, unsafe and slum apartments. Patchwork repairs are penny wise but pound foolish."

From the Peterborough Examiner of 1 December 1990: "It's a safe bet that the NDP will continue with some form of rent controls with a view to aiding low-income renters like senior citizens who may pay as much as half of their income for housing. The problem is that they have so far done little to ease the critical shortage of housing that low-income families can afford. It will take nothing less than an overhaul of all aspects of housing policy to even begin addressing that goal."

From the Kitchener-Waterloo Record of 30 November 1990: "Rent controls on private dwellings have been enforced in Ontario for 15 years, yet few of those advocating their continuation have examined the consequences of rent restrictions on those they purport to represent. Indeed, this week's freeze has been greeted as a victory for the poor. The reality is otherwise. One might have expected Ontario's new NDP government to address affordable housing in a fresh manner, yet Housing minister David Cooke chose the easy option of stiffer rent controls. He goes further in wiping out 1,300 rent reviews."

I quote from the New York Times of 2 January of this year: "To most economists, rent control is the poisoned apple, a seductive idea that undermines the symbiosis between free people and free market. Rent is the largest item in the budgets of most people. Thus in a city of renters, rent control is bound to be popular. No one, after all, wants to pay more than they must for housing and hardly anyone thinks it is fair to ask people to move just because others are willing and able to pay more to live in their homes. The catch, which New Yorkers have been slower to accept than Poles or Nicaraguans, is that prices determined by government, rather than by supply and demand, are bound to distort economic incentives and erode productivity, and when the controls affect a big-ticket item like housing for a very long time, the damage is likely to be serious." And that is the end of the quote from the New York Times of January.

The NDP Minister of Housing tells us he is allergic to landlords because they are not permitting him to take the easy way out and because they resent his heavy-handed, shortsighted legislation. I wonder whether the minister is also allergic to editorial writers and columnists who can understand the potential for devastation that his rent control legislation brings with it. I would contend that the minister and the NDP government are simply allergic to dissenting opinions, the same dissenting opinions that are the bedrock of our free and democratic society.

It troubles me that this duly elected government is unwilling to heed the cries of landlords and construction workers, who stand to lose substantially from this proposed legislation.

A constituent of mine from Tottenham has watched helplessly as his dream to create an apartment building in the south end of my riding has been soured by this hasty and far-reaching legislation. Tottenham needs more rental stock, but Bill 4 has sabotaged the developer's plans. Banks will not finance my constituent's plans because Bill 4 makes this project a high-risk proposal. The minister's allergy has resulted in 44 less apartment units in my riding, in the village of Tottenham, and has left one individual financially devastated.

But then there is Red Whitehead, a landlord in Collingwood. It is difficult for Red Whitehead, who owns an apartment building on Second Street in Collingwood, to swallow that his newly acquired financial handicap is a direct result of this minister's and this government's allergic reaction to landlords. Responsible government is not about class warfare or disdain for a segment of the population. It is about fairness, representativeness and legislation for the benefit of the whole of society. In the last six years, Mr Whitehead has sunk over $300,000 into his building and his gross return on this sizeable investment has been $3,300.

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It is difficult for me to buy into the NDP rhetoric that insists that all landlords are exploiting tenants. After numerous phone calls and letters to my office, and after travelling for a week with the legislative committee examining Bill 4, I realized that what has happened to Red Whitehead and other landlords across the province is not an exception, but the norm. I am particularly reminded of the day we spent in Sudbury and, I as a member of the committee and all members of the all-party committee saw one after another, landlords from the Sudbury area, many of whom in the introduction to their remarks to the committee -- and some brought cancelled cheques of donations they had made to the NDP to prove that they were NDP supporters and many in no uncertain terms made it clear that they will no longer be supporting the NDP government if it continues with this draconian legislation in the form of Bill 4.

I would have hoped that the minister would have withdrawn his legislation at this point, had listened to the constituents in the north, for instance, who appeared before the committee and made a very good case about the draconian effects of Bill 4. How is Mr Whitehead of my riding supposed to recoup the $50,000 in repairs he recently laid out to upgrade his building? Landlords make convenient scapegoats for a government bankrupt of fresh ideas. Rent controls do not represent the road to Utopia that the NDP so faithfully promised the voters in the last election.

Let's defrock the illusion that the Minister of Housing has consulted widely on this legislation. The public hearings have been a sham. If input was sincerely requested, then my friend the member for Oriole, who also has to respond to the letters and phone calls from her constituents on this issue, would not have been barred from the proceedings. How well is representative, responsive government served when the duly elected members are shut out, censored and embarrassed by this government?

There is a fundamental inconsistency in the moral tone that pervades the Office of the Premier and the decision-making corridors here at Queen's Park. I felt enormous frustration and empathy as I cradled the telephone and listened to an apartment owner in Collingwood tell me that everything which he had fought so hard for through so many years to acquire had been put in jeopardy because of the Minister of Housing's allergic reaction to landlords.

Another reason why I do not support the introduction of the committee report on Bill 4 today is that the committee hearings have been, for the most part, an exercise in partisanship. They have lacked the tone of constructiveness and representativeness needed to deal sincerely with this important piece of legislation.

I cannot support the introduction of the committee report because it is my belief that this government is driven more by rhetoric and ideology than by any sincere attempt to resolve the rental problem in this province. On 22 January the Minister of Housing announced a $35-million housing package designed to stimulate employment and improve Ontario's housing supply. This announcement was proof positive that the minister realized how inappropriate and shortsighted his proposed legislation is. Now the minister is asking Ontario taxpayers to foot the bill for his myopia. Taxpayers are now being asked to subsidize rental units for people whose rents are only 10% to 15% of their income. Why should we the taxpayers of Ontario be paying for individuals such as the new Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who is living in a co-op housing unit in Toronto, while those people who are genuinely suffering go without affordable housing? At times I wonder whether the new government has more than just an allergy and more than just an ideological interest in rent controls and the socialized housing system which they will foster.

By the same token, what do I say to the woman in Tottenham who has been waiting for three years to be accepted into a subsidized rental unit? What I am forced to tell her is that this government has lost touch with reality. Its proposed solutions talk the talk, but they will not assist those most in need. I am a relative newcomer to this House, but it does not take much to realize that this is just plain bad legislation. We are at a critical juncture with respect to our rental housing stock in this province. All that Bill 4 will do is collapse any present or future investment in rental housing, and even if they wanted to, apartment owners could not build new apartments because financial institutions are frightened by the retroactivity clause in Bill 4. Financial institutions understand the far-reaching nature of this legislation. They comprehend fully the profound impact it will have in the rental market and how it will hamstring apartment owners to make do on their loans.

This government is not listening because its mind has been predetermined. The Minister of Housing has already told us that he is allergic to landlords. I know that allergies are not contagious, but it appears to me as though the Premier displayed similar symptoms during 1989 when he told the Tenants' Bulletin: "You make it less profitable for people to own it. I would bring in a very rigid, tough system of rent review. Simple. Eliminate the exceptions and loopholes. There will be a huge squawk from the speculative community and you say to them, 'If you're unhappy, we'll buy you out.'"

This is not some isolated cough or sniffle. It is a deep allergic reaction to the free-enterprise system and to landlords in general by this, the NDP government of Ontario.

It is also symptomatic of an ailment which has created this sickness that the government is trying to introduce under the heading of Bill 4. Madam Speaker, I suggest to you and to this House that the ailment is an unwillingness to listen and a destructive belief in the correctness of their cause, no matter how often and how defunct its virtue. The record of the government's failure to listen is well documented. If they were listening, how come they failed to listen to the submission made by the Ontario Home Builders' Association? Here is a quote from that submission, which I feel undermines the whole ideological premise of rent controls:

"Rent controls remove the incentive to move up by keeping rents artificially low when compared to house prices. The disincentives to move up were reinforced during the recent economic boom by a housing market with few moderate-cost housing options. The only windfall of rent controls falls therefore to higher-income people, whose rents take up a disproportionately small portion of their income. The standing committee has already heard that 43% of tenants pay less than 20% of their income towards their rental housing costs, and more than three quarters of those tenants earning more than $45,000 per year spend less than 20% of their income on rent. As one developer has put it, 'We have got plenty of low-income housing; we have just got upper-income people living in it.'" That is the end of the quote from the submission by the Ontario Home Builders' Association. I would suggest that the NDP's system of rent controls is beneficial only to upper-income people.

I also find it interesting that my friends on the other side of this Legislature are diligent in their attacks on the federal government when layoffs occur or interest rates rise. They blame federal policies for the recession we are in. How convenient for them. But then again, this government is unconcerned with the facts. It is more concerned with finding scapegoats and articulating rhetoric. I wonder if the NDP government will blame the federal government for all the construction jobs and tradespeople who are out of work because of the introduction of Bill 4. I wonder if the Premier will be singing Solidarity Forever when angry tradespeople, construction workers and landlords come calling if Bill 4 is allowed to pass.

