L004b - Wed 29 Apr 1998 / Mer 29 Avr 1998 1
The House met at 1830.
Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I believe we don't have a quorum.
The Deputy Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Clerk, could you check and see if there's a quorum?
Clerk at the Table (Mr Todd Decker): A quorum is not present, Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker ordered the bells rung.
Clerk at the Table: A quorum is now present, Speaker.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
THRONE SPEECH DEBATE
Resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.
The Deputy Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Member for Windsor-Riverside.
Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): Before I broke, I was talking about the impact of the community care access centres on the delivery of health care services to people in my riding, and during the break, I had an opportunity to get a copy of the letter that had been received by Ron Dupuis who lives in my riding. It's from the CCAC and it says:
"Dear Client:
"We have completed a comprehensive review of our policy regarding the provision of medical supplies/equipment to our clients." As a result, "Based on this review, it has been decided that the Windsor-Essex Community Care Access Centre will provide the following for one month only."
The bottom line is, "I am sure you can appreciate that this was a difficult decision; however, given the significant pressure to maintain quality health care in our community during this period of financial restraint, we felt that this action was necessary."
This was a letter that said that the services that had been traditionally provided to Mrs Dupuis were no longer going to be provided and it lists places where she can be provided those services. They are the following: social services, veterans affairs, the assistive devices program and private insurance, for example, someone who would have their extended health benefit package.
In response to receipt of that letter, Mr Dupuis was quite upset, as you might expect, and he wrote a letter to Mr Harris and provided me with a copy. It says:
"Mr Harris,
"It is with much concern that I write to you on behalf of my wife and myself.
"Rita has had multiple sclerosis for the past 23 years and has gone through many stages that have robbed her of her independence. Presently, she is confined to a wheelchair, is fully catheterized and must have bowel treatment every other day. This treatment has been provided for the past 12 years by the VON. The supplies needed...have been supplied by CCAC.
"This past week, we received a letter from the...CCAC stating that they would no longer be supplying her with the materials necessary to maintain good and effective bladder assistance, effective June 1, 1998. This is a staggering announcement. When asked about the changes, Rita's case worker explained that it was due to provincial cutbacks. If we were to have to pay for these materials, I have determined that it would cost us $134.14 each and every month. This is frightening because I am retired and on a fixed income and Rita receives no disability pension from any level of government. This is a classic example of how the downloading of your government is affecting the lives of people adversely. It is bad enough being stricken with a disease without having to fear the results of being unable to afford the cost of most necessary materials....
"Isn't home care designed to keep people at home? If we can't afford the supplies, we face the option of placing her in a long-term-care facility at greatly increased cost to the...system."
This is a perfect example of how the Tories have affected long-term care so far for people in my constituency. Someone who has received services for 12 years is now being faced with being cut off completely from those services and having to purchase them from a private supplier or looking to a private insurance company to provide them.
The throne speech also referred to the environment and the commitment of this government to the environment, and I just want to refer to that commitment. It says, "Understanding the role that a clean environment plays in attracting jobs and investment, your government is determined to improve our air and water quality through initiatives such as Drive Clean."
That's it. That's the sum total of this government's commitment to environmental protection in the throne speech. It's shameful. It's completely inadequate. Even the program that they mention, Drive Clean, is one that they announced last year with a great deal of fanfare and have announced so far that they're going to be delaying the implementation of until some time in the future.
The delay in that program was the subject, as I know you're aware, Speaker, of comment by the Environmental Commissioner in her report. Among other things, the Environmental Commissioner states in her report, "Overall, environmental health concerns continue to be a very low priority for the ministers of this province." That really is what this government's commitment is towards the environment. It's no surprise, given that scathing criticism by the Environmental Commissioner, that the only attention paid to the environment in the throne speech was a couple of very short lines.
We know that lack of commitment to the environment is going to have a great impact on the people who live in the Windsor community, because what that means is that air quality is going to continue to deteriorate. We are subject to a great deal of transboundary air pollution in our area. A lot of it comes from the United States. In order for us to try to say to the United States that they should make their air quality standards stricter, we need to go there with clean hands and say: "This is what we're doing to try to clean up air quality in Ontario. You should try to match the standards we've imposed."
But the Environmental Commissioner is critical of that, and says that really the bargaining position of Ontario in asking Americans to do that is very weak. She says that because what we have here in Ontario are not strict guidelines like they have in the United States, but are really unenforceable guidelines. We are never going to get anywhere trying to ask American jurisdictions to increase environmental protection with respect to air quality as long as we take the approach that we should have voluntary guidelines to reduce emissions and that we should have programs like Drive Clean that are delayed indefinitely. It's something that's going to lead to increased deaths in our community as well as other communities, and that's unacceptable.
The Deputy Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): I just want to make a couple of comments on the 20 minutes the member for Windsor-Riverside has stood criticizing pretty well everything our government is doing.
He talked about the wait in Windsor for emergency room care. I just finished reading an article by a doctor who works in the emergency rooms in Windsor, who talked about the fact that one of the problems in emergency care is the number of people who present themselves at emergency with colds and sore throats, who should be seeking access to the health care system through other means. But I'm sure the member also understands that the Minister of Health just announced $3.3 million in new funding for emergency room services in Windsor and Essex county. I'm sure he just neglected to mention that in his conversation.
He also talked about the community care access centre system and how that was a failure. I should remind him that when his government was in power they proposed exactly the same type of system, with one small change: that they would restrict the provision of health care in that system to people who were members of a trade union. We didn't think that was fair. We thought the idea of one single point of entry was good, but we thought it would be best to open it up to all workers, whether they be unionized or not. Consequently we have the CCAC, which was an outgrowth of an NDP idea.
He agrees with us that there's a shortage of long-term-care beds. That did not happen overnight. For the last 10 years we have not opened up a long-term-care bed in the province. He must have missed the minister's announcement this morning, where she talked about reinvesting - and the Premier - $1.2 billion in long-term care for the benefit of those people who are trapped in hospital beds and should be in long-term-care beds.
I appreciate the comments of the member for Windsor-Riverside. I just wanted to remind him of a couple of small points he may have overlooked.
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I was interested in hearing the member for Windsor-Riverside focus in particular on his concerns with health care, which are certainly concerns that we in our caucus share. I was also appreciative of some of the concerns he had about the way in which long-term care and community care is or is not being provided in his home community.
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One of the concerns that I continue to have, even after today's announcement, is that in this attempt to try and meet the needs in health care, in what is obviously an area where there is increasing demand for more health care and an aging population with tremendous stresses on the system, this government wants to address all of the emerging needs with the existing pot of money, that anything that's done in one area to meet one emerging need is done at the expense of another area.
Do we need more community care? Yes, of course we do. We've wanted to see an increase in community care to meet the obvious need there for a very long time. But with this government we can only have an improvement in community care services if we accept the drastic reduction in acute care beds, a reduction that is so drastic that we know that we have women with newborn babies who are having to leave hospital after 24 hours and many of them are returning with babies who are ill because they're not sure how to care for those babies when they come home.
Interjection.
Mrs McLeod: The member for Huron is challenging the statistics. She should talk to some of the experts in the field who are expressing concern about the fact that without acute care beds, women are in fact being sent out of hospital too early with new babies, one of the reasons why we believe it should be mandatory to not allow hospitals to evict those women before they've had at least 48 hours of care.
Today we see that we're going to see some movement on long-term care over a long time, eight years, but some movement on long-term-care beds which are clearly needed with an aging population, with the waiting list that we have in this province. It's going to be at the expense of chronic care beds, and as the member for Windsor-Riverside has touched on, as our health critic has, it's a very different kind of care.
Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): I want to rise and compliment the member for Windsor-Riverside on his response to the throne speech. I'm not the least bit surprised that much of his comments were focused around the issue of health care.
During the run-up to his election in the by-election of September 4 of last year, health care was the issue on the doorsteps of people in Windsor. I was one of those who was proudly down there helping him to achieve the great victory that he did on that day, and I can tell you at first hand that health care, health care, health care was the issue that drove that by-election, and the fact that it was New Democrat Wayne Lessard who won speaks volumes about how this province views the health care agenda of this government.
I'm equally not surprised that he raised the Environmental Commissioner's report today, hot off the press. Let me reiterate what the member for Windsor-Riverside has already stated. First of all, with regard to the throne speech itself on page 9, again it says - this is the government talking - "Understanding the role that a clean environment plays in attracting jobs and investment, your government is determined to improve our air and water quality..." blah, blah, blah. What a lot of bull. The fact is that this report that came out today said the opposite. This is the commissioner's foreword to her report:
"Overall, environmental health continues to be a very low priority for the ministers of this province. Ministry business plans indicate that ministers are withdrawing from their environmental commitments. More and more, they are failing to integrate their responsibility for the environment into their core business plans."
There you go. If the by-election wasn't enough to tell you that you're on the wrong track with health care, then how about listening to the Environmental Commissioner who's telling you that you're making health matters worse.
The Deputy Speaker: Further questions or comments? Further debate?
Mr Lessard: Don't I get to respond, Speaker?
The Deputy Speaker: Sorry, yes. Member for Windsor-Riverside, you can sum up.
Mr Lessard: I want to thank the members for Chatham-Kent, Fort William and Hamilton Centre for their comments with respect to my remarks on the speech from the throne.
The member for Chatham-Kent mentions the ministry announcement with respect to long-term-care beds. That's an announcement that of course we look forward to seeing delivered, but we've had the announcement from the Health Services Restructuring Commission already in Windsor and a number of communities have had those announcements about how many long-term-care beds there should be in their communities. They've agreed that there's a shortage and that shortage needs to be addressed.
We are concerned that's going to come at the expense of acute care beds, just as the member for Fort William has said. If it comes at the expense of acute care beds, we know that's going to lead to more privatization, more two-tier health care in the system, because long-term-care beds aren't covered under the Canada Health Act. It could lead to privatization of those beds, underfunding of hospitals so that more people are forced out of acute care beds into long-term-care beds, and that's going to be to the detriment of health care and the quality of health care in our province.
I want to thank the member for Hamilton Centre as well for tying my remarks with respect to health care into my remarks about the environment, because there's something else the Environmental Commissioner said that I think is important. She says, "I remind ministers that a healthy environment is an important part of a healthy economy and a healthy society." A healthy environment is an integral part of a healthy society. If we ignore our environment, we are going to be spending increasing amounts of money towards health care that we don't need to be spending; we need to be preventing environmental disasters and improving health care in our province.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): It's certainly more than polite for me to say what a pleasure it is to be able to respond to a throne speech that was such an excellent speech, with such excellent content. It's very obvious from the throne speech, that focused on jobs and the economy, that our government's policies are putting Ontario on the road to recovery. That's so evident all across the country. I know it's very upsetting to the opposition to see that, but indeed it is truly happening.
The Lieutenant Governor in reading the throne speech made the statement: "The economy, too, gives us reason for optimism.
All around, we see: Retail sales at an unprecedented level. Consumer and business confidence high. Housing starts up. Welfare rolls shrinking."
There's just no question, when you see a net increase of some 341,000 new jobs in the private sector during this term, that things are happening: halfway to the commitment we made to the people of Ontario approximately three years ago. In the last 12 months, jobs are up by a net of 261,000, an absolute record in job creation for this province, not like what happened from 1990 to 1995 when there was actually a net loss of jobs here in the province.
Obviously, the policies are working and are having a very, very positive effect on the economy, on the lives of the people who live in Ontario. They're policies of reducing red tape and getting rid of an awful lot of bureaucracy; they're policies of reducing payroll taxes; they're policies of reducing income tax, putting money back into the pockets of Ontarians so they can spend it in better ways than government would spend it. It's stimulating the economy, and there is just absolutely no question that is occurring.
The opposition is saying: "Oh, the tax cuts don't work. The reduction in bureaucracy won't work." But I can tell you, with no question, that the evidence absolutely disagrees with their position. Clearly, Ontario is the fastest-growing economy in Canada. As a matter of fact, I understand it's the fastest-growing economy in all of the G-7 countries.
I'm certainly not alone with this comment. There are many others who recognize it in a similar manner. For example, TD, or Toronto-Dominion Bank, in their recent economic forecast said that Ontario's the place to be. What a neat ring that has. It notes that consumer spending has been boosted by things like employment gains, and of course that totally relates to reduction in payroll taxes, reduction in income tax and umpteen other taxes that have been reduced during the last three years.
Today, very few of the public question this cut in income tax, how it's stimulating the economy. The opposition and the third party still quibble about it, but if you happened to tune in to CFRB about a week ago when the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the third party were tooting what they were going to do by stopping that tax cut if they had an opportunity, the phone-in afterwards was phenomenally on side for the position of this government. They did not agree with the Leader of the Opposition or with the leader of the third party that to stop the tax cut was right. They totally agreed with the position we are taking.
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The Royal Bank analysis states that Ontario's outlook is rosy. In 1998, they are saying, GDP growth will be 3.7%, and that's after a growth last year of some 4%. We have the second-highest expectation in Canada for GDP, with only Newfoundland coming in ahead of us. The report goes on to state that if you combine the reduction in personal income tax burden and the lower interest rates, there is no question that demand for domestic cars and other consumer goods is going up significantly.
