Journal des débats 1993-mai-20 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Recognizing that the Workers' Compensation Board has an $11-billion unfunded liability that is growing at the astonishing rate of $100 million a month; and

Since the average employer's assessment has more than tripled since 1980; and

Since skyrocketing workers' compensation premiums are delivering death blows to many existing businesses and making Ontario less attractive for new business, investment and jobs; and

Since despite this fiscal crisis, the board continues to make questionable decisions, such as the plan to spend $180 million on a new office complex in downtown Toronto; and

Since despite this fiscal crisis, the board continues to expand the scope of coverage into areas such as unpaid student trainees and chronic stress; and

Since the workers' compensation system is seriously failing to address the legitimate needs and aspirations of those it's supposed to help -- injured workers, who experience excessive delays when they file claims; and

Since this crisis at the Workers' Compensation Board is a result of the fact that rather than remaining true to its original conception as a workplace accident insurance plan, the WCB has become a universal system to compensate everyone for everything, in effect, an employer-funded social safety net; and

Since other provinces, such as Manitoba and New Brunswick, have taken effective steps to regain control of their workers' compensation systems;

Therefore, the government of Ontario should take immediate steps to rectify problems with the workers' compensation system in Ontario including an inquiry into the feasibility of privatizing workplace accident and injury insurance. In the interim to control the unfunded liability of the WCB and cost to employers the government should:

1. Impose a moratorium on all new entitlement until there's a plan in place to deal with the unfunded liability; and

2. Follow the lead of New Brunswick and Manitoba and reduce benefit levels and streamline administrative procedures; and

3. Adopt a value-for-money approach to rehabilitation and institute value-for-money audits of the board's operations.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): The honourable member has 10 minutes in her opening remarks.

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): I have before you today a resolution dealing with the crisis of the $11-billion unfunded liability at the WCB. It is obvious that there is a choice to be made in this province as far as the future of the WCB is concerned. We either need to change the system dramatically or it will collapse.

We know that there are changes in workers' compensation occurring throughout North America for very obvious reasons, reasons similar to the ones I've already discussed. Costs are escalating at rates well beyond what was envisioned when the programs were established. Employers in this province and elsewhere can no longer support worker benefit systems that they have full responsibility to fund but little input or control.

Eight of the provinces have systems in the red; however, in this province, the province of Ontario, the problem is enormous. It's similar to the $2-billion tax grab yesterday. That was certainly enormous as well and the highest one in the history of this province.

So what is happening in the province of Ontario? What is being done to deal with this problem? As I said before, the unfunded liability has increased to $11 billion. It's growing at a rate of $100 million a month. That is more than $2,800 for every Ontario worker. We have this situation existing despite the fact that there's been a 92% increase in the payroll tax paid by the employer to fund the system over a 12-year period, from 1980 to 1992. Imagine that: a 92% increase in the payroll tax.

During this period, total accident claims have remained relatively constant but the benefits paid out by the WCB have jumped from $965 million to $2.3 billion. Whereas the typical worker lost 23.4 days in 1980, by 1990 that injured worker was away for 43.8 days. The duration of benefits has doubled. Why?

The burden of retiring the debt is now being shouldered by a smaller and smaller number of employees as businesses in this province are closing, they are relocating or they are downsizing because of this NDP government which is not encouraging investment or job creation in the private sector.

The continuing existence of the WCB system is threatened, and yet this government is doing absolutely nothing. The WCB issued a funding strategy consultation paper to deal with the financial crisis at the WCB when the debt was $10 billion. It has gone up by $1 billion and yet they have made absolutely no decision whatsoever. A task force on service delivery and vocational rehabilitation concluded in a July 1992 report that the WCB does a poor job on claims management. Any of us who have constituency offices know that that's indeed the fact. It also concluded that it needs to revamp vocational rehabilitation, that it does not listen to its stakeholders and that the financial viability of the system is questionable.

In response, what did the WCB do? They put in place an action plan that consists of 16 planning groups in order to solicit feedback from its employees. The action plan, however, does not address the issue of the cost of the system. In essence, senior management is refusing to acknowledge the very serious problems. There is no sense of urgency at the board or with this government that these problems need to be tackled immediately.

I find it strange that this government has hired Mr Strong to make structural changes at Ontario Hydro in order to get its $34-billion debt under control. Why should tackling the debt problem at the WCB be any less important? Why is the government not taking measures to get the $11-billion unfunded liability under control?

It's incredible: At a time when the future sustainability of the system is very unclear, the board then goes ahead and decides to build a $150-million office tower in downtown Toronto.

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I can tell you that while Ontario and this government sit idle, there are other provinces that are taking action to deal with their unfunded liabilities. Manitoba introduced Bill 59; this overhauled their 1960 statute. It does deal with the emerging trends in work-related injuries, coverage and benefit levels. It does provide fair and reasonable benefit programs. It retires the unfunded liability, and it provides competitive assessment rates.

The bill defines "occupational disease" as a disease arising out of the course of employment and requires that the employment be shown to be the dominant cause of the illness for the claim to be compensable. Bill 59 also provides a definition for workplace stress. Under the legislation, compensation will be paid only in cases involving an acute reaction to a traumatic event.

Let's now turn to New Brunswick. They've introduced a plan to reduce annual operating costs by $9 million and reduce the unfunded liability by $35 million. Benefits will be reduced from 90% to 80% of net income, with a freeze on indexation for injured workers now receiving compensation until they reach the 80% level. The definition of "accident" has been reworded to reflect a probable relationship between the work accident and disablement as well as requiring employment to be a dominant factor in the disablement. Stress will be compensable when there is an acute reaction to a traumatic event.

I can also tell you that Newfoundland is contemplating similar changes to make the system more up to date and responsive to the needs of workers and employers today.

However, these are short-term solutions. In the long term, we need to review the merits of privatization and contracting out both the administration and the provision of workers' compensation services. We need to enlist the private sector expertise to develop and implement less expensive and more effective ways to retrain, rehabilitate and respond to the needs of injured workers so that they can re-enter the workforce.

Just before Christmas I learned about a small Ontario businessman who received a 60% increase in his assessment rate. He was now paying more than $300 per month. When he called his private insurance company to find out what it would cost for similar coverage, he found that if he were not bound by WCB premium and law, he could cover each of his employees for both accident and sickness 24 hours per day, seven days a week for $105 per month. Roughly, he would get four times the coverage for one third the cost. I know that there's not consensus on the issue of private insurance. However, I do believe that examples such as this oblige us to at least investigate the potential benefits.

At the same time we need to investigate the possibility of private sector training and retraining as an alternative to the current approach, which isn't serving employers or the workers well at all.

Systems also run amok when the rules are set up by a body with absolutely no accountability for paying the bills. When that body is political as well, the results are even worse. That is wrong, and we need to change that system.

We also need to embrace new directions in terms of philosophy and attitudes about workers' compensation. Workers' compensation was never intended to be a substitute or alternative to unemployment insurance. It was intended to financially compensate and physically rehabilitate injured workers until they got healthy and back to work. It was intended as a no-fault alternative to cut out the high court costs of determining liability and to be a more streamlined, lower-cost option that truly served the needs of injured workers. That's not what it is today.

I would therefore recommend that we take the immediate steps that I have suggested to solve the problems of the workers' compensation system. It's time to get injured workers and employers in this province back on track. It will help get Ontario's economy back on track as well, because at the end of the day we're going to have, instead of more costs and bureaucracy, more people working on the job.

The Acting Speaker: All recognized parties in the Legislature will now have 15 minutes to participate in the debate, after which the honourable member will have two minutes to sum up.

Ms Sharon Murdock (Sudbury): I'm very, very happy this morning to be able to speak to this, except that we're splitting it up with three of our speakers; I'll have five minutes, which is not nearly enough, and even 15, if I had it all, would not be enough to go into this.

But I would like to remind the member for Waterloo North that the unfunded liability issue is by far not something that just suddenly occurred in the last two and a half years since the New Democrats won the election, to the chagrin of the opposition parties. I would like to remind you that the Progressive Conservatives, while they were in power -- and this is important; I want everybody in this Legislature to remember this -- from 1980 to 1985, when the Progressive Conservatives were the party in power, the unfunded liability grew from -- now get this -- $800 million to $5.4 billion in five years, and for the Progressive Conservatives have the audacity to sit here today and tell us that we are not organizing the Workers' Compensation Board is absolutely reprehensible.

Then in 1984 the WCB decided to try to work out a funding strategy, because, gee, $800 million to $5.4 billion is a considerable increase, and the business community was not on our doorstep, crying and bemoaning this fact. So they tried to work this out, and again they increased assessment rates.

Then the Liberals won the government, with our help, in 1985, and when they did, they maintained that whole strategy. To their credit, they tried to keep it under control, and still, under the Liberals, the unfunded liability climbed from $5.4 billion, where the Tories left it, to $9.1 billion.

We win the election in 1990, and we are stuck with a $9.1-billion debt in the unfunded liability of the Workers' Compensation Board, and now we listen to the self-righteous rhetoric that we get from the other side on this nonsense.

We are controlling this. We talk the action plan. You don't talk action plan in isolation with everything else. You talk action plan because something has to be done. And who are you going to ask as to how it should be done but the very people on the front line who have some idea and some clue as to what to do.

My time is up. I could go on forever, obviously. I just want to say, though, that this is not a new problem, as I have very carefully pointed out. And the unfunded liability, contrary to the resolution, as the member for Waterloo North has claimed, is not increasing and growing at $100 million a month; in fact, it is slowing. In 1991 it increased by $1.3 billion; in 1992, by $680 million or $57 million a month, half of what the member for Waterloo North is claiming. In 1993 it's gone down to $30 million per month, so it is not growing as is being claimed, and it's certainly slower than it was two years ago before we got into power.

I would say that the employers' assessment rates are not skyrocketing. What have they done? They've frozen the assessment rates. And how have they done that? They have done that with employer consultation, extensively. The business community, unfortunately -- and I believe this completely -- could be more forthcoming in finding solutions with the Workers' Compensation Board, and it is consulted widely.

We are extremely open. The Workers' Compensation Board administrators have been extremely open with how it deals with its funding strategy. They've made no bones about it. They are trying to clean it up because, in that sense, Ms Witmer is right: It can't continue the way it is. Yet the basic underlying theme we must remember is that worker safety and worker protection, worker rehab and re-employment are the most important things that this board has to look after, and that is what we are looking for.

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Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): I'm pleased to join in the debate on this resolution. I think this resolution speaks about a very important aspect dealing with the WCB, and I believe that many people are becoming increasingly concerned, if not alarmed, with what is transpiring around the WCB.

The first thing that will always be brought forward is the current unfunded liability of the WCB. I don't think the previous remarks by the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour warm the hearts of many people who might be watching, to say: "My goodness, don't worry. It's only going up $30 million a month." In fact, I think that makes people very cold inside.

What we have to recognize is that the WCB is funded by employers. That is where the WCB looks to get its dollars. When the unfunded liability, the long-term obligations of the WCB, is continually short each and every month, those employers and the many people who still work are increasingly concerned about what that holds for them.

I think it's indeed not very warming that the Ministry of Labour thinks that $30 million in the hole each month is something which one can be proud of. I believe that in fact that causes some real concerns.

Ms Murdock: That isn't what I said.

Mr Offer: The parliamentary assistant gets very concerned.

Another area where people are very concerned is, where is the accountability with the WCB at this point in time? Where is the accountability for the decisions that the WCB seems to be making each and every day? I don't think we have to look very far in the past to see. The WCB has embarked on a new building, a building which is slated to cost $177 million.

That building is to house the WCB: 525,000 square feet. It is to be placed in the city of Toronto at the same time that there is between 25 million and 27 million square feet of available commercial space now in the city of Toronto. People are asking, why is the WCB building a new building when there is so much available? Those concerns are rightly made.

Why does the government become so defensive when people bring forward that issue? Why does the WCB become so defensive, when the tenders on the building of the new headquarters were limited, when only three general contractors were allowed to bid, where others in this province were specifically excluded, where not every subtrade in this province can work on the proposed building? The subtrades, as well as the general contractors, are saying: "Wait a minute. Who's running this show? There's an accountability area here and no right to the WCB or to the government to exclude people from partaking in the building."

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): You are so self-righteous.

Mr Offer: Members say "self-righteous." You're just full of baloney. People have the right to bid and the right to tender, and the WCB has excluded their right to take part, notwithstanding the fact that the building itself is not warranted.

People are saying: "Where is the accountability? Why is the government consistently turning its back on the actions that are being taken by the WCB? This is going to have an effect on business. It is going to have an effect on jobs." People are saying this day in and day out. They are saying to the government, "Do not turn your back on the actions that are being done within the WCB."

You have a responsibility in the 1990s to be accountable for the actions of the WCB. You cannot turn your back when the WCB is looking at potentially entitling the action of stress without any understanding as to what the financial implications will be for the jobs and business in our province. You have no right to turn your back. The government thinks there will not be any financial implications to compensating stress. There are many people out there and many jurisdictions out there that very much disagree with you.

I believe the member's resolution speaks to very important aspects that have to be dealt with at the WCB. Primarily for me, it is an issue of accountability, that the WCB is operating without any aspect of accountability to the government: It is deciding on the building of buildings; it is deciding on the issue of stress. For me, that, in principle, is troubling, because it is the employers, the people, the private sector, the job creators, the job retainers, that will be paying this. They are saying that if the WCB continues in the same way it has, this will have an effect on our ability to maintain jobs.

The government to this point in time, and especially with respect to the comments by the parliamentary assistant, has said, "Let the WCB order its own affairs." Well, that is not good enough any more. Governments must take a role. Governments must be accountable. Governments must rein in the WCB. It is running amok.

People, businesses and jobs are at stake. It is long past time that the government recognize its responsibility and stops saying that $30 million, $50 million in debt each month is good. It isn't. Employers, people, jobs depend on it. Get on with the job.

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I welcome this opportunity to rise in support of this important resolution from my colleague the member for Waterloo North.

The essence, the short version, of this resolution is:

"Recognizing that the Workers' Compensation Board has an $11-billion unfunded liability that is growing at the astonishing rate of $100 million a month; and

"Since the average employer's assessment has more than tripled since 1980; and

"Since skyrocketing workers' compensation premiums are delivering death blows to many existing businesses and making Ontario less attractive for new business, investment and jobs," and since despite this fiscal crisis, the board continues to make questionable decisions such as to spend $180 million on a new office complex in downtown Toronto, in essence that's what this resolution we're dealing with here this morning is all about.

The WCB is mired in an extremely serious financial crisis. The last official quote of the unfunded liability was $10.3 billion, but it is growing at a rate of $100 million a month and it will exceed the $11 billion that I had indicated.

That debt represents about $45,000 for each firm currently registered with the WCB. Ontario's employers are facing serious issues, ranging from increasing assessment rates, compensation for stress, the building of a new WCB shrine and the NDP government's move to revamp the workplace accident fund into a universal insurance system.

In 1984, the WCB realized that the yearly assessments charged employers were inadequate to cover accident costs and the board adopted a full-funding strategy to ensure that its assets could match its liabilities at some future date. The funding strategy was to raise assessment rates to levels adequate to cover current and future costs of every year's new accidents and to generate a surplus above this amount sufficient to retire the unfunded liability within 30 years.

So between 1984 and 1989, the WCB strategy to eliminate the unfunded liability was on track. But during 1990, things took a turn for the worse, and the unfunded liability increased more than was anticipated because Bill 162, introduced by the Liberals in 1989, added nearly $1 billion to the board's total liabilities and the recession reduced revenues. The recession led to an 11% decrease in employer assessment in 1990 and 1991. It should be noted that the WCB gets 75% of its overall revenues from the manufacturing sector and from the construction and natural resource industries, which have all been especially hard hit by this current recession. These three sectors are not expected to regain their 1989 employment levels until at least 1995 at the very earliest.

While all this was happening, total WCB expenditures -- claims costs plus overhead -- increased by 20%.

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Our caucus realized that the WCB was in crisis and out of control as far back as before 1991. In fact two of my colleagues, the member for Wellington and the member for Lanark-Renfrew, issued a minority report and their opinion and recommendations of what our party members on the standing committee on resources development -- they reported on the service delivery at the Workers' Compensation Board. Keeping in mind that that was 1991, I think you will agree that the recommendations made for interesting reading.

The two PC caucus members of the committee recommended that:

(1) The Provincial Auditor be immediately commissioned to conduct a value-for-money audit of the Workers' Compensation Board.

(2) Upon completion of the operational review and before any additional resources are allocated to such major activities as claims adjudication, assessment and rehabilitation, the chairman of the WCB should table in the House a detailed cost-benefit analysis of the proposed policy changes. That would include specific justification for any increases in staffing levels.

(3) Before the Minister of Labour allocates additional resources to the office of the worker adviser to establish satellite offices to augment its 13 regional offices that would reduce the considerable WCB workload faced by MPP constituency staff, the minister should table in the House a detailed cost-benefit analysis.

(4) A moratorium on all WCB policy changes until 1993 be established.

(5) Any future changes to the scope of coverage, including workplace stressors and non-causal effect for occupational disease, should be fully and publicly debated in the Legislature.

These are some of the recommendations that were made by my colleagues, and that is why I am supporting this commonsense resolution from my colleague the member for Waterloo North. I want to thank the member for Waterloo North for bringing this important issue to the attention of the Legislature this morning, and I urge all of my colleagues to give her resolution the full support that it richly deserves.

Mr David Winninger (London South): I am certainly pleased to rise today and speak in response to the resolution of the member for Waterloo North. I, like all members in the House, have constituency offices that deal with workers' compensation claims on a daily basis, and we all have an interest in improving the way the system works.

Certainly the member for Sudbury has acknowledged the size of the unfunded liability and has illustrated to the members of the House how that unfunded liability ballooned under the Conservative and the Liberal administrations.

Since we took over office in 1990, there has been only a modest growth in the unfunded liability, largely, I might say, due to the effects of this recession, which has been prolonged by unfavourable policies from the big brothers and sisters of the Conservative Party in Ottawa.

But I disagree with the member for Waterloo North that the solution to the problem faced by the WCB is one of increased privatization. I think it's useful to look back on the historical antecedents of the present Workers' Compensation Board.

Most of us are aware that the board was established in 1914 with the acknowledgement and recognition that industrial accidents have to be treated differently from other accidents because employees are working under the direction and for the benefit of employers. In order to ensure that there is a fair balance, if you will, between the right of the employer to predictability of premiums, risk distribution and resolution of claims on a no-fault basis -- balanced against that is the right and entitlement of the worker to assured benefits, pension entitlements, without having to resort to costly and time-consuming litigation. So there are benefits on both sides. Over the years since 1914, governments, business and workers have all contributed towards the evolution of the workers' compensation system as we know it today.

Today the WCB, as you know, Mr Speaker, is operated as an arm's-length agency of government. That, I would submit, is probably the best way we have of ensuring a fair balance between the interests of employers, who, as the member for Mississauga North indicated, are assessed for contributions, and the rights of workers to fair and timely compensation for their injuries.

If we were to accept the submission of the member for Waterloo North that the system would improve through privatization, that would take a grand leap of faith. We all know that the workers' compensation system has some problems, and those problems were highlighted by the task force on vocational rehabilitation and service delivery last year.

The Workers' Compensation Board in fact has taken some very strong steps to redress some of the imperfections that were highlighted in the report of the task force. So there is an effort on behalf of the Workers' Compensation Board to rein in that unfunded liability and to take positive steps to improve service delivery and to increase access to vocational rehabilitation, all of which will result in the kind of economies that will bring down the rate of increase in unfunded liability.

To get back to the matter of privatization, a 1990 study sponsored by the Conservative government in Alberta suggests that privatization won't bring down the costs. The study -- which consisted only of employer representatives, I might add -- concluded that workers' compensation compares most favourably to private insurance. The workers' compensation is much cheaper for most small businesses than would be private insurance. In fact some businesses that may be considered high-risk businesses may be written off by the private insurance sector completely.

We also know that in the US, where hundreds of private companies provide compensation to workers, the costs are really quite significant. Of every dollar that's paid by an employer south of the border towards workers' compensation insurance, only 50 cents goes into benefits and pensions to the workers. Under our system, only 15 cents of each assessment dollar goes towards administration, litigation and so on; the other 85 cents goes back to the worker.

I would submit that our workers' compensation system, while acknowledging its defects, is taking some very bold steps towards reining in the unfunded liability, improving service delivery, increasing access to vocational rehabilitation and, for that reason, I won't be supporting the member's resolution.

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): One of the things I find most interesting about this debate is that everybody agrees that the Workers' Compensation Board is in a shambles. They do. I even hear members opposite at least recognizing some serious problems with the board, with the administration, with the whole system. The employers will tell you that it's an absolute nightmare.

The rates may currently be frozen, but rumour has it that someone in some office somewhere is working on some new rates, and those new rates, which I understand are going to be announced in the very near future, will be very much like the market value assessment battle that took place throughout Metro, where what we're going to see is that certain sectors are going to get reductions in their rates, but other sectors are going to get substantial increases.

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You can just imagine where some of the increases might occur. They might affect our industrial base. They might affect the very people who need --

Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): There is no industrial base left.

Mr Mahoney: There isn't much of one, but there is a little bit of an industrial base. They might affect the very people who are hanging on by their fingernails and will survive the next two years till we get a change in the government and a change in the philosophy. It just might affect those particular individuals.

The track I wanted to speak about is, ask your constituency assistants -- I'm sure you have -- what is the one issue they spend the vast majority of their time on. It's workers' compensation claims on behalf of the workers who are trying to get some money, who are trying to survive out there, who have to go through an incredible bureaucracy, who keep getting sent back to the doctor for updates, for more information, and at the end of the day don't get the money.

One of the things that concerned me about the member's resolution was the danger of trying to solve the workers' compensation problems on the backs of the workers being compensated, and you would in effect do that if you simply reduced the benefits. I had some concerns when I was looking at this as to whether or not I was prepared to support it. It's somewhat typically Tory to say, "Let's make the workers pay for the solution to the problem."

But then I thought, "I wonder if the workers would accept reduced benefits if only they could get them." Interesting, because a reduced benefit, when you put that together with the streamlining of the administrative procedures which are referred to in the member's resolution, then maybe the worker would say, "Gee, I'd rather at least get a cheque." You can't buy groceries with promises and with a constituency assistant who's ready to jump out the window because he can't solve the problems on behalf of the injured worker.

They'd like something, so maybe the lead that the member talks about in New Brunswick and Manitoba of reducing the benefits, if it truly went hand in hand with streamlining the procedures, with making this truly what it was designed to be, that is, a benefit facility for the people who are injured on the job --

I think frankly there's enough blame to go around. All of us in this House can share the blame. The members opposite say the unfunded liability has only grown a little bit. Well, in two years it's grown by I guess $2 billion. A billion dollars a year is more than a little bit. I recognize in Queen's Park jargon, in budget talk, that the term "What's a billion?" gets thrown around a little bit. Who really cares about $1 billion?

We're talking about a program growing with an unfunded liability, in essence a debt; not a debt that has to be paid today, but a debt that is accruing at an enormous amount monthly. We hear the parliamentary assistant say $30 million a month, we hear the critic for the Conservatives say $100 million a month. Whichever one it is, it's unacceptable.

I wish that we could take the partisanship out of the debate on workers' compensation, because in every one of our offices you don't put up a sign that says this is an NDP office or this is a Liberal or Conservative office; you put up a sign that says, "This is an MPP's office." You are there to serve all of your constituents regardless of their political affiliation. The reality is, the majority of your constituents and mine are not affiliated with any political party. They just have to get through the day. They have to figure out how they can pay the taxes that every level of government is burdening them with.

So why shouldn't we, collectively as a Legislature -- I asked myself when I looked at this resolution -- support this? The only point that concerned me was the potential to solve it on the backs of the workers, but I've come to the conclusion, having talked to injured workers, having talked to my staff, that those injured workers would support this resolution. Those injured workers would absolutely say that it is time to change workers' compensation.

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): Who have you been talking to?

Mr Mahoney: I talk to them all the time, trust me.

The problem is that this party philosophically thinks it owns injured workers.

Mrs Witmer: They don't.

Mr Mahoney: Well, that's what they think. They think they own the Workers' Compensation Board. The people own the board, the people who have to pay for it, the people who need the benefits out of it, their families, the public. You can pretend that it's some arm's-length agency, but it's all one taxpayer. That's all there is: one taxpayer. That injured worker absolutely wants to get rehabilitated, wants to get their injury resolved and wants to get back to work.

I frankly think that if you said to an injured worker, "Tell you what: We're going to reduce your benefits by 10%, but we're going to give them to you," that's the difference. "We're not going to make you fight and scrap and yell and scream and cry and wait and borrow money and cash in bonds or RSPs or sell your car to live; we're going to actually make sure the money flows directly to you." I frankly think that the honourable member for Waterloo North intends that to be the case when she talks about reducing benefit levels and streamlining administrative procedures. I could not support a simple reduction if it did not go hand in hand with improving the administration.

Let me briefly talk about this building. The members opposite also get defensive; really quite interesting. How can you justify? In today's economy, last year's economy or the year before's economy, prior to the decision being made -- the decision to build the building was made during this government's tenure, absolutely no question; the facts are irrefutable -- how can you justify? We knew there was a recession. You knew there was a recession.

The board says, "We need special elevators." I don't know; do they go sideways, or do they go up and down in that building the same as other buildings? Maybe there's a trick to them. Maybe they've got back supports on the walls in the elevators to help the injured workers. I really don't know. They need some special offices that they couldn't find in a plethora of empty buildings all over the province. Who said it had to be in downtown Toronto? We could have found it anywhere, in any of our communities, to rent a building at a much more affordable rate.

I have decided I'm going to support this resolution, and hopefully we can all stop the politics and get on with trying to help the injured workers of this province.

Mr Carr: I first of all would like to thank the member for Waterloo North for putting forward this resolution, and also thank my two colleagues, the members for Wellington and Lanark-Renfrew, who would like to take a little bit of time to talk about what they have done in committee regarding this issue.

I have in my hand about 80 replies from businesses of what they think of the WCB. I could probably go an hour and a half talking about what they say some of the problems are, but in the short time, in the few minutes I have here, I won't. But in here there are comments talking about the system and how it's totally out of control. Some of the comments are: "Change the thinking with a sledgehammer," "Get on with it; we're almost bankrupt."

We have put forward the solutions, as we have in all areas. In our minority report on the pre-budget, we put in there things about the WCB. Rather than just criticizing, and "Things are terrible," we offered some solutions in our minority report and in the report done in the resources committee. It's been followed up by the member.

I'll give a couple of examples of why we're out of control. First of all, I don't know if many people realize as we sit here today in this province, we have two cabinet ministers sitting who are collecting WCB pensions in the province of Ontario, two of them are collecting right now. They're okay to sit in the Cadillacs and ride around in the province, but they're collecting WCB pensions in the province of Ontario. They're okay to work, they're okay to sit in the back of a Cadillac and ride around in the province, but they are, right now, in the province of Ontario, sitting here, able to work perfectly in their jobs -- I would say that they can't do their jobs properly not because of their injuries but because of their competence. But here we are in the province of Ontario with two NDP cabinet ministers who are now collecting WCB pensions, and yet they can work as cabinet ministers. That's what's wrong with the system.

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I want to give you another quick example, because I know there are only a couple of seconds left. As the members know, I used to play hockey. I was down in Rochester about two months ago at an oldtimers' hockey game and there was a player there who was injured while playing hockey. I won't mention the town he works for, but he works for one of the communities in the province of Ontario. He was injured playing hockey at night. We paid probably about $2,000, $3,000 to fix his knee. What he did is, he said he limped into work the next day and said that he got hurt on the job, and for eight months he collected WCB. Of course, he was proud to tell all the players down there in Rochester that this is what he did, and then he asked me what I did as an MPP, and I told him, "We spend about 60% of our day trying to catch crooks like you who are abusing the system."

We have a business community out there right now that is reeling, worse so now after the tax increases. They can't keep up. I'm going to send the member for Sudbury copies of these statements of what was done and what businesses are saying -- absolutely furious with what is happening.

Unlike other political parties where we just criticize and say it's terrible, it's the NDP's fault or it's George Drew's fault or it's Leslie Frost's or it's Peterson's fault, we put together our solutions. The members for Lanark-Renfrew and Wellington put together a report, and as he's going to tell you very shortly, within a minute or so, this government didn't even have the courtesy to reply to them on what they had done. They put solutions together; worked very hard. You might not have agreed with everything, but this government on the other side didn't even have the courtesy to reply to them on it. I say to the member for Sudbury, when members of this Legislature put together practical solutions, not all of them that you agree with, maybe one or two, you should at least have the courtesy to reply to those people.

I wish I had the opportunity to go through some of the criticisms that are in here that business people sent in. And these aren't big businesses -- most of them are two-, three-, four-, five-people operations, saying our plan is right on. They're saying, "For the first time, we've got politicians who are offering solutions rather than just criticizing." Eighty replies right here that I will send to the member for Sudbury East, and I hope she will take a look at them and see the anger out there in the province of Ontario regarding the WCB.

So we offered some solutions. You might not always agree, but we are trying to be constructive in putting them together, and I think you owe the member for Wellington and the member for Lanark-Renfrew at least the courtesy of replying to the hard work they did in the report.

We've offered some of the solutions. If we don't do something, the ironic thing about this is, as we found out before, all the good intentions in the world won't matter. The people, if we don't deal with the unfunded liability, are going to suffer; not the corporations and the businesses that are going to go out of business and move away. When the unfunded liability gets run up and the cheques start bouncing from WCB for the injured workers, that's what's going to happen. You came in here thinking that all the money in the world, all the good intentions were going to be worth it. What we found out is, all the good intentions in the world, all the philosophies won't count if you run out of money.

If you don't deal with it now, whether it's two, five years down the road, there's going to be no money for those injured workers. They're the ones who are asking you to do something. We're offering some practical, commonsense solutions. You don't need to take 100% of them, but look at some of the ideas, because ultimately at the end of the day it isn't us that's going to benefit. Well, the two cabinet ministers that are receiving pensions are going to be out of luck too. But the injured workers are going to be the ones who will not be able to receive any money because you've run out of money because nothing was done, and that will be a shame.