This legislation is riddled with faults. I do not believe that there should be retroactive provisions in this bill. It is fundamentally unjust to implement retroactivity when individuals have bankrolled their futures on the basis of the current system of rent review that is in place. Without warning or assistance, this government initiated a two-year moratorium on rent increase dating back, it says, to 1 October of last year, but the true date, as we know, is 1 July, because it takes three months for a rent review application to be processed.

Capital expenditures are not an underhanded means to exploit tenants. They are crucial to the proper maintenance of our supply of rental stock. They also ensure that rental units are not turned into slums and ghettos, and this is a situation that cannot be allowed to occur in the province of Ontario.

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Solving the rental problem must be a priority of this government. We all agree on that. But we have to create a climate for future private-sector investment. We need to put tradespeople and labourers back to work. Perhaps most of all, we have to send out a message that the people in power here at Queen's Park are prepared to listen and they are willing to govern with the interests of all Ontarians in mind. This cannot be accomplished with ministers in government who admit that they are allergic to certain segments of our society, namely, landlords and private-sector investors.

I cannot support the tabling of this report that has been flawed from the outset and has its contents grounded in a fundamental indifference to representing the best interests of all the people of Ontario.

Mr Turnbull: When the honourable Minister of Housing came before our committee to introduce this bill and explain why it was necessary, he listed in his speech a number of instances where tenants had been hit with rent increases of over 100%. He very carefully read out five addresses and the percentage amount of increase each had received. Well, if these units are the reason why we are now faced with this legislation, I think it will be the first time in the history of this Legislature that a total of 24 units would have dictated such extensive government policy, policy that will affect millions of units and tenants across this province of ours.

The buildings in Kingston that the minister refers to involve two units, the one in Timmins again two units. When you have two-unit buildings that need a new roof, it is very difficult to spread the cost. He said that the building in Kingston had a 224% increase. Yes, but as I said, it is two units. The building in Warkworth, with a 192.14% increase, had eight units; the one in Ottawa, 188.98%, had six units; the building in Timmins, 176.54%, two units again; Cambridge, Ontario, 155.8%, six units.

There was no impact study done. I remember that our own Housing critic asked for an impact study and the minister said yes, he could get that. Then later on when we got to the committee stage, he waffled and suddenly there was not any impact study done.

Let's examine one example of a building that received a large increase. A typical example of the type of situation generating a very large increase is the case of Mrs B. Carpenter's 14-unit building in Sudbury. Formerly owned by the municipality, this 75-year-old structure was desperately in need of major improvements, including a new roof, modern plumbing and new flooring to replace wood so rotten the ground showed through in several places.

The owner had recently borrowed money to complete this work and filed for the rent increase to which she was entitled, some 150%. This is the type of situation where you would automatically cry, "Economic eviction," yet the new rents after the increase would have reached the staggering level of $400 per month, still at least $100 below market levels.

It should be noted that despite the fact that every bit of work which Mrs Carpenter completed was badly needed, that she had preserved 14 apartments which were otherwise quickly approaching the point of becoming uninhabitable and that both the city and the tenants supported the work and the resulting increases, Bill 4 will prevent the owner from recovering the money she has spent.

Clearly, it is ludicrous to attack large rent increases without considering the rent level to which they are being applied. Over and over again during these hearings we spoke to people and we asked on what base rent were they talking about large increases. When you have a base rent of $50 a month, a 100% increase sounds significant, but it is still awfully affordable accommodation.

I welcomed the public hearings as an opportunity to examine both the realities of the rental situation in Ontario and the fairness and efficiency of the government's proposed legislation. While I agree the present system is not working properly, the problems are not as severe as this government has indicated, as 86% of tenants in our province received rent increases of less than 5% in the last two years. Less than 1% had increases of more than 30%, and only 0.07%, or 84 units out of 1.2 million, had an increase of 100% or more that the Minister of Housing would have us believe are common.

So we have the Minister of Housing coming to present a major piece of legislation that is based on the false premise that tenants must be protected from massive rent hikes. To quote the minister's own words, "The system has failed to protect tenants from high rent increases." I say that when only 84 units out of 1.2 million need protection, then surely the honourable minister could have found a simpler, less destructive method to do this, if he had wanted to of course. Instead the government introduced an unreasonable and confrontational bill, backed by an overt campaign to misrepresent landlords as little better than criminals and all tenants as deserving social services.

Why? Is there a hidden message? Let's listen to what the Premier's own words were in an interview with Michael Melling, former president of the Federation of Metro Toronto Tenants' Associations. The Premier said, "You make it less profitable for people to own," meaning private rental stock. "I would bring in a very rigid, tough system of rent review, simple. There would be a huge squawk from the speculative community, and you would say to them, 'If you're unhappy, we will buy you out.'"

I have to say that many of the landlords who came before the committee said they were very happy to be bought out, but this government does not seem to be able to come forward on that promise now. So now the truth is here. This legislation is not about solving a problem with old legislation. This bill is to further a government philosophy against the private ownership of rental units.

When my fellow Conservative and I on the committee came to realize the real reason behind the legislation, the votes by the government members on the committee were understandable. Suddenly it made sense why they refused to let all the public that wanted to speak be heard, why they refused to accept amendments that were helpful to tenants and why they refused to allow common sense and reason to dictate their vote.

This is my first term in office, but for years I have watched the NDP in opposition demand that the government of the day be open and respectful of the people. When the minister came before our committee, he stated: "During this time we plan intensive consultation with the public. This issue deserves public input."

Perhaps I am naïve about the workings of government, but I thought that meant we would hear everyone affected by the legislation, everyone who felt strongly enough about the effect of Bill 4 would have on them and wanted to spend the time required to write a brief and to come and present it to our committee. I considered it a common courtesy to the people of Ontario that I, as a member of the House, would make myself available to all they had to say. Certainly all five committee members from the opposition were willing and indeed wanted to spend all the time necessary for this to occur.

The government showed its true colours the day of that vote. The message was loud and clear: Listening to the people was less important than their agenda. Do members remember the agenda for power? The vote was six government members versus five opposition members against the basic principle that when public hearings were held, everyone is welcome. One hundred and fifty groups of individuals, companies, tenants' groups who wanted to speak got left out in the cold. One hundred and fifty citizens lost their right to have their government listen to them at public hearings.

This, as you say, is democracy, open government at its best. To make matters worse the government tried to fool the public by placing huge ads in newspapers inviting participants. They failed to tell them that the day the ads appeared the spots were already filled. This is double dealing and manipulation at its worst. There were definitely two groups of people: those allowed to speak, mostly tenants, and those barred from speaking, mostly landlords.

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Conservatives tried to co-operate; interested in serving people, we wanted to hear the whole story. We heard from landlords that the financial institutions would not lend them money to carry out renovations. We wanted to hear from the financial industry. We put forward a motion to have a witness or someone from the Trust Companies Association of Canada, but the government members defeated this motion. Why? What are they afraid we might have heard?

It is disgraceful that 150 groups could not be heard and witnesses important for the whole picture were denied the right to come. There was not any hurry if you have got retroactive legislation. Perhaps the government was being embarrassed by the testimony. We would like this House to send this back to the committee to finish our hearings on this. Public hearings for a select group are a sham.

Tenants want well-maintained buildings. Some even want luxuries, believe it or not, that home owners enjoy, like microwaves that are energy-efficient, energy-efficient windows, new appliances and Jacuzzis.

Mr Mammoliti: They don't want to be charged.

Mr Turnbull: Yes, as one of my colleagues from across the bench at the NDP says so correctly, maybe they do not want to be charged. We heard testimony from many of the tenants' groups that they did not mind being charged. That is precisely it. The members were not listening to what the depositions were. They were saying they were prepared to pay for it. We had a long petition from a tenants' group in London that said they thought what the government was doing was totally unfair, but the members did not want to listen. Why should they not have the right if they are willing to pay for them? Big Brotherism at its worst.

Let's hear what one tenants' group had to say. This presentation is a petition which was put together to send to the Premier:

"We, the undersigned, are tenants of a 56-unit apartment building at 1000 Huron Street, London, Ontario. Our landlord has continuously strived to give us the good rental accommodation at a fair price. Two years ago, when our parking lot became congested, our landlord decided to enlarge it for our benefit and at his own expense. We are entitled to one parking space per unit according to our lease. However, he provided the extra space which we now use for our second vehicles and our visitors' vehicles without hesitation. We recently had the leaky roof replaced, new carpets installed in all apartments, new counter tops and taps, new hall carpets and a beautiful new lobby installed. All of this work was carried out in a proper legal fashion.

"All tenants in our building were agreeable to a 17% increase in rent, which our landlord legitimately applied for. We were all given written notification from the Ministry of Housing informing that we had 45 days in which to dispute the suggested increase, but we all knew that we had nothing to dispute because every replacement in our building had been a necessary replacement. Not one of us baulked.