Our Liberal colleagues would like to give credit to the federal government for reducing interest rates. It couldn't be further from the truth. The real reason that interest rates are down is because the provinces across this nation have their fiscal houses in order. The reason the federal government balanced their books was because it was on the backs of the provinces. If you look at what they did, they made very minor cuts to themselves but major cuts in transfer payments to the provinces. For example, they have cut payments to Ontario by over $2 billion a year.
Take, for comparison, what Ontario did, with our government's very minor cuts to our transfer payments - to some of the rural municipalities, the smaller ones - for a 1.7% expectation in savings. But what did we do to ourselves? We made marked cuts to everything from political staff to ministers to the size of the cabinet to the size of the bureaucracy. Some 14,000 civil servants have been laid off - not easy, a real tough decision, tough things to do, but we put our house in order first before we started making minor cuts to the transfer partners.
With our financial houses in order across Canada and helping the Liberals federally get theirs under control, there is less money going out to be loaned to the provinces and to the federal government, and consequently, there is more money available and you end up with lower interest rates.
Let me tell you, the good news continues. The Bank of Montreal, in its employment analysis, predicts there will be a significant reduction in the jobless rate in this coming year. They also reiterate that last year was indeed a historical level for job growth in Ontario.
A few of you, from both the official opposition and the third party, were at the standing committee on finance and economic affairs when Dr Sherry Cooper presented to us. She is a vice-president of Nesbitt Burns. As a Conservative, I was rather embarrassed about how complimentary she was about the programs and the policies of our government.
I finally asked her how much of this relates to what we've been doing as a province and how much relates to the fact that the economy internationally and across Canada was moving ahead. Again she went on to an almost embarrassing point, saying it's the policies of this government that are pulling Canada up by its bootstraps. I said, "Do you mean that more than 70% of what's happening in Ontario and Canada is related to the policies of this government?" and she said, "Oh, yes, far more than 70%." If you question that, have a look at it in Hansard. It's there in hard print.
A survey that came out yesterday from Canada's top money managers said, "Ontario has been selected as the best place to invest in Canada." That's over the booming economy that we know is going on in Alberta, where there's another Conservative government. The worst places to invest are in Quebec and BC. We can understand the problems in Quebec, with the separatist movement, but in BC, what is the problem there? Another socialist government, that's what the problem is. The report says, "Ontario and Alberta have a clear advantage in terms of investment climate and conditions needed for faster economic growth."
Also boosting the Ontario advantage is the change in our labour laws. Our previous government was the most pro-union in the whole of the industrialized world. The unions didn't know it, but they had the greatest friends in government. But what did they do to them? They kicked them out of office. Why? Because of the greed of the unions. They couldn't even handle one of their own being in government. They totally destroyed them.
It's totally understandable. Bob Rae, your leader, the Premier of the day, understood. He understood that the biggest risk to social programs was the debt. He tried to do something about it, but you people in cabinet and on the back benches wouldn't give him a chance. He understood what was going on, and you and the unions totally devastated him.
It proves that the policies of this government are indeed working. With lower taxes for business and for individuals, the reduction in bureaucracy and the reduction in red tape, Ontario has ended up leading in job creation across this country. We're leading in the help wanted index - just have a look in the newspapers; it's there for you - and we're leading because the income tax will soon be the lowest in the country, right across Canada. It's because this government believes that when you tax, you should be good shepherds and shear the sheep, not skin them. The previous government was out to skin every sheep in the province; they weren't prepared to allow those sheep to simply be sheared.
Interjection.
Mr Galt: Do you like that, Minister of Agriculture? I thought you would like that comparison.
In contrast, as you look at the BC experience - that's sort of Canada's left coast - the socialist NDP government is trying to drown the provincial economy in the Pacific Ocean, something like a poor little defenceless kitten. In the global village economy in the late 1990s, BC has now become the village idiot. Canada's economy is increasing; meanwhile, BC is really teetering and going into a recession. In BC, the housing market is flagging, the forest industry is shrinking, the unemployment rate is going way up and consumer confidence is going down, literally disappearing.
As a matter of fact, I was in BC back in March at the global conference and I just happened to go by a fast-food outlet, because that's all I could afford. The owner happened to see that my badge was from Ontario - it didn't indicate I was an MPP - and he asked me how quickly he could get moved to Ontario. He wanted out of BC and the present socialist government they have there.
Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): Are they losing people or gaining people?
Mr Galt: They're losing, and they're going to Alberta; that's where they're going, at a phenomenal rate. The polls indicate that in BC the number one issue is business confidence, and it's certainly going down.
What went wrong in BC? It used to be the place to be. Until 1995, BC was outpacing the rest of Canada; it was really paralleling the US. Of course, here in Ontario we were just dragging weight back there, not doing very well at all. But what would you expect would go on, with an NDP government led by Glen Clark, who used to be a union organizer, following policies that were previously those of the NDP government under the wacky Mike Harcourt? By comparison, Saskatchewan, with a left-leaning government led by Roy Romanow - he knows the importance of balanced books and paying down the debt. Saskatchewan is going places. Poor old Clark. Increased spending, socialist policies, have failed everywhere else, but he's still following in there, being a true socialist.
In the early 1990s they took the business community for granted. The agenda totally ignored the economic concerns and competitive issues. They enacted new sales tax on heavy machinery for business. They imposed high corporate taxes. They increased the stumpage fees for forestry and totally strangled the forest industry. The bottom line is that they killed the goose that laid the golden egg; not only that, they cooked it and ate it for supper. Business, as I mentioned earlier, is relocating out of BC to Alberta faster than all the other business coming into BC put together. The migration is absolutely phenomenal. Taxes do kill small business.
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Small business is one of the important sectors; 70% of the firms in Canada are small businesses, and they employ fewer than five people on the average. Taxes are the greatest factor of their failure, four out of five times. The businesses typically consume a third of the municipal services, but they pay two thirds of the municipal taxes. But they're also saddled with income tax, payroll tax and so on, plus costs for garbage collection, telephone rates and electrical rates are higher.
The myth is that business owners are rich and can afford it. Well, according to Statistics Canada, entrepreneurs have a median salary $15,000 less than the median employee in Canada. They work 13 hours more per week. The result is that a significant number of small business owners are well below the poverty line and they work for far less than the minimum wage required to pay their employees.
But do we see the NDP out there demonstrating to support them and work on their behalf? No, they're just out there protesting against the small businessman trying to make a living. These fledgling businesses often do this with little profit and with unfair taxes being so damaging to them. These groups are the ones we are asking to be the creators of jobs and of wealth.
Canada is the world champion in property tax measured as a percentage of the GDP. In Canada our property and our wealth tax is about 4.1% of GDP; in the US it is 3.3%; in the UK and Sweden it is 2.6%; in Germany it is 1.6%; and in Italy it is 1%.
But there is some hope for the future. An American president once said that business is the business of Americans. The throne speech stated, "Your government was elected on a plan to turn the province around, strengthen the economy and create jobs." I am very proud that we are winning on all fronts mentioned. In other words, we're making business the business of Ontarians.
There was a statement in the last budget speech that Ontarians want all who need jobs to have jobs. In general in Ontario, they want to reduce the tax burden, get the budget balanced and then tackle the debt so we don't pass this on to our next generation. The goals are shared by many millions of people in Ontario, and we've pledged to keep the faith and make sure this is a better place to live.
The throne speech is really a pledge to follow through on our promises and to deliver a smaller government that costs less and does a better job. It reiterates the commitment to welfare reform, to education reform, to health care reform and to provide an opportunity for our young people. The goals in the Common Sense Revolution are still valid today, as they were very valid three years ago.
Although special interest groups and some unions dogmatically oppose our reforms, most in Ontario recognize the need for change, and our government is providing that change. The speech from the throne was really a progress report on what we as a government are doing in Ontario. It reaffirms that indeed we are on track for a prosperous future, for a new future of hope, opportunity and growth for our young people.
It also reflects the fact that this is probably the most compassionate government Ontario has ever seen. It is extremely compassionate, because we are looking down the road for our young people. We want social programs and a safety net for our young people in the future.
Yes, you can give out all the candy in the candy store today and have nothing tomorrow, and that is exactly how the Liberals have been. Tax, spend and borrow has been their policy, and as you move down the road, that is not compassionate. That is simply being greedy to get the votes today. This government is extremely compassionate in looking at tomorrow, looking at what our young people would be saddled with down the road.
That's our commitment to the people of Ontario and I can assure you we are honouring that commitment, and as a result, I can assure you that a Mike Harris government will be returned to office in the next election. Unfortunately, I can't be the first to tell you that. It has already been reported in the Star over the last couple of weeks.
The Deputy Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): You know, there's one thing about a Reform provincial parliamentarian: He's never wrong. I think that everything the member for Northumberland went through tonight, including the last comment about compassion, is one where there's no room for compromise. I think he should use the word "compromise" occasionally instead of "compassion." But he's just never wrong.
I come from a riding that doesn't make a lot of fuss unless things aren't right. I certainly get telephone calls from my constituents and I have yet to hear the word "compassion" mentioned in any of those phone calls when they have made reference to this government.
Then the member for Northumberland in his speech I think offended almost everybody in this country that he could, almost every province. As I said, and it may not have been heard because I uttered it rather quietly, I think perhaps the economic development, trade and tourism minister, Mr Pallidini, should put on one of those caps that were made in a foreign country in order to enhance jobs in Ontario and send him out as an ambassador. I think he'd make a great ambassador.
The member for Northumberland talked about turning the province around. The one problem when you start to turn things around is that you may end up finding you've gone 360 degrees and you're right back where you started from. I think this government has not only gone 360 degrees; they've started to go way around the other way again, and I would say, when it comes to health care and education in this province, that they've gone a bit too far in their turnaround.
Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): I just want to say that I wasn't offended by anything the member for Northumberland said. I found it quite entertaining, actually, particularly the fact that in a debate in which he's talking about the throne speech of his government, he spent more time criticizing the NDP government in BC than he did praising his own government. I found that really interesting.
Mr Christopherson: He's practising to be an opposition member.
Mr Silipo: As my colleague says, he's practising to be an opposition member, and the voters at the end of the day will decide that for all of us.
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): We want to be just like you.
Mr Silipo: Let me say to the member, you could do worse.
There are a couple of impressions the member left, and I'm sure he would not want to leave these impressions, so I just want to correct a couple of things he said.
He talked a couple of times about the throne speech. At one time he said, "The Lieutenant Governor said," and then went on to quote almost as if it was a kind of third-party endorsement of what his government is doing, almost as if it was somebody else out there objectively judging what his government is doing and then putting it into a speech and that somehow that has a lot of credence. Of course he knows, I know, we all know that the speech from the throne is read by the Lieutenant Governor but that it's written by the Premier and the people around the Premier. In fact, we're having an interesting discussion on an issue that's going on around that very issue in terms of some of the things that were said in the speech from the throne that shouldn't have been said.
In the couple of seconds that are left, I also wanted to deal with another misunderstanding, perhaps, that the member opposite had when he talked about the two opposition leaders talking about reinstating the tax cut. I just want to make sure he understands very clearly that as far as we understand, the Liberal leader has clearly said that he won't reinstate the tax cut. I wouldn't want him to mislead people, because I'm sure he wouldn't want to do that. We have said and our leader today reiterated that we would reinstate a portion of the tax cut for the 6% of people who make over $80,000, because we think -
The Deputy Speaker: The member's time is up. Further questions and comments?
Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): I too wish to make some comments on the speech by the member for Northumberland. First I want to comment on the characteristic understatement he used in delivering his remarks. He was I think totally non-partisan in the way he analysed the throne speech. I thought he avoided making provocative remarks and was characteristically fair and balanced in his analysis of the issues. We don't always get that from the opposition, but we can always count on that from the member for Northumberland.
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I think perhaps the opposition fail to recognize that Doug was finding a whole new meaning for the word "compassionate," and in doing that I think he spread a lot of light on perhaps a broader understanding of what "compassionate" really means and how it applies to being a Conservative.
On a more serious note, though, I think when one reflects back on the early 1990s and the late 1980s and what it was like to be in small business - and the member has been in a small business experience, although perhaps a little earlier than that, in his life. He knows the realities of being in small business, the difficulties of dealing with endless payroll taxes, and he knows that our government has certainly put a lot of energy into trying to relieve the concerns that small business people have.
Certainly in the throne speech, one of the issues that cannot be overlooked is the fact that small businesses are creating an awful lot of jobs in Ontario. Job creation in Ontario is extraordinarily high compared to other jurisdictions in Canada. I think the member was certainly full value for those remarks and for his indication of how that is in fact a compassionate policy for us to take.
Mr Cullen: I have to say, having listened to the remarks that preceded me here, specifically the comments made by the member for Northumberland about how compassionate this government is in its speech from the throne, that for the community I represent, this will be a radical turning point in the behaviour of this government if indeed it proves true that it is compassionate, because for the past two and half or three years it has not been compassionate to the vulnerable in my community.
I can only think of the women in abusive situations who were looking for shelters and found they had no place to go because shelter funding was cut by this government.
I can only think, as a former member of the children's aid society in Ottawa-Carleton, how families who wanted to have service to deal with their difficult situations found themselves calling up the CAS and running into Harris days because this government had cut funding to the children's aid societies.