Mr Speaker, I will save two minutes. I'd like the member for Lanark-Renfrew to talk about the report and the hard work they did. Hopefully at the end of the day this government is going to listen, because if not, businesses and the injured workers are going to be the ones who are going to suffer.

Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): It's a pleasure to rise in response to the resolution from the member for Waterloo North.

In response to the previous two speakers, it seems that they're taking the traditional Conservative and Liberal approach of blaming the victim. In contrast, our government is taking the positive approach towards the WCB and the workers who are injured on the job. The ultimate solution to this whole thing is to eliminate all workplace injuries and disease.

Our priority is prevention. It's in the best interests of both employers and employees to have a safe and healthy work environment. Our focus should be on training and awareness through educational initiatives such as workplace health and safety, certification of these committee members through the workplace hazardous materials information system -- the WHMIS program -- and other educational courses and programs.

We believe in investing in people, and all people deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. To cut the benefit level of the injured worker, to adopt a value-for-money approach, dehumanizes the system and the needs of the victim. Suggesting cuts in benefits and entitlement rights is to take an unfair and unrealistic approach to a serious need. Injured workers should not have to face drastic cuts in income and lifestyle just because they are hurt on the job. Suffering and injury are sacrifice enough.

As the workplace changes from primarily blue-collar to white-collar jobs and as we discover more about the links between the workplace and various injuries and illnesses, workers' compensation has evolved to take into account occupational disease and repetitive strain injuries. However, to be compensated, a clear link between workplace and injury has to be established.

We must meet the needs of workers in Ontario. The entitlements also must meet the needs of the workers injured on the job. The government is working with the Workers' Compensation Board to meet the challenges of controlling costs and improving services.

Of course, it's critical that we prevent workplace accidents in the first place. Our government recently passed regulations to protect health care workers in hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities. The Workplace Health and Safety Agency has been helping workers and employers prevent workplace accidents and illnesses, and we've been imposing heavy fines on those who break Ontario's health and safety laws.

Our government is assisting and encouraging injured workers to get together to help themselves. Through this network they are more able to assist others, to lend support, consult and offer avenues for outside help; working together to lead productive and more satisfying lives.

Through the consultation process, we are working towards ways to reduce the unfunded liability -- I might add, the unfunded liability that was inherited from previous governments. It was the Tories who allowed unfunded liability to reach the point that it has, by keeping assessment rates artificially low. Once again our government is faced with cleaning up after previous governments.

Through clear, concise initiatives, our government is investing in people, the workers in Ontario, their jobs and in our future. With forethought we are planning for the future. We are making decisions that are directly linked to our future, the macro-picture. Previous governments have only viewed the micro-picture.

To say the workers' compensation system is failing to address the needs of injured workers is a fallacy. By broadening the entitlement to include chronic stress and student trainees, to name a few, is to take a realistic approach to the workplace of the 1990s.

It is the right of every individual to a safe and healthy work environment. When these rights are denied or overlooked, we must all take responsibility to work together to improve the situation or to remove the barriers.

Again, this is why the establishment of joint health and safety committees is so important. Through education, employers and workers alike will become more aware of safer work habits and practices.

We must vote against this resolution as it serves only to restrain and add further hardship to those who have suffered already. We must remain positive in our approach by encouraging safer practices by both employers and workers and by recognizing the changing design of the workplace in Ontario.

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): I would just like to take a couple of minutes to remind the member for Sudbury, who has spoken so strongly on this resolution this morning, of her days on the standing committee on resources development when we did in fact look very deeply into the operation of the Workers' Compensation Board and we did spend a lot of time and we did identify the problems.

At that time, the whole issue was to be solved by the appointment of this new chairman and chief executive officer. We gave that new administration a definite length of time to assess the problems at the Workers' Compensation Board and report back to the resources committee.

The member for Sudbury knows very well we did not receive a report back. We did not receive anything, and when the Minister of Labour was asked in the House why he wasn't taking some action, his answer to us has been that he doesn't have the power to take the action. Well, if that's the situation, I would suggest we'd better look at legislation to give him some power to take the action.

At least he could ask the public auditor to come in and review the situation. He does have that power. But to just sit back and say: "My hands are tied. It's an independent organization. I can't do anything" -- and now recently in the House he's been supporting the idea of building a new building with all the vacancies we have downtown, for the simple reason that they say access in these buildings is not suitable for people to come to the offices of the Workers' Compensation Board.

This member for Sudbury knows very well what the problems are over there. Think of the number of people we interviewed. Think of the people who came forward with ideas on how to correct the situation, and think of the employer, who is really saying to us very clearly that if we don't do something, the whole Workers' Compensation Board will be bankrupt and there won't be such a board.

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The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Waterloo North has two minutes in response.

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Downsview, if indeed he wants to participate, has a very short time.

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): Absolutely. I think it's important to get on the record, in the 30 seconds we have left, that in response to some of the comments that were made here this morning, the only thing you can say is, "Poor workers, poor injured workers." If there is ever a shift in governments in this province and, God forbid, if the Conservatives or Liberals ever were elected, I would say, "Poor workers, poor injured workers," because they would be in big trouble indeed.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. This completes the time for all parties. Mrs Witmer has two minutes in response.

Mrs Witmer: I'd like to thank the members for Mississauga North and Mississauga West for supporting the motion I've put forward today, also my colleagues from Simcoe East, Oakville South and Lanark-Renfrew for the support they've given to this motion.

I'd like to indicate to the parliamentary assistant and the members for London South and Kitchener-Wilmot that the reason I have placed the motion and the resolution here today is because the WCB is not -- and I stress, it is not -- responding to the needs of the injured workers. We all know that because of the tremendous workload we have in our constituency offices.

I can assure you, if you do not take action to reduce the $11-billion unfunded liability right now and adopt the recommendations that I have put before you today, there will not be any money in the future to deal with the problem. I ask that the government seriously look at these recommendations or the system will collapse and for injured workers in this province there will be no benefits whatsoever, because you are looking at expanding entitlement and you are not taking into consideration the impact of that on the employers in this province. I can assure you that employers in this province are now looking at WCB as one of the great costs of running business in this province. In fact, I know of one business that decided not to locate here because of the WCB costs.

So in conclusion, I say this to you: I would suggest that you've had almost three years to make some changes at the WCB. The PC Party did have a plan of action to get rid of the unfunded liability. Unfortunately, the Liberals and now the NDP have thrown that into turmoil. I would suggest to you, help injured workers and make changes at the WCB.

The Acting Speaker: This completes the time allotment for ballot item number 9, Mrs Witmer's private member's motion. We will further deal with this motion at 12 noon.

CANADIAN FILM INDUSTRY

Mr Farnan moved private member's notice of motion number 8:

That, in the opinion of this House:

(1) Recognizing that our identity as citizens of this province is dependent also on our national identity as Canadians; and

(2) Recognizing that Ontarians need and want Canadian commercial films which reflect and help shape the unique lives and dreams of Canadians; and

(3) Recognizing that the production of such films is dependent on a viable national film industry and the development of a distinct Canadian market for commercial films; and

(4) Recognizing that the distribution sector is crucial to the health of the film industry, since distributors not only feed the markets but also finance film production by reinvesting these profits in new commercial films; and

(5) Recognizing that at this time, the major US distributors control the Canadian feature film market and, as a result, only 4% of screen time in Canadian movie theatres is devoted to Canadian-made movies; and

(6) Recognizing that the US film industry has always seen Canada as part of the US domestic market; and

(7) Recognizing that the 1988 Canada-US free trade agreement and the proposed North American free trade agreement specifically provide that Canadian and provincial governments have the right to take steps to nurture a distinct national culture and protect Canadian sovereignty in this area; and

(8) Since Canadian distributors, most of whom are based in Ontario, are ready and able to buy separate Canadian distribution rights to successful foreign and independently produced American commercial films;

The government of Ontario should work with other provincial governments to urge the federal government to:

(1) Establish a nationwide licensing system that would,

(a) give Canadian distributors open access to independently produced commercial films; and

(b) limit the Canadian distribution rights of foreign distributors to films on which they were intended to hold the original copyright or on which they hold the world rights; and

(2) promote as an issue to be addressed in future interprovincial trade talks the elimination of barriers between provinces that currently prevent Canadian film distributors from having equal access to all Canadian markets;

And further, the government of Ontario should:

(3) Use its regulatory powers under the Theatres Act to establish a system of general and special distributor's licences within Ontario that would,

(a) give Canadian distributors open access to independently produced commercial films; and

(b) limit the Canadian distribution rights of foreign distributors to films on which they were intended to hold the original copyright or on which they hold the world rights; and

(4) continue to work on the development of an industrial strategy to promote the distribution of Canadian commercial films as part of the Canadian cultural industries.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Mr Farnan has moved ballot item number 10. The honourable member for Cambridge has 10 minutes to initiate debate.

Mr Mike Farnan (Cambridge): More than 10 years ago, the Canadian Film Development Corp said in its annual report:

"Motion pictures are the most pervasive and powerful means of expression in our time. For any independent nation which wishes to nurture its people or convey to others a distinctive identity, the development of an indigenous, authentic motion picture industry is indispensable."

If this is so, and I believe it is, then this resolution is about the future of Canada as a nation separate from the United States; it is about our separate cultural identity, about the differences in the way we think, about the differences in the sort of nation we want.

Now, with NAFTA already a threat to our jobs, our health care, our sovereignty, all the things this government holds sacred, unless we take some action, we could lose control of our ability to present ourselves as a nation.

The Canadian film industry, much of it based in Ontario, has never competed in size or influence with the United States. This resolution looks at the effects of the free trade agreement and the possible effects of NAFTA on our indigenous film industry and asks the province of Ontario to exercise the right specifically provided in the agreements to nurture a distinct Canadian culture.

Ontario must signal to its own cultural entrepreneurs that it supports them in trying to retain a toehold in our own civilization -- or that massive part of our civilization that is affected by film, whether in movie theatres, on TV or on video. I say "toehold" because that is all we have: a toehold.

How has this come about? Accepted business practice has encouraged financiers south of the border to integrate the movie business both horizontally and vertically so that two major chains now virtually monopolize distribution of films in this country, not only pushing out our own movies but sending the profits of this distribution south of the border to finance further Hollywood films when our own industry survives on a shoestring.

This has been apparent for years to successive governments, both federally and provincially, and report after report has urged action, but nothing has been done about this basic problem of distribution rights. The result is that our own film industry starves while Hollywood eats up the market, a cuckoo in our nest.

It is my belief that we can maintain and build a Canadian film business not so much by subsidizing our own filmmakers but by giving our Canadian distributors open access to independently produced commercial films, putting certain limits on the Canadian distribution rights of foreign distributors and eliminating barriers between the provinces. The money and the attention this access will earn for our distributors and for our own Canadian films will be put back into our own homegrown film industry.

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The topics in this resolution are not new. Only 10 years ago a federal task force on film distribution, exhibition and marketing recommended restricting American distributors to bringing into Canada only movies to which they have worldwide rights. A writer at the time referred to a "stranglehold" that Canadian Odeon Theatres and the US-owned Famous Players had over first-run showing of Hollywood pictures.

In 1984 the federal government released a national film and video policy that included authorization for negotiations between government representatives and foreign-owned film distributors. This same policy described Canada's film and video industry as a key growth sector in the context of the information revolution, and it noted that the best available figures at that time showed that 80% of theatrical distribution revenues went to foreign-owned distributors and that less than 1% of those revenues came from distribution of Canadian films. At the box office, Canadian features accounted for only 2% of receipts in Canada and the nation's films were rarely shown outside this country.

Canada is not alone in having its theatre screens dominated by US production. Hollywood is king in most parts of the world, but many countries have instituted restrictions to maintain a healthy domestic market for its film industry.

The national film and video policy promised a negotiated improvement in distribution of Canadian productions to Canadian audiences and to audiences worldwide, but the Liberal government of the time did nothing.

The year 1985 saw yet another federal government, and yet another task force made a report. This time the task force on the film industry had, as recommendation 1, domestic ownership and control of companies distributing films and videos. It noted, "Our problem is less one of obtaining entry to foreign markets than it is in gaining access to our own markets." It continued, "We require a firm domestic policy, not one subject to bilateral trade negotiations, particularly with the country that totally dominates our domestic market."

I don't want members to think that I am indulging in gratuitous US-bashing. Let me quote from the film industry task force again: "The Canadian film industry plays a unique role in our cultural expression. It defines our identity, creates jobs and has considerable economic ramifications." Looking after the Canadian film industry is not just a cultural necessity; it's good business.

More quotes from the task force:

"Distribution" -- and that's what this resolution is about -- "occupies a strategic position in the industry. It supplies markets and finances production. In 1981, 97% of profits from Canadian theatrical distribution went to foreign, mainly American, companies. In practice, the American industry considers Canada to be part of its domestic market. This situation is unique in the world. It poses a threat to Canadian sovereignty and hampers the growth of our industry."

Among the results of American control of distribution, the task force declared, was minimal screen time for Canadian productions, Canadian distributors holding only marginal positions in their own market, and Canadian film-goers, with their seat-buying dollars, financing foreign -- by which is meant Hollywood -- productions.

The task force pointed out that it just wanted Canadian distributors to have an opportunity to bid on rights to distribute films. It was not suggesting expropriation of property or keeping foreign films out of the country. What is needed is the right to compete fairly for distribution rights and to pay royalties for them, in accordance with standard business practice. That's what the task force said and that's what this resolution is about.

In 1988, the Film Products Incorporation Act, by all accounts, fell foul to the free trade talks, was watered down and then evaporated when a federal election was called.

Ontario has not been totally silent in the movie business. In 1987 it commissioned A Review of the Ontario Film and Video Distribution Industry, which found, "The vast majority of the business is controlled by subsidiaries of US studios." It noted Cineplex Odeon as "the largest theatre chain, not only in North America but possibly the world." It noted that all American production companies are vertically integrated to the distribution level by their branch offices in Canada.

In July 1990, the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Communications and the Ontario Film Development Corp released The Socioeconomic Impact Assessment of the Ontario Film and Video Industry. This noted the size of the industry: $2.7 billion in total domestic output, one of the top 20 industries in this province with a $5.4-billion trickle-down impact, creating 35,700 jobs.

In case anybody has ideas that giving our distributors the right we're suggesting in this resolution is an invitation to them to sit back, let me point out that the film industry in Ontario is lively, with 250 production companies. However, they make nearly 30% of their money from TV commercials. While I readily concede that commercials may well reflect our culture and our ethics, there are other aspects of our culture to be mirrored to the world: our kinder, gentler society, for instance.

The impact assessment noted difficulties in the film industry, lack of production financing and American domination of cinemas among them, both of which are addressed in this resolution.

No claim is made that your approval of this item will suddenly solve the problems of American domination of the industry or make our own distributors gloriously rich. It will simply be a start on putting the Canadian film industry, especially Ontario's part of it, into expansion mode.

The distribution part of the film business is the key to a healthy film industry. Successive governments of all parties have failed to turn this key. It is up to us, and I ask you to support this resolution.

Trade is fundamental to the economic wellbeing of a province. This is merely one aspect of the trade of this province but is essentially one of the 20 most important industries.

I look to this government and I look to this House for support in urging a response that will make this industry stronger.

The Acting Speaker: All recognized parties will now have 15 minutes to participate in the debate.

Mr Robert V. Callahan (Brampton South): It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak to this bill. I've read through it several times and, with due respect, I don't quite understand what he's trying to do. I somehow suspect by paragraph 3, where he says, "Use its regulatory powers under the Theatres Act," that this is an effort for government to once again jump into the marketplace and control and direct how things will be accomplished.

I have to say at the outset I agree with my friend that it troubles me and I think it troubles most Canadians that our children are being influenced by products that are beamed here through the electronic wizardry of discs and cables and all the rest of it and are in fact having an impact in terms of our morals, of our attitude towards life, our attitude towards family life and so on.

But unless you're prepared to build a wall that will perhaps reach to the sky to stop this wizardry, you're going to be involved in seeing it and it's going to have a direct impact on our young people and their attitudes towards all of the things I've suggested and many more. In fact I would suggest that Marshall McLuhan, who was probably well before his time, recognized the insidious nature of communications, particularly visual communications.

I think at that time, had we taken McLuhan up and accepted what he had said, we would have recognized the fact that if we wanted to protect not just our identity -- I agree our identity is important -- but if we wanted to protect our young people from images that were being produced in Hollywood, which at that time bore no reasonable representation of what was going on in the real life, if they had stopped it then, we wouldn't now be in a position where our society is in some respects emulating or adoring or falling at the feet of these images and these modes and ways of life.

Although I concern myself about the Canadian identity, I think that my friend, in introducing a bill such as this, perhaps could have given it a much broader and much more utilitarian and much more helpful face had he directed it in terms of what the responsibility of government is, if any, in entering a market field to make certain that the images that are projected and that we are bombarded with are ones that are healthy, that create a healthy lifestyle, a healthy attitude towards civilized society.

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When we look at the number of images that are projected at us that contain violence towards women, towards a whole host of people, what is the government doing about that? My colleague the member for Eglinton debated a bill in here a short time ago, which I had the pleasure of participating in, talking about slasher movies. What have we done about that? What has the present government done about that?

They have the powers under the Theatres Act to deal with that. What have they done? I don't want to rehash that debate, but I think it's of some importance: They have the power to stop video stores from making available to kids, eight- and nine-year-olds, these movies where they can take them home and put them in the video machine, watch them and have their entire attitude changed and made very bad, deteriorate. I think that's where this should be directed.

I have concerns, as I've said, in terms of government trying to jump into the marketplace and direct what Canadians will do, or for that matter even finance them. There's a good deal to be said about entrepreneurial arrangements in this regard. Number one, it places an emphasis on the people who are investing in this type of material in ensuring that the product is one that's going to be marketable. Now that's a double-edged sword. You can get entrepreneurs who want to sell smut because they figure it will make them a bigger profit or, on the other side of the coin, you can get people who are truly interested in the film industry in terms of achieving the end that my friend is reflecting in his motion: to achieve an identity of Canadians.

I came originally from the United States. I've been here since I was 17. I have to say that when I look at the United States and what has happened to the United States, particularly places like New York and Chicago, they have become totally out of control. The crime on the streets is unbelievable.

To a large degree, I think that's reflective of what the Hollywood idea puts on the screen, that it's fine to jump out of a helicopter with a bazooka and blow the brains out of all these other human beings. That's the type of attitude that prevails. It's no wonder then that joined with the Americans' right to bear arms and the fact that these kids are watching these movies, you are now seeing that type of violence creep into Canada.

In fact it's not the Canadian identity. I think if the government got involved in controlling how this is done and financing it, you would find that that would be just sort of shoved off on to the shelf. There would be really no interest in policing it and making certain that the content of that programming that we were going to try to establish to create the identity of Canadians was good, wholesome stuff. It would be an attempt to compete with the glossy, glitzy -- more often than not overglitzy -- attitudes that are prompted by Hollywood.

I don't want to condemn all of the films that come out of Hollywood. There are some very excellent ones that come out. But I suggest that if government has control of it, you can bet your bottom dollar that it will be put on the shelf, just as they're doing with the slasher films, not exercising the powers they already have to take that smut off the shelves. So what can we expect government to do if it gets control of this industry itself?

The National Film Board, however, is an excellent example of how government perhaps can get involved in a singular way in terms of creating feature films, short subject films. We've seen many of them that I think as Canadians we should be very proud of that have wound up at the Cannes Film Festival or have wound up even getting nominated for Oscars in Hollywood in that big bash that takes place once a year.

I suggest to you that Canadians can compete. We have to stop telling Canadians that you need Big Brother or government to help you. I think the attitude of Canadians is, "We want an opportunity to be able to conduct our business free of government on our backs and having to file this and that with them every time we make a move." That's the type of environment in which you will see Canadian identity protected by Canadians.

I have to look at some of the -- and I try not to be partisan in these debates, but I have to at least jump into -- having just come from one of the budget breakfasts this morning where we tried to inform the public as to how the budget would impact on them, I look at the question of day care. There are people out there who want a choice, they want a choice between private and public day care. I didn't see one word in the budget talking about private day care even existing. It was simply public day care. Everything's public. The government is going to do everything for you. All you've got to do is be prepared to continue to pay till you haven't got any money in your pocket and government will look after you from the cradle to the grave.

I suggest to you that's a bad mentality. That is a bad Canadian identity to reveal to the world and to Ontarians and Canadians alike. I think it's time we recognized that Canadians are in fact very bright people who have great ability to create -- very creative, industrious, inventive. I mean, you look at some of the inventors who have come from this country. They certainly weren't helped out by the government of the day and told what they could do or couldn't do. They were free thinkers. They had the opportunity to think freely, because governments of that day felt the entrepreneurial skills and the atmosphere should be created so that they could flourish.

The present government today, unfortunately, has this dogmatic ideologue attitude that you can't do anything. You can't cut down a tree because you need help in cutting down that tree. I suggest to you that's a very unhealthy attitude.

As much as my friend wants to protect the identity of the citizens of this province, I don't think they need government's protection, I say with all due respect to the member who has produced this motion. I think what they need is a free and open atmosphere to allow them to do this without hindrance from government. If you open up and give them that freedom of opportunity and you don't try to -- every time they want to do something and turn around, they've got to fill out a form or they've got to comply with a regulation or they have to do this or that. If you do that, I suggest that you will find Canadians who will in fact participate fully in society, that they have the ability and the hope.

I think what's happening today is the hopes of Canadians are being dashed by the politicians who invoke taxes constantly, have drained them to the last cent in their pockets. I'm surprised they don't reach into our pockets personally and take that last couple of dollars, because they want it all, because they can do it better. My friend has been around this House long enough and I'm sure he's aware that governments don't do it better. Leave it to the individual.

Government's role should be, as I started out by saying, to maintain and protect the fabric of our society, to ensure that the quality of product that is being produced here or being allowed into this country is product that is going to make our children better, not worse. I suggest that the government perhaps should look at that first, before it starts suggesting that we should take over another operation by directing entrepreneurs how they will produce films and so on. Because, as I say, they've done a very poor job in terms of the slasher movies; they've done a very poor job in terms of ensuring that the quality and fabric of our society is maintained.

If that's the record of government, if that's government's record, then I suggest to you, I don't think I would want any part of government getting involved in that. I'd prefer to see the marketplace be the judge of how to produce films and let the purchaser and let the society determine that this is good or bad for them, and they'll invest in it or they won't invest in it.

I would think the large number of Canadians, although there are exceptions, will invest in a quality product. They'll invest in something they see that's going to demonstrate Canadians as an upbeat type of people with a large degree of family values, with a large degree of caring about individuals, less and less violence in them, and if that happens, I think you'll find the investment will flourish.

You do get the small group that will invest in smut, and they'll make a buck on anything, but I suggest that the largest number of Canadians are those people who have values, a different set of values than the United States, and this is one of the things about Canadians that's so beautiful. Perhaps we don't display our degree of individualism and we don't display this caring that we, as Canadians, have that perhaps distinguishes us from Americans. That's why the only thing Americans know about us is that we have snow, and the standing joke used to be, and I think it still happens, you'll see them driving up here with their skis on their car in the middle of the summer, thinking, "Well, there must be snow in Canada because they're in the great white north."

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Perhaps we should be selling what we have, and what we have is very distinctive. It's something that no one has ever been able to put a handle on. What are Canadians? What is Canadianism?

So you're quite right in this respect, that our identity must be maintained. But I would say on the other side of the coin that our identity should be something that we're proud of and that we tell other people about, and we relate it to them.

I just recently came back from travelling in England and France, and I find over there that they think we're all Americans. So my wife and I wore our Canada pins on our lapels because we figured that that way we would be received in a much better way.

I think Americans have a lot to learn from us as Canadians. They have a lot to learn about our caring attitude, the fact that we do care about the people who are not able to help themselves legitimately, that we're not prepared to run somebody over simply to make a buck, that we do, in fact, have a health care system which hopefully will continue to be the best in the world. I think Americans have a lot to learn from us. Americans come up here and are blown away by Toronto, the city of Toronto, and many of our small communities, because they still are relatively crime-free. But I suggest that if government doesn't get off the backs of people and start doing what governments should do, to ensure safety and standards that will in fact maintain the fabric of Canadians, then we're going to go the same way as New York, Detroit and Chicago.

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I'm very pleased to rise this morning to speak to the member for Cambridge's resolution. The resolution is as follows:

"That, in the opinion of this House,

"(1) since our identity as citizens of this province is dependent on our national identity as Canadians; and

"(2) since Ontarians need and want Canadian commercial films which reflect and help shape the unique lives and dreams of Canadians; and

"(3) since the production of such films is dependent upon a viable national film industry and the development of a distinct Canadian market for commercial films; and

"(4) since the distribution sector is crucial to the health of the film industry, and distributors not only feed the markets but also finance film production by reinvesting their profits in new commercial films; and

"(5) since at this time, major US distributors control the Canadian feature film market and, as a result, only 4% of screen time in Canadian movie theatres is devoted to Canadian-made movies; and

"(6) since the US film industry has always seen Canada as part of the US domestic market; and

"(7) since the 1988 Canada-US free trade agreement and the proposed North American free trade agreement specifically provide that Canadian and provincial governments have the right to take steps to nurture a distinct national culture and protect Canadian sovereignty in this area; and

"(8) since Canadian distributors, most of whom are based in Ontario, are ready and able to buy separate Canadian distribution rights to successful foreign and independently produced American commercial films,

"the government of Ontario should work with the other provincial governments to urge the federal government to:

"(1) establish a nationwide licensing system that would,

"(a) give Canadian distributors open access to independently produced commercial films; and

"(b) limit the Canadian distribution rights of foreign distributors to films on which they were intended to hold the original copyright or on which they hold the world rights; and

"(2) promote as an issue to be addressed in future interprovincial trade talks, the elimination of barriers between provinces that currently prevent Canadian film distributors from having equal access to all Canadian markets."

The resolution continues. I won't continue reading it.

I would like to express my good wishes to the member for Cambridge. He's well liked and well respected by all members of this House, and he's put forward, in my opinion, a very sincere resolution that he feels should be addressed by this government.

The primary focus of this resolution is with respect to what the federal government can do, and that concerns me, because once again we see a member of the governing party talking about what the federal House should be doing, what the federal government should be doing to solve problems in this country, when in fact we have significant problems at the provincial level in this province, problems that we in this House deal with directly, that we really have an opportunity to influence. When we talk about the federal government, we can do it all we want, but really, we're responsible here for provincial problems that fall within provincial jurisdiction, and that concerns me.

With respect to this resolution, I consulted a number of knowledgeable people in my riding to seek their advice. A gentleman named Richard Dooley, who is a reporter for the Guelph Daily Mercury -- the honourable member may know him -- has written a number of newspaper articles about this very issue, and I sought his advice. He gave me the example of a film called Company of Strangers, which was a National Film Board production that won several awards abroad in international festivals and only after the international recognition came to the Canadian screens in a big way.

I also talked to a gentleman by the name of John Chalmers, who is I believe the owner-manager of something called the Gorge Cinema in Elora. I would like to tell all members about the excellence of that repertory cinema. We're very, very fortunate to have it in our riding of Wellington. That cinema, the Gorge Cinema, has been helped in the past with respect to endeavouring to screen Canadian-made movies through the assistance of the Ontario Film Development Corp, a program called the repertory cinema pilot project which assisted in the marketing of a number of Canadian films. They make an effort at the Gorge Cinema to screen about 12 Canadian movies every year. I want to call them movies, because I think people traditionally don't talk about films; they talk about movies. What we're talking about here is actually movies that people want to see, and I think we have to keep it in that context.

The member has indicated that there are significant problems with respect to the ability of Canadian screen owners to screen American movies. There's a problem with respect to distribution. Because of the fact that the distribution end of the movie business is pretty well owned and operated by the American distributors, that creates problems. There is some degree of academic research which actually refutes this statement. It suggests that this is actually a myth, that the distribution of films in Canada is handled as a matter of course and that the fact that US-owned distributors primarily distribute US films, really they don't have a problem with producing Canadian films if people want to watch them.

Steven Globerman, who is with the faculty of business administration at Simon Fraser University, has written on this subject. I refer to an article that was published in the Canadian Journal of Communications in 1991, and I'd just like to read a paragraph out of his conclusion of a lengthy journal article. Mr Globerman writes:

"US film producers have a long-standing competitive advantage in the film industry that is not likely to be eroded by marginal changes in the structure of Canada's domestic industry. Improving the competitiveness of Canada's feature film industry quite simply requires making more films that a greater number of people want to see. Commercially produced Canadian films will be distributed by the majors, since it is in the majors' self-interest to do so. Commercially unpromising Canadian films will require government subsidy regardless of who owns the distribution sector. In short, simply reducing foreign ownership in Canada's film distribution sector will not promote the production of more Canadian films."

What simply he is saying is, if a Canadian film is good, people will want to see it. If a Canadian film is good, if it receives positive critical reviews, it will be seen. If it's good, it will be marketed, and if it's good, people will want to see it and they'll pay to see it.

There are a number of good examples -- I'm very pleased to speak in support of our excellent film industry that we have -- in recent years. Denys Arcand, who is quite a well-renowned film director from Montreal -- two movies that were very well received critically and received substantial box office success as well, Decline of the American Empire, Jesus of Montreal; a more recent movie, Black Robe, which was directed by an Australian director, Bruce Beresford, but was with respect to a Canadian story, a Canadian novel set in Canada, actually a $14-million movie. It's a very, very expensive, significant movie to be made in Canada. All three of those movies were good. They received good critical reviews and people went to see them.

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Now we see, with this government's policy in this budget as of yesterday, $2 billion in new tax increases, money taken out of people's pockets, disposable income from every single family across the province being taken from their pockets. How can we see that anybody's going to be going to any movies, much less Canadian, much less whatever kind of movie you want to categorize? It's going to be very, very difficult. It costs the average family about $50 for two people to go to a movie, if you take into the account the babysitter, the food, the parking and the actual $8 admission fee for each movie that people go to.

With this government's tax increases, which will take most of the disposable income from every single family in Ontario starting July 1, when the theatres really do most of their business over the summertime, it's going to be very difficult for any of these screens to be able to continue to have people coming in. It's going to be very difficult for families who want to see movies; it doesn't matter what kind of movie you're talking about.