"We are now led to understand that you, sir, are not going to grant our landlord his increase in rent, and we would suggest that you rethink this decision. As tenants we are concerned that (a) our landlord may be forced into selling our building to someone who will not look after us as well as he has done and (b) the level of care and consideration which we have received in the past will greatly deteriorate because our landlord cannot get a decent return on his investment. Your flagrant disregard of our wants and needs leaves us no alternative but to demand that you turn your attention away from landlords and tenants, because you obviously know nothing about the situation. In short, don't call us, we'll call you."

That is signed by every tenant in the building. Now, is that not strange that every tenant in the building -- and I would suspect there was a reasonable number of NDP tenants in the building -- thought that what the government was doing to them was blatantly unfair?

Here is another letter addressed to the clerk of the committee:

"Dear Sirs:

"Re Bill 4, interim rent control legislation: Attached please find a number of our letters addressed to the Minister of Housing which should be of interest to this committee. The Ministry of Housing is unable to advise us if these letters have been forwarded to you. We feel this committee should be made aware of both this landlord's and those tenants' views on the proposed rent control legislation.

"We own and manage over 1,000 rental units in Metropolitan Toronto. During 1990 we undertook a renovation project of three of our buildings containing some 550 units. These three buildings are all between 20 and 25 years old, and rents average about $480 a month for the one-bedroom apartment, $550 for the two-bedroom and $650 for the three-bedroom. The building improvement project just completed included elevator rehabilitation, new appliances, improvements to the heating system as well as common area improvement, dry walling and plumbing work.

"In our opinion as prudent landlords, all the work was necessary to maintain the quality standards and safety of these buildings. In total we spent over $1.75 million on these buildings in 1990. Under the laws and regulations of the rent review system as it was in effect when we began the work in January 1990 and as it was in effect when we made application for rent increases on 1 September 1990, we anticipated, effective 1 December 1990, an increase in rental revenue of 8% on one building and 10% for another and 16% on the third. These increases were intended to cover not only the capital expenditures of $1.75 million but also the annual increases in building operating costs.

"It is our understanding that the discussion paper proposals for a long-term reform to rent review legislation will be released by the Minister of Housing in mid-February. We have also been advised that your committee will be undertaking hearings on that subject. Once we have had an opportunity to review these proposals, we may be requesting the opportunity to appear before your committee."

Another letter:

"Dear Sir:

"I am a resident in an apartment owned by Schickedanz Brothers Ltd. On 3 December they wrote to you regarding rent review and a moratorium in this matter. No one wants to pay more rent, and I certainly do not. However, in all fairness to my landlord, I believe he is entitled to a rent increase.

"Schickedanz Brothers have always endeavoured to maintain their buildings," and as Mr Schickedanz later stated, the buildings are some 25 years old and maintenance and improvements are needed to meet present-day safety regulations. "I do not want to live in what could become a slum apartment. This is my home, and I want it maintained the way I would maintain a house, and I am willing to pay to have my present residence kept in good repair.

"They have evidently followed all of the rules set forward, and just because a new government came forward into power is no reason that we should be penalized. I certainly hope that in all fairness your government will rescind this legislation."

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Another letter:

"In response to your recent changes that have taken place affecting rent controls, I would like to add my comments on these events for your consideration. Speaking solely as a resident of 50 Ruddington Drive, I have to applaud the government's efforts to revitalize the rent control structure. It appears to me, as a distant observer, that the present system seems to be designed as a zerosum gain: nobody wins, somebody else loses. I believe that change of this structure is critical to the ongoing development and maintenance of rental units in this province. However, I can in no way abide by a decision that takes this structure to its opposite extremes, rather than finding common ground somewhere in the centre.

"Institution of a brand-new set of rules three quarters of the way through a game is not accepted practice in any schoolyard playground, nor should this sort of action be an acceptable method of operation for governments. The inherent unfairness of such action is obvious.

"Our property managers Schickedanz Brothers had made it known over one year ago that pending improvements for elevators and appliances would necessitate a larger-than-average annual increase in 1991 rents. Our opinions were actively sought and the work was completed at the behest of the majority of tenants in favour of this work. Estimates of increases were provided, and I know in my case I had ample opportunity to budget for these increases. Although I am not foolish enough to state that I accept these increases without some grumbling, in the end I believe that the requests were fair and equitable for the work completed to make my home more comfortable. Had these improvements been made in a house, I would surely have had to bear this burden. Simply because this work was done on a large scale by property management, we cannot delude ourselves into believing the costs should be borne by other parties. In the end the property manager must still be in a position to justify continued maintenance of his operation, which happens to be in fact my home. This is, after all, not a charitable organization.

"To have a company follow vigorous control procedures and run the various bureaucratic mazes in order to justify larger-than-normal increases is all well and good, but then to deny those who complete these tasks their end reward is dishonourable. I would like to suggest that you conduct a review of this action with a view towards compensation for those much-needed expenditures. At the same time you might consider the people that are being put out of work when repairs and renovations are not being done on the many apartment buildings in Ontario. With the record unemployment, I would think this would be very high on the priority list of the New Democratic Party. As a middle-aged first-time supporter of the NDP I would like to hope that I have not made a mistake."

Maybe I should repeat that last sentence for any members who -- "As a middle-aged first-time supporter of the NDP I would like to hope that I have not made a mistake." I think the light is beginning to dawn.

Another letter:

"Dear David Cooke,

"I have been a tenant for 13 years in an apartment building, 505 Cummer Avenue, North York, owned by Schickedanz Brothers Limited. During that time I have been very pleased with the way this building has been maintained. Some of the things that have been done during my tenure are: rebuilt balconies; extensive repairs to underground parking, residue from ceiling was falling on cars causing damage; new carpets throughout the hallways; new stoves and refrigerators; new plumbing throughout building; elevator renovations; new washers and dryers; extensive drywalling after trying each year to repair deteriorating walls. To suggest that drywalling was done only to cover cracks is ludicrous. It is unfortunate that the work had to be done in my apartment before you had the opportunity to see it for yourself. The wall was falling off in chunks. Grounds are beautifully manicured at all times.

"These are just a few of the things that have been done and all were necessary. I am sure you cannot find an apartment in Metropolitan Toronto of equal value, ie, size, accessibility to transportation, cleanliness, speedy repairs when needed, for the cost as low as the rent paid at 505 Cummer. Naturally, I was not happy with the proposed rent increase and I am sure the other tenants felt the same. However, I would prefer the increase to the alterative of a run-down place to live, which I feel will be the result if at least the major expenditures are not being covered by an increase. I have never met the Schickedanz family and I am not naïve enough to believe that their main goal is to provide cheap accommodation for people, but I do believe that they have a great deal of pride knowing that they are doing their best to provide a comfortable environment for our tenants.

"It would be more appropriate if you were to crack down on those landlords who are only interested in how much they can gouge the people for. We have heard a large defence go up recently that this government is going to be run in a manner that would not only ensure the safety of the citizens of this province but would also encourage corporate confidence and the ability to operate successfully in this province. I cannot believe that alienating a company or the single individual in such a way is the method with which to choose to instil these confidences.

"Fairness is, in the end, the true barometer of effective legislation and good government. In this case, rules were laid down and adhered to by both landlord and tenant. One has fulfilled his obligation and justified the rewards he seeks for this work that has already been paid for and completed. A third party has now intervened, seemingly on our behalf, and has legally made it unnecessary to fulfil our part of the obligation. In the short term, a few people may have the satisfaction that they have received something without paying for it. Another party is going to have to bear the entire burden. Do we as tenants truly win?" -- and I think this should truly be asked.

"Maybe now because we are being saved a few dollars, but in the long term, what will be our recourse when further changes are invariably necessary? Let us not begin instituting flagrantly unfair policies here and spread them throughout legislation that will be handed down throughout the mandate of this government. This is not the type of precedent that we would expect from the philosophy behind this sort of government."

The letters go on and on, but it is a rather sickening aspect that they have been ignored, absolutely ignored by the NDP members on this committee. A motion to allow tenants this right, the right to have these renovations done --

Mr Stockwell: A sense of humour?

Mr Turnbull: Yes, I suppose so. The motion that we made to allow tenants the right to have renovations done if they wished and passed through to them in rent was voted down by the NDP. The NDP are so paternalistic that it does not believe that tenants have enough sense to decide for themselves whether they want the repairs. Paternalism will not let tenants have what they want, because the NDP does not think they should have the right.

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What I have heard, small landlords broke down and cried. On more than one occasion the members of this committee saw landlords who were facing bankruptcy and imminent bankruptcy crying. I take no pleasure in seeing anybody cry, be it the tenant or the landlord or the union or an employer. I think that we have got to have legislation which is fair to everybody, and this legislation is not fair.