I can only think of the 21.6% cut to welfare rates. The rents did not go down, and suddenly in Ottawa-Carleton we had a tremendous run-up on the use of food banks.
I can only think even now, today, of this government, with its education funding formula, taking money away from our children with special learning needs in my community.
I can only think of what's happening in the developmental services area, where we have parents with adult children who are being told, "You have to meet new needs but you've got to give up one quarter of your sheltered workshops; you've got to give up these residential beds." Such compassion is being shown for these people who have worked so long and so hard to get what they have, and they're being told they have to sacrifice it.
The word "compassion" is a word that one does not associate with the Mike Harris Tories. Actions speak louder than words.
Mr Galt: First, to the member for Essex South, thank you for your comment and for your note. That was very kind.
Thanks to the member for Dovercourt and the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay and also the member for Ottawa West for your comments.
I think it's interesting to note that just a second ago there was reference made to food banks and welfare. Prior to the Liberals being in government here in Ontario, I don't think the term "food bank" was even known in this province. They expanded at a phenomenal rate in the late 1980s. That was in the good times, and it certainly was not because of their government that we had good times in Ontario. It was also the time when welfare rates went up at just one phenomenal rate. And they're saying that we're not a compassionate government?
The member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay made reference to the compassion of this government. I can tell you it really is. We're looking out for our young people down the road, that they're not saddled with a phenomenal debt.
You take the debt that the federal government has: $583 billion. I'm not saying it was only the Liberals that contributed to that, but I am told that of all those dollars, $583 billion, only 7% of that actually was spent for services. The rest was for interest and compound interest. That is not being compassionate. That's just being greedy in the day, trying to get people to vote for you. Very unfortunate circumstance we're in federally when a third of the dollar goes to pay the interest on the debt.
I can tell you that in the province of Ontario we were headed for that very quickly, and that's being very uncompassionate for our future generations and our future children. Just ask a child in secondary school or in university if they're prepared - break it down to somewhere around $40,000 to $50,000 that they owe to the province and to the federal government. They're saying: "I didn't create that debt. Why are you laying it on me?"
This is about being compassionate and reducing the debt we're dumping on them.
Mrs McLeod: I'm happy to have an opportunity to participate in this debate. There are many issues that are touched on or left out of the speech from the throne that I would welcome an opportunity to speak on, but because the time allotted to each of us is somewhat limited, I'm going to restrict my comments to those issues in the throne speech - or, as I say, issues that have been left out of the throne speech that should be here - that relate to my concerns as the education critic for our caucus.
I'm going to turn to pages 10 and 11 of the throne speech, lest there be any doubt that I am referring specifically to what the government is claiming to do for education in this speech from the throne. This is the section that's called "Educating Our Children for the Future." This is the section in which this government once again talks about the importance of a high quality of education and the goals of achieving excellence.
I want it clear that I do not disagree with the importance of ensuring a high quality of education. That's been one of my commitments for all of my adult life and the 30 years that I've been involved in politics. I certainly do not quarrel with the goal of achieving excellence in education. What I do disagree with very strongly is this government's constant attempt to portray our publicly funded education system as broken, as less than excellent, in order to justify the kind of radical changes that their agenda necessitated they impose on our educational system.
It frustrates me, and I know it is demoralizing for people who have a commitment to public education and who deliver that education to the students in our classrooms, when this government deliberately misrepresents the achievements of our system and of our teachers and of our students in order to make the case that the education system is broken.
It frustrates people when the government presents the results of our students on national tests in such a way that they fail to take into account the real achievement of our students when you recognize we have the greatest percentage of students in any province whose first language is not English.
It concerns me that this government totally ignores the fact that one of the achievements of our system - and I consider this excellent - is that we have the highest percentage of people obtaining a high school diploma of any province in this country. That is in large measure due to the success of the adult education programs which this government has so totally and completely and finally devastated with its recent funding formula.
I see a government that in the name of excellence and its definition of excellence, in its stated concern about standards and about reporting, is now insisting on a kindergarten curriculum that is not going to take any account of readiness to learn and let those individual differences be appreciated and responded to in the classroom.
I see a government that is forcing primary school teachers to give letter grades to primary school kids, six-year-olds, when their differences are not academic, but developmental. As somebody said to me recently, "Would you take a sixteen-month-old baby who hadn't learned to walk yet and stamp `R' for remedial on that baby's forehead?" I wonder how early the discouragement will set in for these young children and how many dropouts will now be born in our grade 1 classes.
My fear is that this government, in the name of standards, wants to take us back to the days of the 1950s when I was in school and when 50% of my classmates didn't make it past grade 9. I don't define that as excellence. I don't consider excellence to be found in a system that is prepared to leave many behind.
I suppose in some ways I was a little bit encouraged in the speech from the throne to find the government itself acknowledging that, because they say, "Only excellence will ensure that all students...are able to realize their full potential...." That is the essence of the goal of public education: to allow every student to fulfil his or her full potential. I suppose I should be encouraged that the government is at least acknowledging that as a goal.
The words are right. I only wish this government's actions were not so totally inconsistent with the goals, because this government's "all" leaves out the junior kindergarten students who have already been shut out of our school system or who are now going to be in classes of 25 or more without any educational assistant support because this government is not funding the educational assistants who helped out in those junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten classes.
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This government's "all" doesn't include students whose ability to participate in a classroom at all is dependent on those teacher assistants who are going to disappear next fall. Today there were pink slips given out to some 270 educational assistants in the Halton Board of Education, who provide exactly that kind of support to special needs students who, without it, will not be able to leave their classroom to go to the bathroom, will not be able to get up to the bus at the end of the school day, will not be able to work unless there is somebody actually holding their hand and guiding a pencil. I'm not sure there is going to be any way for those students to stay in an integrated classroom or in a special education classroom or to go to school at all, unless this government can be persuaded that all students should have a chance to fulfil their potential, including those with special needs who need that extra support.
This government's "all" doesn't include the many students whose ability to get the support they need next year is going to be jeopardized because this government has taken about $2 billion out of the education budgets of this province.
This government's "all" most certainly does not include the adults who need a real second chance to get that secondary school diploma and get a new start in life, because those programs will virtually cease to exist in their current forms as of September of this year.
This government's idea of helping students realize their full potential even stops short for our secondary school students, because this government is not prepared to offer a full range of programs and choices and options in secondary schools. Students, if your potential is in science, then God bless you, because you're going to get the full support of this government. That's where their focus is. That's what they're going to do for girls and women, make sure they can participate in science, and I'm all for it. But I don't think that should be at the expense of the kinds of choices that students with other needs and broader needs have to have. I think there should be a place for music programs and art programs and physical education programs and Canadian history programs, and a whole host of programs that will be lost with this government's secondary school so-called curriculum reform.
I get very nervous when I hear this government talk about excellence and quality. But I get angry - not nervous but angry - when I read in the speech from the throne or when I see in the million dollars' worth of the most recent advertising on education that this government has taken out, with taxpayers' money, that excellence is going to be assured by more dollars in the classroom, when I look at the funding formula and I read the government's own numbers and I know that $900 million more in cuts is built into that same funding formula and I know that the dollars being kept in education are going to support the 25,000 new students coming into our school system every year for the next three years so that there will be no increase in dollars per student in the classroom. That fact gets left out of the government's advertising campaigns. The fact that the funding for students is going to decrease for every single student in this province over the next few years gets left out of this government's advertising campaign.
I get angry when this government puts extracurricular activities into a category of "non-classroom" and therefore says they don't need to be supported, that they're not part of what a student needs to develop his or her potential. I wonder how many high school graduates this government has talked to who feel that their opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities were the way in which they both enjoyed their school and stayed in school and developed their potential. But then this is a government that puts even the heating and lighting of our classrooms into the non-classroom category and fails to see what are really essential supports to students.
It makes me angry when this speech says that excellence will be achieved because more of teachers' time will be spent teaching when in fact there are going to be fewer teachers teaching more classes to more students in our secondary schools, and that means less teacher time for individual students. That, to my mind, means less quality, not more.
I am concerned when this government talks about their initiatives in curriculum. They say "back to the basics" curriculum. It's back to the basics all right, because they are taking what were a thousand courses in our secondary schools, and do you know how many they are going to write in their new curriculum reform? Two hundred courses. We go from a thousand courses, with the options that offers to students, to 200 courses. That's what "back to the basics" means to this government. I get concerned about their curriculum initiatives being applauded when I know that the process, this contracted-out process, for writing the secondary school curriculum is in total and absolute chaos.
But chaos is the real hallmark of this government, certainly when it comes to education. We have seen a massive restructuring that leaves our trustees across this province with very little role other than to make the kinds of cuts this government has demanded they make. We have seen constant cost-cutting accompanying this massive restructuring. There is such a host of unanswered questions still about the restructuring, about the trustees' role, about the parents' role, about even the technical details of the funding formula - total chaos. Throughout all this time, we have had the government, which is supposed to be responsible for ensuring opportunities for students in education, constantly attacking not only the system but the people who are entrusted with delivering education.
The most recent example, and one of the most inhumane examples, is what this government did to principals and vice-principals, the educational leaders in our schools, when they left them without any idea of what their future situation was going to be in the schools until the day before they had to make the decision about whether they would stay in those roles as education leaders or return to the classroom. They didn't even know that day, when they had to make their choice, how drastically the government would cut the amount of dollars available for educational leadership, because that too is now considered a non-classroom activity.
How many people know that under the funding formula there is only one vice-principal for every 1,333 elementary school students? How many people know that there's only one principal for 909 secondary school students, and how many secondary schools don't have 909 students and aren't going to qualify for a full-time principal? Where is the leadership going to come from to implement all these so-called changes that this government wants to boast about in its throne speech?
I don't believe you can bring about any kind of "positive change," whatever words are in this throne speech, in the midst of such constant and total chaos. If the members opposite don't believe that's what's out there, just go out and talk to any teacher in this school system. I don't believe you can bring in constructive change when you destroy the educational leadership and when you constantly attack and make enemies of the people you trust to deliver that education.
It's ironic when I read in this throne speech the statement that this government, that has for two and a half solid years done nothing but attack educators, is now going to recognize excellence and achievement by both students and teachers. It's a little late. I find it puzzling that the government says they're now going to shift their attention to ensuring that students have the discipline to learn, and support of parents at home. I don't know what that means as a new priority. There are lots of things out there that the government still needs to deal with. The chaos has not been addressed; the questions haven't been answered.
But they have a new focus: discipline for students and support of parents. Does that mean they're trying to say that students who are struggling to learn just aren't working hard enough? Make them work a little harder and those grades will come up, regardless of any special needs they have? Are they trying to say the parents are to blame, and that's why they have the parents having to be part of this new report card system? I know this government likes to pass the buck, but they have taken total control of education and the buck is going to stop with them whether they like it or not, when the supports that children need to learn aren't there.
The government says: "Don't worry, we've put more money into education. For instance" - and it says it in the throne speech - "we have increased the funding for early childhood education." There are words and allegations we are not allowed to make under parliamentary decorum, so let me simply tell you the facts of early childhood funding: $145 million cut two years ago from junior kindergarten funding; $197 million in new cuts to early childhood education, the junior kindergarten to grade 3 years. There was $102 million put back in, and I think that's what the government means when they say they've increased funding. They forgot about the fact that they cut $300 million, and that $102 million back in, when you cut $300 million, is still not an increase. Call it whatever is allowed under parliamentary decorum, Madam Speaker, but there has been no increase in early childhood education funding here. They cannot erase the record.
But what makes me truly sad is that the legacy of this government's actions will weigh far greater than their words, and it will be the price in lost learning opportunities for thousands of children, young children and adults.
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I would spend a few moments on the whole issue of private sector partnerships, which are of course mentioned in the throne speech, although not nearly to the extent that the Minister of Education has discussed them in recent weeks as he talks about the privatization through leasing of school space; the privatization alternatives for early childhood education; the privatization of custodial services, which perhaps may be forced by this government's funding formula; and indeed the ability of the private sector to provide textbooks, since the government is not providing enough money for textbooks - $50 million for one year only provides one textbook per child, not enough textbooks for an entirely new elementary and secondary school curriculum.
But I'm not going to dwell on that, because I want to take a moment at least on post-secondary education. It should take more than a moment. There should be something in here about post-secondary education. There is one line, one line on page 8. It says, "The government is committed to universities, colleges and apprenticeship and training programs that prepare young adults for future employment." I'd like to think post-secondary education does more than that, but even that statement is not borne out by this government's actions. How can you talk about a commitment to universities and colleges when this is a government that has cut $400 million from colleges and universities and left our university system, at least, the lowest of any province in Canada in its per capita funding? It's absolutely clear that the government has made no commitments to the students of this province. They're making students pay for the cuts the government has made to the colleges and universities.
When the universities and colleges implement the permissive 20% further increase in tuition fees, the increase in tuition for students will top 60%. And that's just the beginning, because beyond that we have a new deregulated environment. We're already starting to see the escalation in tuition fees in graduate programs, professional programs and college diploma programs. The sky is the limit. The government has walked away from any responsibility for controlling either tuition fee increases or student debt load. As tuition fees increase, the student debt load, which is already such a concern, will skyrocket.