I recognize what the member for Cambridge is saying, but I submit to you that the government which he sits with has brought in policies that are going to devastate the film industry in Ontario and Canada and the screen owners.

Mrs Irene Mathyssen (Middlesex): I'm very pleased to join in this debate and I want to thank the member for Cambridge for this topical resolution. Unlike others today, I'm going to stay on topic and talk about the film industry.

As you know, the federal government moves closer each day to signing the NAFTA agreement, which, if we borrow from the film industry horror movie titles, could be called the Free Trade Agreement Part II or the Foolish, Irresponsible Trade Policy that Ate Canada.

We all know about the more overt results of the 1989 free trade agreement: the deindustrialization of Ontario, the direct loss of 45,000 jobs, the increase to our social assistance rolls and the burden place on Ontarians as we try to meet our obligations to ourselves, our children and each other, a burden that has been very difficult for many of us in Ontario to carry.

One area, however, in regard to the damage on our society by the free trade agreement often overlooked is the damage to our cultural industries. Some in this House or watching on television mightn't appreciate the full implication of this threat to cultural industries. That is unfortunate.

As a former teacher of senior English, I taught Canadian literature and film. Initially, when students discovered my OAC course would concentrate on Canadian works, there was a sigh of concern that the course would be less than enthralling. I can assure you that my students soon discovered that nothing could be further from the truth. The great works of Canadian authors and the powerful movies of Canadian artists and directors speak to us as Canadians in a way no external voice could.

When we read the works of a Margaret Laurence, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies or Timothy Findley, we recognize ourselves. We feel the strength and endurance of the land and we sense something of our identity -- past, present and future. It's something that defies explanation. The same is true of Canadian films and Canadian television productions. Their continued availability is essential if we are to see reflections of ourselves, of who we are, in public broadcasts, movie houses and videos. That is why it is so essential to look carefully at the cultural implications of the free trade agreement and the North American free trade agreement.

Last April, members of the Directors Guild of Canada and the Ontario district council of the guild presented a brief to the Ontario cabinet committee on NAFTA, of which I was a member. A key part of the presentation focused on film distribution in Canada and the need to not only strengthen Canada's own film distribution industry but to require that Canada be treated as a separate market for film rather than as part of the domestic US market. It is essential that the distribution sector of the film industry be under the control of Canadians, because from distribution of films comes revenue and from revenue comes investment in more films, thereby generating more revenue.

Did you know that more than $1.5 billion in annual revenue is realized from movie theatre and home video markets, and the vast majority of the revenues earned from such film distribution in Canada flows back to the US and is invested in making American movies? This drain poses a serious threat to Canadian culture and Canadian sovereignty and strangles the growth of our own film industry.

This is simply not acceptable, and what is most upsetting is that despite the clear need for protection of Canadian cultural industries and lipservice to that protection by the federal Tory government, that protection was abandoned because of pressure during free trade agreement talks by the powerful Motion Picture Association of America, and Canadian distribution rights were traded away. Interestingly enough, Mexico retained the right for 30% of screen time for films made by Mexican producers. It would seem that Canadian free-traders didn't just fail to protect our energy and natural resources under the free trade agreement and NAFTA but also managed to squander our cultural resources.

I would like to conclude my remarks, because I know that others in my caucus would like to speak, by indicating support for my colleague's resolution to urge the federal government to establish a nationwide licensing system and give Canadian distributors open access to independently produced commercial films and to encourage the government of Ontario to work on the development of an industrial strategy to promote the distribution of Canadian commercial films as part of Canadian cultural industries, and, above all, to defeat regressive trade agreements like the FTA and NAFTA that are strangling us materially and suffocating us spiritually.

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I am pleased to have this opportunity to comment briefly on this resolution brought forward today by the member for Cambridge.

In essence, what this resolution is all about is:

"Since our identity as citizens of this province is dependent on our national identity as Canadians; and

"Since Ontarians need and want Canadian commercial films which reflect and help shape the unique lives and dreams of Canadians; and

"Since the production of such films is dependent on a viable national film industry and the development of a distinct Canadian market for commercial films; and

"Since the distribution sector is crucial to the health of the film industry, and distributors not only feed the markets but also finance film production by reinvesting their profits in new commercial films...."

While I support this resolution in principle, I suspect that the real intent of the member for Cambridge is to give his colleagues an opportunity to take some cheap shots at the federal government and free trade, rather than concentrating on cleaning up their own backyard.

What's not to support in a resolution filled with motherhood statements? Who can argue with the fact that our identity as citizens of this province is dependent on our national identity as Canadians? I suspect most of my colleagues here in this Legislature agree with the American film director D.W. Griffith, who told the Toronto Star on December 15, 1925: "You in Canada should not be dependent either on the United States or Great Britain. You should have your own films and exchange them with those of other countries. You can make them just as well in Toronto as in New York."

Of course Ontarians need and want Canadian commercial films that reflect and help shape the unique lives and dreams of Canadians. We in Canada are more than capable of producing films of our own that are distinctly Canadian, rather than trying to copy the Hollywood film establishment industry. Don Shebib, Canadian director of the film Goin' Down the Road, told the Toronto Globe and Mail on October 31, 1970: "I know a whole lot of people here are pushing hard to make Hollywood establishment films. The trouble is, of course, that they won't be won't be nearly as good as Hollywood establishment films." So why bother? asked Don Shebib.

Who wouldn't want government to work on the development of an industrial strategy to promote the distribution of Canadian commercial films as part of Canadian cultural industries?

1150

In 1975, film critic John Hofsess noted that it would take more than government action to create a viable film industry when he said:

"To create a Canadian film industry, we first have to create Canada. Whatever happens to Canada's film culture will be symptomatic of Canada as a whole. The struggle goes on, and everyone, including the apathetic, is determining the outcome."

As I said earlier, this resolution is just a bunch of feeble, cheap shots at the federal trade agreement between Canada and the United States and the North American free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico. Other than containing a series of motherhood statements, it really does not do much for the film industry.

The member for Cambridge should know that Ontario, more than any other province, depends on bilateral trade with the United States to generate much of its wealth. No other province has more to lose if access to that market is constrained or reduced. Yes, the member for Cambridge and his colleagues know full well that for Canada, participation in NAFTA is regarded as a protectionist move. In order to avoid being shut out of the large market, Canada must continue to go along with the expansion of the free trade network.

I would suspect the people of Ontario would want their government to concentrate on cleaning up its own backyard, rather than working so hard and wasting so much time on resolutions that are nothing more than a poorly disguised attack on another level of government and its policies. You would almost think that political economist and renowned humorist Stephen Leacock, who once resided in the Sunshine City of Orillia on the shores of Lake Couchiching, was looking 60 years ahead into the future when, in 1933, he said:

"Socialism is only a bright soap bubble, light as ignorance and floating with its own gas. It would only work in a community of impossible people, guided by impossible leaders and inspired by an inconceivable goodwill." That was what Stephen Leacock said back in 1933. "The angels, no doubt, are socialists."

I believe the people of Ontario would tend to think about yesterday's budget if they read what Stephen Leacock said in 1959: "Socialism won't work in heaven, where they don't need it, and in hell, where they already have it." Enough said.

Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): I take great pleasure in supporting the resolution put forward by the member for Cambridge, and I do this for two main, but connected, reasons.

First is the crassly economic one. Filmmaking is a business and a job provider. The relevant skills, once developed, are a valuable asset, just as are other skills. Films can be exported, they can make money, and I hope and believe quality counts here, as in other fields. What Canadians do best are films that express our own culture. To nurture and encourage the filmmaking expertise we have here is part of maintaining and strengthening our competitive advantage in the global economy.

But films are more than just cash producers. They are an expression of who we are, a vehicle for strengthening and nourishing our culture. We are not Americans. In fact, Jack Kapica's column in yesterday's Globe and Mail suggested that we are more spiritually distinct than is readily apparent.

Personally, as someone who chose to live in Canada, I have to say that I prefer Canadian films. Canada has a distinct and wonderful culture which varies with our many regions and populations. We should be proud of it. We have a lot to offer both each other and the rest of the world. We allow that self-expression to be suffocated at our collective peril.

We have a commendable record in film production. In particular, the National Film Board of Canada has produced excellent documentaries that deserve far wider showing than they actually get and would go a long way, if seen, to nourishing our national psyche.

I recently took a Canadian studies course that used these documentaries. I was amazed by the impact they had. But how many people see them? The movie version of Margaret Laurence's The Diviners captured the distinct Canadian flavour of the original novel. We can make great films.

Quebec in particular has many wonderful films to its credit which deserve a wider currency in the other provinces. Some have already been mentioned, but going back a bit further in time I think of Mon Oncle Antoine, Kamouraska and many others. If more widely seen, they might go far to dissolving some of the prejudice and ignorance that divide Canada's two solitudes, and Quebec, I'm sure, could benefit from films made elsewhere in Canada.

It is incredible that we have committed internal barriers to stunt the growth for so long of our already struggling national culture. We have good literature, beautiful and varied landscapes, the richness of our different regional and ethnic traditions and the talents of our people to celebrate. Toronto alone has many worlds within worlds that need to get to know each other. I remember a film about a young Italian Canadian that could only have been made in Toronto.

Why should we devalue ourselves by allowing both cultural and economic takeovers from the south? Unlike most nationalities, Canadians suffer from being too modest, too self-deprecating and from not realizing how much we have to offer. Let's take out some of that wealth and capture it on film and show it to each other and to the world.

I strongly believe that this government should work with the federal government to remove internal and other barriers to make sure that Canadians can make and see films about ourselves. The alternative is either no film industry or to make fake US movies here and export them. We can do better than that.

Above all, we must not let NAFTA or any other agreement deprive us of our ability to develop our own culture.

Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): In many respects, I really don't want to repeat a number of the comments that my very able colleagues have made. I appreciate the comments particularly from the member for Middlesex, who in fact made a number of the comments that I would like to have made about NAFTA, because I think that's something we're all keenly aware of and it's something that really and truly we have to address.

I don't want to steal the thunder from the member for Cambridge in addressing some of the points the member for Wellington had raised, but I feel somewhat compelled to respond at this time. I furiously started to write as he was making these comments.

The member opposite indicates that this is a federal issue, and I wouldn't be one to in any way deny that. Culture is primarily a federal issue, but at the same time I think all of us are aware that there are issues that do come up in this House where all members on all sides really want to take a position. I think culture, along with agriculture, is an area where we feel very strongly. They are important national issues but they also have a very important political concern, and we want to do something to protect those provincial industries.

If we take a look at what's happening in the supply management side of agriculture, in your riding, Mr Speaker, with the dairy industry and what have you, we would feel very loath in this House to say, "It's only a federal issue and we can't take a position." Very clearly, a lot of the rural members in this House would say, "No, we have to say something."

Culture in my part of the world also is very important, because I represent a riding that has a very vital cultural industry. It doesn't have a film industry per se, but it has an entertainment industry, a cultural industry. Provincially, I think it's very important for the people watching and members in this House to realize that one in six workers in this province is employed in the entertainment industry. If we do not promote that industry, you will see job loss. We have seen cutbacks in that industry over time because of the kind of --

Ms Sharon Murdock (Sudbury): Attitude.

Ms Haeck: -- attitude, thank you, but also the draconian measures that the US would like to bring to our film industry. They want to be the only ones to distribute films and they want to take over that vital industry. I personally can't agree with that and I know many people within my riding would not either. They would want to be able to see our technicians, our cultural workers actively employed in an industry that is important to us and to see that we're in a position of expanding.

Getting our products, cultural or otherwise, to market is the very foundation of both maintaining and possibly increasing our market share. When the US insists, as it has time and again, that it will dominate the distribution of our film products as well as its own, it effectively means the loss of our cultural industry.

I believe at the heart of my comments is the agreement with my colleague the member for Cambridge that our cultural industries are important and need support. I obviously am in support of the member's resolution and thank him for the opportunity in this House to discuss an issue which should receive national attention, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity.

The Acting Speaker: I thank the honourable member and indeed all members for participating. The honourable member for Cambridge now has two minutes to sum up.

Mr Farnan: I want to thank my colleagues the members for Middlesex, Peterborough and St Catharines-Brock for a very substantive contribution to the debate. I might include that I was impressed with the contribution made by the member for Wellington. Having said that, I despair of the quality of debate that takes place in this House around substantive issues.

On one of the most important issues facing this society, our cultural identity, an industry that's one of the 20 most important industries, the only contribution from the Liberal Party was Mr Callahan, the member for Brampton South, who for 15 minutes went on with irrelevant ramblings. He was merely filling time; he was not addressing the issue. It was basically harmless stuff, but honestly, people in this industry must be frothing, absolutely disgusted and angry that the official opposition has nothing to say on an issue of great importance to them.

Then let me turn to the contribution of the member for Simcoe East, Mr McLean. He stood in his place, not having been here for the debate, having wandered in at the end of the debate, and said he presumed that this resolution must be a partisan-inspired resolution. If he had been here, he would have realized that was absolutely far removed from where I stood and the contribution I made. What I listened to from Mr McLean was a totally partisan rant on behalf of the member for Simcoe East, totally removed from the issue of substance that we are debating.

I am worried. I am concerned, and the people of Ontario have every right to be concerned, when issues of substance, when issues that affect the economic health of our society have so little interest to the opposition parties that we can have the kind of contribution we've had from the Liberals, which was absolutely nil, talking about day care and trees when the issue is Canadian identity and the film industry, and from the member for Simcoe East, which basically was one of the most partisan rants that I have heard on an issue of substance.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION BOARD

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): We will now deal with ballot item number 9, Mrs Witmer's resolution. Are any members in this House opposed to a vote on Mrs Witmer's resolution? If so, please stand.

All those in favour of Mrs Witmer's resolution please say "aye."

All those opposed please say "nay."

In my opinion, the nays have it.

Call in the members; a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1205 to 1210.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Would all members take their seats.

All those in favour of Mrs Witmer's motion, please rise and remain standing.

Ayes

Arnott, Callahan, Cousens, Daigeler, Harnick, Harris, Jackson, Johnson (Don Mills), Jordan, Kwinter, Mahoney, McLean, Murdoch (Grey), Poole, Sterling, Stockwell, Tilson, Turnbull, Wilson (Simcoe West), Witmer.

The Acting Speaker: All those opposed to Mrs Witmer's motion, please rise and remain standing until identified by the Clerk.

Nays

Abel, Akande, Bisson, Carter, Cooper, Dadamo, Drainville, Duignan, Farnan, Frankford, Haeck, Hansen, Harrington, Hayes, Klopp, MacKinnon, Mammoliti, Marchese, Mathyssen, Mills, Morrow, Murdock (Sudbury), North, O'Connor, Owens, Perruzza, Rizzo, Sutherland, Wessenger, White, Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Winninger.

The Acting Speaker: The ayes are 20; the nays are 32. I declare the motion lost.

CANADIAN FILM INDUSTRY

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): We will now deal with ballot item number 10, standing in the name of Mr Farnan. All those in favour --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Are there any members opposed to a vote on Mr Farnan's resolution? If so, please stand.

All those in favour of Mr Farnan's resolution, please rise and remain standing --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: All those in favour, please say "aye."

All those opposed, please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members; a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1214 to 1219.

The Acting Speaker: All those in favour of Mr Farnan's resolution please rise and remain standing until identified by the Clerk.

Ayes

Abel, Akande, Arnott, Bisson, Carter, Cooper, Dadamo, Daigeler, Drainville, Duignan, Farnan, Frankford, Haeck, Hansen, Harrington, Hayes, Klopp, MacKinnon, Mammoliti, Marchese, Mathyssen, Mills, Morrow, Murdock (Sudbury), North, O'Connor, Owens, Poole, Rizzo, Tilson, Wessenger, White, Wilson (Frontenac-Addington), Winninger, Wiseman.

The Acting Speaker: All those opposed to Mr Farnan's resolution please rise and remain standing until identified by the Clerk.

Nays

Callahan.

The Acting Speaker: The ayes are 35; the nays are 1. I declare the motion carried.

It now being past 12 noon, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 today.

The House recessed at 1222.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1331.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

TAX INCREASES

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): Yesterday's budget cast a dark gloom across this province. Today, many people are reading reports of the budget, and the extent of the tax grab is becoming more evident.

This is a budget which among others attacks our young people and our seniors. Ontario's young people are facing a job crisis. The unemployment rate for our 15- to 24-year-olds is 17.5%, and right now in this province more than 150,000 young people in Ontario are out of work.

With this backdrop in mind, the government imposes taxes, taxes which directly hit our young people, the ones who are trying to find work. The government has increased their cost of living. Our young people will now pay tax on their auto insurance premiums and they will be paying tax on parking fees, dollars which they can scarcely afford. How is it that this government can justify this direct blow to our young people?

What about our seniors? Mr Speaker, you will know that these are the people who built our communities. In many instances, they are on fixed incomes, and as of yesterday, apart from the tax on car insurance, the tax on parking, they too will be paying taxes on their property insurance premiums. This is nothing less than an insult. It is regressive, it is hurtful, it is callous.

The government should be ashamed of its attack on our youth, especially on the jobless, and our seniors. Mr Premier, how do you justify this assault?

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would ask that we recess for 15 minutes until the government feels that it can find the time to come in and listen to the proceedings of the House.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Are you asking for unanimous consent?

Mr Elston: That's right, for a recess for 15 minutes, until the government feels that it can provide enough people. There is not one, single minister in this place. These people are responsible for the budget. These things are supposed to be taken care of in the normal routine business.

The Speaker: The member, first of all, will note that this is members' statements time, which is available to backbench members. I understand the member's concern, but perhaps we'll reach another point of the routine proceedings.

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't believe a quorum is present in this place.

The Speaker: Would the table count, please.

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Speaker: Call in the members; a five-minute bell.

The Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees: A quorum is present, Speaker.

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): My statement is in regard of the Madawaska Highlands regional trust proposal --

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): Where the hell is the government?

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Would the member for Mississauga West please come to order. Stop the clock, please.

Interjections.

The Speaker: I would ask the House to come to order, for all members to respect the opportunity for private members to make statements.

Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): After the budget yesterday --

The Speaker: The member for Oakville South is asked to come to order so that his own colleague can have his minute and a half. The member for Lanark-Renfrew.

CONSERVATION

Mr Jordan: Thank you, Mr Speaker. My statement is in regard of the Madawaska Highlands regional trust proposal in eastern Ontario.

The Premier and Minister of Natural Resources are in Algonquin Park today celebrating the 100th anniversary of Ontario's parks. We are celebrating the 260 parks in Ontario that cover an area larger than the province of Nova Scotia. After his tour of the park, the Minister of Natural Resources will appear at a public meeting in Denbigh this evening where he will face a crowd of over 1,500 people at an information session about the highlands proposal.

While celebrating the 6.3 million hectares of parkland, the Ministry of Natural Resources wants to establish another 4,000-hectare conservation area in the highlands region. For what would amount to only 0.07% of Ontario's parklands, the MNR is prepared to stifle the forest industry in eastern Ontario.

The Minister of Natural Resources has launched the silviculture tour of northern Ontario to "reflect on the importance of forests to our community." It seems that the MNR has failed to reflect upon the amount of jobs and revenue that will be lost if this proposal is implemented.

Constituents of mine who have attended previous information sessions by the MNR say that it appears as though the wheels are already in motion, that this conservation area will be established regardless of consultation.

I hope that the Minister of Natural Resources can prove this assumption wrong. I am asking the government to listen to the people who attend the meeting in Denbigh and to engage in true consultation. I am positive that you will find that the overwhelming majority of the people in the highlands region are opposed to this highlands proposal.

CANADIAN CITIZENSHIP

Mr George Dadamo (Windsor-Sandwich): I rise before this Legislature today and give an account of the events which took place last Friday at Dougall Avenue Public School in Windsor-Sandwich. May I say that the school put forth all efforts to ensure an enjoyable and exciting event, an event attended by the entire student body, some parents and also my colleague the member for Windsor-Walkerville.

It is truly a joy to watch and be part of an exciting event as it unfolds and to see the look on the faces of new citizens as they are welcomed to Canada. This past Friday was one of those events, when Judge Velma Meconi presided at Dougall Avenue Public School and invited students, parents and teachers to take part in a citizenship reaffirmation ceremony, a time when we reaffirm our allegiance to Canada and, of course, the Queen.

Judge Meconi is the presiding citizenship judge in Windsor. On many occasions I've been in attendance at her chambers on University Avenue to listen and to observe as she welcomes new citizens to Ontario and Canada. Judge Meconi is a judge who believes court sessions should be brought to the people and has many times brought her podium, her oath and her staff to various different settings throughout the city of Windsor.

About 20 children were brought to the stage, given a miniature flag and a scroll. They read aloud, as I did, the oath reaffirming our commitment to this great country of ours. Here's what the scroll looks like.

I simply would like to thank the teachers and staff of Dougall Avenue Public School for the kindness and generosity afforded to us during the ceremony. Their songs were splendid and their artwork second to none. Thanks to Judge Velma Meconi for bringing us a bit closer to an event which usually takes place in a court type of setting. To the children at Dougall Avenue Public School I'd like to say, "Make it a better place."

TOURISM INDUSTRY

Mr Hugh O'Neil (Quinte): As you know, tourism is Ontario's fourth-largest export industry and the province's largest employer in the service sector. The industry, because of this budget, will again be hard hit by reduced consumer spending and the lack of confidence due to increases in provincial corporate and income taxes and the expansion of the consumption taxes that were announced in yesterday's budget.

The cancellation of the Ontario -- Incredible! program will be a loss of $15 million. This will seriously affect many of the conventions that were coming into the province and that may now cancel. The decision on the business deductions for meals will also greatly affect our numbers. In Australia alone, they found that in a matter of months 10,500 jobs were lost.

There are 30,000 businesses in the Ontario tourism industry, most of them small and family-owned, which have generated $16.9 billion in tourism expenditures, $2.3 billion in provincial taxes and $3.3 billion in foreign exchange earnings over the time. Many of these will disappear, go bankrupt and out of business because of this budget.

Premier, you, the Treasurer and the Minister of Tourism and Recreation have failed to recognize in this budget that the tourism and hospitality industry is an integral part of the social and economic fabric of every community in the province.

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ECONOMIC POLICY

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): Yesterday's budget and the government's whole approach to deficit reduction have revealed who the real victims are of eight years of fiscal mismanagement at the hands of the Liberals and the NDP: the individual taxpayers.

The PC Party is supportive of deficit-reduction measures and led opinion on this issue long before anyone else in this assembly clued into that being the right thing to do, but we do not support the approach being utilized by this panic-stricken government.

You are in crisis management mode, formulating destructive proposals, like the fee proposals, which will have detrimental effects on graduating medical students. As the OMA president said recently, the slash-and-burn approach brought on by this government's panic is the antithesis of careful, planned, rational management and change.

The PC Party strongly opposes the tax hikes in yesterday's budget, which will leave less money in the pockets of consumers and less money available to fuel economic recovery.

We're also opposed to the government's unrealistic and unreasonable approach to expenditure reduction. The government is still a long way from fiscal accountability.

We had hoped for a budget which would have addressed the waste in government, such as the problem of health card fraud, rather than a fiscal plan which attacks Ontario's already overburdened taxpayers.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): I'm pleased to rise today to talk about a march that I protested in and joined with at Parliament Hill in Ottawa last Saturday.

Mr Speaker, 100,000 people from across Canada turned out, 100,000 people with one voice, and that voice --

Mr Hugh O'Neil (Quinte): Why don't you do that at Queen's Park in Toronto?

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Give me a break; 100,000.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mr White: -- delivered a message to the Mulroney government: "Your government, Mr Mulroney, robbed us of our jobs by forcing the free trade agreement down our throats and now is prepared to completely give away our future and that of our families by implementing the North American free trade agreement."

That message was loud and clear and repeated by activists and trade union members from across this province, across Canada, that those who are the hardest hit by the recession want jobs, the jobs that free trade and NAFTA have exported to the United States and to Mexico. They want their federal government to represent their interests and not those of multinationals and of foreign countries.

I was proud to join those 100,000 people, proud to join our CAW local and to bus up with them and with their children to Ottawa on Saturday. These Canadians made the effort to go by car, by bus, by train to the seat of the federal government. They demanded that the federal government get off its seat and recognize the situation. The subject is our economy and our jobs.

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Consumers in many parts of Ontario awoke this morning to huge and unjustified increases in gasoline prices, which as always were hiked across the board by all oil companies, by the same amount and at the same time within communities across the province.

People who voted for the NDP government may not have believed that you could manage the economy and likely didn't agree with all the policies you had on your platform, but from your rhetoric and policy pronouncements they likely believed you would protect the interests of the little person, the consumer. Why have you abandoned the consumers of this province and tourism and other industries, which rely on reasonably priced gasoline? Why have you continued to permit the gouging of the consumer by unrepentant gasoline companies in Ontario?

I'm sure that in the union halls, the community centres and the municipal council chambers across Ontario, NDP members, when in opposition and on the election campaign trail, denounced gas increases and the companies that put them into effect. In fact, in Sudbury in August 1990, Bob Rae said, "I really think consumers are being ripped off by the gas companies."

In view of these past pronouncements, why do you not start to protect the consumers from the gouging and price-fixing practices of the multinational corporate monopolies which impose unnecessarily high and unfair gasoline prices on Ontario residents? Could it be that those companies are simply taking a cue from the Ontario government in gouging the people of this province?

TRANSFER PAYMENTS TO MUNICIPALITIES

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): Once again the NDP government has hit the average person squarely in the wallet with a budget that clobbers everyone in Ontario, the province that is now "Yours to Recover." The $2-billion tax grab is the single largest in provincial history, and the bulk of it will be borne by people who are just barely getting by as it is. This budget means everybody will have less money in their pockets to spend. That's going to kill jobs and reverse the already fragile economic recovery.

The same government that continues to grab for everybody's wallet also continues to download programs to Ontario's 839 municipal governments without providing the adequate funding needed.

To top it all off, the Minister of Municipal Affairs has taken back some of what he had already given the municipalities, more than $110 million in unconditional grants. The unconditional grants to the county of Simcoe, the city of Orillia and the townships of Medonte, Oro, Orillia and Mara were cut by 12.9%, grants to the village of Coldwater were cut 12.68%, while the town of Penetanguishene saw a reduction of 12.3%. Other cuts include: the township of Rama, 11.78%; the township of Tiny, 11.7%; and the village of Elmvale, 9.98%.

The Bob Rae government is forcing all Ontarians in all 839 municipalities to pay for his mistakes. Wake up, Bob. In the real world, it doesn't matter who does the math; you simply can't get 10 kilograms out of an eight-kilogram bag.

BLIND CHILDREN

Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): A good news statement, Mr Speaker. This year, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind is celebrating its 75th anniversary. I find it fitting to draw attention to the contribution made across Canada by members of the Canadian Armed Forces military police in their help to blind children.

Former Canadian Provost Corps members began their commitment to help blind children over 30 years ago. This special relationship was brought about because a corps member's child was attending the school for blind children in Brantford, Ontario.

Since that time, thousands of military policemen and women have contributed to a special fund for blind children. They have raised thousands of dollars across Canada, and while serving in NATO and UN peacekeeping locations, they've kept up the good work.

This fund now provides assistance to blind children right across Canada. The seed was sown many years ago in Brantford, and I ask all members to join with me in congratulating all Canadian Forces policemen and women, past and present, in their ongoing commitment to help our blind children. As a final note, I offer my own congratulations to the fine job of work that the Canadian National Institute for the Blind is doing in this, its 75th year of working in Canada.

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Members will know that this is the last day for our current group of pages. I would ask the members to join me in thanking the pages for having served with such distinction the members and this assembly. Please thank them.

MEMBERS' COMMENTS

Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): On a point of order: I'd like to bring to the Speaker's attention a comment that was made yesterday that I feel is very inappropriate. In checking through Hansard, I found that when the Treasurer brought to our attention that he'll be withdrawing the $5 tire tax as of midnight tonight, all that Hansard listed were interjections. But I think it was heard quite clearly in the House and it was clearly heard by the members of the viewing audience that somebody mentioned, "This will take care of the rubber workers."

Well, as the members know, I'm a member of Local 677, United Rubber Workers, and they're the only unionized tire plant in the province of Ontario right now.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mr Cooper: When the members look at the fact that 900 jobs were lost at General Tire in Barrie, 600 jobs were lost at Uniroyal Goodrich in Kitchener, 1,700 jobs at Goodyear in Etobicoke and 800 jobs at Firestone in Hamilton, they'll find this is very inappropriate and offensive and insensitive to the --

The Speaker: Would the member for Kitchener-Wilmot please take his seat. He does not have a point of order.

It is time for oral questions.

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ATTENDANCE OF MINISTERS

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): Mr Speaker, I want to bring to your attention again --

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mr Elston: On a point of order: The reason we have question period is clearly stated, in relation to the standing orders, that it is the time when the opposition parties and backbench members of the government party have an opportunity to examine the operation of the ministries of the crown. The executive officers of this government are, as a result, supposed to be in their place.

Mr Speaker, while you cannot, and I understand that you cannot, require them all to attend, I would like to point out to you, sir, that today, including the Premier of the province, who yesterday was standing in his place applauding the Treasurer, there are 11 people of the executive council absent.

I understand that some of those people will have valid and good reasons for not being here, and I would even understand that probably there will be some rationalization of the reasons for their absences. But the one day after the budget when we have an opportunity to examine the departmental effects of the budget on those ministers, we are unable to access those ministers, because the people have left their places and will not now be back until May 31. That means that the operation of this place is out of order in the sense that we are not able to undertake the examination of the executive offices of the government of the province.

Mr Speaker, I would like to note for you the following pieces of information for your edification: During the fall session, the Premier of the province, out of 29 days, was absent some 16 days from this House, the Treasurer seven days, but a total of the ministers' absences during that 29 days was 142 minister days.

This spring session we have had 22 days so far, 10 in April, 12 in May. The Premier has been gone nine days; the Treasurer has been absent seven days, and the ministers, so far, 34 ministry absences in April, 71 ministers absent in May, for a total of 105 ministerial day absences from this place, when, during that time, we are supposed to examine the departmental workings of the government of this province.