Banks will not loan money. All of the people who have done renovations in buildings go out and borrow money to finance renovations. They have to have substantially completed the renovations before they can go to rent review. They went to the bank, and they went to the bank with the legislation, legislation that was made in this House, Bill 51. Now the banks are saying: "Well, we lent the money temporarily, you have not got your rental increase. We want the money back. It is not permanent financing." People who have got mortgages coming up cannot renew their financing because of the actions of this government. This is not myth, this is a fact.

I put a motion to this committee that I wanted a representative of the trust companies of Canada to come forward and tell us what the position is with respect to the mortgages on these apartments. The NDP members of this committee to a man voted it down. They do not want the truth to come out because the truth is awkward, it does not fit in with their neat little perception as to how the world works. Landlords go broke if they have their buildings taken away from them and, in fact, trust companies may end up going broke because you are generating a situation where buildings are now worth 25% to 30% less than they were prior to this legislation coming forward.

The Minister of Housing is nodding no. Your own people refused to allow the trust companies to come forward and give evidence. Your own committee, the NDP members, refused to let anybody from the Ministry of Financial Institutions come forward and testify until after the clause-by-clause hearing of this. How can you make an informed judgement if you get the facts after you have decided? I am sorry, it does not make any sense, and this government's bill does not make any sense.

There are landlords, small landlords who have gone out and they have mortgaged their homes in order to put the down payment on a small building. This is their life savings. It is their pension fund. They are going to lose it now. What are they supposed to do? Do you want them to lose their house? They will lose their business. Sure, the government will pick up the pieces. We know that you believe in socialism. We should have everybody paid the same amount. This is the trouble with taking this incredible drift to the left. It is not even modern socialism that you are involving yourself in, it is old, spent ideas that have been proven not to work.

Unfortunately, because I had to speak now, I was not able to attend a meeting that is going on at this moment where the committee on general government members were invited to hear an expert from Sweden, somebody who is a co-writer of a book, who won the Nobel prize on economics.

Hon Mr Cooke: Who paid his way here?

Mr Turnbull: A landlords' group. But it is very interesting, he is a socialist. He is a socialist.

It is most unfortunate that the members of the NDP have such tunnel vision and the facts get in the way with your vision. The answer that the NDP made every time we spoke about landlords going bust is, "Well, you made a bad deal." I would suggest that there is so little expertise among the NDP benches as to what is a good deal in business, how would they know?

On capital expenditures, it was very clear when rent controls came in, that there was always the facility to pass through expenditures to the tenants. Let's examine why that was done. Back in the 1970s, when rent controls came in, there was a sudden blip in rents. They went up very quickly and there was a two-year temporary piece of legislation put on. It is unfortunate that it was only made as temporary legislation, because it has distorted the market. Many of the landlords were losing money and when you control a market at inflationary rates, you will still be losing money. If you were losing money when control was brought in at inflation rates, you go for 10 years, you will still be losing money. Not only that, on average -- and it is the Ministry of Housing that brought this information, his own Ministry of Housing gave us figures showing that the average rental increase since rent controls have been in is less than inflation. That is how fair this legislation is.

So there was the provision for pass-through of two elements; one, expenditures with respect to capital costs and the other requirement was that if you made financial losses you could slowly recover them, and a little blip occurred. Remember the Cadillac Fairview flip? Somebody was trying to get very cute with the legislation. The Conservatives at that time moved very quickly to fill that gap and they brought in legislation that said you can only have one sale recognized per three years.

It is perfectly easy for the government to bring in legislation of that nature if the concern is flips, but it did not. It retroactively says: "All of the purchases that people have made for several years, the fact that you are legally allowed to charge back a loss at 5% per year, forget it. It doesn't matter what the law says. We simply know better."

On capital expenditures, Bill 4 would end the right of landlords to recover costs incurred in the operation of their building, namely, the cost of major repairs. Interestingly, studies by the city of Toronto and the Ministry of Housing indicate that the 80% of Ontario's housing stock constructed before 1975 requires some $10 billion worth of repairs and renovations and it is estimated that by the year 2000, $7 billion of those must be done.

The magnitude of the problem has not been disputed by either tenants or the major municipalities. What I heard from the people in the business was that, contrary to the popular belief of this government, owning residential property is not a lucrative practice. In many cases, the buildings actually showed a loss on operations.

I would just like to read a letter which was sent to the Chair of the committee.

"Dear Sir:

"Accept this as my written submission in respect of the above proposed amendment to the Residential Rent Regulation Act. I represent a small landlord in the Toronto area of a 30-unit apartment building. I purchased the building approximately seven years ago after having semiretired. This was an investment decision I made very carefully, with much consultation and investment advice, in order to protect financial savings which I had worked all of my life for. I felt it would be a safe hedge against inflation and ever-increasing living expenses. In the seven years of my ownership the building has not yet turned over a profit, nor have I ever been able to draw any sort of salary from it. Nevertheless, the building has increased in value, as has all real estate. The building is over 30 years old and as with all buildings or structures, it does require renovation and restoration work on a fairly regular basis.

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"Common sense dictates the fact that buildings will not last for ever without proper maintenance. Not only does it protect my investment, but it also provides tenants with a safe and decent place to live. Rent controls that were implemented in 1975 did not allow landlords to set out any sort of reserve fund for any restoration work. Let me emphasize that once again. Rent controls that were implemented in 1975 did not allow landlords to set up any sort of reserve fund for any restoration work.

"The current Residential Rent Regulation Act, 1986 attempted to improve the situation by allowing landlords to recover any investments made in order to restore and renovate their buildings. Believe it or not, this system began working. Things in need of repair were being repaired. Old and faulty alarm and sprinkler systems were being replaced. Faulty electrical and plumbing systems were being upgraded. Energy-saving windows were being installed. Leaky roofs were being fixed. Faulty boilers were being replaced. It does not take a rocket scientist" -- it is just as well -- "to realize that these are necessary requirements in order to maintain a building and that somebody has to foot the bill. You cannot just expect maintenance work to continue without allowance for it.

"The NDP's proposed amendment intends to stop this retroactively. Furthermore, it even proposed to penalize landlords who recently undertook renovations and also prevent landlords from renovating in the future by making it financially impossible. This policy must be stopped. It is most definitely not in the best interests of tenants. Whether they believe it or not, in the long run it will convert decent living facilities into slums. This is truly a case where the landlords are being shafted and discriminated against, not the tenants.

"I have no quarrels with my tenants. Tenants are my clients and they deserve the best treatment I can possibly provide for them. Your policies will not allow me to do so. In short, your policies are saying that I must subsidize my tenants and that I have no right to any profits, furthermore, that I have no right to protect a life's savings investment from deterioration since I cannot claim expenses for restoration. I cannot comprehend why any government would want to pursue such a destructive policy. We all lose in that scenario.

"In conclusion, my request is very simple: either the current legislation be left as is or the newly proposed Bill 4 allow for necessary restoration and renovation expenses. Thank you for allowing me to voice my concerns. Dino Cultraro."

What does the minister now have to say? Well, he said, "We also recognize that major capital expenditures are required to keep rental properties operating to modern standards." Well, that is rather bizarre. We have legislation before us that will remove the right the government acknowledges is necessary and will have it in its permanent legislation.

I get very confused by this nebulous parliamentary double-talk. We bring in legislation which takes away the right to charge back the admitted, recognized need for capital expenditures and on the other hand we are saying, "Okay, do not worry, we are going to put it into permanent legislation." But in the meantime we have people who paid for renovations who are being told retroactively, "No, you can't have the money." That is absolutely rubbish, the idea that we are going to take away this right for two years, a right which will bankrupt people retroactively, will take away from people like this gentleman their pension fund. He has not made any profit in the seven years he has owned the building. I know the kneejerk answer of the NDP is, "Oh, he made a bad deal when he bought the building," and yet when they consider that the value of apartment buildings has not kept track with inflation, how can they --

Hon Mr Pouliot: Come on, read the --

Mr Turnbull: There is a gentleman across the floor in the NDP, a minister saying, "Come on." Well, I will come on. The Ministry of Housing presented the statistics which showed they did not keep up with it. Do they not read their own briefs?

Hon Mr Hampton: What's this, a one-way train?

Hon Mr Pouliot: It's already left the station.

Mr Turnbull: When they contradict their dogma, I guess not.

A reasonable person will ask why. The only answer is that the NDP made a promise to the tenants that they would not have to pay for capital expenditures, a promise designed to buy their vote. Do they remember the agenda for power?

Simple, just one increase per year based on inflation, nothing more, very simple. Now we are told, "Well, maybe it isn't so simple, but we will fix it in the permanent legislation," while the people go bankrupt in the meantime.

I am most concerned to see landlords going bankrupt, small landlords, because what happens is that you harm the tenants. If any of the members have ever seen an apartment building which is under power of sale, they will know things do not get done. It is absolutely crazy and it has no reality, no sense of reality for economics.