The government's answer to that, if there was anything in the throne speech, would have been, "We're going to bring in a new income-contingent repayment plan." It seems to me that was in an earlier throne speech, or maybe it was the last budget. But the banks have said: "I'm sorry, government, we're not prepared to help you with that. We're not prepared to help you with it, because we are already concerned that the student debt load is too great." Even the banks are telling you they cannot finance the kind of student debt you are imposing on the students of this province.
This government's answer was to say: "We'll find some way of doing it, maybe. We won't put it in the throne speech, because obviously we're a little short on delivery here too." In the meantime, they cancelled the loan forgiveness program and they replaced it with something they call a "grant," only the grant has a cap on it. So if you're a single student, all you get now per year to offset your debt, if you're really needy, is about $2,350. If you're a student who has dependent children, you can have a $10,000 grant, up against average debt loads that begin now at $25,000 and are going to increase enormously under a deregulated environment.
The result of this will be an indebted generation of graduates. When the members opposite talk about burdening future generations with debt, let me tell them that this government is guilty of burdening a whole generation of graduating students with a debt that nobody ever imagined they would have to face. Students will not incur that debt. They will not start these programs. They are already suffering, as our leader has said, from sticker shock, because they are afraid to incur the debts and this government is leaving them with no alternative but to incur debt.
I have virtually run out of time. There is so much more to talk about when it comes to education - elementary, secondary, post-secondary. But I think the overall message of this throne speech - what is in the throne speech and maybe even more importantly what's not in the throne speech, what the throne speech says versus what this government has actually done - when it comes to education is that this government is not interested in students, this government isn't truly interested in quality or excellence or giving every student an opportunity to fulfil his or her potential. I'm afraid that the actions of the government and the impact of those actions on our schools and our colleges and universities just don't bear evidence that this government has that concern. This government is interested in cost-cutting and control and in a PR spin that will convince the public that it is about something else. What is truly, truly even more frightening than that is the reality of where this government wants to take education and what that will do to future students in Ontario.
The Deputy Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mr Silipo: I want to compliment the member for Fort William. She spent most of her time, as she said from the outset she was going to do, speaking about what the Harris government is doing to education. As I listened to her comments and the passion and the strength with which she continued her attack on what the Mike Harris government is doing, I found myself time after time agreeing with virtually everything she was saying in terms of the devastation that Mike Harris and his government are causing to our school system, from the school systems here in Toronto right through to the rest of the province. She spoke with clear strength and conviction on that. She and I may have disagreed, have disagreed in fact, on a number of issues in the past, but in this area, in terms of her strong belief that what Mike Harris is doing is wrong, I share that belief.
I have a question I want to put to her, however. I'm sure she will appreciate that part of our role as members of the opposition, particularly now as we are getting into the second part of this mandate, is not just to criticize what Mike Harris is doing - that is part of our role - but our role also involves talking about what it is that we would do. I think we can infer from what the member for Fort William said some of the things she and her government would do if they were to become the government. But I need to come back to this question of how it is that we would pay for this. I think it's a legitimate question that's on the minds of voters, and if the New Democratic Party and her party, the Liberal Party, are talking about reinvesting in education, I think it's only fair that we also say to people where the money is going to come from.
She will know that her leader has very clearly said that they will not reinstate any of the 30% income tax cut that Mike Harris is about to complete putting into place. Our leader on the other hand has made it very clear that if we were to form the government, we would take back the tax cut from that top 6% of taxpayers, which would get us about $1.5 billion, which would go a long way to being able to have the money to reinvest in the kind of education system we want to have.
Mr Galt: I am pleased to have the chance to respond to the member for Fort William. I used to consider her quite an honourable member, but she played rather fast and loose with the facts she was delivering here this evening.
She talked about attacks on educators. All I can say is that with the kind of information she was providing, it's no wonder that educators and unions get upset over what's going on in education. It's very understandable, when you hear that kind of information.
She talked about the funding for adult education being slashed. Wrong. She talked about junior kindergarten funding being slashed. In the upcoming funding formula, it's there, ma'am, it's there. There's excellence and quality of education. There has not been $2 billion cut from education, as she has suggested.
She talked about a reduction in the number of students going into universities and colleges. The Minister of Agriculture can vouch for the fact that there's a significant increase in the number of students applying to and attending agricultural colleges and agricultural universities in this province, so that particular point is certainly not there.
I'd go on, but I see we're out of time.
The Deputy Speaker: Actually, wait a minute. The clock got stuck, but I timed the approximate - if I can have consent, we will deem that to be his two minutes. Can I get consent for that? Agreed? Agreed. I believe he had about two minutes. Okay, your time is up.
The clock is now working, is it?
Interjection.
The Deputy Speaker: Member for Northumberland, sorry. The clock was stuck, but I was timing you and your two minutes were up.
Mr Galt: Are you sure?
The Deputy Speaker: Yes, approximately sure.
Further questions and comments?
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Mr Mike Colle (Oakwood): I would certainly like to give my positive comments and feedback to the member for Fort William for her very thoughtful and very knowledgeable comments about education. I find it amusing that the member for Northumberland tries to depict the member for Fort William as not knowing her education issues. I would dare the member for Northumberland to debate, anywhere, any time the member for Fort William on education. You may know something about your field but I think you know very little about education. I would say it is very clear that the member for Fort William is saying what people all over Ontario are saying, that this government, like you, knows very little about what you've done to education.
You have gutted adult education and systematically gotten rid of a good program where people who could not get a full education as young people now can come back. Your government has gutted it. In Toronto, where we had thousands of young people or adults going back, they can't go back because of your government.
You got rid of junior kindergarten. There are over 20 boards that have got rid of junior kindergarten. Your government kept on saying it was nothing but a glorified babysitting service. Do I now hear you changing your mind about junior kindergarten? Maybe you're beginning to think like in the throne speech where they said, "Oh, maybe we're going to have to study it now with Dr Fraser Mustard."
Now with the new math this government puts on itself, it's going to pretend that things like junior kindergarten count, but people aren't going to buy it because we've seen the results of your gutting of a public education system that needed some fixing. Instead of fixing it, you bulldozed it, and you've got parents and students and teachers under attack because of your attack.
Mr Christopherson: I want to also commend the member for Fort William for her remarks. I think she has quite effectively outlined a number of the major concerns that I would say literally millions of Ontarians share. Her reference to the throne speech in terms of what you say and what you do is entirely accurate. I would add to that by pointing out that on page 6, under "Dialogue with Ontarians," you say that one of the most important contributions that Ontarians make "has been their continued advice and counsel about how to build a brighter future for Ontarians." What a joke.
When you brought in Bill 160 there was an incredible amount of opposition, to the point where there were 126,000 teachers on the street in political protest. You can't tell me that you think they're all NDPers or Liberals. Some of them voted for you. They regret it now, but they did. Then when they got out there, you hoped that the parents would turn on them and you tried your little trick of trying to make the teachers a self-interest group. What happened? Parents came out in droves. They were baking cookies and bringing out hot chocolate and coffee to help them because they believed in the fight to preserve the education system the way it is. Yet you have the audacity to say that one of the most important contributions people make during your regime is to give their continued advice and counsel.
You aren't listening. There are no students out there saying you're doing the right thing. There are no parent groups out there saying you're doing the right thing. There are no teacher groups out there saying that. There are no trustees out there. The only ones saying it are your rich pals who are benefiting from the tax scheme.
Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the comments of my colleagues and I will confess at the outset of these two minutes that I am very emotional when I speak about education. I am unapologetically, passionately committed to the goals of public education, and for the first time in the 30 years that I've been involved in the politics of education, I truly believe the future of public education is threatened and the wellbeing of students threatened along with that.
I spent a year out of politics working with special needs kids and I anguish when I see what special needs students are losing on a daily basis, and I've come to know the adults who are desperate because their chance is being taken away. I care about that and I believe that anybody who would go out and talk to those adults would have to share that kind of caring.
I am emotional because I spend a good part of my week actually going out and talking to the people on the front lines who are trying, despite the constant attack of this government through its words and its actions and its withdrawal of dollars, to deliver a quality of education to our students. I see them demoralized and I know that they feel that they can't close the door and just teach kids any longer because this government keeps getting in the way. They're emotional and I share their emotion.
I simply say to the member for Northumberland that I would be happy any time you have the time to give you a back-to-the-basics - to borrow your government's words - primer on education funding in the funding formula. I will use only your government's own numbers and I will back up every claim that I've made, because while I may be emotional and indeed passionate about education and when I care about what your government is doing to kids, I am not emotional about facts. I am using your government's numbers. You've been giving selective numbers. You're believing your own government's PR spin.
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau): We have the red book, Lyn. We know where you stand.
The Deputy Speaker: Member for Ottawa-Rideau, come to order.
Mr Galt: Would you like us to read the red book?
Mrs McLeod: Yes, I wish you would take it and actually do it. I'd like you to read the part about stable funding for years.
The Deputy Speaker: Order. Further debate?
Mr Christopherson: I appreciate the opportunity to join in the response to the now infamous throne speech. I give the government credit for one thing. You've probably made what is normally a rather dull event in the broader scheme of things in terms of the public into a bona fide celebrity status. I suspect that at some point in time you could sell these suckers.
By beginning, let me just say that there's a saying that when you're dealing with someone you don't trust, get it in writing. Unfortunately, with this government, even that's not enough. If you take a look at what they've put in this throne speech in terms of what they've written and compare it to what they've done, you really do wonder what planet the government was on when they wrote this. This sure doesn't reflect the Ontario that I know. It sure as hell doesn't reflect the Hamilton that I know.
Because of the short time we now have, thanks to the anti-democratic measures of this government, I can only refer to two key areas. One will be the environment as it relates to my community, my home town of Hamilton, and second, the comments that are in here that affect labour as they relate to my critic portfolio.
In opening with the environment, let me point out that, as I said earlier today, we had the Environmental Commissioner's report, just released a few hours ago, a damning condemnation of this government's pathetic track record on watering down, diluting environmental standards and, without question, threatening the health of the very people that earlier members of the Tory caucus said they were so bloody compassionate about.
I want to raise this in terms of my response, because in the executive summary, which runs two pages, one page on each side, my home town of Hamilton is mentioned three times and the Plastimet disaster is also mentioned. That's four references in the executive summary alone that talk about my community and about why I've been on my feet so much with regard to the Plastimet fire and why it's not just a single opposition issue but a huge environmental issue that affects all Ontarians and affects their health. It affects our kids.
You say in your throne speech - this is on page 9; this is what you supposedly undertake to do - "Understanding the role that a clean environment plays in attracting jobs and investment, your government is determined to improve our air and water quality." That's what you said in writing in the throne speech.
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What does the Environmental Commissioner say in today's report? "Overall, environmental health continues to be a very low priority for the ministers of this province. Ministry business plans indicate that ministers are withdrawing from their environmental commitments." "Withdrawing from their environmental commitments," but you say it's "determined to improve our air and water quality." What you say and the way the world is.
Our Environmental Commissioner goes on to say: "More and more, they" - that's you - "are failing to integrate their responsibilities for the environment into their core business plans and into their social, economic and scientific considerations. I remind these ministers that a healthful environment is an important part of a healthy economy and a healthy society." What you say and the reality.
She goes on to say: "I found that in the US new standards set by the Clean Air Act will be mandatory in every state, while in Ontario, our more stringent but unenforceable guidelines for inhalable particulates are regularly exceeded in cities such as Windsor, Hamilton, Toronto, Sault Ste Marie and London. Ontario's focus needs to change from one of granting regulatory relief for polluters to improving its commitments to the environmental health of its residents and the natural environment." I want to repeat that part: "Ontario's focus needs to change from one of granting regulatory relief for polluters...."
What do you say about that? On page 9, you talk about the fact that we as "MPPs will be asked to consider legislation...that eliminates job-killing red tape." I can remember speaking in this place on that very issue, acknowledging that there are sometimes procedures that are old and cumbersome and need to change and that you could legitimately say that's red tape that ought to be cut, but I made the argument that that's not what you were doing, that you were using that as a front to go after the standards that protect workers, protect children and, in this case, protect our environment, and the commissioner has called you on it. You've been caught, red-taped.
She goes on to say, "I found that many well-established monitoring programs were being restructured to cope with reduced resources." We know the slashing that has gone on in the Ministry of the Environment both in terms of its overall budget and the staff that are gone. Those people perform an important function in protecting our environment, but you like to write them off as just a bunch of bureaucrats, public sector people so obviously underworked and overpaid and therefore quite appropriate to be on your chopping block. That's the way you like to phrase these things and spin them out. But here's the reality. What you say and reality.
She goes on to say, "I also found that significant environmental information is not being collected, or if it is being collected, is not being analysed and reported." Of course, there's nobody there to do it. We didn't need those people. Remember? That was all the fat that was in the system. That was part of those thousands of people you were so proud of saying, "We're going to get rid of them." This is what they did.
In some cases, such as the targets for air quality, the monitoring data to assess progress to the targets are not being kept. Some programs such as the Hamilton and Windsor air quality monitoring programs are not even related to any environmental targets. This is the price that the majority of Ontarians are paying for your tax scheme. If you're one of the wealthy, as my leader, Howard Hampton, pointed out earlier today in his response to the throne speech, you're doing quite well, in fact you're gaining, but if you're an ordinary working family, a middle-class family, and God help you if you're below middle class, you're losing on every front.