We cannot force them to answer questions. We cannot now even access them as members of the opposition, as the standing orders give us the right and opportunity so to do.

Before, I stood in my place and asked about replies to our petitions which were laid on the table and for which I noted that there are a number of outstanding "no replies." They are not, as a result of that, replying to the petitions either. That means that there are no ministerial replies to the interventions directed through the members to the table in the Legislature from the government. That means we can't access the ministerial and departmental workings of this government.

If these people are always to be absent, and if we are not able to come back here within a reasonable period of time in the spring, how is it that the standing orders are going to be enforced so that we can have access to inspect the departmental workings of the executive council of this chamber?

Mr Speaker, I ask you, as a result, for unanimous consent to allow this House to come back again on Monday next, instead of adjourning until May 31.

The Speaker: To the member for Bruce: He raises three points, and I wish to address them in turn.

The first point, as he correctly stated, is that there is nothing in the standing orders to compel the attendance of any member of the assembly. The Legislative Assembly committee may wish to consider amending the standing orders. I would certainly agree with him that, in principle, it is most desirable to have every member of the cabinet in attendance for each question period. I agree with that. There is nothing I can do to make that happen. However, the Legislative Assembly committee may wish to consider the matter and amend the standing orders.

The second point he raises is with respect to petitions which have been tabled and/or questions that have been placed on the order paper. He will know again that the standing orders say that there should be a reply. There are no sanctions should those replies not be forthcoming within the allotted time, but I can only sympathize with the point which he raises and urge the ministers to respond as quickly as is possible.

On his third point, I will put the question: Is there unanimous consent for this House to sit Monday next? Agreed? No. I heard at least one negative voice.

It is time for oral questions.

ORAL QUESTIONS

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): My questions today will necessarily be to the Minister of Finance, whom the Premier has, perhaps understandably, left alone to defend the indefensible today.

This morning my caucus colleagues and I were out in 10 communities across this province. We wanted to get out to talk to municipal leaders, to business leaders, to union representatives, to education and health care workers, to just ordinary taxpayers in the province of Ontario, to find out what they thought about your budget. I can tell you that as our members have come back from those discussions, what they're telling us is that people are shocked, they're dismayed, they're angry, but, perhaps most of all, they're worried about the fact that your $2-billion tax grab is going to put a lot more Ontarians out of work.

Minister, we raised our concerns earlier this week about the possibility that you might raise taxes by about $400 million and that this would put 10,000 Ontarians out of work. So if we use the benchmark that we were using then of one job loss for every $40,000 of taxes, your budget's $2-billion tax grab will mean that 50,000 more people in this province will be out of work.

Minister, I simply ask you today, how many people in this province do you believe are about to be out of work because of your budget, how many jobs will be lost and how can you possibly justify this kind of job loss in this province today?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): We believe that the Ontario economy, in the next year, will create somewhere in the neighbourhood of a little more than 100,000 jobs, that there's going to be positive economic growth and positive job growth in the province this next year.

I hope, as well, that when the leader of the official opposition and her colleagues were out across the province this morning, they told the people they talked to that they recognized that we have a problem in this province --

Mr Gregory S. Sorbara (York Centre): Solve that problem by an election. Take your budget to the people.

Interjection: Two and a half years, Greg.

Mr Sorbara: We can't survive that long as a province.

Hon David S. Cooke (Minister of Education and Training): Just because you had one in three years, why should we?

Hon Mr Laughren: The Liberals are calling for an election after two and half years. When we see a problem in this province, we don't run away and hide from it like you did back in 1990. We deal with the problems in this province.

I hope the leader of the official opposition has told the people in the province, when she and her colleagues went out across the province this morning, that despite having a deficit that's unsustainable, that she and her colleagues are rejecting expenditure reductions all across the province, that she and her colleagues are rejecting any tax increases, and that she and her colleagues are rejecting trying to get savings from the public sector through the social contract.

The Liberal opposition in this province has no solutions. They simply want to complain about everything this government does to deal with the problems.

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): As soon as we want you to speak for the Liberal Party, Floyd, we'll ask you.

Hon Mr Laughren: You'll never ask.

Mr Elston: That's right, because you can't speak for the Liberal Party.

Mrs McLeod: The economy in this province might have started to grow. We all hoped that it was going to start to grow. It is not likely going to do that now. The Treasurer is surely aware that even before this budget was presented, the Conference Board of Canada said that Ontario's recovery is not going to be what we had hoped it would be. With the $2-billion tax grab that you brought in your budget yesterday, you have killed that fragile economic recovery, Treasurer, and we all regret that and we are all worried about the job loss that's going to bring.

Treasurer, you did have alternatives to bringing in those kinds of taxes. You could have reviewed that Jobs Ontario Training program that we keep coming back to, that we don't believe is working effectively. Instead, you're putting more money into it this year. You could have reviewed the housing program. Instead of that, you are continuing with that program in spite of the auditor's concerns about its effectiveness, and that's going to cost millions of dollars more in future years.

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Treasurer, I just ask you why. Why did you choose to raise taxes instead? Why did you choose to put more people out of work?

Hon Mr Laughren: That's a ridiculous assumption. What this government did was, we said, "There's a major problem here in the neighbourhood of $7 billion or $8 billion," and a solution of $300,000 million which the leader of the official opposition thinks would solve billions of dollars in problems simply doesn't hold any water.

What we said was, "We are going to tackle the problem in three ways: We're going to get our expenditures down," and we did that to the tune of $4 billion; "We're going to look at compensation in the public sector," and we're doing that to the tune of $2 billion; and "In order to make it fair and balanced, we are going to raise taxes in the province."

The very reason we're doing this is so that we can put money into job creation, into education and into training. Therein lies the competitiveness of this province, not in simply laying off more and more people, which presumably the opposition would rather we did.

Mrs McLeod: I'm sure that David Chmay won't feel a whole lot of renewed hope as a result of the answer you've just given to that question. He's one of those laid-off workers, Treasurer. He is an unemployed construction worker in St Catharines and he was looking forward to getting back to work next week, because he had a job promised. When the employer saw your budget and one of those taxes, one those of 20 taxes, a tax on sand and gravel, the company called him this morning and told him his job was off.

Treasurer, you had a chance, with this budget, to send that message to David Chmay and to others, a message of hope about the economy, a message of hope about job creation. Instead of that, with a $2-billion tax grab, you decided to kick people while they were down.

I ask how you can possibly feel so confident that you've done the right thing, because you have clearly lost touch with people like David Chmay. Treasurer, what were you thinking of when you decided to tax the economic recovery to death? Will you tell us what you would not tell us before your budget was tabled? What studies have you got in place that will tell us we are going to see jobs created instead of jobs lost? What studies have you got that will tell us how many more jobs will be lost, how many more people will be laid off and unemployed because of your budget yesterday?

Hon Mr Laughren: I don't want to be provocative, but I really think the leader of the official opposition is living in some kind of time warp. Does she not understand that we have a serious problem in this province, and the problem is a deficit that is climbing and climbing? We are spending more and more money servicing that debt.

I know the official opposition says: "Don't worry about the debt. Don't put in place your expenditure reductions. Forget about the social contract; it won't work." The day has gone when the people of this province will tolerate political leaders who simply duck when there's a problem and refuse to deal with the problem. We are dealing with it for the first time in the history of this province.

The Speaker: New question.

Mrs McLeod: I can assure the Treasurer, the Minister of Finance, that we all look forward to the day when we can stand in his place and defend the budget that we have presented, and the hope and the vision and the optimism that we will bring to the province of Ontario.

But today, Treasurer, I understand one thing very clearly, and that's that yesterday your government brought in the largest tax grab in the history of this province, the largest tax grab since the Tory budget of 1981. I understand, Treasurer, that the $2 billion in extra taxes is going to come right out of the pockets of average taxpayers because of the budget you presented yesterday.

Let's get down to specifics. Let's take a two-income couple. She's an office administrator, he's a sales manager at a department store and they have two children. Your budget takes an extra $225 right out of their pockets in higher income taxes. I'm not talking about the wealthy in Ontario. We're talking about middle-class Ontarians, people who work hard for a living, people who woke up today to discover that you and Bob Rae had once again forced them to dig a little bit deeper in their pockets to pay for your government's mistakes.

I ask again, how you can justify such an unwarranted tax grab on Ontario's middle class, who are the very people we need to lead us to that economic recovery we all want.

Hon Mr Laughren: I think the leader of the official opposition should just slow down a bit and put things in perspective. When I looked at the numbers on the tax side after the budget of yesterday and I looked at the size of the Ontario economy and compared the taxes of the province now compared to the gross domestic product, the wealth of the province, guess what I discovered. I discovered that when we came to office in 1990, the percentage of taxes of the GDP was about 12.3%. After the budget yesterday, it's about 11.2%. So I don't need any lecture from the tax-and-spend Liberals of this province on our tax package when yours was higher as a proportion of the wealth of this province.

Mrs McLeod: That's fine, Mr Speaker. I will slow down. I will put things in perspective for the Treasurer. I will put them in the perspective of my real-people, middle-class, two-income family with two children and tell you that your budget didn't stop at taking out of their pockets with your income taxes.

This couple is now going to pay an extra $40 in tax for insurance on their home. They're going to pay $50 extra in taxes on their auto insurance. If they happen to have any more children, it's going to cost them more just to register the births, and, all told, the retail sales taxes alone are going to mean an extra $110 at a minimum out of the pockets of these very real people, this average family in the province of Ontario. So we're up to $335 in extra dollars taken from this couple because of your budget, and you say these tax measures are fair.

Minister, the tax measures are hard, as you have said, but I don't think many Ontarians consider them to be fair. I ask you, how is taking an extra $335 from a middle-class family of four fair?

Hon Mr Laughren: The reason I think that the taxes are tough but fair and balanced is that everybody in the province is going to be making a contribution to the solution of the problems that we're in. For the leader of the official opposition to think that there's some way we can exclude everybody out there from the problem makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, the leader of the official opposition doesn't want tax increases. I understand that. The leader of the official opposition doesn't want us to deal with any expenditure reductions. The leader of the official opposition ridicules the social contract we set up to save money in the public sector.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): You saved not a nickel. Don't claim you saved anything yet.

The Speaker: Order, the member for Etobicoke West.

Hon Mr Laughren: For heaven's sake, I wish there was a rule in this Legislature that required the leader of the official opposition to deal with the real world for once in her life and come up with some options. She has nothing but empty rhetoric.

Mrs McLeod: Treasurer, just keep it in perspective. Go slowly. Think with us about this average middle-class family with two children, and think about the attack that your budget made on middle-class Ontarians like them right across this province. You want more in income taxes from these families --

Interjection.

The Speaker: Order, the member for Yorkview.

Mrs McLeod: -- as much as $600, depending on their income. You're asking more in sales tax, in insurance premiums, and you've increased fees on virtually everything else. If they have teenage children, if their two children are teenagers and they want to learn to drive, they're not going to be able to do that through the school system because you've cut out that program. If they want to drive on the highway, your highway crown corporation wants them to pay road tolls. And if instead of having teenagers our average middle-class family happens to have toddlers, you're even going to tax the sand in the sandbox.

Minister, given your tax grab, your record tax grab in yesterday's budget, given your slash-and-burn cuts to many of the services that average Ontarians use, what incentives are there for people to stay here and to work hard? Why wouldn't they just pack their bags and move somewhere else?

Hon Mr Laughren: Just once again to put things in perspective, even with this aggressive tax package that was in the budget yesterday, very tough, very tough --

Mr Sorbara: Floyd, come on.

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): Attila the Hun was a pacifist according to you guys.

The Speaker: Order.

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Hon Mr Laughren: Actually, I don't mind Liberals heckling me on taxes, given their record.

The leader of the official opposition talks about high taxes. I would remind her that even with the increase in provincial income tax for 90% of the people in the province, we are the third-lowest income tax province in Canada. In retail sales taxes, we are right in the middle of all the provinces. We have a more serious problem than other provinces in our debt and deficit, and I think what we've done is a fair and reasonable package. I'm still waiting for one single reasonable alternative from the leader of the official opposition. She has absolutely none.

The Speaker: New question, the leader of the third party.

INCOME TAX

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): In the absence of the Premier, I have a question for the --

Hon Mr Laughren (Minister of Finance): What do you mean "in the absence of"?

Mr Harris: Well, because I think it was the Premier's budget, Mr Treasurer.

I've known the Treasurer for a long time. I heard what he said for 17-odd years in opposition. I've read all the quotes. I heard what he said in his first budget and second budget. I know this one's not his; it's the Premier's. It's Bob Rae's budget. So in the absence of Bob Rae, I'll have to go to the Treasurer.

Yesterday, Minister, you imposed a surtax on many families in Ontario making over $50,000 a year. I'd like to ask you this, Minister of Finance, or Treasurer: Do you honestly believe that Ontario has sunk so low that a family living in Metropolitan Toronto today with a mortgage to pay and children to clothe and to educate is wealthy at $50,000? Is that what you're trying to tell us, that in NDP Ontario, $50,000 is now wealthy?

Hon Mr Laughren: No, absolutely not, and I've never said that. What I have said is that the surtax that applies to the Ontario tax payable is applicable only to the top 10% of income tax filers in the province. That doesn't mean that all of that 10% are wealthy or rich. I've never said that. But those do represent the top 10% of income earners in the province.

Mr Harris: The Treasurer has made great pains to say this is about tax fairness, so now that we understand that $50,000 in Toronto with a family, with any number of children to feed -- now that we understand that's who you think fairly should be bailing you out of your mess, I'd like to ask you this about tax fairness: Yesterday you reached into the pockets of every family of four with two wage earners making a total gross income of $20,000 a year.

According to your chart, it said, "2. It assumes they're making the same." That assumes they each make $10,000 a year. For somebody who wants to check the minimum wage, that means that if they're working full-time, they're both working below minimum wage. I don't know how they could be that low legally in the province of Ontario, but they're making $20,000 a year.

Treasurer, if they can still afford furniture in their apartment, you're going to tax the insurance that they must pay on that furniture. If they can afford a car -- I don't know how they could, but perhaps they've got an old one they still have from days when jobs paid more in Ontario -- you're going to tax their automobile insurance. Every time they park that car, you're there with your hand out too, taxing the quarter that may go into the meter to park the car.

I would ask you this, Treasurer: Do you honestly expect us and Ontarians to believe that taking more money from this family of four earning a gross amount of $20,000 -- is that your idea of tax fairness?

Hon Mr Laughren: I believe the amount would come to roughly a dollar a week. I'm not sure of the exact amount, but I think that would be roughly the amount. I would remind the leader of the third party as well that with this budget, we removed 40,000 people at the low end of the income scale from Ontario's tax rolls completely and reduced the amount that they pay for another 10,000.

In the last two years, it's well over 200,000 people who we've removed from Ontario's tax rolls at all in an attempt to make the tax system even fairer. I think that because of the moves we've taken at the low end of the income scale by removing people from the Ontario tax rolls, and with the surcharge at the upper end of the income tax scale we have indeed made the income tax system fairer despite what the federal government has done to make it less fair.

Mr Harris: This is your chart. How do you expect your members to go back to their ridings next week and explain that for two people working -- with a family of four, earning less than minimum wage -- paying $60 more is fair? You tell me how we're supposed to explain to people this is fair.

This budget of yours was not about tax fairness. In fact, 98% of the tax hikes yesterday hit individuals, working men and women in this province, most of them middle- and lower-income families down to $20,000 a year. They are the same people who, until yesterday, had already endured 55 Liberal and NDP tax hikes over the last eight years. They're the same people who, budget after budget, for the last eight years, have paid more than their fair share to feed your spending appetite.

By the way, these are the people whose taxes went up the last two years while public sector wage bills went up 19.5%, and now they're up again.

I would ask you this, given that taxpayers -- low income, middle income -- have been paying more than their fair share for the last eight years and again in your budget, can you tell us exactly when it is we're going to see government contribute its share towards the deficit reduction problem?

Hon Mr Laughren: I would remind the leader of the third party of a number of things. One, in our expenditure reduction plan, the largest single reduction was in government spending in all of the various ministries, to the tune of over $700 million. That was taking action ourselves within our ministries. We've reduced a lot of the non-salary component of our expenditures by about 25% over the last two years. We have worked extremely hard in getting our expenditures down.

I would remind the leader of the third party as well that while someone earning $20,000 a year will be paying about $1 a week more, at least in NDP Ontario they won't have a user fee if they have to go to the hospital or visit their doctor that they would under a Tory government in this province.

Mr Harris: I don't know. For the last eight years, user fees in health care have gone up and up and up and up. The only people who seem to be able to manage medicare were the people who brought it: the Ontario Progressive Conservatives. They're the people who managed medicare. They're the people who managed it without user fees, not the Liberals, not the NDP.

JOB CREATION

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): My second question is to the Minister of Finance as well. This budget, you said it was fair, you said it was about tax fairness. We pointed out to you: Taxing a family of $20,000 is not fair. We know now it's not fair.

The second thing you said is this budget is about job creation. This budget, by any definition, is job decimation in the province of Ontario.

For every two jobs, according to your figures, that you claim to create with $120,000 of government spending, you kill three jobs with $120,000 worth of taxes of the same amount. For every two you create -- spending $120,000 -- you destroy three by taxing $120,000 to spend that money.

Mr Norman W. Sterling (Carleton): Those are your figures.

Mr Harris: These are your figures. Most people in business, industry and the chamber think that it's even more than that, but these are your figures.

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I would ask you this: Since government job creation projects -- given to us by Liberal, Conservative, NDP, federal, municipal, provincial -- have never created more jobs than they've destroyed, what possesses you to think that this year you and the province of Ontario are different and you can create jobs better than the private sector?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): I don't recall saying that, but I would remind the leader of the third party that the private sector laid off 300,000 people in this province in last couple of years; 300,000.

Mr Harris: Paying your taxes.

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Environment and Energy and Minister Responsible for Native Affairs): Free trade did it.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): It is your idiot budget that drove them out -- $10 billion every year. Your idiot budget -- $10 billion every year. Now you have a deficit and are trying to tax them to death.

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): Throw him out.

The Speaker: The member for Yorkview, please come to order.

Hon Mr Laughren: I really didn't think I said anything that provocative, Mr Speaker, but I'll soldier on.

I know that the leader of the third party has been very consistent. What he has said is that instead of raising taxes, we should be reducing expenditures. He's been very consistent in that. I can tell you that if instead of raising taxes we were to go out and find roughly $2 billion in expenditure reductions on top of what we've already done, it would do two things. First, it would cause tremendous layoffs out there all across the province. We think it would cause at least 20,000 layoffs. Second, I don't know what that would say about business and consumer confidence in the province if we did that.

I would say to the leader of the third party that I think we have struck the right balance with our mix of expenditure reductions, the social contract savings and the tax increases. I know it's tough, very difficult -- I'm not minimizing that at all -- but I think it's the right balance to get at the problem we're facing in this province.

Mr Harris: Every study, including Burns Fry, which did an independent study for you, said that for every dollar of spending you can eliminate, every waste of spending, it's worth $1.25 to you on the deficit. They also told you that for every tax you hike a dollar, it's worth only 75 cents on the deficit because of the jobs that you destroy. Every study tells you this. Your own budget document proves this.

You say if you found another $2 billion in cuts it would throw people out of work. Let me give you some that won't throw people out of work. If you could solve the fraud problem with $675 million in health cards, all that would do is stop Americans from accessing our system for free. All that would stop is abuse of the system. Cut down on welfare mismanagement and fraud, the auditor told you. All that stops is fraud. That doesn't throw anybody out of work.

If you cut down on the failed government housing programs, you could save anywhere from a quarter to half a billion dollars and you would put more people back to work and more people in decent housing. If you got government out of day care, you would save a couple of hundred million dollars, provide more people with day care and not throw anybody out of work. In fact, you would upsize the private sector at the same time. There's $2 billion. Why won't you do that instead of your tax increases?

Hon Mr Laughren: I do wish it was all as simple as the leader of the third party suggests. I know that the leader of the third party has made much to do about whether or not the tax package is fair and balanced. The last thing I want to be today, following a very tough budget, is provocative, other than to say to the leader of the third party that I was here in this assembly back in 1981 when there was a recession, when his government raised the provincial personal income tax by four points. Count them: four points. I can tell you that --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Laughren: I will end on a non-provocative note. I just wanted to say to both the opposition parties that the size of the tax increases this year, while they're substantial and they're very difficult, are not disproportionate to the size of the economy, to the tax increases brought in when the Liberals were in office or when the Tories were in office way back then.

Mr Harris: The Treasurer seems to miss the point. The 1981 level of taxation is not a problem; neither is the 1985 level of taxation. It's the cumulative effect, taking all those taxes and adding in 1985, and up in 1986, and up in 1987, and now you, up in 1990, up in 1991, up in 1992. You took all those Tory taxes and all those Liberal taxes and you wanted more. That's the problem. That's why we're overtaxed in this province.

Yesterday you proved what I've been telling you all along. You don't have a revenue problem; you have a spending problem. In your first budget -- remember those heady days when you came in here -- you saddled Ontario with a $10-billion deficit and a $1-billion tax grab. Now, two years later, you give us a $10-billion deficit and a $2-billion tax grab.

Here's what you promised us before the budget. You said, "We're going to have a three-pronged attack on the deficit," and you're right. Unlike the Liberals, we support your attack on the deficit. We think it's a problem that has to be dealt with. But you promised a three-pronged attack. You said social contract talks. So far, the unions are in charge of those. We've seen not a cent. The second prong, you promised spending reductions, and this budget brought us spending increases of about $160 million from last year. You said you were going to cut. You've increased spending from last year. That leaves us with only a one-pronged attack, the taxpayers' prong, $2 billion.

When are the taxpayers going to see some real cuts instead of a $160-million hike, and when are we going to see the third prong, some kind of sense that the social contract talks are going to contribute?

Hon Mr Laughren: I would encourage the leader of the third party to go back and read the budget a little more carefully. I remind him that for every dollar of tax increases, we've found $4 in reductions and savings this year.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. The leader of the third party, please come to order.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I think I heard someone say a no-no.

The Speaker: The member for Renfrew North is correct, although I couldn't identify the exact source of the unparliamentary remark. What I would say is that the temperature has risen to a very uncomfortable level, and I would ask all members --

Interjections.

The Speaker: The leader of the third party, order. I ask the leader of the third party to please come to order.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): Tell us about the off-book finances.

The Speaker: The member for York Mills, please come to order.

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Hon Mr Laughren: I'll conclude by simply saying that program spending in 1993-94 is down 4.3% over last year, and that is the --

Mr Harris: It is not. Look at page 92 of the budget. Don't stand up and lie. Read your budget.

The Speaker: Order. Could the minister conclude his response, please.

Hon Mr Laughren: Mr Speaker, the leader of the third party referred me to page 92 in the budget, and I refer anyone else to it as well, which shows that program spending in 1992-93 was $50.195 billion, and for 1993-94 will be $50.048 billion. That is a decline in program spending, and I can tell you it's the first time in 50 years there's been a decrease in spending in this province. That's what rots his socks, that's what's really getting to him, because most of those 50 years --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. I really believe that this is not a sensible way to have questions and answers. I don't know how you could hear a response when you're shouting at the person who's trying to give a response.

Hon Mr Laughren: Only once more, Mr Speaker. Only once more will I try. This is --

Mr Ernie L. Eves (Parry Sound): Is that a threat or a promise?

Hon Mr Laughren: No, giving up. It really is the first time in 50 years there's been a reduction in program spending, and what's really making the third party angry is that for most of the years we had a Conservative government and it never, ever accomplished what we're accomplishing this year.

The Speaker: New question. The member for Scarborough-Agincourt.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Would the member for York Mills please come to order.

Interjections.

The Speaker: The member for Etobicoke West, come to order.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): For me, as I looked at the budget, the most disturbing paragraph in the budget was on page 45 and it says: "During the recession, many workers gave up looking for work.... If these discouraged workers were counted as 'unemployed,' Ontario's current unemployment rate would be about 14%."

I believe that; I think it is about 14%. I don't see in any of the budget documents the real unemployment rate in Ontario getting below 13%. That, for us, is the most disturbing thing. It is the tragedy of 14% unemployment in the province. I will say it as clearly as I can: This budget, in my opinion, offers no hope.

In the budget, I believe it's fair to say that as a result of your budget implementation the average working person in the province will pay about $500 more this year in increased retail tax and increased income tax payments; about $500 for the average working person. I think I can confirm those numbers. Another thing that was lacking in the budget this year was any indication of the job impact. It was noticeable by its lack because in your previous two budgets you had that in.

My question is very simple: For those 14% unemployed, for those 700,000 people who are out of work, what is your estimate of the impact that taking about $500 per working person out of their pockets will have in terms of job prospects for the province?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): First of all, I agree with the sentiments expressed by the member for Scarborough-Agincourt that when you read the budget that is a very stark paragraph he quoted from, and it bothered me to put it in there. But I think it was the right thing to do, to draw people's attention to the severity of the problem, and while the official rate may drop down to 9%, we all know that the real rate is higher than that. I do think that as the economy recovers, the discouraged-worker syndrome starts plugging into the official number of 9%. I don't think it will be as high as 13%, but I'm not quarrelling with what the member says and the concern he expresses over that level of unemployment.

On the whole question of the Ontario economy and job creation, when I was thinking about the impact of taxes on jobs and job losses and job creation and so forth, I had to think as well about what the alternatives to that were, quite frankly. What is the impact on job creation, particularly by the private sector if we allow the deficit to climb? If we didn't do something about the deficit, I think there'd be real concern out there both at the personal consumer confidence level and particularly at the business confidence level.

I think that taking the tax package in isolation, to be fair -- and the member for Scarborough-Agincourt usually is -- to take the tax package in isolation isn't fair unless you look at what the alternatives to this package were.

Mr Phillips: I think I understand what you're doing and I would suspect the debt-servicing agencies have indirectly if not directly let the Minister of Finance know how they would view various numbers. I understand that, I understand it completely, and my own view is that after they've looked at this, they probably will view it favourably. That would be my judgement, and we'll only know in a few weeks perhaps. I understand that.

My problem is, this is a budget that tackles their needs. It's not a budget, in my view, that tackles the needs of what I believe are 700,000 unemployed. It seemed to me there was an opportunity to balance that. I understand how we got to this situation and I understand where we are, but I truly believe that this budget could have struck a slightly better balance.

My view is that the tax hikes that we see -- and we perhaps understand why you did it -- will have a very significant dampening impact on the economy. The Treasurer two years ago said much the same in the budget.

I just say again, can you provide to the House some indication of what impact these tax measures will have in terms of employment in the province?

Hon Mr Laughren: I do find that a difficult question to answer; not that I think it's an unfair question at all, but it's a difficult question to answer because of what it does imply. I think the member for Scarborough-Agincourt would agree that the deficit needs to come down. I think he would agree to that. I'm not putting words in his mouth. I think he would agree to that.

If you accept that as a premise going into this exercise, then it seems to me you have to make a choice. We could have gone back and reduced the expenditures by an equivalent amount or some portion thereof. Our analysis shows that a reduction in expenditures out there in public services all across the province would have somewhere between -- and this does get a little bit iffy on the numbers, I appreciate -- somewhere between 50% to 75% greater job loss by reducing expenditures out there all across the province than by an equivalent amount of tax increases.

So there is a much heavier job loss associated with going out and reducing expenditures. That's why I have real problems with some of the analysis by the leader of the third party. So that's why we ended up with the kind of balance we did between expenditure reductions and this aggressive tax package.

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ECONOMIC POLICY

Mr Michael D. Harris (Nipissing): The Treasurer's been on the radio saying, "Four for one; we cut $4 for every tax dollar increase." I think the Treasurer will acknowledge that over an annual basis the net revenue enhancements -- that's the new, politically correct NDP buzzword for tax hikes and what not -- are $2 billion; in that range, give or take some.

Treasurer, on page 92, we finally got you in this Legislature to quote that last year's spending was $50.195 billion. Your estimates for this year, assuming $400 million and some savings from somewhere, assuming that you get $2 billion in savings from social contract talks -- that so far are unions $2 billion and government zero; in fact, so far all they've done is cost us $100,000 -- but assuming the full $2 billion and you find another $400 million out of Agriculture or Education or health care somewhere, you now say it will be $50.048 billion. That is an decrease of $147 million, and taxes are up $2 billion.

Could you give me the numbers that verify your $8-billion cut, your four for one that you said. You hiked taxes $2 billion. I would have expected that you would have been able to verify that with $8 billion in spending cuts. Your document says $147 million in spending cuts if you achieve all those things. Can you tell us the discrepancy?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): I certainly can. When we were looking at the 1993-94 expenditures, they were going to come in at a certain level.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order. Minister.

Hon Mr Laughren: Thank you, Mr Speaker. What I was trying to say before I was interrupted was that we were, in 1993-94, facing a certain level of expenditures. We said, "That is an unacceptable level of expenditures." We reduced those expenditures by $4 billion. We then said, "That is not enough yet, because we must get the deficit down and get our financial house in order." That's why we are going to find, despite the derision of the opposition, $2 billion at the social contract table. That comes to $6 billion. We have tax increases this year of approximately $1.5 billion. To me, that's $4 billion in savings over $1.5 billion in taxes for this year. That's how we arrived at those numbers.

Mr Harris: I want the people in the Legislature, particularly your members as they go back to defend this budget, to clearly understand that the cuts you're talking about were not expenditure cuts but were cuts from this fantasy land that your ministers told you they wanted to spend. They had this fantasy land of what they wanted to spend, about six times increased from the rate of inflation, $9 billion-some more. So in their fantasy projections of what they wanted to spend, you cut that down. You understand that; I think that's what you've explained.

I would like you to confirm for me just one more time, and for all Ontarians, that you believe the interim 1992-93 expenditures -- not interest, not capital, not fudge the books, not any of that -- will come in at $50.195 billion and that you think if you achieve all these savings, your expenditures this year will be $50.048 billion, a decrease of 0.03% or $147 million. Will you confirm that those are the real cuts, and the other ones are the fantasy cuts from what your cabinet ministers wanted to spend?