Interjection.

Mr Turnbull: I am sorry, I have to say as a new member of the Legislature and somebody who has not been steeped in the Conservative Party for a long time -- I do believe in the political values of the Conservative Party -- that I did give credit beforehand to the New Democrats, that I thought there was decency in them and honesty and I thought that the Agenda for People was --

Interjection.

Mr Turnbull: I was very, very naïve, and we can see from several of the letters from NDP supporters that they were fooled too.

Mr Chiarelli: Peter Kormos was fooled.

Mr Turnbull: Yes, he was certainly fooled.

I want to talk about financial loss. Given the fact that, as I said before, the original rent control legislation was brought in in the 1970s and it was a two-year temporary legislation in reaction to the fact that we had a sudden jump in rental rates, an unusually high jump. It was considered necessary for temporary legislation, it was recognized that if you were making a loss you had to have some way of redressing that, so there was an allowance that at the rate of 5% per year, up to a maximum of five years you could get that back so it was possible to calculate when you could break even.

As an expert on commercial real estate, I have to tell members that you do not get any commercial real estate that makes any sense in the first one, two or three years. You only tend to break even around year five. So these people were not foolish and not buying at the wrong rate when they were buying buildings. In order for the normal market to perform, you have fluctuations and you have to time it, and it may take a little longer to get your investment back or a little shorter, depending on how the rents go. But when you control a market and you say, "We're going to control it based upon a certain number," a number which we now know has significantly underperformed inflation on the average over the years that it has been in effect --

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Mr Mammoliti: You can't get rich.

Mr Turnbull: You certainly cannot get rich.

But why do people buy apartment buildings? The reality is most apartment buildings in this province are owned by small landlords who have one building.

Hon Mr Pouliot: Tridel, Bramalea.

Mr Turnbull: You see, across the floor we have a minister once again shouting the names of a couple of large developers which, I am given to believe, are supporters of the Liberal Party, certainly not the Conservatives. But what he ignores is the fact that the majority of buildings are owned by small landlords.

To a great extent, they are ethnic people who came here and had a belief in property. They had lost property in Europe or in Asia, things had gone badly for them and they came here. They believed that they would secure their future by putting their small nest egg into a small building. And the vast majority of landlords, the vast majority, own one building with less than six units. These are not the Reichmanns, these are not the Tridels, these are not the Bramaleas. These are the people who have put their life savings in and they are typically people who do not have a pension fund. Sometimes they do have a pension fund because maybe they are unionists. In fact, we heard from several unionists, people who said that not only did they work at their union job, but then as well as that they went out and they worked in the evenings to make extra money so that they could pay the mortgage because they believed in securing their future. Now their future looks very, very dim, and this piece of legislation is going to take away their ability ever to get into the black.

When you buy a building, you do a calculation and you do a five-year projection, and it is based upon the amount that you can charge back. It is only 5% of the gross income per year that you are allowed for financial loss, up to a maximum of five years. By the time you compound that out, it is about 30% over the five-year period.

I would suggest to the minister that given the fact that all other costs go up in line with the guidelines that are set out by the ministry each year, so that 5% per year for five years is the only way in which you increase the value of the building, it is not something despicable and it is not something that some great capitalist has thought of. It is just the fact that in order to keep up with inflation, you value an apartment building based upon its income.

Mr Chiarelli: The minister as usual is not listening.

Mr Turnbull: The minister as usual, as the member points out, is not listening. It is a great shame. We have found this on many occasions. Oh, the minister finds it is very funny -- he is smiling now -- that small landlords are going to go bankrupt. I think this is so despicable and I have raised this at the committee hearings, that here we have a situation where we get such short shrift. The landlords who want to be heard about the most sweeping retroactive legislation are being ignored. They are being told, "No, you cannot have access to these committee meetings."

We had three weeks of public hearings about retroactive legislation. What is the hurry? If it is retroactive, it is absolutely ludicrous. There is no harm and yet at the same time the minister is saying: "Oh, don't worry about the problems and the mistakes we made in Bill 4. We'll fix it in the permanent legislation." While he is traipsing around the province, he will not allow any members from the committee on general government to go on those sojourns and speak to people who are interested in the permanent legislation. There is a committee set up to study this legislation and yet we are being told that no, the government will spend the taxpayers' money to have only the government minister and his coterie of anointed go with him and sell the message. He has spent $500,000 of taxpayers' money to send out to the tenants of this province this paper and yet we are told that a member of the opposition was barred from entering these public hearings. This is open government, or the death of open government.

Unless you have the allowance of financial loss at least retroactively recognized -- that means the people who bought buildings before the NDP were elected, and these people were acting within the framework of the law -- you will drive them also into bankruptcy.

I am absolutely staggered at the number of times that I talk about bankruptcy and I look across at the NDP benches and the people are in stitches. They think it is so hilarious. This is people's life savings. It is absolutely disgraceful. It is estimated that 3,000 landlords are in danger of bankruptcy. You cannot retroactively legislate that they are unbankrupt.

There was a clause in Bill 51 about chronically depressed rents. It was never enacted and it was always understood that it would be enacted after the backlog of rent control issues was cleared up. It was estimated by the previous Minister of Housing that they would in fact start to bring in a "chronically depressed rent" clause at the beginning of this year. That, of course, has been ignored. The Conservatives brought forward a motion to have that enacted, but that was voted down by the NDP. We have cases where people are paying $40 a month in rent. When you pay $40 a month in rent and you get a guideline increase, what are you going to do to replace the roof? Are you going to replace it one shingle at a time? It is utterly ludicrous.

Hon Mr Pouliot: What is the average in Toronto? What is the average rent in Toronto compared to other Canadian cities?

Mr Turnbull: The average rent across the province? That is a very interesting point. The average rent across the province for households -- I do not have the number offhand for Toronto, but across the province it is 17% of household income. This is very curious. It is very curious that the very government that in the last election said it was going to bring in legislation to have mortgages at 10.5%, that said: "It's simple. Don't worry. It won't cost the taxpayers any money. We will just borrow at the rate that governments borrow at and we will fix it" -- but of course that is another one of the election promises which are just going up in air.

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The Deputy Speaker: Order. Make sure that you address your remarks to the Chair. This is not the committee of the whole House. Just address your remarks to the Chair.

Mr Turnbull: Mr Speaker, I would like to turn now to the subject of retroactivity. I must say, Mr Speaker, it is a much pleasanter view to look towards you on the throne than across at the other side.

With respect to retroactivity, landlords obeyed the law. In order to file an application for a rent increase, you had to have substantially done all of the work, and when they went to file this, they were told that, no, it did not matter that they had, in fact, done the work and paid for it, they were not going to get the money. So landlords obeyed the law. They relied on present legislation to make business decisions. Some even received binding orders from the government stating rent increases to which they are entitled. They are now told the rules have changed after the fact.

I would like to give you an example of Joe Pemberton, who received a conditional order. Joe Pemberton and four partners together own a 20-unit building at 22 Robina Avenue in Toronto. A carpenter by trade, Mr Pemberton was well aware of the need for major work in this 75-year-old building. So was the Ontario government, which provided assistance under the low-rise rehabilitation program for the required renovations.

Because Joe and his partners are working people who had to borrow against their own homes to raise the money required for this work, they sought an advance ruling as assurance that the money would be repaid over time from increased rents. A conditional order was obtained in June 1990 for a 25% increase effective January 1991. The new rents for the renovated units would be still affordable, ranging from $440 to $595 per month.

With his order from the government in hand, Joe Pemberton mortgaged his house and completed the work, only to have a new government, which was not even elected until three months after he obtained his ruling, change the rules on him. He and his partners are now trying to cope with a $4,000-a-month carrying cost for this investment, solely because of this government's reversal. There are approximately 50 other landlords who also had conditional orders who are in the same situation as Joe Pemberton.

Many small landlords face dire financial circumstances; 9,000 units presently operate at a loss. Do they declare personal bankruptcy? I have had a lot of phone calls from landlords asking, "What do we do, do we declare bankruptcy," and I am saying, "Hold on, let's see if we can improve things." We have not been able to improve things. Do they find additional employment? Do they move home, to their home with their parents? Do they give up their own home? How can we tell people what they should do? This is outrageous legislation, as I said before.

Is the bill so unfair that it is unconstitutional? There is a court challenge coming, and one of the pre-eminent law firms in Metro Toronto specializing in landlord and tenant legislation has suggested that, yes, it is unconstitutional. We asked the minister to refer the question of the constitutionality to the courts. He refused to. We asked for the legal opinion which the minister had obtained prior to bringing in this legislation, paid for by the taxpayers of Ontario -- and I would suggest landlords are taxpayers, so they have paid in part for this legal opinion -- yet he refuses to release it. We have in fact served the minister with an order under the freedom-ofinformation act requesting that the legal opinion be made available, and to date we have not got an answer from it.