Now your very health is endangered in terms of the environment around you if you live in one of our older communities, like mine in Hamilton, like those in Windsor and in Sudbury and right here in Toronto. That's the price to be paid. But you don't care, because you can run around and say, "We cut taxes, we cut taxes, we cut taxes." The fact that our environment and now our health is at risk because of it and the fact that property taxes are going up and user fees in every category are going up doesn't matter to you as long as you can run around and say, "We cut taxes, we cut taxes." People are paying a horrendous price for your tax scheme, an incredible price, particularly the people in my home town of Hamilton.
Plastimet: In 1997, I received an application concerning the fire at the Plastimet recycling facility in Hamilton. I found that the Ministry of the Environment failed to explain why the Plastimet operation was considered to be exempt from regulatory requirements. The ministry cited no evidence in support of its contention that a certificate of approval is not required for Plastimet's activities. That was before the fire.
Despite the recommendation of the Ontario fire marshal to strengthen regulatory controls on recycling operations, which the former Solicitor General was out touting as so wonderful and so great and "Don't worry. We've taken care of everything. There's nothing to worry about any more," she goes on to say the Ministry of the Environment "does not agree that this is needed." So you come up with these regulations, and then when you're asked to enforce them, you say they're not needed. When every credible entity around the issue of Plastimet says there ought to be a public inquiry, your minister stonewalls.
Today he tried to say, "There might be some things that happened between 1990 and 1995 that might come out" - sort of looking at me across the House saying, "Hey, Dave, you want to be careful here because stuff is going to come out." Hey, whatever has to come out should come out and, quite frankly, as a Hamiltonian, I don't care whether it was the Liberals, the New Democrats or you. This is not a game of gotcha; this is an early warning. The canary just died, folks. We came so close to so many innocent people becoming at the very least very ill and possibly dying. There were 400 tonnes of this stuff that burned and it generated dioxins, and still your Minister of the Environment says, "Oh, no, we don't need a public inquiry." This document alone, seeing it as the culmination of all the people who have called for a public inquiry, should either force that minister to call a public inquiry or to resign in disgrace.
In the few minutes I have remaining, I want to move on to a labour issue that you raised in the speech from the throne. It didn't get an awful lot of coverage, for a lot of reasons. You say, in fact in the same sentence where you're talking about eliminating that job-killing red tape - don't forget what the environment minister said about red tape. The fact is those are regulations; they protect people - but in same sentence you create that fantasy universe, you go on to say that you're going to present us with legislation that further "amends labour legislation, particularly as it affects the construction industry." God help construction workers in Ontario when Mike Harris says, "I'm going to change legislation that affects your working life," because, let there be no doubt, every time you have touched a piece of labour legislation, some group of workers somewhere has lost some rights.
You further state - this almost deserves an award of its own - "Only excellence will guarantee our children the opportunities of decent, well-paying jobs." Decent, well-paying jobs? Every time you see one, you kill it. You've got thousands of decent, well-paying jobs right here in the public sector.
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Remember the people who used to do the monitoring in the Ministry of Environment, the people who used to do the inspections, the people who used to do the analysis? They, by and large, had decent, well-paying jobs. Where are they? Where are the jobs?
Mrs Helen Johns (Huron): - the private sector.
Mr Christopherson: I hear one of the members hollering. I was waiting for it. Thank you; you were right on cue. I couldn't have set it up better. Talk about the private sector. Oh, yeah. You're going to talk to me about what you're going to do vis-à-vis public sector jobs going into the private sector as I'm talking about your comment about decent, well-paying jobs.
You brought in Bill 7, which was a brand-new Ontario Labour Relations Act, and in that document you took away the successor rights of every public sector Ontarian who worked for the province of Ontario. What does that mean? It means that when you privatize those jobs, the collective agreement does not go with the jobs, unlike virtually every other workplace in the province, whether it's private or public. That's a right that workers fought for and that workers have. You took that right away.
Why did you do it? Because you're planning to privatize those jobs, and to make it more attractive to your wealthy corporate pals, you're making sure the collective agreement is dead so that the decent wages that you talk about can't be maintained, so that the benefits that those workers have earned can't be maintained, so that the grievance procedures that those workers earned can't be maintained. That's why you brought in Bill 7 and it contains a denial of successor rights, and then you have the absolute hypocrisy and audacity to say that you guarantee and that you care about decent, well-paying jobs.
You're the same government that refuses to even consider moving the minimum wage. By the way, the United States has now surpassed us, by the time you take the exchange value of the dollars. Their minimum wage is now above ours. You refuse to even consider it. What did one of your ministers say earlier on in the government? It was a big slip. He said, "We're not going to raise that until everybody else catches up with us." What that means is that you want to make sure you can legitimize paying workers who don't have benefit of a union the lowest possible wage that can be paid. But you talk about decent, well-paying jobs.
Remember the cleaning staff that had a collective agreement that paid something close to decent, well-paying jobs? It wasn't an awful lot of money, as I recall, but it was above your minimum wage. You eliminated their union; you eliminated their collective agreement security. It was virtually privatized or went to another organization. In fact, we brought in legislation to prevent that sort of thing from happening. Even though it had been the practice, we codified it and put it in law. You took it out. The people who go around and clean up after you, who pick up the garbage on the floor and wipe your desks, the very people who work in these precincts, these buildings, you lowered their wages by almost half. You did that. Every one of you who stood up and voted for that bill had a hand in cutting the quality of life of those workers, and then again, I say, you have the nerve to talk about opportunities of decent, well-paying jobs?
Employment standards, virtually the workers' bill of rights if you don't have the benefit of a collective agreement: You've taken away rights from workers in the Employment Standards Act. We proved that when we took it out across the province. You took away some of the rights of those workers who have no union, no protection except one piece of legislation. But you want us to believe that you care about decent, well-paying jobs.
And then there are scabs. We now have the blight again of scabs in this province. Those workers up at S.A. Armstrong are still on strike: almost two years on strike. Why? Because the company can bring in scabs. There are scabs brought across that picket line, that democratic picket line, every morning. Those workers watch someone go in and do their job and keep that company going.
What's the effect of that? The effect of that is to weaken the ability of those workers to negotiate a decent collective agreement and decent wages. That's what's happening, and you knew that. That's why you did it. You sent out a message to employers: "It's okay. Go after the unions, because we're going to back you up."
Maple Leaf Foods: Those workers lost almost half their wages. I say that was as much to do with the Harris government as it was with the owners of that company, because you sent out the message that it was okay to go after workers.
Mr Baird: Call the teachers' unions. Call the shareholders.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Gary L. Leadston): The member for Nepean, order.
Mr Christopherson: Every other labour dispute in this province can be directly related back to the climate that you set for relations, and it's only meant to weaken unions.
And now lucky construction workers. In your throne speech, they get the next pleasure of your legislative largess.
In closing, I want to read from the speech from the throne. It says, "To these Ontarians, a solemn pledge: Your government remembers." Let me tell you -
The Acting Speaker: Thank you very much, member for Hamilton Centre.
Mr Christopherson: - Ontarians will remember too.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Northumberland.
Mr Galt: I was certainly entertained. I'd give that about a 5.9 for presentation.
Interjection: On the Richter scale.
Mr Galt: On the Richter scale.
The member for Hamilton Centre talks so passionately about the unions. I think that's very thoughtful when the unions were the ones that drove them out of office. He's able to overlook that and continue to pound away on labour laws for them. Meanwhile, they became their enemies and they drove them out. They just wouldn't understand what Bob Rae was trying to do to straighten out this economy.
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): The social contract.
Mr Galt: The social contract. I didn't exactly agree with the social contract, but at least it was something to try and help the spiralling debt and the spiralling deficit. But you guys in cabinet and in caucus didn't want to support him.
You talked a lot about the environment. I've heard so often over in the ministry that this government, in the first year and a half, has done more for the environment to help it and improve it than the previous two governments did in 10 years. That's factual information.
What did your government do about waste energy incinerators? You banned them. Well, that's a pretty mature way of going about it. What did we do? We brought in the G-7 guidelines to look after them. They can be there. It's an alternative way of handling garbage after the three Rs. But no, your approach was to ban it.
What did this government do about regulations? We had a look at them. We streamlined them. We reorganized them. Now people can understand them and can follow them. They don't try to do end runs around the complicated set of regulations that you left when we took office. You had regulations that looked like the logs and the branches that are built into a beaver dam or into a beaver lodge, all twisted and caught and one on top of another; you go to remove one and it makes a whole mess of all of the others. That's the kind of regulations that you left piled one on top of another. We're straightening them out.
We put through an environmental assessment bill so that we could get on with business and protect the environment. But I heard your people say: "No, no. The way to protect the environment is to make it as complex and as stupid as you possibly can so that nobody can understand."
And on it went, and on and on.
Mr Cullen: I'm pleased to follow in this debate and provide some comments on the member for Hamilton Centre's reply to the speech from the throne. He did touch upon a subject that we don't find in the speech from the throne, and that is the environment. I find it very curious.
Here we have a government going through extensive polling, extensive focus groups, trying to refine its message, trying to get back on track and delay the reconvening of this House because it found that it was falling in the polls. It found that the public did not like the way it was handling the major issues of the day: health care, education, child poverty, the environment.
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I note that the member for Hamilton Centre did dwell some time on the issue of the environment. Quite frankly, the points that he made are very telling points. This is indeed a government that has cut $121 million from the Ministry of Environment. This is indeed a government that has gutted 42% of the budget for that particular ministry and has gutted environmental regulation, the enforcement of the people's will to protect the environment here in Ontario.
I am truly surprised, though, that the government turns its back on an issue that's so very important to the community. I know, coming from Ottawa-Carleton, we've gone through an official plan review exercise. We went and spoke to the people, we employed professional pollsters, and we found that a top-of-mind issue. Protecting the environment, preserving green space, was a major issue. You talk to the average voter and they want to make sure their government is fighting to protect the public interest so that we can live in a clean, healthy world.
We don't see this in the speech from the throne, one of the glaring omissions in the speech from the throne. Why is this? Because even this government can't face the fact that it has taken so much away from the environment. Why? To fund an income tax cut. It's wrong.
Mr Silipo: I'm pleased to have an opportunity to comment on the presentation made by my colleague from Hamilton West. I think his presentation demonstrated clearly why he has been and continues to be for our caucus a very strong and vocal advocate for working people across the province and certainly in his own community of Hamilton.
I know, time being short, he focused in his comments very much on what was happening with respect to the environment, again particularly as it relates to his own community in Hamilton and the issue he has raised time after time in this House, which is the aftermath of the fire in the Plastimet plant in Hamilton and the fact that the Environmental Commissioner has denounced the actions that this government has taken, or rather the lack of action, in this case, that this government has taken on this and on many other issues.
He used this very good example to point out how the government in the throne speech says one thing and the reality out there is completely the opposite. He talked about that in the context of the environmental issue, in the context of regulations that don't exist any more, workers who don't exist any more to enforce those regulations.
He talked also of course about the ongoing attack on working people that Mike Harris and his government will continue, not only the damage they have done through Bill 7 and through all of the other anti-labour legislation, but the damage that's yet to come with the attack now on people in the construction industry.
I know that had the member had more time, he would have been able to expand on those issues and talk about some of the other issues, whether it's education or health care or whether in fact it's the alternative view of the world that we in the New Democratic Party are beginning to put forward, which is that services like health care and environmental protection require support and require public dollars at the end of the day for that support to mean something of a real nature.
Mr Baird: I listened with great interest to the speech by my colleague the member for Hamilton Centre. He went on about the changes in labour relations that this government introduced. But if you look at the record of what was actually contained in Bill 7, it has provided some balance and stability to labour relations in the province, which has been very central to job creation. We had skewed the balance from the very delicate balance that existed for many years, and that has been central to sending out a message around the world that the province of Ontario is once again open for business.
This member talks about labour relations and democracy. He actually did not agree with the concept, as we on this side of the House agreed, that workers should be able to have a secret ballot to make the choice themselves whether they did or did not want to join a union, whether they did or did not want to decertify a union, whether they did or did not want to accept a collective agreement. This government doesn't take a position on whether workers should be unionized or non-unionized. We believe that decision should rest with the workers themselves, that they are best equipped to make the decisions on that area within their own lives.
But while I may disagree with the honourable member, I do respect him. He certainly is a passionate voice for the concerns of the left in this place.
I disagree with him when he talks about the economy. You look at his statements about where the Ontario economy is going. We've seen in the province of Ontario that more jobs have been created in the last 12 months than in any other 12 months in our history. We've seen some phenomenal economic growth.
I look at one pre-budget submission we saw from Dr Sherry Cooper, with Nesbitt Burns. Her conclusion: "I believe we are on the right fiscal and economic track. The government has successfully broken the tax-and-spend patterns of the past decade and deserves high marks for doing so. What is left essentially is to stay the course of deficit and debt reduction, a course that will undoubtedly enhance living standards for all Ontarians by providing stable income growth and job security."
The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): The member for Hamilton Centre has two minutes to respond.
Mr Christopherson: I thank my colleagues from Ottawa West, Dovercourt, Nepean and Northumberland.