Hon Mr Laughren: The cuts were from programs that were already committed to for 1993-94.

Mr Harris: By who? In your minds, in the fantasy minds of the cabinet ministers.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mr Laughren: The leader of the third party --

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): How can it be cut? It's never been spent.

The Speaker: Order. The member for Etobicoke West, please come to order. If he persists, he will be named.

The leader of the third party asked a very serious question. I presume he would like a response. You cannot hear the response if you are busy shouting at the person to whom the question was directed. Minister.

Hon Mr Laughren: Thank you, Mr Speaker. If the leader of the third party thinks that the reductions in unconditional grants were phantom, let him tell the municipalities that, and I'll tell every mayor to call the leader of the third party, who will tell them it's a phantom reduction in unconditional grants. Is that what the leader of the third party is saying?

Those reductions are real reductions in committed spending for 1993-94, and if the leader of the third party doesn't understand what a real cut in spending is, I would urge him to go out there and talk to the mayors all across this province.

GOVERNMENT BORROWING

Mr Paul Wessenger (Simcoe Centre): My question is also to the Minister of Finance, and it arises with respect to his comments yesterday.

He indicates that, "About two thirds of our new borrowing comes from outside Canada -- which means that most of the interest we pay on this borrowing goes to foreign bankers, investors and economies."

Then, when he raises concern about the increased debt, he said, "More and more of our tax dollars would go to pay government bond holders in New York, Zurich, Tokyo and elsewhere instead of being invested here in Ontario -- in Ontario services and Ontario jobs."

If you add to that the whole question of the fact that I say many commentators recognize that the major concern about deficit really ought to be concerning our balance of payments deficit, therefore, I'd like to ask the Minister of Finance, why is Ontario doing so much of its borrowing outside the country and why don't we do more borrowing domestically?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): I appreciate the question, because it is one I get asked quite often from people in different parts of the province.

The fact of the matter is, when we're out there, as a province, borrowing over $1 billion a month, the capital markets in this province simply cannot supply that kind of capital to this province. You think about the needs of the federal government on borrowing, the needs of the municipal sector, the needs of all the other provinces for borrowing, and I take no great pride in saying this, but I can tell you that the capital markets in this country cannot provide that amount of capital. It really is as simple as that.

But it's also, for me, a reason why addressing the deficit is important, because I've always said that transferring money from taxpayers in this province, through interest on the public debt, to wealthy bond holders in some other country is a truly perverse redistribution of income, and I'd like to minimize that as much as possible.

Mr Wessenger: My supplemental is also related to the whole question of borrowing, and it relates to some of the comments and suggestions that I have read with respect to our monetary policy in this country.

The suggestion has been made that presently, in our monetary policy, the Bank of Canada is lending very little money to the federal government with respect to financing the deficit and that we ought to do as we did perhaps in the war time, where the Bank of Canada lent money to governments to spend.

Considering the fact that we don't have all the external pressure on the economy with respect to inflationary pressure at the present time, why wouldn't it be possible for the Bank of Canada not only to perhaps consider lending to the government of Canada, but also to consider lending to the provinces?

Hon Mr Laughren: That's a relatively complex question. The Bank of Canada simply does not lend to the provinces. If they were to go out and borrow money through some mechanism, they would simply be competing in the same capital markets as we are in order to do that. If, on the other hand, they were to use the monetary system and print money, then that has its own particular set of problems, as the member will be aware.

Over the last number of years -- and I think this will come as no surprise to anyone -- we've certainly had a quarrel with the federal government on its rather restrictive monetary policies. I certainly identify with the sentiments of the member, but it's simply not going to happen through the Bank of Canada.

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AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): Can the Minister of Finance tell us what is fair about increasing the cost of auto insurance by 5%, which is to be paid directly to him?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): I know you didn't mean me personally when you said that.

Mr Elston: Well, you're the revenue minister, so it does go to you personally.

Hon Mr Laughren: It goes to the consolidated revenue fund. When we were looking at the tax package, as I call it, and we had a target of achieving so much revenue, we looked at the whole question of the retail sales tax, whether or not to raise it a point, whether or not to expand the base and, if we did so, how broadly to expand the base.

In the end, we settled upon putting the sales tax on some insurance polices and on auto insurance, but, recognizing the auto insurance rates as being somewhat volatile over the years, we would put only a 5% sales tax on the auto insurance rather than the 8% which is applied to other forms of insurance. In the end, it was, I must confess to the member, a revenue decision as well.

Mr Elston: He's made great things about this being a budget that is fair although tough. But people cannot have an option to drive automobiles without auto insurance premiums being paid. They have no option not to have general insurance coverage on their homes and other places, such as businesses, and those insurance premiums have both been attached with a retail sales tax increase: one, 5%, which is in addition to the 3% existing premium tax; the other, 8% on general insurance coverage.

I want the minister to answer the question that I asked first: What is fair about the application of a new tax on mandatory expenditures for the people, whether they are rich, poor or otherwise, in this province? What is so fair about it?

Hon Mr Laughren: I suppose the member could ask that question about any tax on any commodity that's regarded as an essential --

Interjections.

Hon Mr Laughren: Would you let me finish? I was saying that; I was trying to accommodate that factor in my answer. I said that the member could say that about a tax on anything that could be considered a mandatory or essential service.

Interjection: Like income tax.

Hon Mr Laughren: Like income tax. Income is essential to live in this country as well, and we put a tax on income. So I think the member for Bruce could argue that the tax could have been put on some other product or service, but I'm afraid that I --

Mr Elston: What's fair?

Hon Mr Laughren: I'm afraid that I can't expect an alternative from the Liberals, because they're not coming up with any at all.

ASSISTED HOUSING

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): My question is to the Deputy Premier, in the absence of the Minister of Housing. Yesterday, Deputy Premier, you announced that in 1993-94 --

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order. In the noise, I missed even to whom the question is directed. I know the member did state it. Would you be kind enough to state it again.

Mrs Marland: Mr Speaker, I wonder if you'd put some time back on the clock.

My question is to the Deputy Premier, in the absence of the Minister of Housing.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): That's what she said the first time.

Mrs Marland: And that's what I said the first time.

Deputy Premier, yesterday you announced in your budget that for this year and next year there would be 14,000 more government-assisted housing units in your wonderful housing program. I would like tell you that you also announced yesterday that it costs $854 to subsidize the families in non-profit units per month on average. You also said yesterday that the subsidy can run as high as $2,000 per unit per month.

We also know, from figures you gave out yesterday, that the social assistance recipients get up to $460 a month per unit. This means that it costs twice as much for needy families to live in non-profit housing units owned and operated by the government as it does to give them a direct rental subsidy.

Minister, I think what we need to know from you is, why is your government continuing with this program when you are working on figures which apparently the standing committee on public accounts cannot get, nor can the auditor get these figures from the Ministry of Housing? We simply say to you, if you can't tell the auditor in this province what the figures really are, will you put a hold on all your public housing units from this day forward until we know whether there's value for money in the Ministry of Housing?

Hon Floyd Laughren (Deputy Premier): I have no hesitation in saying that one of the programs of which this government is the most proud is our housing program. Not only does it provide for the housing for people in this province --

Interjection.

The Speaker: Order, the member for York Mills.

Hon Mr Laughren: -- but it also creates much-needed jobs in the construction sector. So I think that the member is being somewhat unfair in implying that we don't need any more social housing program in this province. I think we do need one, I think we've got a good program and we intend to continue it.

PETITIONS

GAMBLING

Mr Hugh O'Neil (Quinte): I have a petition that has been submitted to me by members of the Tabernacle United Church in the city of Belleville and it reads:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the Christian is called to love of neighbour, which includes a concern for the general wellbeing of society; and

"Whereas there is a direct link between the higher availability of legalized gambling and the incidence of addictive gambling; and

"Whereas the damage of addiction to gambling in individuals is compounded by the damage done to families, both emotionally and economically; and

"Whereas the gambling market is already saturated with various kinds of government-operated lotteries; and

"Whereas large-scale gambling activity invariably attracts criminal activity; and

"Whereas the citizens of Detroit have, since 1976, on three occasions voted down the introduction of casinos into that city, each time with a larger majority than the time before;

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government of Ontario cease all moves to establish gambling casinos."

NATIVE HUNTING AND FISHING

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): "To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas in 1923, seven Ontario bands signed the Williams Treaty, which guaranteed that native peoples would fish and hunt according to provincial and federal conservation laws, like everyone else; and

"Whereas the bands were paid the 1993 equivalent of $20 million; and

"Whereas that treaty was upheld by Ontario's highest court last year; and

"Whereas Bob Rae is not enforcing existing laws which prohibit native peoples from hunting and fishing out of season; and

"Whereas this will put at risk an already pressured part of Ontario's natural environment;

"We, the undersigned, adamantly demand that the government honour the principles of fish and wildlife conservation, to respect our native and non-native ancestors and to respect the Williams Treaty."

That's signed by 113 people and I've affixed my name to it.

GAMBLING

Mr Stephen Owens (Scarborough Centre): "Whereas the Christian is called to love of neighbour, which includes a concern for the general wellbeing of society; and

"Whereas there is a direct link between the higher availability of legalized gambling and the incidence of addictive gambling (Macdonald and Macdonald, Pathological Gambling: The Problem, Treatment and Outcome, Canadian Foundation on Compulsive Gambling); and

"Whereas the damage of addiction to gambling in individuals is compounded by the damage done to families, both emotionally and economically; and

"Whereas the gambling market is already saturated with various kinds of government-operated lotteries; and

1500

"Whereas large-scale gambling activity invariably attracts criminal activity; and

"Whereas the citizens of Detroit have since 1976 on three occasions voted down the introduction of casinos into that city, each time with a larger majority than the time before,

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government of Ontario cease all moves to establish gambling casinos."

It is signed by approximately 15 constituents of Scarborough Centre.

ATTENDANCE OF MINISTERS

Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): I have a petition that reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas in the fall session of the Legislature, which was held from September 30 to December 10, 1992, the Premier was absent 16 days, the Minister of Finance was absent seven days and ministers were absent for a total of 142 days during a 29-day sitting" -- good trick.

Mr Gregory S. Sorbara (York Centre): Minister days.

Mr Mahoney: Minister days, thank you.

"Whereas so far in this current spring session of the Legislature from April 14 to May 20" --

Interjections.

Mr Mahoney: Mr Speaker, how can you get heckled when you're reading a petition?

-- "the Premier has been absent nine days, the Minister of Finance...seven days and ministers...a total of 105" minister "days,

"Therefore, we the people of Ontario request that this session of the Legislature meet during the week of May 25 to May 27."

I, prepared to work during that week, will be delighted to add my name here.

GAMBLING

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I have a petition, and it reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has traditionally had a commitment to family life and quality of life for all the citizens of Ontario; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas the NDP government has had an historical concern for the poor in society, who are particularly at risk each time the practice of gambling is expanded; and

"Whereas the NDP has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the citizens of Ontario have not been consulted regarding the introduction of legalized gambling casinos despite the fact that such a decision is a significant change of government policy and was never part of the mandate given to the government by the people of Ontario,

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos by regulation and that appropriate legislation be introduced into the assembly, along with a process which includes significant opportunities for public consultation and full public hearings as a means of allowing the citizens of Ontario to express themselves on this new and questionable initiative."

I support this petition.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): I am presenting a petition on behalf of 93 residents of the city of St Catharines, and the final "be it resolved" is:

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That Bill 164 be withdrawn."

ATTENDANCE OF MINISTERS

Mr Gregory S. Sorbara (York Centre): I have a petition which reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas so far in this current spring session of the Legislature from April 14 to May 20, 1993, the Premier has been absent nine days, the Minister of Finance has been absent" again, "seven days and ministers have been absent for a total of" -- get this -- "105" minister "days,

"We, the people of Ontario, request that this session of the Legislature meet during the week of May 25 to May 27, 1993."

I'm going to sign this petition because I am in full support of it.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The member for Waterloo North.

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): I have a petition --

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Environment and Energy and Minister Responsible for Native Affairs): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: It would be helpful to the House if the member would make clear how many people signed that petition. I'd also like to know if it is in order to draw attention to a member's absence or presence.

The Speaker: It's not necessary to indicate how many persons have signed any particular petition.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): I have a petition, signed by 98 people in the region of Waterloo, to the Legislative Assembly and the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario:

"Whereas the people of Ontario are undergoing economic hardship, high unemployment and are faced with the prospect of imminent tax increases; and

"Whereas the Ontario motorist protection plan currently delivers cost-effective insurance benefits to Ontario drivers; and

"Since the passing of Bill 164 into law will result in higher automobile insurance premiums for Ontario drivers,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That Bill 164 be withdrawn."

I'm pleased to affix my signature.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, hereby request you to vote against the passing of Bill 38, an amendment of the Retail Business Holidays Act to permit wide-open Sunday shopping and eliminate Sunday as a legal holiday. We believe that this bill defies God's law, violates the principle of religious freedom, reduces the quality of life, removes all legal protection to workers regarding when they must work, and will reduce rather than improve the prosperity of our province.

"The observance of Sunday as a non-working day was not invented by man but dates from God's creation, and is an absolute necessity for the wellbeing of all people, both physically and spiritually. We beg you to defeat the passing of Bill 38."

Signed by 127 residents of Ontario.

GAMBLING

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the New Democratic Party government has not consulted the citizens of the province regarding the expansion of gambling; and

"Whereas families are made more emotionally and economically vulnerable by the operation of various gaming and gambling ventures; and

"Whereas credible academic studies have shown that state-operated gambling is nothing more than a regressive tax on the poor; and

"Whereas the New Democratic Party has in the past vociferously opposed the raising of moneys for the state through gambling; and

"Whereas the government has not attempted to address the very serious concerns that have been raised by groups and individuals regarding the potential growth in crime,

"Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That the government immediately cease all moves to establish gambling casinos and refrain from introducing video lottery terminals in the province of Ontario."

This is signed by quite a few constituents in my riding and has my signature of support as well.

BRUCE GENERATING STATION

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): "We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"When discussing the future of Bruce A, to consider that the undersigned are in full support of the continued operation of all of the units at Bruce A. Furthermore, we support the expenditure of the required money to rehabilitate the Bruce A units for the following reasons:

"In comparison to other forms of generation, nuclear energy is environmentally safe and cost-effective. Rehabilitating Bruce A units is expected to achieve $2 billion in savings to the corporation over the station's lifetime. This power is needed for the province's future prosperity.

"A partial or complete closure of Bruce A will have severe negative impacts on the affected workers and will seriously undermine the economy of the surrounding communities and the province."

In addition to these people, who hail from Kincardine, Inverhuron and areas surrounding the Bruce A units, I have attached my signature, together with the support of business, labour and other groups in the area.

PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES

Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): I have a petition addressed to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the following undersigned citizens of Leeds and Grenville, members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Local 439, employed at the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital, beg leave to petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"The Ontario government must immediately reset its course to build an Ontario society which is fair and just, protecting those who are most vulnerable within it, and not scapegoat public sector workers in times of economic difficulty.

"Further, the government must respect these fundamental principles: free collective bargaining, a strong public sector and the strengthening of public services."

I've affixed my signature in support, and I'm sending a Decter dollar, face value less than nothing, over to the Treasurer.

LAND-LEASE COMMUNITIES

Mr Larry O'Connor (Durham-York): I've got a petition here:

"We, the residents of land-lease communities, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the residents of Sutton-By-The-Lake felt the previous government set up a committee to report on land-lease communities but took no specific action to protect these communities;

"Whereas residents of Sutton-By-The-Lake feel it should be a priority of this government to release the report and take action to bring legislation on the following issues surrounding land-lease communities;

"Whereas the residents feel that the government of Ontario should examine the problem of no protection against conversion to other uses which would result in the loss of home owners' equity;

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"Whereas the residents of these communities do not receive concise and clear information on their property tax bills;

"Whereas there are often arbitrary rules set by landlords and owners of land-lease communities which place unfair restrictions and collect commissions on the resale of residents' homes;

"Whereas there has been a long confusion around status of residents in land-lease communities where they fall under the rent review legislation,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly to follow through."

Considering that Mr Wessenger has introduced the bill, I think these people will be quite satisfied. I've signed my name to this petition.

ATTENDANCE OF MINISTERS

Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): I have a petition that's addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It reads:

"Whereas in the fall session of the Legislature, which was held from September 30 to December 10, 1992, the Premier was absent 16 days, the Minister of Finance was absent seven days and the ministers were absent a total of 142" minister "days during a 29-day sitting; and

"Whereas so far in this current spring session of the Legislature from April 14 to May 20, 1993, the Premier has been absent nine days, the Minister of Finance has been absent seven days and ministers have been absent a total of 105" minister "days,

"We, the people of Ontario, request that this session of the Legislature meet during the week of May 25 to May 27, 1993."

I have attached my name to that as well.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I have a petition of 39 signatures from people in my riding. It's addressed to the Legislative Assembly and the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.

"Whereas the people of Ontario are undergoing economic hardship, high unemployment and are faced with the prospect of imminent tax increases; and

"Whereas the Ontario motorist protection plan currently delivers cost-effective insurance benefits to Ontario drivers; and

"Since the passing of Bill 164 into law will result in higher automobile insurance premiums for Ontario drivers,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"That Bill 164 be withdrawn."

EDUCATION FINANCING

Mr Stephen Owens (Scarborough Centre): On behalf of the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere, I'd like to present the following petition:

"Whereas the British North America Act of 1867 recognizes the right of Catholic students to a Catholic education, and in keeping with this, the province of Ontario supports two educational systems from kindergarten to grade 12/OAC; and

"'Whereas the Metropolitan Separate School Board educates more than 104,000 students across Metro Toronto; and

'"Whereas these students represent 30% of the total number of students in this area, yet has access to just 20% of the total residential assessment and 9.5% of the pooled corporate assessment; and

'"Whereas the Metropolitan Separate School Board is able to spend $1,678 less on each of its elementary school students and $2,502 less on each of its secondary school students than our public school counterpart,

'"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to act now and restructure the way in which municipal and provincial tax dollars are apportioned, so that Ontario's two principal education systems are funded not only fully but with equity and equality."

I affix my signature of support.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): The time allotted for the presentation of petitions has expired.

PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE

Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: With respect to the time period allocated for petitions, it is the tradition of this House, as I understand it, that petitions will be presented on behalf of the constituents of members and that these petitions will have to follow a proper form, that name, address and etc will be included and that, in the traditions of this House, it's uncustomary and unacceptable for members to draw attention to the absences of other members in this Legislature. My privileges have been violated, as have those of the member for Burlington, who tried to present a petition and had not had time, by the superfluous presentation of petitions by the Liberal Party.

Given that we, as members of this Legislature, have access to redress through you, through the Chair, in violation of the rules, and that the petition that has been presented by the member for Mississauga West was signed by him and by the member for Eglinton and no one else, this violates my privileges as a member in this Legislature, and I would ask that you comment on that.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): This is fairly simple and straightforward. To the member for Durham West, first, there is no vetting procedure here for petitions. A petition will be presented by a member of the House. The table will determine whether or not the petition is in order. If it is not in order, it will be returned.

Secondly, there is nothing to prevent a member from petitioning on his or her own on a matter which is of concern to the member.

Thirdly, we have nothing in our standing orders with respect to the attendance of members. I would draw to the member's attention that in some provinces indeed the assemblies do have a financial penalty for absence from the chamber, but that is not the case here. The member does not have a point of order.

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): On the same point, Mr Speaker: Something that you didn't mention in the context of the petition that was read was that the ministers are to attend for particular functions and all that was being done was indicating that the people were not here. There doesn't seem to me, Mr Speaker, to be any reason why the people of the province shouldn't know that the Premier was not here on 16 separate occasions.

The Speaker: No, I have addressed the point of order that was raised.

Reports by committees? Introduction of bills? The member for York Centre.

Mr Gregory S. Sorbara (York Centre): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I have a great deal of respect for your rulings.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

TOWN OF RICHMOND HILL ACT, 1993

On motion by Mr Sorbara, the following bill was given first reading:

Bill Pr77, An Act respecting the Town of Richmond Hill.

CITY OF LONDON ACT (COVENT GARDEN MARKET CORPORATION),1993

On motion by Mr Winninger, the following bill was given first reading:

Bill Pr4, An Act respecting the City of London and Covent Garden Building Incorporated.

OPTIMIST CLUB OF KITCHENER-WATERLOO ACT, 1993

On motion by Mrs Witmer, the following bill was given first reading:

Bill Pr85, An Act to revive The Optimist Club of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

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ORDERS OF THE DAY

1993 ONTARIO BUDGET

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

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): Yesterday, this government presented its budget. This morning, there were members of our caucus who were out in 10 communities across this province. We wanted to get out as quickly as possible because we wanted to talk to people in the communities. We wanted to talk to municipal leaders, to business leaders, we talked to union representatives, we talked to average taxpayers of the communities of this province to find out what they thought of this budget.

I can tell you that as we talked to about a thousand people in communities across the province this morning, there was really a pretty uniform reaction to this government's budget. It was shock, it was despair, it was anger, it was the sense that this budget leaves the people of this province with no hope about what their future looks like over the next months and years.

The one thing I found very interesting was that there were not a lot of questions about the budget, because there is not much in this budget but taxes. There is nothing new in this budget except taxes and more taxes and more taxes: $2 billion in more taxes, the largest tax grab in the history of this province.

There is a 3% increase in the personal income tax, which is the largest increase in personal income tax since the last Tory budget of 1981, which was the record for the largest tax grab in the history of the province of Ontario until yesterday.

We pretty well knew what was going to be in the budget because the Treasurer had made it clear that it was going to be a budget that would bring in new taxes. We urged him to understand that this was the worst possible time to bring in new taxes, because we were convinced and we are still convinced that at this time in the history of the province of Ontario, in these economic circumstances, any new taxes were just going to put more people out of business and more people out of work, and with 575,000 people out of work in this province, the last thing any of us wanted to see was a budget that was going to put even more people out of work.

Mr Speaker, $2 billion in new taxes means 50,000 more Ontarians are going to be out of work. We keep asking the government what studies it has done that would say to us, "No, that's not true, there won't be 50,000 people out of work," but the government refuses to answer the question, because it has no studies to say that this budget will create jobs, that this budget will not put 50,000 more people out of work, because it has no response to the sheer reality of the fact that this budget with its new taxes is going to mean that more Ontarians are out of work. Two billion dollars, 50,000 lost jobs. The mathematics is all too simple. New taxes means lost jobs, and $2 billion in taxes means 50,000 lost jobs.

Our unemployment rate is already at 10.7% -- record highs in this province. Fifty thousand more people out of work will drive that unemployment level up to 11.7%.

The Conference Board of Canada last week said that economic growth will not be as healthy in Ontario as we had hoped, and that was before the government brought this budget in.

The tax grab that this Treasurer, that this government, brought in in this budget yesterday exceeds anybody's worst fears. It exceeds anything that we believed possible from this Treasurer in this budget. It is going to make the gloomiest predictions a reality. Members of the government go by and say, "Is the opposition leader being gloomy again?" You'd better believe I'm being gloomy again, because this budget does nothing but give us reason for despair about what we are going to see in this province over the next year.

We genuinely hoped -- because we don't enjoy being gloomy about the future of the people of this province -- for a budget that would stimulate the economy, and instead of that, the government has given us a budget that's going to strangle it.

We have a personal income tax increase that gives the government $1 billion of its $2-billion tax grab, and it is an increase that is going to hit all but a very few people. We said earlier today, just using the government's own figures, that a single-income family of four making about $50,000 a year is going to pay at least $330 more in taxes because of this budget.

We see the new tax on auto insurance, which clearly can't be seen as fair because it's a tax which everybody who drives a car has to pay because they have to have auto insurance. That's going to mean an increase of $75 for a 25-year-old single driver. This is a tax that probably hurts the young people of this province more than any other group of people.

Mr Speaker, you say: "How is it possible that $2 billion in taxes can possibly mean 50,000 people out of work. How can it have that kind of an effect on the economy?" It's just a simple reality, and again, the math is only too simple, because people who are paying more taxes are not going to be encouraged to go out and buy a new car. The auto dealers were telling me just last week that they're not seeing people buying new cars now because people are so worried about their economic futures. After yesterday, there is very little chance that they're going to have the confidence they need to go out and make that purchase. We're not going to see people going out and buying new houses. We're not even likely going to see people shop on Sundays, if it finally becomes legal in this province to shop on Sundays.

It is a sad reality that the economic renewal that we so desperately need in this province and that absolutely must be driven by consumer confidence is not going to happen because of this budget, because of a budget that is going to destroy consumer confidence and freeze consumer spending, and it does mean that more people are going to lose their jobs.

We know that the budget hits very hard at every individual taxpayer, at every individual family, at middle-class Ontarians, but there's no question too, as we look at the details of this budget, that it hits specific industries with even more tax increases.

We can see the effect that this budget is going to have on the tourist industry, as they cancelled the Ontario -- Incredible! rebate tax, which is no more, we can see the impact that it's going to have on the hospitality industry, the impact that it's going to have on the construction industry. And I have to ask: Can anybody think of any reason why the government would want to put the tourism industry, the hospitality industry, the construction industry, all industries that are struggling to survive, all industries that have been laying off people because they are struggling to stay alive, under even more stress?

I wonder why the government doesn't seem to realize that one of those just little incidental taxes that was in that list of 20 new taxes that were introduced in this budget, that little incidental tax, the sales tax that is now going to be on sand and clay and soil and gravel and stone, is going to mean more expensive houses, is going to mean more costly roads, is going mean that we will have to spend more money to build the school buildings that are needed. Or it may mean that there are just not going to be new houses built, it's going to mean there aren't going to be the new roads built that we need, that maybe we won't be able to build the schools that our children are going to need because it has just been too costly to continue to provide them and because the companies that would build them are not going to be able to stay alive.

I wonder whether the government even looked at the economic impact of simply removing the sales tax exemption on sand and soil and clay and stone and realized that taking the tax exemption off sand and soil and clay and stone actually hurts people and makes it less likely that people are going to get the kinds of services they need, and less likely that communities are going to get the kind of roads and housing construction that they need for their own economic development.

Because we look at a budget and say, "Is there something good in this budget? Is there something positive that we can say about this budget?" we did expect to see that in this budget the Treasurer was going to remove the corporate concentration tax. He signalled that very clearly; the Premier signalled it very clearly and the Treasurer nodded in the House, so we assumed that meant that we would see the removal of the corporate concentration tax in this budget.

I can tell you, as a member of the government that introduced the corporate concentration tax, we were prepared to see that tax go because we believed that removing that tax would be an important signal of support for economic growth in the greater Toronto area, that it would be one small stimulus that would encourage a turnaround in what has been tremendous economic difficulty for people in the greater Toronto area. So we were ready to applaud the removal of the corporate concentration tax.

If only they had simply removed the tax so that removing that tax might have been a stimulus to new development in the greater Toronto area. But instead of simply providing business with this rather small stimulus, they took away the benefits that they'd just given by introducing 20 new taxes.

The Treasurer, who is just returning to the House, will attest to the fact that even as he took off the corporate concentration tax, he brought in 20 new taxes that affect business in one way or another, as well as bringing in something called a minimum corporate tax, which he did promise to bring in a year ago and which has been hanging over everybody's head.

He brought in an 8% tax on general insurance, so that every company that has insurance on its building is going to pay more. If you're a business that happens to have insurance benefit policies for your employees, you're going to pay more for that as well. If you're a business that happens to have a fleet of cars or a business that operates a fleet of school buses, you're going to be hit with the tax on auto insurance.

There's no question that both businesses and individuals alike are going to have to pay this new tax on parking. We did have a lot of questions about how this tax on metered parking was going to work. Were people going to have to somehow retool all their parking meters so they could add a penny with their quarter in order to pay the tax on metered parking? But what we realized was --

Hon Floyd Laughren (Minister of Finance): Did you figure it out?

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Mrs McLeod: Yes, I say to the Minister of Finance, we did figure it out.

This tax on metered parking that you managed to include in this massive tax grab was just one more of those offloads on to the municipalities, because the only way you're going to be able to collect it is to take it right out of the revenues that the municipalities collect from metered parking.

Then there is that minimum corporate tax the Treasurer said last year he was going to bring in that has been kind of hanging like a sword over any prospect of future investment in this province. In this budget he said, "Yes, I am going to bring in a minimum corporate tax." It's still not in place, but we've got to the stage where he has presented a paper that says what a minimum corporate tax might look like and he has suggested that it may bring in $100 million in the next fiscal year. Interesting that, as he takes off the corporate concentration tax and loses about $112 million in revenue there, he manages to replace that by bringing in a minimum corporation tax.

It is a fact that although that tax doesn't come into being in this budget year, the fact that it is to come at all is going to have an immediate and a significant effect on attracting investment to this province. I wish the Minister of Finance and I wish his government could understand how important it is that we really do attract investment to this province so we can get the revenue growth, so that we can get the revenues up in far greater amounts than he is going to gain with a minimum corporation tax that is just going to drive more people out of this province.

It's sometimes a little bit difficult to know exactly how the government comes up with the revenue estimates from its new taxes. They say they're going to get $1 billion more in personal income tax, then they say they're going to get $825 million more in retail tax changes, if we look at the full-year impact of that, and then they're going to look for another $112 million in corporation tax. But it seems that they really don't take into account the fact of what new taxes are going to do to consumer purchases and how much revenue they're going to lose because they've brought the new taxes in.

I just wonder whether the Treasurer would be able to tell us what kind of analysis they've done about how much revenue is going to be lost rather than gained as a result of the 20 new taxes and $2-billion tax grab this budget has given this province.

That is just kind of an initial look at the taxes that are highlighted in the budget yesterday, and I haven't even started to look yet at all of those fee increases. The fee increases are all of those little extras. They didn't make it into the Treasurer's statement --

Hon Mr Laughren: Why haven't you looked at them?

Mrs McLeod: The Treasurer asks why we haven't looked at them. I'm just getting to that point, Treasurer.

You were not anxious to draw great attention to your fee increases when you made the statement in your budget presentation yesterday. The fee increases, the royalty increases, weren't part of the $2-billion tax grab that you did talk about. You had to go to page 66 of the budget, actually, to find those fee increases and the royalty increases, and I suspect that if we hadn't gone to page 66 of the budget, we'd never have heard about them because the Treasurer doesn't come into the House and make statements in the House about the fact that he's made these fee increases.