The whole question of rental housing is something which is so important. We know from the deposition that we had from Mr Thom, who conducted a very extensive study of rental housing in the 1980s, and in fact the Ontario government spent $3 million on producing that report. When the Liberals came into government, they never asked him to come and report back his findings, and he was somewhat surprised at that, to say the least. But when he came before the committee he told us the fact that 30% of all tenants cannot afford the rent they are paying now. Do not talk about rent increases, do not talk about controlling it; they cannot afford the rent they are paying now, and indeed I have had tenants come into my constituency office who are in the difficulty that they are so hard up.

The Progressive Conservative Party has consistently advocated shelter allowances so that we target those people who are in the most need so that they can have affordable housing. We have got to take away the ravages of poor rental legislation which discourages landlords from keeping the buildings in good repair and also encourages the wealthy to stay in rent-controlled apartments.

I will give members the example of somebody living in Rosedale. This story is about four years old, but I know it quite well. The landlord applied for a 15% rental increase, and in point of fact when the landlord applied for it, it was a new landlord and 5% of the rental increase was with respect to the financial loss he was incurring. The building had been in the same ownership for about the last 25 or 30 years.

The tenant who complained first about the 15% rental increase paid at the time, for a two-bedroom apartment in the best part of southern Rosedale, for a two-bedroom apartment with three parking spaces, $550 a month. At the weekends he went to his cottage in the Muskokas. In the garage, his rent-controlled garage spaces, he had three cars. He had a new Mercedes-Benz; he had a new Volkswagen Rabbit convertible, also not an inexpensive car, and he had a DeLorean under carefully tailored wrap to keep it in pristine condition. And he was complaining about a 15% rental increase. At $550 a month, by the way, that included his hydro and his heat and his taxes. The only thing he had on top of that was his telephone bill.

Now is this truly what we want to do with rent controls? Do we need to protect people like that? I think not. I think what we have to do is protect the most needy in society, and there are needy, and every one of us legislators get in our constituency office truly needy people every day. These are the people we should be concentrating on, not on the shotgun approach, which does not work and leads to deteriorating buildings and the most needy are forced into higher-rent locations. They do not get the low-rent locations.

In concluding, I just want to say that it is our opinion that this should go back to the committee for further study so that the people who wish to be heard could be heard and we can have a more timely opportunity to study reasonable alternatives. These are not reasonable alternatives and we do not believe that it should be brought before the House.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate? Shall the report be received and adopted?

Some hon members: No.

The Deputy Speaker: Agreed?

Some hon members: No.

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The Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

"Pursuant to standing order 27(g), I request that the vote on the motion for adoption of the report of the standing committee on general government on Bill 4, An Act to amend the Residential Rent Regulation Act, 1986, be deferred until 5:45 pm on Wednesday 20 March 1991. Mike Cooper, deputy government whip."

Mr Eves: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I have no problem with the request that has been made, except that I would point out, did you say the deputy government whip? The request may be made by the chief whip of a recognized party. The chief whip is sitting right there.

Hon Miss Martel: It was not sure the chief whip could get to the building on time, so we appointed the member for Kitchener-Wilmot as the acting government whip, and I think on your piece of paper, Mr Speaker, that is how it is signed and authorized.

The Deputy Speaker: I agree, and also it is a question of technicality. She happens to be here at this time, but her intention was not to be here and the chief government whip was the member for Kitchener-Wilmot. So I respect the presentation.

Hon Miss Martel: I might at this time ask for unanimous consent that this House might deal with the debate on the orders for concurrence. I would also ask unanimous consent of the House to allow questions and comments during the debate on concurrence in estimates.

Agreed to.

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF TREASURY AND ECONOMICS

Hon Mr Laughren: I shall be very brief in my remarks because I know that other members may want to engage in the debate, not just on this ministry's concurrences but others as well.

It has been a difficult year in the province of Ontario. I of course came late to the problem, not until October, but I can tell members that it is making the task quite difficult. At the same time, it is a challenge and we must face the recession and all the problems attached to it with a degree of optimism. We are not in a recession that is going to last for ever. We are into one that we think will turn around later in this year.

I would not be so bold as to blame all our problems on the federal government and its wrongheaded policies, but at the same time I think all members would agree that the very high interest rates that the federal government has insisted on having in this country for the last couple of years have really done a lot of damage to the Ontario economy. As the manufacturing heartland of this country, Ontario has been hardest hit in this recession. I think it would be unfair to blame either the previous government or this one for the recession. I think that that is not appropriate. At the same time, I do think we have to take a very hardheaded look at what federal government monetary policy has done to the province of Ontario.

I have met with virtually no one in all the pre-budget consultations who did not agree that the high interest rate policy was doing damage to Ontario. I say "almost all" because there were people who agreed that it was absolutely necessary that the federal government be preoccupied with high interest rates and maintain them that way.

Yesterday in this assembly I announced that the deficit for this fiscal year ending 31 March was now going to be $3 billion, whereas we had been anticipating and hoping that we could hold it at $2.5 billion. That obviously now is not the case and it is not difficult to analyse that problem. Our revenues have been down dramatically from major sources of revenue; namely, the corporate income tax, retail sales tax and land transfer tax. Those revenues have been down very substantially in this fiscal year and we are not expecting a dramatic turnaround in those revenues for the balance of this year either. So it is not a mystery as to how we got into this situation.

There were some numbers that we inherited that I did not like, but at the same time they do not account for the majority of the $10-billion -- sorry, the $3-billion deficit that we are having this fiscal year.

Mr Nixon: I hope that 10 was not Freudian either.

Hon Mr Laughren: No, it was not. The $3-billion deficit for this year is primarily because of falling revenues and a dramatic increase in welfare case loads. I continue to be amazed and not very happy about the increased welfare case loads. At the same time I try to make sure that I do not look at them simply as someone who is trying to come up with a bottom-line figure, but rather to keep in mind the misery that is attached to welfare case loads; that it is not simply that it creates a problem for us as we do budgeting but rather that it means that there are a lot of problems out there in the province of Ontario.

We know as well that just in the last 12 months the job losses or the increase in unemployment has been 260,000. That is a truly dramatic increase in unemployment and it truly is an unprecedented increase in unemployment. We know, or at least we hope, that it is going to turn around later this year. Forecasters are of mixed minds about whether it is going to turn around in the summer, late summer or early fall, but virtually all forecasters are predicting a turnaround before the end of this year, and that includes the forecasters in the Ministry of Treasury and Economics. And of course we know what an astute group they are.

But the other forecasters out there as well are predicting that things are going to turn around. We tried, when we realized we were in a recession, to do something. I know that for the official opposition we did not do enough; for the third party, I suspect they believe we did too much. So perhaps there is some solace there for us that we are doing something right, since the two opposition parties are in disagreement.

I think that the $700 million that we have put into the Ontario economy in capital works will go some way at least to alleviating the problem. I have no illusions that it is going to solve all the problems. We would like to do a lot more, but the $700 million will at least make a contribution.

We had some particular criteria on the allocation of funds for that $700-million package. First of all, it had to be capital works. We did not want to put in place program expenditures that would become annualized over the years to come, so we are quite particular about that, about it being capital works projects. As well, there is a higher multiplier to capital works projects. We also wanted the projects to be environmentally friendly. We wanted them to increase access for the disabled and of course we wanted to help all of our public institutions out there because that public infrastructure is so important to us, not just now but when the recession is over as well.

So we think that we did the right thing with the $700-million package. We have asked the school boards and municipalities to help in the program. I might add we also asked the federal government to help in the program and it declined, without thanks, to participate in our anti-recession package. As a matter of fact, if anything, they have made it worse with what they have done to us in their federal budget.

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Mr Stockwell: Terrible, terrible.

Hon Mr Laughren: Well, the third party seems to think that its friends in Ottawa are doing the right thing. If they think that cutting back transfer payments to the province is the right thing, which simply transfers the federal debt to the provinces, then they have got a strange view of public policymaking in this country. At a time when we should be trying to strengthen the regions of this country for all sorts of constitutional and economic reasons, I find it deplorable that the federal government moves in the opposite direction and transfers its problems to the provinces. That is truly unacceptable. That is unacceptable public policy.

Mrs Cunningham: That is almost as bad as you cutting back to the municipalities, Floyd.

Hon Mr Laughren: I want to tell the member that solution would be the same as if we in this province decided that --

Mrs Cunningham: You pass yours to the municipality. There is no easy solution. You can't keep playing that game, Floyd.

Hon Mr Laughren: Well, if the --

Mrs Cunningham: Get rid of the debt so nobody has to pay these bills. That's what you have to do. Get rid of it.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Laughren: Transferring the debt from the federal level to the provincial level does not solve any problem. That is perverse public policy. If we wanted to do what the federal government had done, we would have said to our partners out there, the school boards and the municipalities, "We are going to cut our grants to you this year." We did not say that.