With respect to the comments of the member for Ottawa West, I think it's important for us to understand that it's obviously not just the older communities like mine in Hamilton and Windsor and Sudbury, but even expanding suburban areas like Ottawa that are affected by your attack on environmental standards and rights in this province. I appreciate him pointing that out and adding that to the debate.
My colleague from Dovercourt - again, we've begun to talk about our alternatives, which we should at this point in the government's mandate. One of them is that we would love to run around and say: "There won't be any kind of tax increase at all. In fact, you can cut your way to success." But the fact of the matter is that the money has to come from somewhere. What we've said is that at the very least, those who got the biggest benefit from the tax scheme ought to be the ones who contribute back in to make sure there is enough money for the education system, for our health care system. That's not to say that we're going to hit the middle class; quite the opposite. We're going to hit those who are doing quite well by the system, and they can and should put the money forward to make sure that those systems are there for all of us.
The member for Nepean likes to bring out his stuff from back in the horror days when he was the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour and the secret ballot stuff. He knows bloody well that was something that was brought out by the Tories in the late 1940s, that was maintained through every government, the whole process of automatic certification through cards. You've just tried to spin that out. At this point I'm surprised you would even attempt it, given the cynicism that's out there about your labour agenda.
The member for Northumberland, when you say you talked to people in the ministry who are saying that you're so much better than we ever were in our whole time, do me a favour like you did with the rest of the throne speech: Name names.
The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. Further debate? The Chair recognizes the member for Hamilton West.
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): I'd like to ask for unanimous consent to share my time with the member for High Park-Swansea.
The Acting Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.
Mrs Ross: Before I begin, I think it was a slip of the tongue when the member for Dovercourt referred to Mr Christopherson as the member for Hamilton West. I just wanted to clarify that in fact I'm proud to be the member for Hamilton West and to serve that riding.
Today I'm rising in support of the very positive messages that were laid out in the throne speech delivered last Thursday.
Three years ago our province, which was once the engine that drove the economy of Canada, teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. Its international credit rating had been downgraded because of the careless mismanagement of the previous two governments.
Today, thanks to the sound and responsible policies which were laid out in the Common Sense Revolution and the courageous leadership of Premier Mike Harris, Ontario's future is once again bright and continues to improve. Our economy is flourishing. Consumers are spending, builders are building, businesses are profitable once again and are hiring, and the welfare rolls are shrinking.
As the throne speech pointed out, Ontario has the fastest job creation rate in Canada. This is something we should all be very proud of. Since September 1995, there have been 341,000 new jobs created by Ontario's private sector. People are coming back to Ontario because Ontario is coming back for them.
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Indeed, I have seen evidence of Ontario's reinvigorated economy in my own riding of Hamilton West. Perhaps the members of the Legislature won't have seen the Hamilton Spectator, because unfortunately good news in Hamilton doesn't spread to Toronto, but this is the business section -
Mr Christopherson: Is that a picture of me and Howie? Ours was on A3. Where's yours?
Mrs Ross: This is the business section of the Wednesday, April 22, paper. Perhaps the member for Hamilton Centre didn't see this, because it's good news. There is a great picture of Hamilton, the community we're all proud of.
The headline says: "We're Tops For Business." "Hamilton Outranks Toronto, Ottawa for Best City in Ontario." The article goes on to say:
"Hamilton is the best place among six major cities studied in Ontario for doing business....
"The ranking is highlighted in a breakdown of a study done for the Ontario government by professional services firm KPMG last fall....
"When all costs used in the survey model were tallied up and indexed out..., Hamilton's rating...is the lowest of the Ontario cities surveyed."
I'm very proud of the accomplishments seen in my community of Hamilton and I think we should all be very proud. To those of us in Hamilton who feel tremendous pride in our community, this news doesn't come as a big surprise. But as proud as I am of Hamilton and of the people of Hamilton, the good news isn't only in Hamilton. In a recent study conducted by the Fraser Institute to determine which provinces possess the best investment climate and the best conditions to foster economic growth, Ontario finished at the top of the list, garnering 81% positive responses in the survey.
The article states: "Money managers indicated that taxation policy and government finances were the principal reasons. In addition, respondents highlighted Ontario's more flexible labour legislation as a positive contribution to the province's success." So not only are we proud, but other people in Ontario are very proud of what's going on in this province.
One of the keys to success for any economy is an educated workforce. For too long, Ontario's students obtained results that were only adequate or mediocre in comparison to other parts of the world. Our government finds this unacceptable. We have committed to the goal of excellence when it comes to educating Ontario's students. With the new funding formula recently announced, our education system will be able to focus on the classroom. Technology, standardized testing and the recognition of excellence by students and teachers are all key components to improving the system.
This government is committed to children. That is why the Honourable Margaret Marland, minister responsible for children, will be working with Dr Fraser Mustard, world-renowned expert, to conduct a study of early learning in order to make recommendations on how to best prepare our children for a lifetime of learning.
A successful province must also be a healthy province. That is why this government has increased health care funding to its highest level in history. In fact, contrary to what the opposition would have you believe, we have not cut health care. We are spending more than any other government in the history of this province. Indeed, that is something we should all be proud of as well.
When this government took office, our health care system was in desperate need of restructuring. Experts in the field knew that and commented on that as well. We knew it was going to be a big job and we knew it was going to be tough and that not everyone was going to be happy. But most important, we knew that to ensure its future existence we had to make changes to the health care system. This government has heard the concerns of the people of this province and is responding accordingly. This government is committed to new funding for more long-term-care facilities, new increases in community and home care funding and even more consideration in funding for seniors and other members of our rapidly aging society.
That is why today's announcement by the Minister of Health of a $1.2-billion commitment to improve long-term care, the first announcement of new long-term-care beds since 1988, is further evidence of our government's commitment to respond to a health care system that will be there for everyone in Ontario when they need it at every stage of their lives, as the health minister has stated. All of these initiatives are indications of the early benefits our citizens will receive from a more efficient and restructured health care system.
Ontario's recovery is all about change, not just change for the sake of change but responsible change, change for the better, change for the future. The changes this government has made ensure that the essential services which Ontarians depend on will be around for generations to come.
Cutting taxes to create jobs; cutting red tape to let business do what it does best, red tape that existed 30 years ago that should have been changed a long time ago; making welfare work for people by putting recipients into the workforce, where they want to be; making our communities safe; refocusing our education system by putting more money in the classroom, where it belongs; and restructuring our health care system to better serve Ontario's sick and elderly - these are all changes that help make Ontario great.
Change is never easy. As a matter of fact, it's really quite difficult. But we have all heard the people of Ontario, and we are listening. This government cares about the citizens of this province and their future. If there is one message the people of Ontario should take from last week's throne speech, it is not the negative diatribe you're hearing from the opposition but the positive commitment this government is making to Ontario to make it the best place in the world to live. The future holds great promise, not just for our young people but indeed for all Ontarians across the province. I'm proud to be a member of this government, with the throne speech that was announced last week.
The Acting Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for High Park-Swansea.
Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea): I am not at all surprised that my colleague has given such a comprehensive overview of the speech from the throne. Her comments are always insightful and they're always offered with pinpoint accuracy. I am pleased to lend my comments to hers today. In fact, I'm pleased she made some particular reference to the health care announcements that have been made recently.
Indeed, I suppose I have been provoked to make an intervention this evening, because just a matter of a few hours ago one of the members in this chamber, the member for York South, perhaps spread a series of inaccuracies and distortions that he might not have been aware of. He may well find himself being driven from his riding to another, trying to seek other places to hang his hat. I wish he'd get his facts accurate, however. He began to speak, for example, about something I've been working on for at least five or eight years, and I speak of Runnymede hospital. I'm glad the member for Hamilton West spoke about chronic care and the announcement made today with some passion.
I want to pause on that point, because I think some accuracy has to be brought into the debate today. Let me use Runnymede hospital as a case in point. It was the Liberal government of the day, under a Premier by the name of Peterson, who said to the people of High Park-Swansea, who had brought to his attention the urgent need for a new health care facility for chronic care, that if the people of High Park-Swansea would raise $10 million, the government of the day would match $20 million and a new facility would be built. That was a promise.
I listened today with more than a little aggravation and annoyance to the member for York South begin to suggest that this government has given too little too late and is not caring for the patients in Runnymede hospital. I found that offensive in the extreme. The fact is that if that member's party had really cared they would have provided a new facility more than 10 years ago, and the people he was pleading for today would have been housed, along with their families, in facilities they rightfully deserve. They would have been in those facilities 10 years ago, because the people of High Park-Swansea took up the challenge and raised $10 million and the government of the day didn't honour its commitment. They didn't honour the commitment. Now, is that bad enough?
Let me tell you, that isn't the end of the story. The next government came in, and the next government perpetuated that promise. It said: "Not a problem. You've got the $10 million. We'll have the $20 million. You'll have a new facility." In that very difficult facility, for many years the finest medical and nursing staff have struggled to give the finest kind of health care you could think of while that government also turned its back upon the people of High Park-Swansea and said, "Well, not now," and then they hid behind the health care restructuring study they had set up. The people of High Park-Swansea saw through that façade.
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I'm holding the Minister of Health accountable to the promises of that Liberal government and of the NDP government. I want to make it very clear, because I want the people in that community and I want the patients of that community to have the facility they rightfully deserve. I want to see a new facility built on that site for the chronic care patients, for the long-term-care patients who require decent care.
I don't want to hear men and women of this Legislative Assembly using names to embarrass patients unnecessarily and to create fearmongering among patients and staff when in fact they know that this announcement by the minister today and by this government holds out tremendous hope that for the first time we are about to see the long-term-care needs of this province addressed effectively.
I won't put up with that kind of nonsense being spewed forth into this chamber. I will not allow any member of this chamber, my party or any other party, to upset any patients or their families unnecessarily and unfairly. In fact, the statements that were made in this House were simply unfounded and should have been withdrawn.
The people of High Park-Swansea demand and expect a new facility for Runnymede hospital. I have every reason to believe that at least this government, of all governments of the past, will in fact honour commitments made by former governments, and I appreciate that. In fact, I will hold their feet to the coals to make that happen.
I expect to see a new facility emerge on the site of Runnymede hospital and I expect to see our patients receiving the kind of care they richly deserve. I expect to see the medical and nursing staff working in facilities that they rightfully deserve to work in. I expect to see the right kind of treatment for our patients who are suffering from MS and Huntington's, receiving the kind of care they must have, and I expect that the announcement made today by the government holds out the finest hope we have seen in more than a decade in this province.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Cullen: I'm pleased to rise in response to comments made by the member for Hamilton West and the member for High Park-Swansea.
Listening to the comments of the member for Hamilton West, she's clearly a defender of the government and believes that all is well in Lotusland. The reality is that out there in Mike Harris's Ontario, many people are suffering from the impact of this government's policies, and these are policies that I'm not so sure I'd be so proud to have continue. But this government has said in its speech from the throne that it intends to stay the course, which means that in a deficit situation where it's going to come in with another income tax cut, we can expect more cuts to the programs that Ontarians want in their hospitals, in their health care, in their schools.
I was more than taken by the comments of the member for High Park-Swansea, who takes great umbrage about the use of names less than a week after we had a speech from the throne where this government threw out people's names left, right and centre. Lo and behold, a minister of the crown had to resign his post because of the inadvertent illegal use of a name. To hear a member of the government side say that the member for York South should not be doing so, when the member for York South has permission, is absolutely astounding.
Further, the member for High Park-Swansea talks about the new announcement for long-term care. I am absolutely amazed that he is hoping Runnymede hospital may be the beneficiary of this. Let us remember that what the government has announced is 20,000 beds over eight years and today there are 18,000 people waiting for those beds. Some of those people waiting for those beds will not live to use them. Why is this government so slow in reacting to the need out there? Why is this government taking so much money away from our health care system and then spending eight years to put it back in?
Mr Christopherson: I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the comments of the member for Hamilton West. Three quick things: One, the member talked proudly about the article in the Hamilton Spectator that spoke to the benefits of investing in Hamilton and what a great place that is to invest and then proceeded to take credit for it. I would strongly suggest that she ask the mayor of the city of Hamilton and the council members how they feel this government has contributed to any benefit in our community and just how much damage, in reality, they've really done.
Second, she spent a lot of time talking about health and spoke to the concerns that she and this government have about health. Yet when it comes to the health and safety of workers, you have to ask yourself, where is the caring? I'd like to point out another Hamilton Spectator article in today's paper. The heading is "Day of Mourning Draws Attention to Workers' Deaths on the Job." There is a picture of my leader Howard Hampton and myself, who were there at the ceremony. More important, there were no other MPPs there. We have four Tory MPPs. If they care so much about health, why weren't they there to pay their respects to those workers who have died or were injured on the job? Isn't that health care too?
Last, she talked about the courageous leadership of Mike Harris. When it comes to Plastimet, I'd like to know whether she continues to support the courageous leadership of Mike Harris and their environment minister in refusing to call a public inquiry, or whether she disagrees and admits she's ineffective as a government member in getting out the best interests of Hamilton. Either way, that's not good enough for Hamilton.
Mr Gilchrist: I'm pleased to rise and give a couple of minutes' comment in response to the speech made by both the member for Hamilton West and the member for High Park-Swansea who again, as is appropriate in this debate, spoke to the throne speech itself, spoke to the content of that important document, spoke to the direction the province of Ontario is going to take and didn't get sidetracked on personal issues that are great for grandstanding, and particularly, unlike the last Liberal member, didn't go down the road of committing an unparliamentary act by accusing another member of committing an illegal act in here. He should be ashamed of himself.