There are no press announcements that go with these hidden tax increases. Usually the way in which we find out about these is when they start to hit the people out in our ridings and we get the calls in our constituency office saying, "Did you know how much my driver's licence fee went up this year?"

There's one particular fee increase in that list on page 66 which I was really shocked by when I finished listening to the Treasurer and went and looked at what all was in the budget he presented, and that's what the budget is going to do to the forest industry as it looks for $25 million in new stumpage fees.

If you're not from my part of the province in northern Ontario, if you're not from a community that is dependent on a healthy forest industry for economic survival, you may not think that page 66 of the budget, where it says there is going to be $25 million more taken from stumpage fees for cutting trees in the province, is something to worry about very much.

But I can tell you that is about a 25% to 30% increase in the tax that forestry companies have to pay for their use of that resource, and that might be even more than 25% or 30% if we remember that less and less is being harvested because more and more forestry companies have been going out of business.

I have to ask, as we look at $25 million more that is to come from stumpage fees for harvesting crown timber, where is the commitment that has always been part of the government of Ontario's commitment to our resources? Where is the commitment that the dollars that are taken from the industry for the use of the resource will be put back into forest renewal? This is a government that has taken more and more in taxes at the same time that it cuts back on its forest regeneration budget. I think that is one truly shocking thing to be found on page 66 of this budget.

Then if we look again at page 66, we've got $39 million more that's going to come from those motor vehicle licences that we heard about in our constituency offices when people went in to get their driver's licence this year; and the $2 million from the registrar general premium service fees, which I know we're going to hear a lot about in our constituency offices when that begins to have an effect. Then there's the $21 million more from the land registration fees.

What really got me was that in this desperate tax grab, this desperate attempt to find dollars everywhere they could find dollars -- and I'm not surprised I guess that the Premier was not in the House today for question period, that he was, as I understand it, in the depths of Algonquin Park, probably looking if he could find anything else that was moving that he could possibly tax while they were at it -- they couldn't even bypass trying to get an extra I think it's about $100,000 from commercial fish royalties. I have to wonder how many commercial fishermen there are left in this province to pay any royalties at all.

The list goes on and on and on: 20 new corporate and personal tax increases and 25 separate increases in fees and licences and royalties. I would suggest to you that for working people this budget is truly a disaster; for people who have no work, this budget offers no hope; for business, it clearly offers no help; for investors, it offers no incentive. The people across Ontario are going to be absolutely devastated by the budget that this government has given them.

I would add to all of this the chaos, the sheer chaos of what will continue to be this government's completely mismanaged efforts to reduce its spending by the $4-billion target that the Treasurer has given himself.

Yesterday we were presented with a budget that had one focus and one focus only. The focus was clearly to bring the deficit down. Not to bring the deficit down from $17 billion -- we've never believed that the government had done that badly; we've never believed it was quite as high as $17 billion. But certainly their focus was to bring that deficit down from an equally incredible level -- talk about Ontario -- Incredible! -- of $14 billion or $15 billion.

We agreed there was no question, I say to the Finance minister, that deficit reduction had to be a focus of his budget, because we cannot live even now with a debt that is going to continue to grow by $9 billion at least this year and by $6.8 billion next year if the Treasurer is able to meet his deficit targets.

We know, because we have looked at the Treasurer's fiscal outlook in this budget, that even if the government is successful in meeting this year's budget target and next year's budget target, the debt in the election year of 1994-95, the debt that will be in place in this province by the time the next government takes over, will be about $85.5 billion.

Hon Mr Laughren: And you want it higher.

Mrs McLeod: And no, we do not want that debt higher; we want that debt lower. We want that deficit target met. We think it is totally unacceptable that we are adding to the debt of this province with an annual deficit that has exceeded $10 billion a year.

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We know what that kind of debt means. We know that debt means that we are going to see $1 billion more spent on interest every year, even though the Treasurer has left the interest on the debt out of his operating expenditures so that he can show the decrease in spending rather than the increase of $2 billion in interest costs that are in fact in this expenditure budget. We know that debt is going to take at least $1 billion more in interest every year.

Do you know what that means, Mr Speaker? That means a deficit, a debt that is going to continue to paralyse government, not just this government, not just next year's government, but governments year after year after that, until that debt can be brought under control. A debt of $86 billion means that just to pay the interest on the debt will cost us more than it costs us to educate the children of this province, and we cannot live with that kind of legacy. We are prepared to support a tough deficit reduction budget, but we do ask, in all seriousness, how likely it is that this government is likely to reach its deficit target goals.

It is shocking that after all that this government has tried to do in the last six weeks, that after all the spending reduction targets it has set for itself, the deficit is still $9.2 billion. What is even more shocking is that the government that projected a deficit last year of $9.9 billion was so far off target, so far off the "spot on" that the Finance minister used to talk about, that the actual deficit turned out to be -- surprise -- $12 billion.

Hon Mr Laughren: Haven't heard me say that for a long time.

Mrs McLeod: The Finance minister says we haven't heard him say that for a long time. Let me remind him of how far back it was when the treasury critic for our party said: "Treasurer, your deficit is not $9.9 billion. You haven't kept your deficit under $10 billion. Your deficit at year-end is going to be $12 billion." The treasury critic of this party said that an hour after he brought in last year's budget, and the Treasury critic for the Liberal Party was spot on, Treasurer. We only wish you had heard the message.

But you know, what is even more shocking is that the Treasurer said that his budget -- this was when he brought in last year's budget and he talked about a $9.9-billion deficit, the one that turned into $12 billion -- he also said that when he brought in his budget in 1993-94, the deficit would be $8.1 billion. Can you remember back that far, Treasurer, to when you thought that the deficit in 1993-94 was going to be $8.1 billion? Then you thought it was going to be $17 billion, twice as much as what you had projected it was going to be?

I say to the Finance minister, let's just look at the record of his government, of his budgets, of his deficit projections and his complete inability to understand how serious the financial situation of this province was in time to do something about it. Let me take the time to just review this government's record, to make sure that it is absolutely clear to the people of this province and to the members of this government.

In 1991-92, the first budget presented by this government and this Treasurer, the budget plan was for a deficit of $9.7 billion. Shocking, but that was the plan. The deficit at year-end: $10.9 billion, $1 billion more than the Treasurer had projected it would be.

In 1992-93 the budget plan was for a deficit of $9.9 billion; the deficit at year-end was $12 billion, exactly what the treasury critic of our party said it would be.

In 1992-93, that same budget year, the Treasurer projected that the budget deficit in 1993-94 would be $8 billion, and then he said it would be $17 billion, twice as large as they had projected it. That is this government's record, and that's what gives us some very real questions about any confidence that this year's budget target can be met.

I do want to take a minute to recognize that it's not that we don't have some history of deficit and debt in the province of Ontario. We're shocked by the level that this debt has climbed to. We're shocked by the sheer magnitude of this deficit. But we do have a history of deficit and debt in the province, and the Treasurer will probably be quite happy to have me remember that for 15 straight years, under the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in this province, we had deficit budgets -- 15 straight years of deficit budgets.

I remember well that in 1985 the Tories left this province a legacy of a $2.6-billion deficit on a $26-billion budget. I was really intrigued to hear the leader of the third party, in our question period earlier today, suggest that one of the things that they felt proud about with the record of Tory management in the province of Ontario was the way in which they had managed medicare, the way in which they had left a well-funded, well-managed health care system to this province.

I seem to remember talking to a couple of ministers of Health who took over that legacy and who found that the legacy of a well-managed medicare plan was billions of dollars of unfunded commitments to hospitals and billions of dollars of unfunded commitments to new health care programs. That was the Tory legacy. That was the Tory fiscal record. That was a deficit that was fuelled by an average spending --

Interjections.

Mrs McLeod: I seem to have caused some concern for the members of the third party. So let me continue, Mr Speaker, to just set the record straight --

Mr W. Donald Cousens (Markham): You remind the people of the Liberal legacy and just how bad it was, how Bob Nixon was here to pass the torch over to Mr Floyd Laughren this week.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Order, please. All members will have the opportunity.

Mr Cousens: Honestly, Mr Speaker, I wish they'd get it all into perspective.

Mrs McLeod: I was about to put it all in perspective for the honourable member from the third party. He wants to know what the Liberal record was. I'm simply trying to put it all in perspective. I simply want to put a few facts on the table.

I was going to take the members of the House back for the sake of perspective, for the sake of understanding the record of debt and deficit and fiscal management in this province, that that deficit -- those 15 years of straight deficit, the $2.6-billion deficit legacy that the Tories left in this province -- was fuelled by an average spending increase in their last five years of 11.9%. That was at least partly in recession times, when you would think good fiscal managers would understand that if you don't have the dollars to pay for the programs, you don't spend the money.

We've recently seen another government that failed to understand that in recession times, when you don't have the dollars to pay for the programs, you cut back on your spending; you don't spend more. But we do have a record of a previous government that hadn't learned that lesson either.

There was a Liberal government record which I am more than happy to address, I say to the Finance minister. I recognize that this was a legacy of a government that had the opportunity to govern in unprecedentedly good economic times in this province: six years of unprecedented economic growth which the people of this province wish we could see again. In those good economic times, when there were dollars to pay for the programs the people of this province needed, the Liberal government kept the spending to 9.9% over its five years, less than the average spending of a Tory government in much more difficult economic times.

I would remind the members of this House of one other fact which is indisputable, and that's that under a Liberal government we saw the first balanced budget in this province in 20 years. I'm prepared to recognize that we could have a great debate -- and in fact many of us continue to have great debates as we talk to people about the records of fiscal responsibility and management in this province -- that in good economic times, perhaps the spending should have been even less. Perhaps the tax increases were too great as we reached that balanced budget. I think we can have a debate about that.

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I would also want to have a debate about all of the program needs that we needed to respond to. But, nevertheless, a case can be made about how that balanced budget was reached.

But nothing and nobody can take away the fact that it was the first balanced budget in this province in 20 years. It was the first time in 40 years that that debt was moved down. So I would suggest that we not let our friends in the third party practise some kind of revisionist history in their new-found role as the fiscal conservatives around here.

I found it interesting, too, that the leader of the third party has been making speeches about the Field of Dreams approach of the Tory government in the early 1980s. You may know the movie of the Field of Dreams, Mr Speaker. It was a movie in which the theme was: Build it, and they will come. According to the leader of the third party, that was the Tory hope, that was the Tory approach in the early 1980s.

As I look back on the history of that period, it seems to me that the dream might have turned into a little bit of a nightmare. As I recall, that dream committed the province to Darlington, that dream led to the purchase of Suncor. Now at least there's one good thing about that particular nightmare: It makes the Treasurer's deficit this year look a little bit better, because he is looking for a fire-sale riddance of what became a very bad investment.

That dream that turned into a nightmare left a very badly mismanaged UTDC for a Liberal government to privatize. As it seems to me, if I recall, that dream built at least one highway that led to nowhere and shamelessly went on to name it after a sitting Tory cabinet minister. And the leader of the third party talks about frittering away the opportunities of the 1980s.

But let me come back to that balanced budget which was the reality at the end of the 1989-90 budget year. I don't want in any way to put that in the wrong perspective, the wrong context. That balanced budget was at the end of the 1989-90 budget year.

The New Democratic Party government came in in the midst of the next budget year and we all know that the financial state of this province was changing. I want to set the record straight in one more respect, because twice in the last week the Finance minister, in a rather desperate attempt to defend what is clearly indefensible, has suggested to us that the only response he can make is that somehow the Liberals in 1990 called an election because they wanted to run away from a bad situation.

There is a great deal that can be said, has been said, and will be said about the folly of that early election call. There have been a lot of accusations made, a lot of attributions made, but never, never, have I heard it suggested that the election was called in order to run away from the situation this province was facing. Even as a perception that this Treasurer is trying to create, that is absolutely incredible.

I would suggest the Treasurer just think about that for a minute. Think about the logic of the suggestion he has twice made this week. I would say to the Treasurer that you don't call an election when you're at 50% in the polls if you think you're going to lose it. I can assure you that we had every intention of returning after September 6, 1990, to deal with what we knew was going to be a very difficult economic situation.

I'm attempting, with as much directness as I can bring to this, to set the record in perspective for this budget debate. I recognize, all of us recognize -- and that's why I raised the issue, partly in defence against the Treasurer's absolutely incredible accusation, but also to recognize the reality of what happened in September 1990 when the people of this province, who were clearly angry with us -- and every one of us here sitting in this House today knows that the people of Ontario were angry with us for that early election call. They were still not very happy with the Tories, because the voters remembered what the Tory record was in this province. So the people of this province simply turned to a party that had never been tried before.

The government of this province was then turned over to people who came in with a campaign quiver full of irresponsible promises and absolutely no experience in government. At the worst possible time in the history of this province, the Ontario government was put into the hands of a party with an ideological mindset and a totally impractical view of what it wanted to achieve, and for that, with real regret, we take a measure of responsibility.

Be that as it may, in September 1990 we had a government that was all too ready to believe that you could spend your way out of the recession that we were now in the midst of, and it did try. It tried to spend its way out of the recession. It took the spending of this province up to 14.7% in that budget year of 1990-91.

It was interesting to look at the budget yesterday, and I'm sure that all of my colleagues found this very interesting, because if you look at the budget, they have managed to show that 14.7% spending increase for the budget year of 1990-91 as something that happened before the New Democratic Party became the government in the province of Ontario.

But I say to you, that was very clearly a New Democratic Party financial year. The Liberal budget plan, the budget plan which did project a second balanced budget, a second balanced budget which we would not likely have achieved had we returned to office in September 1990 because the economy was changing -- we were in the midst of a difficult economic period. We know that. We have never challenged the Treasurer when he says times have changed and things were tough; they were. But the part of that budget plan on the spending side was to keep the spending to 6.8%. Even when we thought there were going to be better economic times, we were not going to spend 14.7%; we were going to spend 6.8%.

How could this government, this new government, in times that were tough, when the recession was hitting, when we didn't have the dollars to pay for the spending, take that spending up to 14.7%? There is no question about which government owns the 14.7% increase in spending in that first year of a New Democratic Party government.

We know, of course, how they did it. They increased the wage bill for the civil service in this province by 14%, which left us with $500 million in additional annual costs. They increased the transfer payments to colleges and to universities and to school boards and to hospitals by 8%. Those increases were undoubtedly welcomed, but I'll tell you they were not expected, because everybody knew we were in tough times. The colleges and the universities and the school boards and the hospitals of this province were expecting maybe 2% and maybe not even that, and the very generous, the too generous 8% transfer payments meant $1.2 billion in extra costs for this budget, and we are still paying for the costs of those transfer payments.

Then they marched ahead with plans to buy out private child care centres with $26 million more expenditures; they increased the Premier's office and the cabinet office staff; they increased the numbers of parliamentary assistants by 10%; they increased the pay to ministers' staff, all of it when we were by now in the midst of a recession, and the deficit that we had hoped to be able to bring in again at zero soared to $3 billion by the year-end of 1990-91. But beyond that, it was planned by this government to take that deficit beyond the $3 billion to $9.7 billion in the 1991 budget.

Now, we have to recognize that by the time the government brought in its second budget, which was in 1992, the reality had begun to dawn for the Treasurer and for the government, because he saw that the deficit was now heading to $14 billion. He had already told the transfer agencies, the Premier went on television to tell those transfer agencies, those same colleges and universities and school boards and hospitals and municipalities to whom he had given 8% so generously the year before, "Times are tough, our deficit's getting out of control and we expect you to do your part." They brought in a budget in 1992 that held the line for the colleges and universities and school boards and municipalities and hospitals of this province, but they still weren't prepared to do their part. They brought in, in 1992, a smoke-and-mirrors budget that absolutely refused to acknowledge how truly bad the financial situation of this province had become.

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You'll remember that we brought in a call for the Provincial Auditor an hour after that budget was presented and asked this government to come clean with its figures, to understand how bad the situation was, to be realistic in understanding what its expenditures were going to be and what its revenues were likely to be. The government of course refused, and it stumbled further into this next disastrous fiscal year.

The deficit that was projected for the end of this past budget year of 1992-93 was to be $8.9 billion. By November, the Treasurer knew that couldn't be met. His revenues were down. Why, I ask you, did this come as a surprise to the Treasurer? His revenues were down. Why was that a surprise, when the government surely understood that the bottom had fallen out of the Ontario economy and that it was doing even more to drive business out of this province with the labour legislation proposals that were before this House in November 1992?

So the transfer agencies were told: "Gotta do your part again. You're not going to get the 2% after all." And still this government didn't see that it had to get its own house in order if it was really going to deal with the financial realities of this province. So they spent that whole fall session -- as the bottom fell out of the economy of this province, as the deficit was soaring from the $8.9 billion they projected up to $17 billion -- they spent the whole fall session on that labour legislation, labour legislation that they said was going to bring about a new era of cooperation between labour and management, but legislation that in fact polarized labour and management in a way that we have never seen before and which we know has driven business out of this province.

They had just enough time in that fall session for a little bit of work on auto legislation, new car insurance legislation that, if they proceed with it, is likely to make it almost impossible for the auto insurance industry to stay healthy in this province.

They took just enough time in that fall session to totally confuse private sector health care providers with long-term care legislation policies with which on the one hand they said, "No, it's not our policy to drive the private health care providers out of this province," and on the other hand they said, "There is no room for you in meeting the health care needs of the people of this province."

Again, I thought it was interesting that the Finance minister, in reading his budget presentation yesterday, said they are so committed to long-term care legislation that they are speeding this legislation up. If "speeding up" means that something you were supposed to have implemented in January is now going to come in next August, I find that a little bit difficult to define as being speeding up the legislation.

They did do a couple of other things last fall as the bottom was falling out of the economy of this province. They brought in new advocacy legislation, advocacy legislation that has a $30-million-a-year annual cost, advocacy legislation that is opposed by all of the people that the advocacy legislation was supposed to help and that sets up a bureaucracy that nobody wants.

We just mustn't forget, as we look back on that fall of 1992 that prepared for this budget, the sheer energy that went into setting up the Interim Waste Authority, the Interim Waste Authority which has already spent $30 million, which shows no sign of completing its totally futile task, at a cost of millions of dollars as it continues, that spent that $30 million, as we all recall, taking pictures of farm land in winter and then telling people that nothing was growing there, and that spent some of that $30 million drilling test holes, only to find they were drilling the test holes on the wrong site. That was what the government of the province was spending its time and energy and money on as the deficit projection soared up to $17 billion.

By February 1993, the Treasurer was predicting that the budget deficit was going to be $13.9 billion. It was, I think, maybe a week later, maybe two weeks later, that the Premier of the province said, "The budget deficit is actually going to be $17 billion." A couple of weeks before, the Treasurer of the province was saying it's going to be $13.9 billion, then the Premier says it's going to be $17 billion. That is a record for spending which none of us had even seen in the history of the province before, or it's something.

Still, there was absolutely nothing in February 1993 that was actually being done to deal with the financial reality, except that the Treasurer and the government now spent a great deal of time trying to devise more schemes that would move the debt off the books. I should have checked with our Treasury critic on this, but I think we're now up to seven new capital corporations, or maybe it's eight with the Ontario Financing Authority they set up this week -- maybe eight new capital corporations that the government is setting up in order to move the cost, the spending of government off the books to make the deficit look a little bit lower.

The Treasurer also managed to concentrate some energies looking for those one-time-only sources of revenue that would cover the fact that the economy was continuing to collapse.

So we had the Treasurer looking at how he could sell the province's computers, how he can sell government lands, how he could sell the GO trains, how he could, of course, get rid of that Tory white elephant called Suncor. I do remember, back in the days when we had the opportunity to be in government, that we did try and sell Suncor, so we're not surprised the Treasurer was trying to sell it. We just weren't prepared to accept the loss that the sale was going to bring.

I do think it's important that we clearly understand that in the budget that was presented yesterday there are a great many of these one-time-only revenue deals and that there is going to be a very long-term price to pay to lease back the government lands and to lease back the GO trains and to lease back the computers if the government decides to go ahead and sell them.

I would certainly remind the government that as you try and get the deficit down with one-time-only transactions, you can only sell Suncor once. There is no evidence at all that the government has looked at the cost efficiency of these deals over the long term. They have just been so desperate to make the deficit look smaller and hope that there will be a miracle that will work to save next year's budget and the one the year after that.

Mr Robert V. Callahan (Brampton South): Casinos will do that.

Mrs McLeod: Maybe casinos are the miracle this government is looking for. The legacy that this government is leaving is getting truly frightening, and more and more frightening.

Then we move, finally, to March and April of 1993, when a lighting bolt suddenly hits the Premier and the NDP cabinet. There's a lot of speculation about where the lighting bolt came from.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): New York.

Mrs McLeod: We wonder. It might have been New York. It might have been the credit rating agencies that said, "You get your deficit under $10 billion or you're going to drop to a single A and you won't be able to sell your bonds to pay your debts." That might have been the lighting bolt that hit the Premier, or it might have been the meeting he had with Roy Romanow, the Premier of Saskatchewan, who said, "I have to do this," and maybe he gave the Premier of Ontario the courage to do some of the same.

It might have been that W5 program that we know all members of the NDP government have had to watch, the one that told us all very graphically about what happens if the deficit gets out of control.

I suppose it's even possible that they finally sat down and just took a hard, honest look at the numbers. In any event, they did finally discover, in March or April of 1993, that this deficit was not going to go away and it couldn't be hidden and in fact, unless drastic action was taken, it was just going to keep growing far beyond that $9.9 billion that the Treasurer had once projected it should be.

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In any event, what we saw was that just weeks before the budget was to be presented, this government began to deal with the need to reduce its spending. It was an interesting time again because that's when the Premier said: "Don't worry. We're right on track." That's a little bit like the Treasurer saying, "I was spot on with my budget last year." The Premier said: "We're right on track. This is part of our game plan. You will remember that we had a game plan, and the game plan was that we were going to fight the recession and not the deficit when times were tough."

Well, we've seen they didn't fight the deficit. That was quite clear. They certainly didn't fight the deficit.

Mr Gregory S. Sorbara (York Centre): They didn't fight the recession either.

Mrs McLeod: You're right: They didn't fight the recession either. How can you fight a recession and end up with 575,000 out of work, with record unemployment, with a record number of plant closures, with a record number of businesses going bankrupt? If that's the fight against the recession, heaven help us as they start to fight the deficit now, because that's the next part of the Premier's game plan. He's right on track, because now that they've fought the recession and not the deficit, the economy is getting stronger and they are going to fight the deficit.

The problem with the game plan is that nobody actually feels as though the economy's recovering. There aren't really any signs of it out there on which the Premier can base this game plan. But nevertheless, six weeks to go before the budget, the Premier decided to get his game plan back on some kind of track, and they are now setting out to fight the deficit.

The result has been, again, absolute chaos. Two billion dollars, first of all, in spending cuts, the expenditure control plan announced on a Friday; expenditure control cuts, spending cuts that were made through last-minute decisions. We know that many of those decisions were literally decisions made in the last week. They were made without consultation with any of the people affected by the decisions. They were made with absolutely no assessment of the net cost benefits or, in fact, the net losses of the decisions that were being made. Those cuts were made with absolutely no understanding of the impact of the cuts that were being made. There are $2 billion in cuts yet to be made, to be achieved in the social contract fiasco. So we had six weeks of chaos that preceded this budget, and I would suggest that the chaos is only beginning.

Again, we do not argue for one moment that this absolutely outrageous deficit, this totally unacceptable debt, has to be brought under control and that this budget had to be a tough one on the deficit and that there had to be a major reduction in the spending that this government has built up.

I think it's true, given the heights to which the government has let the deficit soar, that that $4 billion that's the target for reducing expenditures in this budget is in fact a minimum target, that the direction of the goal is one we support, that the magnitude of the goal is inescapable, but the means of getting there is proving to be absolutely disastrous because of the lack of foresight and the lack of planning.

We have criticized some of the cuts and we are going to continue to criticize some of the cuts even as we support the need for restraint. We have, for example, been critical of the decision that was made to cancel the relocation of government offices to communities outside of the Toronto area. There was one of the proposals that came from union groups at the social contract talks in which they said the government should have cut even more of the relocation plans, and the response of the government to that particular proposal at the social contract table was to say, "We proceeded with the relocations that made economic sense."

Now, I think that that is a very good defence of the decision to proceed with the relocations of government offices to communities across the province, because that's why the program was started. The program did make economic sense. It made economic sense to government and it made economic sense to the communities that were going to receive the values of those jobs.

I simply want to deal with the government's own response, the response that was made within the last two weeks to the proposal that came from the unions to cancel more of the relocation projects. The response of the government was to say, "The relocation projects make economic sense, and that's why we're proceeding with them."

There is no indication and has never been any indication, any evidence, that the six relocation projects that were cancelled made any less economic sense, and we will question why those relocation projects were cancelled. Furthermore, we think there is a great deal of evidence that they did make economic sense, and I would have to have some reliance -- and perhaps this is stretching it a bit -- some confidence in the fact that when the government reaffirmed the wisdom of the decisions to go ahead with those relocations, when it confirmed that it thought those decisions made economic sense no more than two months before it decided to cancel the project, the government was basing that on some evidence that in fact these proposals did make sense, that they were good for the communities and that they were good for the province.

One other piece of evidence -- or maybe it's lack of evidence to the contrary -- was when the projects were cancelled, and because we have been committed to those projects from the very beginning, because we do believe they make sense, because we have continued to defend the wisdom and the value of those projects even as the government was proceeding with them and was getting criticized in some places for doing so, because we believe in those projects, we naturally asked the government, "Why did you decide, when two months before you were going ahead with them, to cancel them?"

We said, "Since this was done to reduce expenditures, could you just tell us what are the net savings of cancelling the relocations?" and the Chairman of Management Board said, "I don't have those figures." I think that's because the figures don't exist, because there is no evidence that there is any net saving, and that we have simply lost the economic benefit to those communities because of short-sighted, last-minute decisions on the part of a government that was in panic.

We question another cut. There are three cuts that we question: We question the relocation cancellation, we question the cancellation of all of Ontario's international trade offices. Now, this one can be a little bit harder to defend, because it is so easy to cut the things that are out of sight, far away out of sight, out of mind. But it's quite clear, if you ask the treasury itself what the economic benefits are and have been of those international trade offices, that the economic benefits far outweigh the cost of keeping the offices going.

Again we said: "Why did you decide to make this particular cut? Did you do any analysis of the losses as well as the benefits of cutting these offices? Did you look at any alternatives? Did you look at how you could streamline the office operation? Did you look at how you could downsize it? Did you look at any way you could keep the economic benefits even as you tried to reduce the costs of the operation?" And again the answer was, "We didn't think about that."

And there is the third one, because the government constantly says that we have been demanding that it spend more, and we've said: "No, we're not demanding that you spend more. We are demanding that as you reduce the expenditures of this province, you do it in a way that makes economic sense, not just for this budget but for the next budget and the year after that and the year after that."

We questioned one other cut. I do give notice that there will probably be others that we will question over time as we look at the economic sense of the decisions that were made, but we questioned the closure of the agricultural colleges and the research stations that were part of the agricultural colleges, because we've seen figures produced by the ministry that suggest that there are some $5 million in economic spinoffs from the agricultural college and its research stations and that we lost $5 million in economic benefit for a $2-million saving.

We say this does not make economic sense. It may help this year's deficit figure, but it is not going to help next year and it's not going to help the year after that. This short-sighted decision-making, this panic reaction is still financial mismanagement and it is a recipe for future financial disaster.

We are critical that this government did not take a serious look at its own operations. When they sat down to find $2 billion in spending cuts, they could only find $720 million of the $2 billion in the government's own operations. The rest of it came from those same colleges and universities and school boards and hospitals and municipalities that had been twice before asked to do their part to deal with the funding problems that this government had created.

The members of the government say, "What would you have done? What else would you have considered?" and we have said and we will keep saying, "You should have looked at your Jobs Ontario Training program, the $1-billion program that gives dollars to employers to hire people in jobs that need no training."

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We have said that this government should put a moratorium on building 20,000 new non-profit housing units that are still planned, that are going to cost millions of dollars over the next years, when 40,000 existing non-profit housing units have not yet been completed, when there is a high vacancy rate in private sector rental housing -- the highest rate we've seen in 20 years -- and when the Provincial Auditor says there are some very serious questions about the cost-effectiveness of this program.

We've said to revise that advocacy legislation that sets up a bureaucracy that nobody wants that will cost $30 million a year.

We've said to kill, for goodness' sake, the Interim Waste Authority that has already spent $30 million on an absolutely futile test that is only making everybody involved in it frustrated and angry.

We've said to eliminate the seven ministers without portfolio who cannot answer questions in this House and do not seem to have been given any responsibility.

We've said to do more, to get serious about eliminating waste and duplication. I'll tell you, we've said this over and over again. We've said that when it takes $35 to send out a cheque, there is a great deal more that this government can do to eliminate waste and duplication in its own operations.

And if we've said that before, we're going to say it much more loudly and much more clearly over the weeks ahead, because after this morning, when average taxpayers in the province of Ontario found how much more they were going to have to pay out of their income in taxes to this government, they are going to be very, very concerned about any expenditure that they see, any spending on the part of this government that they see as being total and absolute waste. We are going to be hearing their concerns and we are going to continue to raise them.

We believe that this government could do much, much more to deliver the government services in a cost-effective, cost-efficient way, that it could look at a real reorganization of government, not the kind of reorganization where the Premier says, "I have downsized my cabinet," and he ended up with more ministers than he had the day before.

We believe, beyond that even, that this government could be willing to redefine the role of government, that it could ask some truly tough questions about what government does that it should stop doing. I am terribly concerned that instead of doing that, this government may be looking at how much more government can take on to itself.

I would urge this government to be very wary of what the unions are proposing at the social contract table and of the potential trap of the kind of tradeoffs that could be made if this government continues with what is a truly chaotic process of trying to bargain with 9,000 individual collective agreements at one central bargaining table, because one of the proposals that's on the table, one of the tradeoffs that's being talked about, is that government take more unto itself.