We see the school boards, the municipalities, the hospitals as our partners in the public life of Ontario, and we made transfer announcements that were substantial and that will help them maintain their commitment to their constituencies. We intend to honour that commitment that we made in the major transfers announcement. We are not going to do what the federal government is doing to the provinces. We are determined not to do that.

I can understand the angst of the third party. After all, they have to defend what their cousins in Ottawa do. At the same time I think they should be fairminded and acknowledge the fact that what the federal government has done to the province is not helpful to us as we attempt to make public policy in this province. It has been very, very harmful. Whether you are talking about the cap on the Canada assistance plan payments or the restrictions on the established programs financing, it has been very harmful to the province of Ontario as we attempt to manage our affairs in the middle of a recession.

Mr Jordan: Thanks for the lecture. Get on with your speech.

Mr B. Murdoch: Get on with the speech. Come on.

Hon Mr Laughren: I am telling you, Mr Speaker, it is difficult with the interjections.

Mr Tilson: We have heard the "blame the feds" speech before. Get on to your policies.

Mr B. Murdoch: What about your policies? Don't worry about the feds.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Minister.

Hon Mr Laughren: I can recall that when I was in opposition and concurrences were on, I always felt that they were very important and always refrained from interjecting. The members opposite have a short memory. They do not remember that I refrained from interjecting during concurrences.

Another move we took that was quite deliberate to keep more money in the pockets of taxpayers, we decided not to impose our retail sales tax on top of the GST. If we had done that, it would have meant $500 million roughly, a little less this year because of decreased economic activity, but almost $500 million that would have flowed to the consolidated revenue fund, but we made a determination not to do that.

I do want to leave time for responses from members opposite, so I will stop talking but simply say to members opposite that they should not despair because we are in a recession. We know that there are some signals out there that the recession is going to come to an end and we think this year. We see increased activity on the stock markets, we see increased real estate sales and we see a lowering of interest rates at the federal level, although not as much as we would like to see. But those are three signals we think that give us encouragement that the recession is going to come to an end later this year.

We are going to make sure, as we prepare for the 1991-92 budget, that we are prepared for the recovery because we know that there is a restructuring going on out there underneath us as we speak, and we are very concerned that we are well placed to take advantage of that restructuring as the recovery occurs.

Mr Daigeler: The Treasurer, who is otherwise a very likeable fellow, at least when he was on this side of the House, is talking in very caring terms about the economy of this province, and we are certainly appreciative of this. After all, we are expecting this from the Treasurer. However, we would have expected the Treasurer at least to show enough courtesy to the standing committee on estimates that he has shown to the House today and appear and fully defend his Treasury programs at the standing committee on estimates, not to appear for only a few hours and then for inexplicable reasons not be there again.

I think the minister has shown that he can certainly defend his positions, and it is totally unexplainable why he should not have shown up at the standing committee on estimates itself to show his concern in front of the representatives of the two opposition parties. It is shameful for a member who has been in this House for a long time and who was talking earlier on about the traditions of this House and how he has presented himself in opposition that the first time he had a chance to come to the standing committee on estimates and to defend and represent his views on the very urgent problems in this province, he did not take the time to come to us and speak with us and speak to all the people of the province, through the committee, about the serious problems that we are facing and what he is planning to do about them.

While we respect the Treasurer in his ability to manage the finances of this province, he is off to a very, very poor start, I must say, when it comes to the legislative process, to the credibility and the integrity of this House, by not coming, as all other ministers have done, and representing for the full seven hours his ministry estimates at the committee meeting.

Mr Kwinter: I listened with interest to the Treasurer and I just would like to question him about a couple of things. When he appeared before the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, he appeared with his officials and he gave us an overview of where he thought the economy was going to be this year.

When we questioned him, he gave us assurances that yes, these were figures that were accurate, they had done all of their homework, everything was exactly as he had predicted and in fact, because of windfall revenues, he was going to be able to keep the deficit this year at $2.5 billion. It was only five or six weeks ago that that was the figure. His officials sat there and said: "Yes, absolutely, we've done all of our numbers, we've checked them. We're going to be at $2.5 billion and you can virtually take that to the bank and count on it." Now six weeks have gone by and the other day the Treasurer stood in his place and said that in effect the economy is not performing as well as it did and we are going to have a deficit of $3 billion.

I think there is sort of an illusion. When he says $2.5 billion or $3 billion, it does not make too much difference, but he is talking percentagewise. He is going from $2.5 billion to $3 billion in a matter of weeks and, as a result, I think we are at serious risk that all of the other projections that they have made are also no longer valid. I hope that when the Treasurer is taking a look at his projections and when he brings down his budget, he will really try to make sure that there is some validity to what he is talking about.

Mr Nixon: I am glad to have a chance for a few moments to comment to the Treasurer, because he was patting himself on the back that, unlike the federal Conservatives, he had in fact increased his grants to school boards. In absolute terms I am sure that is right, but the increase was not as much as it was last year when he castigated the former Treasurer for not being generous enough to assist the school boards.

As a matter of fact, his political allies, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, said that the inadequacies of our increase amounted to child neglect, one of the stupidest and most nefarious charges that I have ever seen in print. Actually, I understand now that the OSSTF is so disillusioned with the Treasurer and his colleagues that they have started to phone Liberals again and they realize that their only hope is for us to be restored to office so that we can begin the improvement in the financing of education. But the honourable Treasurer, which is surely a part of the policy of the New Democratic Party, has not only not moved towards fulfilling the 60% of the cost of education promise solemnly made by his leader the Premier and his colleagues, but in fact his transfers have amounted to a reduction in the percentage share paid by the government of Ontario in those overall costs.

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The honourable member, who has been around here a long time -- some say too long; not I -- will well remember that in our first year of office we actually reversed this terrible trend and the percentage paid by the government of Ontario increased during our first year of office. Perhaps he could apprise us of what happened after that, but that is his prerogative.

Mr Stockwell: There are a couple of concerns that I would like to express after the Treasurer outlined his statement. There are only really two ways to deal with this particular dilemma, being the recession that this province finds itself in. Some would suggest the spending approach, to spend your way out of the recession, is the most appropriate route to go. This party, frankly, disagrees with that approach. We disagree with it today and when the Treasurer announces his budget some time next month, potentially, we will disagree with it at that time too. There is no chance that we will agree to seeing this province go $7 billion, $8 billion, $9 billion or $10 billion into debt.

It is a consistent theme that we have offered to the people of Ontario and if the Treasurer is suggesting to me, to the people in this province and the federal government that the best way to resolve the recession is to try and spend his way out, it is foolhardy, very, very foolhardy. He will not make a blip in the economy of Ontario with the moneys that he is speaking about. He will have the moneys reach the public long after the recession is in fact over, including his $700-million capital improvement fund that will not be meeting the public's needs until after the summer, when the Treasurer claims we are going to be spinning out of this recession.

If he is expecting us, after that lecture, to start defending a program that calls for debt in the magnitude of the numbers that he is talking about, he is dead wrong. And if the Liberals want to stand up and compare their Visa bill for five years, which was $10 billion in debt, and the government thinks it is successful because it can outspend them, they are fooling themselves and the people and we will never support that kind of spending in this province. Thank you.

Hon Mr Laughren: I must be brief in my remarks. The member for Nepean -- I was unhappy with what he had to say, because I tried very hard to spend as much time at the estimates committee as I could and I actually had an agreement with the Chair of the committee to attend in the hours I did, so I think that the member is being a bit unfair.

The member also talked about our revenues. Somebody asked about the revenues being down; oh, the member for Wilson Heights, about the fact that I had indicated our deficit was going to be $2.5 billion and one reason was that our income tax payments from the federal government were higher than we thought they would be and that was true. Without those, the deficit would have even been higher. There is no question about that, but following that, while we were speaking at that estimates committee, the numbers are still rolling in on both the welfare case loads plus the corporation income tax, retail sales tax, land transfer tax and quite frankly that is simply what happened. There was nothing mysterious about it: The recession was much deeper than anybody thought it was going to be. No one predicted the drop in employment that we heard about two weeks ago. Nobody predicted that. That was a truly remarkable increase in unemployment.

The leader of the official opposition commented about a remark that we did not spend enough money, I gather, on our transfer payments. If you compare what every other jurisdiction is doing in this country in the middle of this recession, we were more than generous and I think that our partners out there, including the school boards, are very appreciative of the fact that despite the middle of a recession, despite a climbing deficit, we were able to give them as substantial transfers as we did in fact do.

I am sorry, I wish I had more time to respond to the member for Etobicoke West.

Mr Beer: It is a pleasure for me to begin some remarks this afternoon, and particularly to flow on from what the Treasurer has just been discussing.