The fact of the matter is that the throne speech was an important document. I'm quite intrigued that the members opposite are spending so much time talking about issues that aren't in that document. They can't find it within themselves to criticize the important numbers in there, numbers such as 341,000 net new full-time jobs, numbers like 250,000 people who have been taken off dependency on the welfare system. Imagine that, a quarter of a million people who now have a more prosperous outlook in their life, a prosperous outlook for their family. In fact, in some places, like Peel region, the welfare rolls have dropped by 50% in just three years. That's what the throne speech had to say, but that's not what they're commenting on over here.
They don't dare comment on that, because they'd have to agree that everything that has happened in the economy of Ontario in the last three years has been in a positive direction. We've got economists like Sherry Cooper saying they support the government's move to reduce the tax burden on households and small business. Just last week the leader of the third party came out and said that the tax cuts don't help anybody earning less than $80,000. Well, I hate to burst your bubble. One day later, on our panel on the same radio station, Frances Lankin had to retract that and said her own leader was not telling the truth.
Mr Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott and Russell): It's a pleasure for me to rise and respond to the honourable member for Hamilton West. She referred in her speech to job creation. Let me tell you one thing. We have to look at the interest rate side too, because without having the federal Liberals in power, probably wouldn't we have as many jobs created as we have.
Second, in the speech we referred to Quebec construction issues. She referred to job creation. The minister today made an announcement of building new homes or renovation of nursing homes, referring to create 42,500 jobs. I wonder how many of those jobs are going to be for Ontario residents. If you look at the Ottawa-Hull area, 58% of the jobs that were created in the construction field in the last three years have been fulfilled by Quebec residents. This government has done nothing about it. When I say it has done nothing about it, on December 6, 1996, we signed an agreement but the agreement - I remember the newspaper got back to me. They said, "Jean-Marc, you don't answer to this?" I said, "No, there's nothing in this."
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This company Mirtech from Oakville was the lowest bidder on some of the work to be done in Hull - 2,000 in Hull and 2,000 in Vanier. They were the lowest bidder by $183,000. This government said they made an agreement with Quebec that you don't have to have an office in Quebec, but because Mirtech did not have an office in Quebec, they were disqualified three months after.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): The member's time has expired. The member for Hamilton West has two minutes to respond.
Mrs Ross: I want to thank the members for Ottawa West, Prescott and Russell, Scarborough East and Hamilton Centre for their comments. I focused on the throne speech because it was a very positive message. I focused on this article in the Hamilton Spectator because I'm aware that this kind of good news doesn't get to Toronto and I wanted to make people understand that Hamilton is a viable, living, growing, developing community and I'm proud to be a member of that community.
I think our government should take credit for these things that are happening in Ontario. It's our pro-growth, pro-jobs policies that are causing Ontario to create more jobs than any other province in this country so we should be proud of that.
I want to tell you about things that are happening in Hamilton, and the member for Hamilton Centre never speaks about this. The lowest unemployment rate across this country is consistent in Hamilton. We should be proud of that. We should be blowing our horn about it.
Mr Christopherson: No thanks to you.
Mrs Ross: Yes, thanks to us, because of our good policies that are bringing people to Ontario.
Let me tell you about some of the things that are happening in Hamilton. I was proud to take the Minister of Labour to a small business in Hamilton called Advanced Welding. The owner there, Mr Ken Tucker, trains people. He listens to industries, goes out to industries, speaks to industries, finds out what their needs are and he comes back and trains people, getting good jobs paying well over minimum wage, $80,000 jobs. A man from Czechoslovakia just found a job out of Advanced Welding. Those are the kinds of things that Hamiltonians do to provide jobs to people in our country, and I'm darned proud of it.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Gravelle: Thank you to my colleagues for being so kind. I'm very glad to join the debate in response to the speech from the throne. It will give me an opportunity to talk about a number of things that the government members seem to want to avoid talking about.
I think what ultimately is most interesting about the speech from the throne is what's not in it. There's a lot that's not in it, and I think it's certainly understandable that the government members would want to trumpet their spin on the speech from the throne, but they really are in a state of denial. One of the conclusions I reached not that long ago - I've been hoping that this government, like all governments, would recognize that some of the things they are doing are truly hurting people and that they need to stop those things that are hurting people. I was hoping they would turn around and change their approach, but I've come very much to the conclusion that ultimately this is a government that in essence is irritated by the responsibilities of government. They don't want to be a government that is responsible for the health care of all the people of this province. They don't want to be responsible for the education system and all that entails. In fact they are irritated by the process. They simply find it an onerous and, as I said, irritating process.
I believe what they've misunderstood is that in many cases that is truly what the purpose of government is. The purpose of government is to care about people, to look after the concerns of all the people of this province. It's very, very clear when one looks at the approach this government has taken that that is not the way they view it at all. I feel proud to say that indeed I believe that is the purpose of government. It is to represent the interests of all the people and to care about all the people, and I believe that a good government can do that. You do that by recognizing that it's people who have to come first. It's not just the bottom line; it's people who must come first. That's where you set your priorities.
As I said, there are a number of things in the speech from the throne that aren't there. They simply aren't there. We certainly know that, in terms of the health care field, we haven't heard any of the government members talking about the fact that 32 hospitals have closed or are closing, the fact that there are now user fees being paid by seniors that should not have been paid, especially when Mike Harris made it very clear there would be no new user fees, let alone the fact he made it very, very clear that he had no intention of closing any hospitals. We know what's happened there.
We've seen what's happened with Bill 26, which formed the Health Services Restructuring Commission. We've seen what has happened with that: a government trying to avoid its responsibilities for the health care system by trying to put together an arm's-length organization, which is by no means at arm's length. We've seen what's happened with that and we've seen how much it has hurt people.
I think every one of us in this House has talked to constituents, regardless of what party we're from, who have been very, very hurt by the enormous and the devastating cuts to the health care system. We know what's happened in terms of the number of acute care beds that have been cut from our hospitals. It seems to me that these are aspects of the reality of governing this government should not be allowed to ignore and should not be allowed to forget about.
With the limited amount of time that I have tonight, I want to talk about a number of areas. What bothered me most significantly was - despite the government's approach in the speech from the throne which, in essence, was nothing but an exercise in public relations puffery - there were some very important elements left out. In the area of health care, it was startling to me, and I think significant, that there was no mention of mental health care, absolutely no mention.
We know that as a result of what has happened with the deconstruction commission a number of psychiatric hospitals are going to be closed in this province if they get their way. One of the psychiatric hospitals is in Thunder Bay. As we also know, the number of available psychiatric hospital beds has been cut. We also know that, as a result of that, in many parts of the province it's very, very difficult to retain and keep a lot of the doctors and many of the psychiatrists that we need to maintain a certain level of health care.
I can speak about the situation in Thunder Bay, not too much from a position of authority but from a relatively informed position, for a number of reasons. It's very upsetting to watch what's happening. It makes one think, based on this government's behaviour, that they simply don't want to deal with what they believe to be people who are not in the mainstream of society. People with mental health problems deserve to have help and have health care in exactly the same manner.
In Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario, because of the fact that we have a reduced number of psychiatric beds and because those beds are often completely full and because we do not have an emergency shelter or a psychiatric shelter for people for overnight purposes for those who need to be protected or detained, what has happened in northwestern Ontario is that ultimately many people who need that protection or help are put into the district jail. In this province, it's extraordinary to think that we cannot provide the level of care that we need so that those people who need that care and need protection, need help that night, are not able to be put into a facility and receive the help they deserve. That, to me, is a mark that this government should at least acknowledge and recognize.
I know that the Minister of Health has undertaken a review of the mental health care system and I acknowledge that. I'm glad she has done so. But it's important to state that she needs to recognize that the review must also take in how one deals with the situation right now. There is a crisis in the mental health care area right now in the provision of mental health services.
If my information is correct - and I could stand corrected - the review will focus on how they can continue the process of deinstitutionalization. Perhaps those on the government bench, their back bench, will correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that is the approach that's being taken.
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Although one certainly cannot argue against more community supports being in place and allowing people to have an opportunity to be in the community and to work in the community, and deinstitutionalization itself is a laudable concept, it needs to be understood extremely clearly that unless those community supports are in place, we do not now have the facilities to look after the people who need the help right now. As a result of that, we've got these tragic circumstances that are taking place. It's just not fair to anyone, and I would hope the minister would take that seriously.
There are a variety of other areas that I want to talk about. That is one that certainly is missing. There are some other notable gaps in the throne speech. In 1995, Mike Harris promised the disabled community that he would bring forward legislation to proclaim an Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It was a promise that was made, it's a promise that was put in writing and it's a promise that has not been kept.
It's truly astonishing to me, and may I say that since that has happened, since the government has come into power, there has been a private member's bill put forward by the member for London Centre which was calling for the government to move forward on its Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It was supported by all three parties in this Legislature and by a vote, I believe, of 57 to zero. I think that indicates that indeed the government members also agree that we should be bringing forward that piece of legislation.
I would hope the government members would accept their obligation and try and persuade the minister responsible and the Premier to bring forward that legislation. It was a promise made. One presumes it was made seriously. One doesn't need to be cynical about it, but I hope it wasn't done simply to garner votes. I would like to believe that it was the case, but it certainly is alarming to see that it was not in the throne speech because one recognizes this may indeed be the last throne speech before an election campaign. I would certainly hope that the fact that it's not in the throne speech isn't the end of the story, but it makes one worry about it.
I know that before the throne speech the Ontarians with Disabilities Act committee put together a brief. They decided that they really wanted to help the government at least put forward legislation and they put together a brief that brought forward a number of the areas they thought needed to come forward. They invited the Premier and they invited the minister responsible for disability issues to meet them at Queen's Park, and the Premier and the minister did not show up, which was again unfortunate and again sent a wrong signal or a bad signal. I would really hope again that the members on the government side would encourage the Premier and the minister to not let this one go. This is important and I think it's one that absolutely should be in place. I would hope that it is not a death knell, but again it was something that was missing in the throne speech. If it's not in the throne speech, I don't think one tends to expect it to be brought forward, but we are strongly hopeful that it still will be and that's the approach that I will take.
Again, it's a question only of which areas we sort of discuss in terms of what's in there and what's not in there. Certainly it was interesting in the throne speech - I mean there was always a great amount of bragging in the Legislature by the government members about the number of people they've managed to kick off welfare or social assistance. There's always a great pride in terms of what they view as the fiscal reality, although I don't know if there should be a great deal of pride in that one. Indeed, the debt in the province is going to be increasing by at least $20 billion as a result of their desire to continue on with the tax cut.
But I think it's important to recognize that the legislation that has created Ontario Works and the Ontario disability support program deserves some discussion in this Legislature. The regulations for Bill 142, which created Ontario Works, have just come out and in fact have just come into effect as of May 1, as I think everyone knows. This is an unusual sort of process. There was great urgency, it seems, to pass this legislation, but then there was an enormous delay before the regulations were brought into place. Mind you, we discovered to some degree why that was the case because the regulations themselves are in many cases punitive and very, very cruel and make it very, very clear this government truly is far more comfortable in essence attacking those people who are on social assistance than they are caring about how they really can help them get back into the workplace.
It's really quite extraordinary. We certainly know the Premier's quote about the $37 allowance for women who are pregnant being cut off because he was afraid it would be used for beer. It was incredibly offensive and it was unkind and it was cruel. Indeed, it's extraordinarily important that we do whatever we can to help people in that position.
Some of the regulations are really pretty interesting and seem strange to me. The new rules say that the monetary value of goods and services received is included as income. That's help from family and friends, the value of food or meals provided, and any bartering done between recipients must legally be reported and deducted from the allowance. If two mothers trade babysitting services, they should each have the value of that deducted from their assistance. That seems to me to be a pretty strange and, again, a punitive kind of thing to be putting in there, especially when the first act this government essentially did in 1995 when they were elected was to cut 21.6% from the social assistance benefits. His commitment at the time was that people would be able to rely on help from family and the community. Again, that just seems punitive.
We also know that the people who are being asked to administer these new regulations are finding them very difficult to administer. They need to be protected themselves because they're working within the system. But I can tell you, I've spoken to people - and I won't say where, because we've got into an environment now where we actually worry that if people speak up they will be punished or intimidated by this government - but I have spoken to people who work within the system who are finding this extraordinarily upsetting because they think it's very cruel.
The system seems to be based on the fact that people are cheating rather than the fact that this is a system that's supposed to help people. I know that is something that is bothering a great number of them. Shirley Hoy in Toronto has spoken about the difficulties of regulation, so I don't think it's inappropriate that I should use her name. But there are a number of things that seem in essence to be in contradiction to what the proclaimed goal of the legislation is.
Quite literally, if they have a vehicle that's worth $5,000, that they will have to sell the vehicle in order to be able to receive assistance seems to be one of those contradictions. Here we want to help people so they have an opportunity to go and look for work and find work, yet we're going to actually force people who have a vehicle worth a certain amount, over $5,000, to get rid of that vehicle in order to receive assistance. It seems like a contradiction to me. If someone can explain to me why that one is okay, I would be curious about that. These kinds of regulations are set up simply, it seems to me, to absolutely attack those people who really should be just the ones we most want to be able to help.