As we look at the financial situation of this province and as we look, quite frankly, at the record of efficiency in the way in which government manages its programs, we have to suggest that what we need is likely more privatization of the services that are currently carried out by government and not more work done by government.

I would suggest that there is a guideline that the government could use to look at reorganization, and the guideline is that, unless the job is one that government only can do or that government does best, that government should not be doing the job.

So this budget that has been presented yesterday has a huge gaping hole in that $2 billion of the spending cuts on which this budget is based are yet to be achieved, and they have to be achieved through social contract talks that simply seem to be going nowhere. We are concerned about the danger of tradeoffs that might bring one-year-only savings but that could be disastrous in the long term.

We believe very strongly that now that this budget is in, now that the government has set its spending guidelines, now that the government has clearly said we must find $2 billion in the salary compensation packages of the broader public sector and of government itself, that it should stop trying to negotiate with everyone at once, that it should sit down and get on with what it can do, that is, to negotiate with the government's own employees, and that it should let the other employers in the broader public sector sit down with their employees and do the same thing to meet the financial restraints that have been set out in this budget.

I believe that process can work, and the reason that I believe that process can work is that the people I talk to in the communities of this province understand how absolutely critical it is that we deal with the necessity of restraint. People in fact are demanding that governments today deal with the necessity of restraint and fiscal responsibility, and the people of this province, I am convinced, are willing to do their part.

I don't think this was always so. I don't think that people were always willing to accept a very tough restraint budget. We look at the disastrous financial situation in Saskatchewan -- and in fact that situation may have been the lightning bolt that made the Premier of Ontario realize we had to deal with our problems here -- but you look at that disastrous financial situation that has developed in Saskatchewan and you say: "How did this happen? How did this kind of financial disaster happen in a province that most of us would agree has been known over the years for its very cost-conscious approach?" In fact this was a province --

Hon Richard Allen (Minister without Portfolio in Economic Development and Trade): Under the NDP government.

Mrs McLeod: Under an NDP government, I quite agree. This was a province where an NDP Premier named Tommy Douglas waited 17 years to introduce medicare because, although he cared passionately about it, he knew that he couldn't afford to pay for it.

What happened to Saskatchewan -- and the records, including the record of W5, will show this -- was that we had a Tory Premier in the province of Saskatchewan, a Tory Premier who decided that he was going to try and spend his way into a new economy for the province of Saskatchewan, and he invited an NDP former Premier to join him to compete for who could spend more.

In the meantime, it just happens that there was a Liberal leader in the province of Saskatchewan who was saying to the people of Saskatchewan during that election campaign, "Don't auction off our future to the highest bidder." Quite clearly, the people of Saskatchewan and I think in fact the people across the country in province after province would not have been ready for that kind of message at that time, and of course that Liberal leader was the only one to hold his seat in that particular election. They weren't ready for that message and now in fact the province is facing a real financial crisis, and the Saskatchewan people are now ready to say that we can't keep mortgaging and remortgaging our future.

We've just seen a Liberal Premier in Newfoundland win election on a tough restraint program. We are about to see a Liberal leader in the province of Nova Scotia who is promising to clean up years of Tory mess and we have seen a Liberal Premier in New Brunswick who has just brought in a tough budget and who has won respect and who has won confidence.

Why has the Liberal Premier in New Brunswick won the confidence of the people of New Brunswick? Because even though he has brought in a tough budget, he has also dealt with the other part of the agenda, and the other part of the agenda was the agenda that opens up the province of New Brunswick for business, that brings in new jobs to the province of New Brunswick, that reduces unemployment when it is increasing everywhere else. That is what people are looking for in every province across this country and that is not what this budget gives to the people of Ontario.

This budget is an attempt to be tough on the restraint side -- we acknowledge that -- at last, but it does absolutely nothing to establish confidence that the future is going to be better. Our greatest concern with the budget that was presented yesterday is that this government still has no understanding at all that financial restraint alone is not going to solve our deficit problem, because we need to get the economy going.

We need to get people back to work. We need to have jobs so that people can get off social assistance and can get back to work, which is what the people of this province want to be able to do. That's what the 575,000 unemployed people of this province want to do, and that's how you get your costs down and that's how you get your revenues up, through real economic growth.

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But the problem is that the Premier of this province believes he's right on track, that their game plan is working. He believes that the economy of this province is recovering. I would say to the Premier of this province that this is still a wish and a prayer and not a reality. I would say to him that he is still refusing to see what the policies of this government have done to the economy of this province and what the policies of this government continue to do to the economy of this province.

I would just read into the record the economic record of the province under this government: The unemployment rate has jumped by 4.3 percentage points to 10.7% in April 1993 from 6.4% in September 1990; the Ontario economy has lost a net total of 133,000 jobs across all sectors; employment has fallen to 4.79 million people in April 1993, down from 4.93 million in September 1990; while some lower-paying service sector jobs grew, the province lost 138,000 manufacturing jobs and 115,000 construction jobs between September 1990 and March 1993; the number of unemployed has jumped by 238,000 to 575,000 in April 1993, an increase of 70% during the record of the NDP term in office.

Perhaps most tragically, the rate of youth unemployment, those young people between the ages of 15 to 24, has increased to 17.5% in April 1993, up from 11.1% in September 1990. The number of unemployed young people has increased by 46,000 to 150,000 in April 1993, an increase of 43%.

The $2 billion in new taxes that were presented in the budget to the people of Ontario yesterday are not just another nail in the coffin of our economic recovery; it is $2-billion worth of nails for the economic recovery of this province. Every nail, every one of those $2-billion worth of nails, in the coffin of our economic future is driving more jobs out of this province, is making our recovery less certain, and this government continues to build walls around this province that will keep business and investment out even as it drives away the business which is now here. Without business and without investment, we will never have the jobs that the unemployed people of this province so desperately need.

We have said and we believe that this government could have met its deficit target, and we support the deficit target. This budget had to come in with a deficit under $10 billion. But they could have met that deficit target without new taxes if they had looked harder at unnecessary and wasteful programs, if they had looked harder at the programs that aren't working, if they had also taken steps to get our economy back on track and people back to work. They could have dealt with Workers' Compensation Board premiums. They could have indicated that they were clearly ready to get under control the skyrocketing premiums that are making businesses uncompetitive in this province.

They could have indicated that they were going to concentrate their energies on eliminating costly time delays in getting land use permits instead of adding to the bureaucracy by proceeding with the Sewell commission recommendations and charging more for land transactions. They could have removed unnecessary and arbitrary regulations on business, and they could go back to the beginning on their labour legislation. They could restore a balance between labour and management in this province, a balance which is now completely lost and which is saying to people that this province is not a good place in which to do business.

They could even use the Jobs Ontario Capital fund, the one source of economic stimulation that is in this budget, to actually build highways and build subways to support economic growth. They could do it with a sense of long-term economic development rather than frittering away the Jobs Ontario Capital money on unneeded repairs and unnecessary renovations and less important projects.

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): Like schools and other public services. Come on.

Mrs McLeod: To the member who is saying, "Spend the Jobs Ontario Capital money on schools," I would ask him to look at how many schools in the province of Ontario have received new roofs when they said they didn't need a new roof at all, and how many libraries and schools have been getting money for new carpets when the carpet didn't need replacing at all. That's the way the Jobs Ontario Capital money has been frittered away.

This government could simply look at the sheer costs of doing business in this province and say that it is determined to take the steps to ensure that business can be competitive, and none of this happened. They could have looked at tax incentives for research and development and instead, while they took away the corporate concentration tax and they took away the tire tax, they added 20 more taxes to make up for it.

You could have provided support for small- and medium-size businesses in this province, support to obtain the financing that they need to create the jobs the people of this province need, because it is in small and medium-size businesses that the jobs of the future are going to be created, and none of this happened in this budget.

Finally, this government could have done something in this budget for the young people of this province, the young people who are looking at unemployment levels of 17%.

Weeks before the government presented its budget, we presented six proposals that we believe would give unemployed young people, young people in our schools and colleges and universities who are concerned that they are not going to have job opportunities when they finish their education -- proposals that would have given these young people some encouragement, some hope, some sense that people out there understand how worried they are, that we care about them, that we want to do what we can to help.

So we proposed these six new initiatives and we urged the government to act on them. We didn't keep them as some kind of campaign platform that we were going to unveil a year from now or two years from now. We really wanted the government to take action to help young people now.

We knew the government couldn't spend a lot of money and we know the next government will not be able to spend a lot of money, so we said, "You can do this without new spending." We suggested they redirect just $38 million from that Jobs Ontario Training fund, which really isn't helping people get the training they need -- that they redirect $38 million from the Jobs Ontario Training fund so they could create more summer jobs for young people, so they could enhance the Futures program to give young people who are chronically underemployed a chance to get a head start, so they could expand cooperative education programs, so young people could get experience in the workplace to get experience on their résumés, so they can compete for the jobs that are going to develop.

We proposed that they could set up a scholarship for young people to help encourage young people to stay on in school, to make up for the fact that this government continues to make it more and more difficult, more and more costly, for young people to go on with post-secondary education.

We suggested that they could encourage pre-university programs and that they could use just a little bit of money to set up information networks for young people, so they could get the information they need to find work and to find the training and job opportunities that might be out there.

It wouldn't have cost a lot, but it would have signalled that the government of Ontario cared about the young people of this province. Instead of that, this government simply put more money this year into its failed Jobs Ontario Training program and it refused to look at how those dollars could have been used so much more effectively for the training needs of the young people of this province. And all the budget did for the young people of this province was to charge them tax on their auto insurance.

This government could have made economic growth its number one priority. They've said it's their priority, they've said it in every speech from the throne, they've said it in every previous budget, they even said it in this budget. They could have done more than just give lipservice to the importance of economic growth and of job creation.

But they did nothing to help and they must still make economic growth and job creation their number one priority because, if they don't, we will never get the deficit under control. We will not make the deficit projections yet again at the end of next year. We will not see the revenues grow with real economic growth, rather than the one-time-only sale of assets that this government has built into its budget.

If they don't make economic growth the priority, we won't see the jobs created, we won't get people back to work and next year we will be right back where we were before the government presented this budget, and we cannot let that happen, because the people of this province do need, in these difficult times, some confidence, some hope, and this budget doesn't provide it.

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People across this province today are devastated by a budget that has taken their hope away, and we simply cannot give up. So we are going to continue to push this government. We are going to continue to push them to look, to understand what can be done, how much more can be done, in the next weeks and in the next months, so that we never, ever, go through this last-minute chaos and last-minute panic again.

In conclusion, I want to simply draw to the government's own attention one statement that the Treasurer made yesterday. He said in his conclusion: "All of us look to a future with secure jobs and decent incomes, where parents can afford to raise their children in good health and in safe homes, where children go to school ready to learn, where our schools prepare our young people for the challenges they will face and where older people can enjoy a secure retirement. That is the future this budget seeks to build."

This is the future that all of us want, but this is not the future that this budget builds. For that reason, I would move that the resolution moved by the Minister of Finance on May 19 "that this House approve in general the budgetary policy of the government" be amended by deleting the words following the words "that this House" and adding thereto the following:

"Recognizing that the budgetary policy put forward by the Minister of Finance fails to offer any hope for the future of the people of Ontario; and

"That the NDP government's refusal to pursue a fiscally responsible plan for the first two and a half years of its mandate has created a fiscal crisis which has resulted in job losses and hampered the economic recovery in the province; and

"That the NDP government ignored the realities of its fiscal mismanagement for two years, and has only just realized it faces a crisis; and

"That the NDP government has responded to this crisis with a program of chaos management; and

"That the budget's $2-billion tax grab, the largest in Ontario history, will destroy 50,000 jobs, strangle our fragile economic recovery and further erode consumer and business confidence; and

"That at a time when Ontarians are taxed to their limits, the Minister of Finance has further burdened them with the largest increase in personal income tax since the Progressive Conservative budget of 1981; and

"That the NDP tax changes hurt those Ontarians least able to afford higher taxes; and

"That this budget sends a bad signal to foreign investors, who will shy away from investing in Ontario because of high NDP taxes; and

"That this budget does nothing to stimulate small business, which is the sector that creates jobs; and

"That this budget seriously harms business confidence in Ontario by hiking corporate taxes by $112 million, including a confidence-eroding corporate minimum tax, which will force more Ontario companies to consider moving to other provinces or south of the border;

"Therefore has lost confidence in this government."

The Acting Speaker: Mrs McLeod moves that the resolution moved by the Minister of Finance --

Mr Sutherland: Dispense.

The Acting Speaker: We have a very important motion here. It is a confidence motion, and I will read it into the record.

Mrs McLeod moves that the resolution moved by the Minister of Finance on May 19 "that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government" be amended by deleting the words following the words "that this House" and adding thereto the following:

"Recognizing that the budgetary policy put forward by the Minister of Finance fails to offer any hope for the future for the people of Ontario; and

"That the NDP government ignored the realities of its fiscal mismanagement for two years, and has only just realized it faces a crisis; and

"That the NDP government has responded to this crisis with a program of chaos management; and

"That the budget's $2-billion tax grab, the largest in Ontario history, will destroy 50,000 jobs, strangle our fragile economic recovery and further erode consumer and business confidence; and

"That the NDP tax changes hurt those Ontarians least able to afford higher taxes; and

"That this budget sends a bad signal to foreign investors who will shy away from investing in Ontario because of the high NDP taxes; and

"That this budget does nothing to stimulate small business, which is the sector that creates jobs; and

"That this budget seriously harms the business confidence in Ontario by hiking corporate taxes by $112 million, including a confidence-eroding corporate minimum tax, which will force more Ontario companies to consider moving to other provinces or south of the border,

"Therefore has lost confidence in this government."

Further debate?

Mr Cousens: Before I begin to comment on the Ontario budget, I'd like to comment on the speech that has just been delivered by the leader of the Liberal Party, who has a very convenient memory when it comes to revising history for one who talks about revising it earlier -- extremely convenient -- who when they went to power in 1985 with the support of the New Democrats, Ontario was out-performing the Japanese. Now we see, after the combined leadership of both the Liberals and NDP, where we stand in the world marketplace.

The Liberals have forgotten about their own 33 tax increases they brought in during their reign. They've forgotten how they balanced their budget in 1989: They've forgotten how they received $888 million from the federal government that surprised them and pumped it up; they in fact had budgeted for a deficit and because of the federal bonus they were able to balance their budget.

You come along and you look at the way they talk about balancing the budget. They did it on the backs of the local taxpayers, because they passed down to local taxpayers horrendous taxes. They did it in spades.

So Liberals, remember it. You're the ones who brought in the employer health tax, court security systems, pay equity. You changed the grant formula to the municipalities. You brought in mandatory changes for social services benefits. You brought in mandatory health programs. You brought in freedom of information, MISA. All of those things add to the provincial budget at the local taxpayer level over $3 billion. So sure you balanced the budget, but look at the people who have to pay the taxes at the municipal level. They do it at your expense.

Ladies and gentlemen, don't listen to the Liberal promises, the Liberal past. The Liberal past stands on its own. It stands with David Peterson, and we remember him for what he was.

When they say they called the election in 1990, don't forget that they were so cynically opportunistic at what that election would give them. Sure they were high in the polls, and the honourable leader of the Liberals today announces: "Yes, we were high in the polls. Why would we call it?" We know why they would call it: They were opportunistic in the extreme.

But the people of Ontario remembered. The people remembered Patti Starr. They remembered the 33 tax increases. They remembered the 10,000 extra civil servants who were added to the Ontario government payroll: 10,000 civil servants added during the Liberal reign. They remembered all the extra outside consultants hired by the Liberals during their tenure. They remembered the accumulated debt that the Liberals added to what Ontario is all about.

They remembered the fact that here was a government in power that was budgeting a surplus, how amazing it was during the election when Bob Nixon came in and said, "Oh, we're going to have a $23-million surplus," and after the dollars were counted and the new government took over, it was a $3-billion deficit.

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So for the Liberals to stand up in this House I think is lunacy. I would like to call it something else, but because of the restraint one has to show in this House, I will withhold some of those defamatory remarks on what the Liberals have to say. Let it be just said that the Liberals helped get us into the legacy of the problems we have today and we are reaping some of their harvest. I tell you, the Old Testament talked about when there were seven good years. Well, we're into the seven bad years. They didn't leave anything in the coffers to help the new government to try to take over.

Now we get into the new government. They've certainly added to the problems as well. There's an awful lot we can say, but it was probably best said by one of my constituents in Unionville. He said to Mr Laughren, back just a little while ago: "You would like to con Ontarians into believing that the fiscal problems of this province have arisen from too little revenue. That is flat-out nonsense. The real problem is too much spending for far too long." Then he goes on to say, "More taxes are not the answer to this problem."

What we want to talk about today, as much as anything, are the problems created by this government's monetary policy. The monetary policy of the New Democrats is broken into three parts, and it's wrong just to isolate that policy into, purely and simply, the budget that we received yesterday. It also includes the expenditure control plan that the government tabled a few weeks ago, an effort to save some $2.4 billion from the spending of the province, and also it includes the monetary policy of the social contract costs, which is another $2 billion. It's referred to in one line in here where it has the brackets, on page 62 or something. We're talking about a government that is bankrupt, but it's bankrupting the province by virtue of what it is doing.

Today our caucus met in an emergency caucus meeting at 12 noon called by our leader, Mr Harris, the member for Nipissing. In that meeting I have not seen the 21 of us who are representing the Conservatives in the province of Ontario in some 21 different ridings as angry or as committed to fighting this government on what it has proposed. Our caucus convened a meeting and we are out to fight this budget with every tool and every ounce of energy that we possibly have.

We are going to the province during the next week and into the future. We have ballots to give people an opportunity to comment on the budget. We have our little van that's starting its trip around the province. It is going to give people an opportunity to consider Mike Harris's position that Ontario needs a 1993 provincial budget with no tax increases and a prosperity plan to create jobs and renew the economy.

Very simply, that says just about everything that our party has been saying since Mike Harris became leader of the party three years ago, that Ontario needs a budget with no tax increases and a prosperity plan to create jobs and renew the economy. Or do people want what Bob Rae has said, that Ontario needs a 1993 provincial budget with a $2-billion hike in tax and a $10-billion deficit? People will have an opportunity to declare their support.

I can just tell you, it is totally unacceptable that we are faced with a situation right now where we are forced to consider a budget that is going to be so punitive to the people of Ontario, a budget that is going to be on the backs of ordinary Ontario citizens. Of the money that comes out of this budget, 98% is going to come out of the wallets of working Ontario citizens and those who are unemployed. Anyone who is in Ontario is going to in some way contribute to this massive tax hike.

Never before in the history of the province of Ontario have we had a tax hike as large as this: $2 billion. Two years ago, when we reached the $10-billion deficit level, everybody screamed. Now it's almost becoming something that we can accept. We continue to have a $10-billion tax deficit, deferred tax of that amount, we have a deficit that would just be perpetuated, but now a $2-billion tax hike.

Probably as symbolic as anything was the fact that the day before Mr Laughren tabled his ignominious tax bill, sitting in the gallery was the former Treasurer during the Liberal reign, and there, the former member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk, who has now just lost his job as the agent general in London, Ontario --

Mr Sutherland: London, England.

Mr Cousens: -- the former Honourable Bob Nixon, who was then Treasurer, was here in much the same way as we saw Gordie Howe watching Wayne Gretzky as old Gretzky was in the process of beating Howe's point average that he had picked up in the National Hockey League. Here was Mr Nixon to pass the torch on from being the biggest taxer in the history of the province of Ontario to Floyd Laughren, who suddenly beat his record.

So here we are. Not much to celebrate, but it tells the people of Ontario that what we're faced with now is socialism at its worst. We had it in the guise of the Liberals, who like to camouflage the fact that they were being nice people, but it was easy to be nice when things were so prosperous, when everything was going well, unemployment levels were low and people were getting on with life with a sense of optimism and hope for the future, yet what they did at that time is bring forward programs and initiatives which are now having to be paid for.

The fact is, if you stop and look at it, there is only one taxpayer in the province of Ontario, and that's the person who pays the municipal taxes, the education taxes, the regional taxes and then pays the provincial taxes. All those taxes have to be paid by one individual. Each individual in Ontario who is a citizen of the age that he has to pay taxes or she has to pay taxes is contributing heavily to the maintenance of this government and the governments all around us.

I don't think there's any doubt that we're overgoverned in this province. We have enough government, I believe, for 130 million people, not just 30 million people in Ontario, enough government for far more people than we've got. Somehow we forget that the person who picks up the payload is that citizen who's out there who ends up having to pick up all these costs. I'm telling you, unless we face up to the horrendous impact that this is having on individuals, we will fail in our jobs as legislators. We have too many taxes, and as we now look at the Ontario budget, there isn't any doubt the impact that these taxes are going to have.

It's wrong when we say the budget is $1.6 billion. In a full year, this budget, by the Treasurer's own numbers, is over $2 billion. That's $2 billion to be collected over a full-year period, for ever and ever, because there isn't anyone in government who ever comes back and rolls back many taxes, though --

Hon Ruth Grier (Minister of Health): We've cancelled two taxes.

Mr Cousens: I'll come to that, Ruthie. There are a couple of taxes the Liberals brought in that we took out today. But the fact of the matter is, you've at least increased the amount of tax the province is going to gather by over $2 billion this year, next year, the year after and in perpetuity.

If you look at the high level of taxes, probably the most heinous of the lot is the effect when you take the personal income taxes of over $1 billion to be gathered. The tax rate adjustment will net $840 million; the surtax increase, $280 million. The retail sales tax -- and I'll comment on this further -- on insurance, retail sales tax levels all will raise close to another $1 billion. We have now a corporate minimum tax, so we're seeing taxes, taxes, taxes.

But then we also look at just what these taxes amount to. So the government comes along and adds up all the figures and says, "For 1993-94, in our budget we're going to have a deficit of $9.2 billion." But go and read the fine print and you'll find there that the government has set up new financing arrangements through its new financing authority where it has moved $800 million into this new special fund that's going to be administered by a financing authority. The fact of the matter is then the deficit for the province of Ontario this year will at least be $10 billion, and it could well be more. So don't doubt it.

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People don't read the fine print, but one of the best lines on page 19 is, "Note: Totals may not add due to rounding." I'd say the whole publication doesn't add up, not only because of rounding but because of the positions that have been taken by this government.

I don't think there's any doubt that the ordinary citizen in the province of Ontario realizes that we're now into a debt spiral, and what this government's doing is causing people to lose hope. They see the impact that more taxes have on the economy. It is a terrible analogy when you think of a debt spiral. Where is the incentive going to be for people to contribute more to make this province a prosperous place to be?

After yesterday's budget speech delivered by the Treasurer, the mood in the hall was sombre because people felt that something had happened to them. They couldn't just measure it in the way they might have been able to with a sin tax, because the tax that's going to come out of their payroll now and the tax that's almost hitting their non-discretionary funds is something that they know is going to be big. I'll tell you, it's bigger than anyone could have anticipated. At least our party was on the alert long ago saying, "Mr Laughren, please, for the love of what we're all about, find the money in someplace other than more taxes," but not the case.

The sombre mood will continue, and I certainly understand that as we go into the future, people in Ontario will put their heads down and they'll get on with their jobs and they'll try to survive. But what's happened is that the government has removed incentives for people to try harder, because if they are more successful, that extra amount of energy and effort that gives extra revenue and money for them is going to be taxed all the more than it would have been before.

What this kind of budget does is encourage the underground economy even more. We know how the system of bartering is expanding and how people are breaking the law by virtue of trying to escape the heavy taxes they've got. So it has been compounding itself in recent years, and the budget addresses it in part by saying there will be a two-year prison sentence for people who are caught with a surplus of unmarked cigarettes, but it's going on as people are --

Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): It's more than you get for pot.

Mr Cousens: It's just everything that's going on that is an underground economy, where people will do anything they can to miss the GST and the provincial sales tax, where they will find other ways of doing jobs so they do not have to declare them as income. All of this underground economy is impacting the revenue forecast of the province, if you could ever get a handle on that.

But what you've really done is drive people underground, because the taxation levels are so onerous and so heavy they leave little room for some people, in their own minds, except to find devious, illegal means in order to survive. I think that we have to face up to that, that the kind of budgetary process we're going through is now such a discouragement for people, it's causing many to do things they would not otherwise have done.

The government comes in and says, "We're going to make money through our asset sales." That's like selling off your house and still paying your mortgage. You're removing important long-term investments that are part and parcel of our heritage and of the province of Ontario, and here you're selling them off to pay operating expenses. As a philosophy, it just isn't good. You can do that once and then it's done for ever and ever. So again, the New Democrats, while they're in power, are making permanent changes to the history of Ontario by selling off certain assets which will never again be replaced. We're reducing the deficit, and in doing that, we're just financing it for a little bit longer and next year we'll still have to go and pay the piper.

There isn't any doubt that we are paying for Bob Rae's mistakes. The markets all see this government as having spending that is too high. I don't think there's any doubt either that the markets had an impact on the Treasurer and, because of their conversations, forced the Treasurer to reduce the deficit. If you were to reduce the deficit, it would be a way in which we would retain something of a credit rating. Who knows that the credit rating is going to be? It is vulnerable at the present time, certainly because a deficit of $10 billion is still not something to be just sniffed at. A $10-billion deficit, when you look at what it's all about, we never had that kind of deficit except two years ago. Now we're getting used to it. It amounts to something like -- if we just pay the accumulated deficit, 17 cents in every dollar go into just paying interest costs on money that we've borrowed before. So it becomes one of the largest parts of the budget in the province of Ontario, just paying the interest on what we've made decisions on. The fact is, we should face up to the fact that the deficit is important to fight.

The markets are concerned with the size of the deficit, they're concerned with the amount of spending going on in the province of Ontario, and the bottom line is that Ontario is in trouble fiscally and financially.

I think you just have to look at what this budget is all about. I like the comment by Ruth Getter of the TD Bank, "Ontario must remember that the budget is a political document, not an economic document." It sure is political. It's political on the part of this government, which has not faced up to ways that it could address the deficit other than having a tax increase.

When the government came forward with its expenditure control plan and its social contract a few weeks ago, on behalf of our party I said that it seems like progress, that the government is at least facing up to the deficit and the problems we have with the deficit, so that's one step forward, but if the government brought forward tax increases that would be two steps back.

In seeing this document as it has been presented by the Treasurer yesterday, it's far more than two steps back. It takes us back to a stage where we're now really on the precipice. How does Ontario look into the future with any sense of confidence that we're going to be able to survive?

I look at some of the data that comes forward. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business was were busy enough to ask the members of the business communities across Ontario, "What is the single most important problem to people in the province of Ontario?" The answer back, by over 90% of the respondents in April 1993, was "The total tax burden." That is the single most important problem to the people of Ontario, the tax burden. So what does our Treasurer do in his budget yesterday? Increase that tax burden.

Ontario is already one of the most highly taxed jurisdictions in the world, if not the highest-taxed jurisdiction in North America. And what does the Treasurer do? Increases our tax burden even further. There is no doubt that the taxes that have been levied by this province have an impact on every Ontarian. One thing it does, it saps our energy, it saps our hope, it takes away our expectation that there is some kind of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, because by the time we get there they will have fleeced us, they will have robbed us, there will be little left.

There is no infusion of hope through this budget, and there is not going to be much chance of getting the economy going because, again, the budget doesn't do anything for business.

Let me just comment on a number of elements in the budget, the taxes that are going to affect ordinary Ontarians. I find as offensive as any the way in which they have brought in the personal income tax retroactive to the beginning of this year. Come on. How evil can you get? Therefore, as of July 1, people will be paying 6% of the amount. It is going to go to 61% of the personal income tax and the federal tax retroactive to the beginning of the year. How rotten. If there's anything I can't stand it's retroactive decisions made by a government.

Pretty well everything you've done in your expenditure control plan and your social contract, you're trying to roll the clock back. Everything is done that way by this group. And you don't deal with honesty and integrity with people if you're doing it retroactively. They trusted you up until yesterday and then you roll it back. It is totally unacceptable. You can't come along and laugh about something like that.

So it's a retroactive tax to the beginning of this year and, therefore, anyone who's making any kind of money in the province of Ontario will be paying 61% for the remainder of 1993, of the provincial tax. That is going to be another heavy, heavy burden for the people of Ontario.

What a way to take that money away from the marketplace, away from people who can come back and invest in other things. But that money is now going to be in the coffers of this government.

This government has brought in a tax on insurance. Not your life insurance, not your health insurance, not something that affects your physical wellbeing, but it will affect your home and your car, and just about anything else you buy insurance on you will be paying a premium on top of that for this government. They're going to raise a huge amount of money by taxing insurance.

Some people who can barely afford insurance right now will be having to face up to the fact, "Do I reduce the amount of insurance I've got on my things?" Maybe they'll start risking their whole assets even further and giving up the insurance because they won't be able to afford it at all.

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Mr Stockwell: They'll drive without insurance.

Mr Cousens: I don't wish that for anyone.

What this government now says is that those things that we see as important and necessary in order to survive -- why jeopardize all your assets for a fire or a car accident or anything else when you can have insurance to cover it? I believe in insurance, I try to keep my own coverage up to date, but I know there are going to be many, many people who, because of this extra onerous charge on insurance, will be forced to give up their insurance, and I see that as something that is very serious.

I see it as an impact on employee group plans, because a person's individual paycheque will now be lower as a result of the increased benefit deductions. Either the company is going to pay for the insurance or the individual is going to pay for the insurance,and I think in this economic time, very few companies will be able to afford to pick up the insurance costs on the premiums that are going to be levied by the province of Ontario.

I find another tax for the average Ontarian. One little group of businesses gets going, the little home brew organizations. They're all around Ontario now and they have come out of nowhere because, number one, it gives people a quality product, it gets them involved in a hobby, in doing something themselves. It's a way of escaping some of the heavy taxes that are levied on wine and beer through the regular outlets. So there they are, entrepreneurs, the market system at work, and what does the province do in response to probably one of the biggest and most powerful lobbies -- that's the beer lobby -- in the province? They have come in now and will tax beer and wine that is made in produce-your-own establishments, starting at 26 cents a litre, starting on August 1, 1993. I find that just so reprehensible. It's another way in which this government has gone and soured people on trying to do something on their own.