As we look at the estimates of Treasury and particularly because the Treasurer has chosen to talk about the transfer payments, and because the former Treasurer and leader of the opposition has noted, I think, some very salient facts that we need to bring forward to the Treasurer, it is perhaps the place to begin a discussion of the whole area of educational financing and funding and what it is the present government is doing or, more appropriately, is not doing.

One of the things that was always interesting, when we were over there and you were over here, was the way in which you would simply say: "Look, you cannot blame anybody else for your problems. What we are interested in is what are you doing." So I think it is not at all surprising that as we listen to the various things you say about the federal government, we understand that, we accept that, we probably said many of those things ourselves.

None the less, in a real sense, a government is known by the financial decisions that it makes, and what has been so clear since you assumed government in October is that in the area of education and the funding of education, it is not a priority and has clearly been placed on the back burner.

There are a number of things that I think we can look at which address that very specifically in terms of percentages, in terms of the actual programs that you are doing, but I also want to offer to the Treasurer some advice, which I hope he will consider in the normal fashion, that deals with his commission, this tax commission, the New Democrat tax commission that was set up. It has another name in some circles, but I think here we see it as the New Democratic Party tax commission.

In terms of what many of us have been saying in this House over the last year, everybody agrees that there is a need to look in a more fundamental way at the tax system, and I think on that we can all agree. If the tax commission can come up with some useful proposals, that is fine too. But where we have to indicate very clearly our concern is partly in terms of the time frame of that particular commission and my understanding is, and the minister can correct me if I am wrong, that the first meeting of the commissioners is going to take place some time this week.

There are a number of areas where there may be some specific kinds of recommendations that one wants to make, but I think particularly in the area of educational funding there has to be some way of fast-tracking our ability to deal with the various problems that are out there. I would want to say to the Treasurer that I think a good place to start, and a document that I hope he would give to the tax commission, is the third report of the select committee on education. That particular committee had, of course, representatives from all of the three parties. They spent an extensive time carrying out hearings and looking at all aspects of the whole financing system for education.

In their report -- and I think it is interesting to note and important to note that they brought in a unanimous report, all members agreeing with some 34 recommendations, many of which dealt in a very specific sense with how we would go about changing the model that we have for educational financing.

The reason I think it is important to note those recommendations and note the work of the committee is simply that a lot of very recent work has been done by a legislative body which, I think, can speed up, if you like, the work that the tax commission will be doing in a number of different areas.

If the minister looks -- and in the short time left this afternoon I would like to read to you one of the recommendations that is made. Recommendation 3 -- again a unanimous report, and some very prominent New Democrats, as the minister will know, were on that committee:

There are three points.

"The ministry should consult with the key partners in education as soon as possible in order to determine a clear and understandable mode of calculating the cost of providing the education services mandated in the Education Act and identifying the basic components of recognized expenditure;

"develop a rational means of updating these cost calculations and ceiling determinations; and

"complete the development of these calculations by 30 August 1990."

This report came out in January of last year so it would not be difficult, using a system devised by all three parties, for that tax commission to come up with proposals by August or September of this year. Mr Speaker, I would like to go on at some length on some of these, but I note that the clock is fast approaching 6, if indeed it has not, and so I wonder if I might thereby adjourn the debate at this time.

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The Deputy Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 33, the question that this House do now adjourn is deemed to have been made.

MINISTRY OF REVENUE

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Ottawa-Rideau has given notice of dissatisfaction with the answer to a question given today by the Minister of Revenue. The member has up to five minutes to debate the matter and the minister may reply for up to five minutes.

Mrs Y. O'Neill: I am concerned that the Minister of Revenue seemed to be confused by the facts I presented earlier this afternoon regarding her meeting with NDP municipal politicians in February of this year. It is for this reason that I have asked for this opportunity for the minister to provide a direct answer to the concerns I have raised.

In presenting my comments this evening, I will try again to outline the chronology of events in which the Minister of Revenue was involved. I will try to clarify that we are all aware there have been a number of meetings regarding market value assessment over the years. Our concern is with the fact that there was one specific meeting where there was significant discussion and where invitations were limited to NDP supporters.

In her response this afternoon, the minister raised the issue of meetings offered to members of the Legislature. These meetings are not the meetings I am talking about. This afternoon the minister's availability to meet with MPPs or indeed to provide resources for briefing were not at question. My question dealt instead with the minister's decision to hold what some elected Toronto officials consider a very high-level meeting, but the representation was selective. The representation of municipal government members, all NDP supporters, was the restriction.

I want to let the minister know that I am very aware that earlier in the year she did meet with a Metro delegation which included Chairman Tonks, and with a city of Toronto delegation which included Mayor Eggleton. The reports I have heard from these meetings indicate that the minister listened to the presentations, but did not have a lot of time to deal with real issues.

I want to make it clear to the minister that I am raising these concerns on behalf of a number of municipal politicians across Metro and the city of Toronto who were very upset with the minister's action. My concern is that there was another meeting, an unannounced meeting which the public at large, and indeed many elected councillors, were not aware of until it was revealed to them in the press.

My question to the minister this afternoon dealt specifically, I repeat, specifically, with her decision to invite a select group of Metro area municipal politicians to an unpublicized meeting, a preferential-access meeting, to talk about market value assessment.

When he found out about the meeting, Michael Walker of the city of Toronto council said, "I'd like to know what secret arrangements they are cooking up behind closed doors." As he was one of the duly elected municipal representatives excluded from the meeting, Mr Walker was very concerned about what was discussed at the meeting when he said, "We have the right to question whether they are being brought into line by their party colleagues at Queen's Park."

The mayor of the city of Toronto is also quite concerned and feels that municipal politicians were unfairly excluded from this specific meeting. "I cannot recall, in all my times as mayor, there ever being a meeting called on an issue of municipal interest where only people of the same political stripe were invited." I want to reiterate that these concerns stem from a specific meeting that the minister had with municipal NDP supporters, not from any meetings which may or may not have attempted to be arranged with members of this Legislature.

I want to remind the minister of the Premier's remarks on 20 December 1990, on which the Premier said, "The Leader of the Opposition has said that what concerns him is the sense that one party is being favoured over another." That is exactly the perception, and in this business perception is reality. That is exactly the problem I discussed with the two ministers this morning in our conversation. That is exactly the business that has troubled me. It is something I do not want to see repeated. It is something I regard as a mistake.

So I place my question again to the minister, which I hope she will finally address this evening, whether she does not agree that her meeting with NDP supporters on market value assessment sends a clear signal of political favouritism on a very important issue, and indeed destroys partnerships between municipalities and this provincial Legislature.

Hon Ms Wark-Martyn: I would just like to add that the meeting the member is talking about did not just include municipal people. I would like to make that very clear from the beginning. There were other people there; that is correct.

The member for Ottawa-Rideau is complaining about a so-called secret meeting. She is under the mistaken impression that there was any one meeting about Toronto's assessment where anything was decided. That decision will take place in cabinet. That is a privilege that cabinet ministers have and I will be bringing that information to them after I have met with several people and delegations.

There have been many meetings on many different dates and times and nothing has been decided in any of them. I have held meetings with many interested people and groups to hear their views on this matter. I have consulted my cabinet colleagues in the ministries that might be affected by any decision. I have met a delegation from the city of Toronto council on 22 January. The delegation included Mayor Art Eggleton, who is not a prominent New Democrat. The delegation also included Councillor Michael Walker, who has also complained. He had the chance to put his views directly to me. Was that a secret meeting?

I met with the delegation from the city of Scarborough on 30 January and heard its views. Was that also a secret meeting? I met with Citizens for Property Tax Reform on 23 January. The delegation included people from several municipalities. Does that constitute a secret as well? I met a delegation from Metro council including Chairman Tonks and six other councillors on 31 January. I do not think that is a secret either. I met with New Democrats from the city, Metro and provincial levels, on 20 February and heard a range of views but nothing was decided. I even went so far as to contact Metro councillors opposed to Metro's own plan and they have conveyed their views on me.

As I said earlier, my office contacted the offices of the leaders of both opposition parties several times but was unable to set up meetings. I am still open to meeting with Liberals and Conservatives on this issue. All they have to do is call my office. If they have any suggestions for other groups or people that have not been consulted, they could also pass these on to me. It is the policy of this government to consult widely, and I have done so to the best of my ability. I have met with people from all three political parties. I have met with people who do not claim to support any party. I have met with people from outside of government as well. If that is a secret, then it is the worst-kept secret in Ontario.

There has been no decision made on this matter, and anyone who wants to be heard has that opportunity. As a New Democrat I will meet with New Democrats. As a minister I will meet with people from all three parties however they want to meet with me. I am committed to doing that and committed to hearing what all people have to say, because I am very aware that market value assessment does not just affect New Democrats; it affects all of us, including those across the province of Ontario.

The House adjourned at 1810.