And all the other increases that are going to come along and affect the average Ontarian -- it's hard to calculate the impact they will have. If someone's going camping, if someone is using public land for a purpose, the government's going to pick up more money from that, something like $3.3 million.

You're going to have an extra registration fee for snowmobiles.

You're going to see parking charges. How unbelievable that if you go and park your vehicle somewhere, now you will be having the municipality that collects the parking fees come along and have to collect on top of that a provincial retail sales tax. So here you see a continuing intrusion into the disposable income that people have.

There's going to be a tax on warranty parts and labour. Up till now when you bought a vehicle, you sort of thought you were getting something for nothing, because you pay a heavy cost. We want to see people buy new cars, buy new refrigerators, buy new stoves, and help the economy with that. What this government has now done is say, "Hey, if you have a warranty on it, you are now going to have to pay a tax on that." So when you have those services that cause people to say, "Hey, I want to participate in the renewal of the economy," they're going to be turned off.

Registrar general fees on birth and death certificates: They're going to get another $1.9 million out of that, if you can ever get the certificates out of Thunder Bay. Ever since this government came to power and moved the registration offices to Thunder Bay, it's more and more difficult to get those registrations. Notwithstanding that, now they're going to charge more for less.

Casino fees for charitable casinos: I have a number in my community, the B'Nai Brith and others, who have had very successful fund-raising events that help our society by virtue of the way they go about it, but now the government's going to raise another $100,000 out of those special fees that are levied.

Land registration: If you want to go and buy a piece of property, it's going to cost you more. It's another one of those hidden fees where the government has added another $21.6 million to its coffers just as land registration costs.

Can you believe they continue to dig into our pockets every time you turn around? Every time you make a big decision, the government's going to be there taking more and more cash from you. Can you believe it? This government is greedy in the extreme. They don't stop at trying to take money away from individuals and people who are trying to survive the economy.

I haven't seen anyone as angry as my colleague Ted Arnott, the member for Wellington, about the impact this budget has on the tourist industry. He was going to get a statement on in the House today, but everything sort of fell apart. Question period was as usual: First of all, we didn't get any answers to the questions we had, but he didn't have a chance to get the point in that this government has now come along and repealed the rebate. If someone is visiting Ontario from out of the province and they've been coming here for years, they've been able to go back and collect that Ontario retail sales tax when they get back home. So those expenses that they would have incurred in the province -- we want them to spend while they're here, but now when they come back this summer, they're going to find that when they try to submit the form for a rebate, there will be no rebate.

I think it's going to give them a turn-off signal. They'll say: "Why come back to Ontario? They have taken away some of the inducement on why I wanted to come here. I like the people" -- who doesn't like Ontario and its people? -- but we want to give people some extra excuse to come and shop here.

What this government has done as well by taking the hospitality deduction is that it has said that anyone who is in business, who up until recently had an 80% write-off on expenses and hospitality, that kind of hospitality where you'd take a customer to lunch or dinner or to the show or theatre or for some form of entertainment -- that is a large part of our industry in the province of Ontario, and what the government has done is reduce that from an 80% tax advantage to 50%. Again, it's another excuse for people not to keep spending that money in one of the largest industries. There isn't any doubt that the tourist industry -- it's not just by outsiders that do that part of it; it's those of us who come along and have some discretionary income left so that we're in a position to do something for it.

I don't think there's any doubt that we're all going to be spending less money on going out for dinner and for lunch because we're going to have less money in our pockets. It's going to be in Pink Floyd's. And because it's in his pocket, we're not going to be able to go out and spend those extra dollars for a family dinner, a family occasion, which is all so important as far as getting together and doing something as a family is concerned.

This budget has impacts on everybody. The tourism industry is impacted. Small business is hurt. I can't believe that this government -- first of all, there is no incentive for small business, no hope for them to come along and clear the cars off their lot. I remember very well the days back in 1982 when Frank Miller was Treasurer. The Liberals are so quick to forget some of the positive things, but he came along and had a tax holiday for anyone who went and bought a vehicle or a large appliance at that time. It was an excuse for people to say, "Hey, I can save the Ontario provincial sales tax by making an acquisition now."

Why not do something like that to infuse some hope and some encouragement for people in the economy? Not so. What this budget does is systematically find more ways of closing loopholes, closing opportunity and closing hope. What this government has done is tighten up the collection of all its provincial taxes. It's increasing its penalties. It's increasing its liens. It's having a special new way of compounding interest on outstanding payments. This government is really closing in around the necks of those small business people. A person who's running a small business and collecting Ontario provincial sales tax doesn't get paid for that, but here we're going to come along and penalize them even more if they don't do it speedily.

I haven't heard yet from the small municipalities across the province, but there's going to be a tax now on sand, clay, soil and gravel. Isn't it funny? It would seem now the only two elements left to be taxed are really air and fire, because we're taxed on water, we're taxed on everything else, and now this government has come along and closed in on sand, clay, soil and gravel. It's just another way of increasing the cost to taxpayers, because a lot of that is purchased by municipalities and by other levels of government in order to provide services for them. If you don't think it's going to cost more to build roads and repair roads and build homes and everything else that we do with sand, soil and gravel, then you'd better believe that the government's going to raise $90 million alone just on the application of a provincial sales tax to those items.

Other fees have gone up. These fees have to do with technical standards fees, land registration fees, which I mentioned earlier, annual filing of an Ontario corporation. Last year was the first year you had to pay $50 when you filed your report as a corporation, and now it's going to be every year, another $50 every year from every corporation. Again, it seems small. It isn't small. It's a continuing burden on people who are trying to survive, and the government just continues to roll it off as if it isn't a problem.

Maybe it's because New Democrats have never run a business before. Maybe it's because they don't understand the consequences to business. Maybe they don't understand just how hurtful it is for businesses that are barely surviving. They're fighting the struggle of survival, and now the government comes in again with more abusive taxes. That's what they are, they're taxes, and they call them just extra registration fees.

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As I look around, and it's been commented on earlier, the royalties on commercially caught fish, again that's just another one of those examples. There's a whole page of all these increases in the budget document. As I look down it, I worry. I worry when I start seeing the effect of the taxes that this government will raise just in royalties on commercial fish royalties, water power royalties, timber royalties and stumpage royalties. In that whole range there, there's close to $35 million or $37 million more. These are industries that are important in producing jobs. They're producing from our natural resources; it's something all Ontario owns and possesses, but the government of Ontario wants to add more to its coffers on it.

There are all kinds of fees and licences that the government is going to charge for. It's included in the budget. It amounts to $239 million more. If you don't think that doesn't affect every Ontario citizen, young person, working person, single person, elderly person, politician, I don't care who it is -- everyone in Ontario is affected by that kind of onerous and heavy load. I don't find it at all easy to handle.

When you look at the taxes that the government levied, at least they had some sense to remove two taxes. It so happens I've only been Finance critic for our party since the House resumed, and I have raised questions on two occasions in the House, one question on the commercial concentration tax and one question on the tire tax. In both these situations, we were saying: "They're stupid. Remove them."

To take some credit for it, I would like today to thank the Treasurer for listening to me and removing both those taxes. I just think that next Monday, or when we get back in the House a week from Monday after our constituency week, I will ask him to do something about the Ontario retail sales tax, because maybe he'll repeal that as well. Wouldn't that be a bonus? That would get a lot of marks for all of us.

But the commercial concentration tax was one of those taxes of the 33 taxes that were levied by the David Peterson government, one of the taxes that's so conveniently forgotten by the Liberals when they were talking today. They brought the tax in, and we have lived with those taxes for the last few years, knowing how serious they are.

I have a letter again today from York Region Real Estate Board commenting on the commercial concentration tax and again calling for the fact that it has been one of the most disastrous taxes to industry since it was brought in. As they say:

"Since the commercial concentration tax was instituted in 1989, the commercial real estate market in the GTA has faced a complete turnaround. No longer do we enjoy low vacancy rates and healthy construction activity. Statistics from the Ontario Real Estate Association indicate that vacancy rates in the GTA for commercial real estate are at 15% to 30% while rental fees are dropping, with little or no new construction in progress or planned."

At least the government has heard us scream long enough to remove the commercial concentration tax and at least it has removed the stupid $5 tire tax, which wasn't used anyway for much environmental activity. The government has collected over $200 million on the $5 tire tax and with that money has spent maybe $30 million on a few piddling projects for using tires. We've still been importing shredded tires into Ontario from other jurisdictions. We have not begun to deal with the environmental agenda as it has to do with tires.

This is a budget that hits everybody in the province of Ontario. It has hit business at every level, and it hits everybody. I wanted to find my note that I had on the effect that it has with the new corporate minimum tax, and that is again another example for industry that is going to be hurt by it. I know I have some notes on that and was looking earlier at the corporate minimum tax and the effect that this is going to have on the high-tech community from which I come.

I have a letter from Gerry Meinzer, who is the president of the board of trade for the city of Toronto.

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't believe a quorum is present for this important debate.

The Acting Speaker: Could the Clerk please check to see if there is a quorum present?

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees (Ms Deborah Deller): A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Speaker ordered the bells rung.

The Acting Speaker: A quorum now is present. The honourable member for Markham can continue with his participation in the budget debate.

Mr Cousens: It's part of the arrogance of this government that it doesn't even perform its House duty, that's for sure.

As I was dealing with the whole matter of the commercial --

Interjection: This is a waste of time.

Mr Cousens: The arrogance of the member who just came in and says it's a waste of time -- I think it is a waste of time if people don't have a chance to understand what this government's all about. I see it as a very serious challenge on the part of our members and on the part of the people of Ontario to understand this budget. I have the opportunity, as a member of the Legislature, to make my point of view known in the House and I'm doing so, and I do so with great difficulty when in fact you have that kind of intrusion from other members.

I wanted to touch on the corporate minimum tax which is another way in which this government slaps the face of business. They have really done it by virtue of now coming along and having another tax on those businesses.

I would like to quote from the president of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto. Mr Meinzer notes that the United States is thinking of eliminating its own corporate alternative minimum tax on the ground that it has had perverse effects on investment, has complicated and distorted business investment decisions and created significant compliance costs for taxpayers. Doing the same in Ontario will have an even worse impact in Ontario because of the particular complexities of the Canadian tax system.

Mr Meinzer also argued that the commercial minimum tax will be a major deterrent -- I repeat, it will be a major deterrent -- to new foreign investment in Ontario, particularly by high-technology firms that are major beneficiaries of tax incentives which substantially reduce their taxable income. So the taxable incomes of these companies are now going to be hit.

The province thinks it has done itself another favour. What they've really done is drive another nail in the coffin of private enterprise. It begins in a small way. Over time, it will become a much larger tax and, again, becomes a further reason for people to put distance between themselves and the province of Ontario.

It's a nuisance tax. It's a tax which gives a message to business that this government is being run by union leaders. It's being influenced by the Bob Whites of the world and those people -- through their discussions with the social contract, they had to throw some sop in there to make them happy with what the government was doing and, therefore, come along and find some way of punishing those people who are in the process of trying to get the market forces going, trying to invest in the province, trying to get jobs going. It's going to take jobs away. It's another example where this budget has a very heinous effect on people.

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We talk about the effects of the budget. For every $40,000 of tax, you lose a job. That is a fact. It's one of those indisputable facts that for every $40,000 of additional tax, you lose jobs. Therefore with the kind of $2-billion tax increase that this province faces, you're seeing something in the order of 50,000 jobs lost in the province of Ontario.

If you want to know what impact this budget's going to have, it's going to have an impact on the young people who are looking for opportunities to get in the workforce. It's going to have an impact on middle-aged people who are in the process of trying to find another opportunity to get to work. It's going to have an impact on people who already have jobs, because their job might disappear. It's going to have an impact on people who know that Ontario needs to be working to create wealth in order to invest back into the province. This tax, a $2-billion tax hike, has the net effect of removing some 50,000 jobs from the future of Ontario.

It is that kind of reaction that we cannot afford at the present time. We're in a position where we want to be going ahead rather than going back. But with this government announcing a $2-billion tax increase, it has the impact of reducing the number of jobs that will be available for people of all ages who want to work in our province.

I also look at the impact where the government says, "We want to create jobs through Jobs Ontario." But you know it costs the government $60,000 for every job it creates. That's the kind of dollars that go into it, and what you're really seeing then is a three for two -- three jobs lost for every two created, if you can figure out that kind of mathematics. Why the Treasurer would ever put Ontario into the position where you have that kind of inequity being created, then you begin to wonder about his own sanity.

The deficit is something we have to deal with. We're facing up to it, we've got to understand that, even with the cutbacks that have been announced through the various programs in the province, Ontario continues to post the highest deficit ratio in the country, and yet we still continue to have a huge deficit. We indeed have to face up, and continue to face up, to the fact that we're spending beyond our means. Everybody in the province of Ontario has to find ways of reducing their expectations so that as we go into the future, we are able to live according to our means.

Don't defer the tax to future generations. That's what deficit is. A deficit is a deferred tax so that a generation that follows ends up having to pay for the luxury that we had, and therefore couldn't afford, but that means our young people and those who come after us will be paying that bill. That is something we oppose and oppose strongly.

Some people say, "What would you do if you were in a position to do something about the government budget?" There are a number of things we would do.

The first thing, and I say this on behalf of our leader, Mike Harris -- and Mike Harris, by the way, will be closing the speech off on the budget speech in December when we finally get around to voting on it after this session has reached its final stage. That is the tradition that we have within our party and in this House, and so he will commenting on it at that time. But among the things that our party would be doing, if it had the chance, would be to face up to real reductions in the civil service. We all know how the civil service increased by 10,000 more employees during the Liberal regime and how it's increased by several thousands during the NDP regime. Let's bring those numbers down, not just through attrition but there have got to be ways in which we encourage people to take early retirement and other methods so that the numbers of people in the civil service are not allowed to continue at those high levels, because those dollars are very hard and real dollars.

The other thing is to face up to the sink-hole, that sink-hole which is the tax dollars that are going into non-profit housing. Thanks to the members of our caucus in the public accounts committee, we have highlighted a number of the problems with the social housing policies of this government, inherited from the Liberal government before it.

Non-profit housing, within the next few years, is going to cost over $1 billion a year. By 1995, the non-profit housing, which is an ineffective way of providing housing to people who need it, is going to be in such a serious situation that we'll be facing horrible, heavy costs for the province of Ontario. It's really a new envelope of spending that the government has faced up to. The government comes along now and says, "We want to do something about housing," and so it's giving all kinds of subsidies for people who are now moving out of existing apartments to go into the provincially run, provincially owned provincial homes. The result then is that we're now in a position where people who have places to rent are seeing them emptied even further as people go in droves to provincial housing units.

The province, even during a time when we have the highest vacancy rates since 1972 -- did you hear that? -- the highest vacancy rates in Ontario since 1972, is going ahead to build another 20,000 units for non-profit housing. There is no way you can balance the books if you're going to come along and take people who are already comfortably settled somewhere and then coax them out of that to go into government housing.

The costs that are going into this are beyond anyone's imagination, and with $1.2 billion to be spent by 1995, there is only one way you can describe the social non-profit housing program of this government, and that is "irresponsible." It is irresponsible and should be stopped. There is certainly a large dollar that can be saved by this government to face up to the costs of its non-profit housing program. I can assure you that we would see that everybody who needs a home gets a home, but don't do it by spending the money the way this government is doing it. We have a responsibility, we have a social conscience, we want to help people, but don't come along and just throw the money away. We can't afford that luxury, and it just adds to the deficit. It adds to the costs and the bureaucracy and the running of government.

People say, "What would you do?"

(1) We would have real reductions in the civil service.

(2) We would do something about the non-profit housing programs of this province.

(3) We would do something about the mismanagement of the social assistance programs. The examples are legion where there are people who are bilking the Ontario taxpayers because they're not truly eligible for social assistance. A person who lives in the province of Quebec and is claiming social assistance from the province of Ontario -- Quebec was smart enough not to pay him, but Ontario continues to pay him social assistance. Or the kind of situation in Peterborough, well documented, where two young people in university decide that in order to collect social assistance they'd switch homes, so they go next door to each other's and now are able to claim social assistance. What a scam, what a fraud, what a failure of our system not to stop that kind of expenditure.

The cost on that alone are close to $700 million; $700 million is estimated to be misspent in the social assistance program in the province of Ontario. We cannot afford to have money spent the wrong way, and that is not the right way to spend money.

There is another saving that we see, and that has to do with the health programs of the province of Ontario. Some people say it's as little as $20 million -- we happen to believe it's close to $800 million -- in health card fraud. What is being done about it? The government has not addressed it at all in this budget. It would be another way if we were able to identify and have a task force to work conscientiously on the whole business of the fraud that's going on in the delivery of health care services. Then we in the province of Ontario wouldn't have that many extra taxes. Let's face up to it: We are spending money in the wrong way in health care. We could do something about it.

Through the social contract costs is another example where we can save over $1 billion. It came through in the discussions with the unions and their representatives that they could identify well over $1 billion in savings through improvements in programs in the province of Ontario. There are many ways in which we could address the costs of reducing the costs of running government, which this government is somehow afraid to approach, not willing to approach.

Meanwhile, we're facing the largest tax grab the province has ever seen. The only one that beat it was the Liberals'. Of all these dollars, 98% are going to come from the ordinary Ontario citizen who will end up having to pay more than he ever paid before.

If this government could only face up to the total scene of the province and at the same time say: "Okay, we want to do several things. We want to control costs. We will put on ice some of our social programs that we are now looking at; we will put them on hold temporarily until the economy is stronger." If only we could address the deficit and the financial crisis in the province of Ontario in much the same way as Great Britain did in the Second World War, when people said, "Okay, we're now into a crisis," where there was a unified presentation, a coalition of all people coming together to fight the common enemy of the day. When they did that, there was a sense in which all other priorities were set aside in order to fight the battle at hand.

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If our battle at hand is truly the deficit and we want to wrestle it to the ground, then there are ways in which we together, as Ontario citizens, in cooperation with municipalities and regional governments, can move towards balancing the books. We cannot just do it in the Ontario Legislature alone. We have to do it in cooperation and in concert with the other partners we have that make up Ontario. We have to do it in such a way that we retain high public hope and expectation of the future, so that the taxpayers who are out there understand they're not being hit this year, so there is no tax increase, they are not being forced to pay out that much again.

If you came along and also worked with the municipalities and regions and instead of arbitrarily rolling back the unconditional grant found some way in which we were able to work with them, it would be more responsible -- if we were being responsible to find ways in which we could reduce spending in our own house.

An example of one of the important initiatives this government continues to fight for is the whole issue of pay equity. Pay equity is going to amount to well over $1 billion by the time it's implemented. I just wonder where the equity is when a spouse comes home and says to her husband, "I have great news, dear; I just got a real pay increase because of pay equity," and his answer back is: "Well, I have some news for you as well, dear. I got my pink slip today." Somehow, there is a message there that is being forgotten by this government. It's one thing to move for pay equity; it's another to see the costs that it has on society and on business and on the unemployment it's creating. If we were getting more value for more work, then there would be ways of doing it, but that doesn't seem to happen in the way the government builds its equation.

So the social agenda of this government continues to go on and the costs continue to escalate. The government continues to have its day care agenda, an agenda where the government is going to socialize services that are presently being delivered by the private sector, systematically closing them down and taking them over and making them part of a government program. What we're seeing is the private sector being driven out by the government by virtue of the way it's infusing money into government-run programs. Just last year, the government gave some $40 million towards day care. It did not create one additional day care place. It went to help the salaries of people who needed an increase, but what it did was cause more inequity between the private sector and the public sector.

The government has an agenda, ladies and gentlemen. It's an agenda that is focused on its own terms. It has no sense of balance with the rest of the world. It's a government that has closed off discussions with anyone else other than itself. It's really an example of democracy gone sick, because what you have now in Ontario is a one-party government with control of this Legislature. They will win every vote they want to win. There aren't enough people who have broken away from the New Democratic Party to vote with the opposition to defeat this bill, to defeat this government and to defeat the initiatives that are being proposed by the New Democrats.

We have a challenge in front of us, a challenge that somehow puts in perspective the needs of the whole province. Those taxpayers are now, because of this budget, going to be paying heavily, out of their payroll and out of everything else that's being impacted by the budget: a $2-billion increase in taxes which will affect Ontario. But this government has its three-pronged approach, and that whole approach is going to continue to impact local taxpayers. The local taxpayers will now have the provincial bill to pay, which will come off their payroll and through the added cost to provincial services, but the second and most important cost that's going to hit them is on their property taxes.

I have no idea how municipalities are going to be able to handle the increase in the costs that the government has sent to them. For some time this afternoon the Minister of Municipal Affairs was here. We have now a copy of the reduction in the 1993 unconditional grants through the government's expenditure control plan, and you see the effect this is going to have on every municipality and region and county in the province of Ontario. The government has treated counties and regions the same as it has municipalities.

If York region were to translate the cost of this expenditure control plan, along with the extra costs of what the social contract is going to cost, it could be a 40% -- I repeat, 40% -- increase in the local tax rate to people who own property. A 40% increase. I hope in no way that it ever reaches that level, because if there are ways in which certain things can be cut --

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: This is a very important debate --

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member is not in his seat.

Mr Turnbull: We don't appear to have a quorum.

The Acting Speaker: Is there a quorum present?

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees: A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: Please call in the members.

The Speaker ordered the bells rung.

The Acting Speaker: A quorum now is present. The honourable member for Markham had the floor and he may resume.

Mr Cousens: The cost to the Ontario taxpayer is such that --

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): I thought perhaps they weren't going to give me the light for a second there.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker: When quorum calls are made, I think you have to refer to the fact that there are only three Conservatives and no Liberals in the House this afternoon. They've all gone home for the weekend early. So I think there has to be some tolerance on behalf of my --

The Acting Speaker: That is not a point of order. It doesn't matter. All we need are 20 members in the Legislature. That is a quorum. A quorum can be called at any time. The honourable member for Markham has the floor.

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Mr Cousens: There probably isn't a more important paper before this House than the government's budget. The fact of the matter is, it is the most important thing to our caucus, to my colleagues and to the people of Ontario, and for this government to bring it forward, and will use its majority to push it through, I can only tell you that there is a seething and deep anger on our part. We will do everything we can to fight this government on it, and it's a matter of making sure they know that we're not taking it lightly.

I'm concerned with the impact of the tax. We've got a tax that's going to come through provincial tax; it's a sales tax increase. You've got an income tax increase, but the other tax increase that is going to be absolutely beyond belief -- if the local municipalities, that are now in the middle of their term, of their year -- they've done their budgets for the year, they have completed the assessment.

We've got municipalities that have struggled to have a zero tax increase in 1993. It was a tremendous effort for many, many municipalities. Some even bragged of having a 5% decrease in the level of taxation: unbelievable efforts by everybody to control the costs, based on the kinds of assurances by the government that they were going to have a 1% increase in unconditional grants two years ago, 2% this past year and 2% again next year. They were working within a framework, and now that framework is suddenly shoved aside so that it makes their own planning processes next to impossible to handle.

At a recent meeting that I attended with the regional municipality of York, I sensed a tremendous problem that they've got because the regional municipality of York, which is funded largely through provincial programs, is really dealing with 20-cent dollars, those dollars which they are able to collect through local taxes administered through the region. Therefore, the large burden of the cost comes from the province. When the province removes the kinds of numbers that we're seeing here just in the first phase of the plan with a 12.9% reduction, which amounts to over $2.486 million to York region, York region has little way of gaining those costs back except through a special tax bill.

When they come back with that tax bill, it's going to be called the Rae tax bill. There's no way they're just going to come along -- they can't absorb all those costs. They'll try where they can. I've talked with them, I've met with them, they're looking for ways they can do it. It's true with those municipalities, they have established budgets, they've got their staff, everything is in place. How can they do it?

What the province is going to force upon municipalities and regions and counties across the province is another tax hike, another tax increase, and that tax increase is going to affect every person who owns property, every person who rents property, every condominium owner, every person who's paying property taxes, every business that's paying taxes. It's not just property owners. Anyone who is on property in the province of Ontario will be paying a hefty increase because of the rollbacks in unconditional grants and because of the proposals that are part of the social contract.

That is not an acceptable way to run a province. It's not an acceptable way to try to cook the books. What is happening with this approach is that the single taxpayer is now unbelievably burdened. The amount of taxes owing in municipalities across the province has never been higher. People can't afford to pay existing taxes and now, on top of that, on top of the existing property taxes which are already uncollected, the province is going to force municipalities to increase those levels even higher.

So this becomes the tax year, the heaviest tax year in the history of the province. It's the heaviest budget increase in the history of the province, but the impact on the local payer is unforgivable. The money is unavailable.

As I try to feel for a solution, I can only hope and pray that through the meeting that our caucus is starting today -- in fact when Mr Harris had our meeting today with our own caucus, we are beginning a trip around the province to meet with people of the province to see their feelings about what they have to say about Bob Rae's budget. Can they afford to pay another $2 billion in provincial sales taxes? Can they afford to pay additional taxes on their property? Can we continue to accept Bob Rae's philosophy, "Let the middle class pay more"?

Are we going to continue to allow the union bosses to run the province of Ontario? Are we going to continue to accept the kind of unbelievable, unmitigated mistruth of Mr Rae where he says, "Trust me," when you know in fact that if you try to deal with what he's all about, he is in the process of driving us into the ground or driving people underground?

You have to look at what the impact is all about. The impact is something that this government has not measured. They have not given credit to those municipalities or those agencies that have done everything they can to trim their budgets. What this government has done is just say, "Hey, there are across-the-board decreases."

Those municipalities or those agencies or those parts of the province that have been doing something right are going to be penalized the same as those that have reserve funds or those that have extra money. There aren't many, but the fact is that the province has not taken any special consideration into any of the special needs of special communities.

This province has failed to listen. They have not listened to the opposition, they have not listened to other groups, they have not listened to business, and now we're into the midst of a budget that is far more complex and complicated than anything we've had before us before. In my 12 and a half years as an MPP, I have never before seen the crisis of confidence that we have today in this House.

We have a situation where people are losing their confidence in Ontario. They're losing their confidence in the hope for tomorrow. They're losing their sense of optimism for their children and for the future of Ontario. They have a sense that the government has a stranglehold on them from which they will not recover and that there is no room to breathe, there is no room to move, there is no room to expand, and the moment you do expand, you're going to be taxed even more.

The burden is unbelievably heavy to all of us. Those of us who can will carry our load, but there are many who can barely handle the load that is there now. That is why we are saying no tax increases this year: no tax increases at the provincial level, no tax increases at the municipal level. Let us look instead at everything we can do within the province to reduce spending, to reduce costs, to reduce expectations, to reduce anywhere we can without having one tax increase.

Fight the battle not on the backs of the poor, not on the backs of the rich, not on the back of Ontario; fight the battle within, so that together we find ways of settling up the problems we've got. Reduce our expectations. Put things in control. Allow the province to work together.

There isn't any working together at all between opposition parties and the government. We barely talk. We come in the House and we shout at each other. There is a sense of total separation. The coalition between the Liberals and the NDP broke down long ago, and there is a sense now in which this government, because it has its majority, is not prepared to listen to anybody.

Well, the taxpayers will speak. They're going to speak in a way we haven't heard from them before. They'll not only have a chance to speak to this government when it comes up for re-election in two years from now, but they'll have a chance to speak as they look at the total consequence of a totally messed up fiscal policy of Floyd Laughren and Bob Rae.

Bob Rae is at fault for what is happening here. He started off his position as Premier and said, "We're going to spend our way out of the recession," and so he did. He spent. There were increases like we've never seen before: increases to salaries, increases to staff. So he spent and he spent. He spent us further into the recession than we ever have been, and suddenly he wakes up because someone from the monetary fund comes to him and says: "Hey, you'd better watch it, Bobby boy, because you're running out of credit rating and you won't be able to borrow money any more. You're already the fourth-biggest loaner in the world as you go to the European market, so you'd better watch it."

So Mr Rae comes back and has a meeting, because it was called by Bob White. Bob White called him and Romanow and -- what's the name of the guy in British Columbia?

Interjection: Harcourt.

Mr Cousens: -- Harcourt -- to a meeting and then they start to begin to say, "Hey, we'd better fight deficits."

This is a government that has lost the confidence of the people. It has lost the confidence of me, it has lost the confidence of the ordinary Ontario citizen, because you've taxed us to death. You're taxing the hope out of us.

This government is wrong in what it's doing, and I will give everything I've got to continue the battle against the New Democrats, their socialist-communist policies. What they're on to is the destruction of Ontario as I know it. They're destroying our hope, they're destroying our possible future, and how we're ever going to repair it. How do you unscramble an egg? I wish I knew, because they've scrambled it in so many ways.

They have done things for labour with Bill 40. They're doing more things now with their pay equity. Put them on ice; put them on hold. Allow this government to take time for pause and reflection so that we can get on with the future with confidence, working together. There are ways it can be done.

Mr Speaker, I see that the clock is close to the hour of 6. I move adjournment of the debate.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Before we go to the business statement, I would like on behalf of all members and the legislative officers to thank our very dedicated, hard-working legislative pages who will be leaving us tomorrow to go back to their respective homes across the province of Ontario. We hope your stay with us has been enjoyable, and as the old saying is, "Will ye no' come back to visit us again."

To the scheduling for a week from now.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon Ruth Grier (Minister of Health): Pursuant to standing order 55, I would like to indicate the business of the House for the week of May 31 to June 3.

On Monday, May 31, we will resume the adjourned debate on the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.

On Tuesday, June 1, we will give committee of the whole House consideration of Bill 96, An Act to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board.

On Wednesday, June 2, we will give second reading consideration to the capital investment plan, Bill 17.

In the morning of Thursday, June 3, during the time reserved for private members' public business, we will consider ballot item number 11, a private member's bill standing in the name of Mr Ramsay, and ballot item number 12, a private member's bill standing in the name of Mr Runciman.

On the afternoon of June 3, we will resume the adjourned second reading debate of Bill 38, the Retail Business Holidays Act amendments.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Thank you. It now being past 6 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until Monday, May 31, at 1:30 pm.

The House adjourned at 1802.

20 mai 1993