There are other aspects of it, but I see my time is running low. Certainly the eligibility review officers, who essentially are those who have the authority to go and search out the private lives of people on social assistance, again seem to be set up ultimately to presume that people are doing something wrong rather than presuming that they're trying their very best to survive in the system.
I'm startled to see that my time is so quickly coming to an end, but there are a couple of other things I'd like to mention quickly. The government has a very interesting way, a sort of sneaky way, it seems to me, of gathering revenue. One of the more interesting ones, and it hasn't received a great deal of publicity, is that early this year the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who was then in charge of the gaming activities, put through a regulation which insisted that charitable organizations and volunteer groups that use break-open tickets were suddenly to be charged a 5% fee for every box of break-open tickets that they sold.
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Mr Crozier: Sounds like a tax grab to me.
Mr Gravelle: Thank you very much for saying that. I thank the member for Essex South, because that's exactly what it is - it's a tax grab. I'm sure you've all heard about this. I'll tell you something: I ended up dealing with about 50 agencies in Thunder Bay, and they were all quite horrified by this. This 5% tax grab apparently is for administrative information gathering.
Interjection.
Mr Gravelle: You can be as rude as you want over there, but the fact is that you've got the Royal Canadian Legion, an organization that relies on the break-open tickets in order to pay its mortgage on its building on Van Norman Street, basically losing revenue as a result of this. You've got this government telling them, "You've got to pay $84, or 5%, on every box of break-open tickets," for no discernible reason at all. It is simply a tax grab, and it's in the millions of dollars.
There are 151 groups in Thunder Bay that were suddenly startled by this. Again, what was interesting about it was that it just simply came upon them suddenly. It was just part of the regulations. That was pretty horrifying. It is pretty horrifying.
I've had an extraordinary response. I've certainly tried to get the minister to see it. But again, it's almost like you don't want to connect yourself to the reality of what's really going on out there.
Here are organizations that are struggling in an environment where it's more and more difficult to raise funds, that are doing their very best to be the volunteers that you want them to be and we all support them for being, yet you're taking money from them as they raise it. You're taking it, and it truly is a tax grab.
I've never seen any explanation for that, and again, if you could find one, I'm sure every one of the groups in Thunder Bay that's negatively affected by this would sure like to hear about it. If there are 151 groups in Thunder Bay, Ontario - where I'm proud to be from - there are thousands across the province, obviously. So there's millions of dollars being taken from these groups. That wasn't in the throne speech. Why didn't you talk about that in the throne speech? No, no. You just want to talk about your spin.
The throne speech was essentially an extraordinary example of public relations puffery, and it was offensive. I sat here and listened to the words that were written by the Premier and his office, talking about their concern about patients, their concern about people in emergency hallways, and thought to myself, "Isn't this just extraordinary?" Here's the government that, by its drastic cuts in the system, has caused these problems. This is why we're all getting phone calls from people who just cannot receive the care they deserve. Yet this government has the gall to stand up there and deliver a speech that says, "We care, and we're worried about people in this province as patients."
People aren't going to buy it. They're not going to be fooled by it, but they have every right to be offended by it.
It's extraordinary to me that we can sit here tonight and have to listen to you deliver all your speeches without any recognition of those realities, because those are the realities that are affecting people in this province. I'll tell you something: they deserve much better.
The Acting Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr Silipo: I think the member for Port Arthur used, in the latter part of his speech, the phrase "public relations puffery." I believe those were his words. I think that is a very accurate three-word summary of the throne speech. I want to congratulate the member for Port Arthur for, in his usual very straightforward approach, analysing the speech and talking about a number of the things that were in the throne speech and some things that were not in the throne speech. Among other things, he talked about the lack of commitment of the Harris government to implementing - as they promised they would do in the election, as they promised since the election they would do - an Ontarians with Disabilities Act. He talked about the continuing attack on people on welfare. I have to say to him, on those issues and on a number of other points he made, that I very much agree with him and with the take he has made on the throne speech.
I would like, as I did with his other Liberal colleague before him, because this is questions and comments, to actually ask him a question, and I hope he will try to answer it. I think he would agree with me that part of the responsibility, particularly in this particular time frame, of those of us who sit on the opposition benches is, yes, to continue criticizing what the government of the day is doing - in this case, the Mike Harris government, and there's no shortage of things for us to criticize - but also to begin to talk to people about what we would do differently.
It's easy enough, I think, as you listen to most people, for people to say to us, and justifiably so, "Well, what would you guys do instead?" I know the Liberal Party, as has the NDP, has also talked about reinvesting in various services - health care, education - but the bottom line comes down to how we are going to pay for this. I know the position his leader has taken is that just the growth in the economy will be sufficient to pay for those things. I don't think it's going to be sufficient to do the kind of serious investment they say they want to do and we believe we want to make in education, social services and health care.
Mr Carroll: It's always a pleasure to stand and make some comments based on a speech from the member for Port Arthur. I had an opportunity to visit his community in the last little while. They speak very highly of you up there. I just wanted to pass that along to you.
But you know, in the true form of a Liberal, the member for Port Arthur criticizes and offers no alternatives. He criticizes the fact that the regulations surrounding the new Ontario Works program put a limit on an automobile that somebody can own at $5,000. I'm not so sure, when he criticizes that, whether he thinks somebody who comes to the system and asks for welfare should be allowed to have a $25,000 car or a $35,000 car. He just says that they shouldn't be allowed to have just a $5,000 car. It's easy for him to criticize.
He also talks about the fact that we have not yet delivered on our commitment to have an Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It's interesting that the Liberals criticize us for living up to our commitment to reduce income tax. They kept talking to us about not having the tax reduction. We'd say, "We promised it in the Common Sense Revolution," but, "No, you shouldn't have the tax reduction." But they've also said that they would not raise taxes if they got elected. They also are critical of us for balancing the budget in Ontario. Again, they think we should break that promise. But they're critical of us for not honouring the promise to have an Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
The Liberals tend to stand and criticize but, as the member of the third party said, they offer no alternatives; they just suggest that we should keep spending and spending and spending, be everything to everybody. In actual fact, I believe their leader has said he will use the surplus generated by our economic policies to finance their programs - not really fair.
Mr Crozier: I can't think of any reason why it isn't fair that we would use their surplus to pay for what we want. What's unfair about that?
The member for Chatham-Kent talks about cars. It's my understanding that he spent most of his adult and business life trying to convince people who were driving cars that were worth $5,000 or less that they should buy one that's worth more. Nobody said they should be driving $25,000 or $35,000 cars. In fact, that's rather a ridiculous statement. I doubt very much that anyone who's on social assistance is driving a car worth $25,000 or $35,000.
The point is, what relationship does that have to the person's need? What the member for Chatham-Kent would rather have them do - and I suspect the individual's business wouldn't agree with him - is drive a car that's worth less than $5,000, that probably costs more to maintain than the car is worth, probably costs more to insure than the car is worth, pollutes the environment - but then the environment minister doesn't matter, because he's not going to put any emission standards in place, even though the Premier criticized him for not having done that.
The member for Port Arthur speaks how he feels. It's rather strange - you learn a lot of good things about people in this Legislature, and when they get in here, they seem to speak differently. I'll tell you this: The member for Port Arthur, Mike Gravelle, speaks the same way outside this Legislature as he speaks inside.
Mr Christopherson: I want to compliment the member for Port Arthur. In the very short period of time that he has been in this place, he has established himself as a very caring, articulate speaker for his community. It's my sense that whenever he rises in this place, the vast majority of colleagues in all parties listen, because he has something to say.
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I want to pick up on his comments about the government's tax cut and the debt. It's interesting that reported in today's paper and released by the Ontario Alternative Budget Working Group - which of course is a group of people from a very different philosophical and political perspective than that of this government - using the government's own statistics, they put together a different vision of what Ontario could look like, how it will be paid for and what the resulting economic impacts are.
I might say that more and more this is being done provincially and federally, and it's something people are looking at more and more, and because of the legitimate numbers they use, it's gaining in credibility. I think in time we'll see it start to get almost as much attention as the budget itself, because it clearly is a different view.
What they say very clearly, using the government's own numbers, is that if there hadn't been a tax cut, you wouldn't have needed to make any of the spending cuts you did. If you'd just left the spending where it was and not played to the greed factor in terms of giving so much money back to the very wealthy in our community, there would have been a balanced budget in this province a year before you project one. When we look at the fact that 50% of the population earns less than $35,000 a year, this is an important message.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Port Arthur has two minutes to respond.
Mr Gravelle: I'd certainly like to thank all the members who spoke, the members for Dovercourt, Chatham-Kent, Hamilton Centre, and a special thank you to my colleague the member for Essex South.
It's interesting, just to respond to the member for Chatham-Kent, if I may, very shortly. The fact is that in terms of the car issue, the $5,000, obviously there are certain circumstances where somebody may have received a car in a separation agreement and their circumstances are such that they now need social assistance. Should they be punished for that? Should they be told they must get rid of that car?
Mr Baird: Yes.
Mr Gravelle: Oh, I see. So, in other words, they've received it in their separation agreement, they're now on social assistance, they're caring for their family. This obviously shows your attitude towards it. This would obviously limit their ability to really get around.
The fact is, you asked about an alternative. I'll tell you an alternative. The alternative is to think of people first and really care about people. I honestly think the evidence of the last three years is that this is not the priority of this government. I think the evidence is overwhelming. It has really been quite bizarre to suddenly have a throne speech where you get this nicely spun message that basically wants everybody to forget about the past. "We weren't going to listen to you before. You know, I think we might start listening to you now."
Some of the legislation that's coming up, which is obviously based on, "Gee, we want to listen to you," I don't know why you think people are going to particularly believe that. The fact is that this has been a government whose hallmark will be, "We don't listen to you; we just do what we're going to do." You like to think you are doing what you said you'd do; the fact is that you've broken a number of crucial promises that people will not forget. It seems to me that your motives are clear, and our priority is people.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Silipo: I realize, the time remaining in this sitting being what it is, that members, particularly those opposite, may not get the opportunity to respond or reply to anything I might say. If any of them are really disappointed in that, I invite them to come back tomorrow afternoon, when I will try to complete my comments.
Let me just make a couple of observations in the little time that is left before we adjourn. As I listened to the throne speech the other day, there were a couple of interesting and contradictory messages that I think were in the speech, certainly that I heard and that many others have observed. There was, on the one hand, this effort that Mike Harris and company were making to try to soften their image. They knew that the polls were telling them that in fact one of the weaknesses they have is that they are perceived as not listening, they are perceived as uncaring, they are perceived as not responding to what people are actually feeling out there, the fact that people are hurting, the fact that people are not happy with the nature, certainly, and the tone and the speed with which they're making change. So they wanted to very clearly set out a tone that said: "No, no. If we haven't listened before, we're listening now. If we haven't given you the sense that we were listening before, we are now."
There was a whole number of examples in the speech where there were actually individuals brought in - I'm assuming they were here because they agreed to be here, but whether they actually had had portions of the speech read to them so they knew what link was being made, I'm not sure. Just to give you one example, though there are many we could give, I wonder how the government could try to justify the link between praising the Olympic athletes who were here, which praise we would all agree with - how the Mike Harris government particularly could stand up and praise those Olympic athletes at the same time they have cut the underpinnings of the recreation and amateur sports programs that have helped to develop those very same athletes, which will make it much more difficult, if not impossible, for similar athletes to develop with the supports of their governments and of their communities.
That's but one example. If time allowed, I could go on and give you a number more, but we keep seeing that kind of juxtaposition, an attempt to try and give a softer, kinder, gentler face to the government against the reality of what the Mike Harris government has done. I want to talk a little about this in terms of the various areas in health care and social services, in education.
On the other hand - and here's a schism, contradiction, however you want to put it - the government also tried to not move away from their tough-guy image, and I use those words very clearly, the tough-guy image they feel got them elected and I think to some extent got them elected: the attack on the poor, the attack on people on social assistance, the attack on unions, the attack on workers. You saw the same kind of messages that Mike Harris used in the last election campaign being used again: "We're being tough. We're getting tough on fraud. We're getting tough on people on welfare." Those are messages that pander to a certain section of our population. They were in the speech because Mike Harris knows he does not want to abandon the Reform side of his agenda and the Reform side of his support.
So we saw this interesting schism where, in their own speech, not only were the examples they used to try to give themselves a softer image completely contradicted by the reality of their actions, but then within the same speech also this kind of, "By the way, while we may be softer and kinder and gentler, we're still the tough guys."
I find that that kind of approach is really very reflective of the way in which Mike Harris and the Mike Harris government have behaved so far. There is no softening, because very little, if anything, that this government has done can be categorized as soft. Very much of what this government has done can be categorized as hurting people, hurting the average family out there. Whether they are among the poorest, whether they're qualifying for welfare - yes, it's true; the facts are undeniable. There are some 240,000 to 250,000 people who are no longer on the welfare rolls. That is a fact. But it is not a fact, at least it is not a fact as far as I'm concerned, that there are 250,000 people in this province who are better off today and as a result of that are off the welfare rolls of this province.
The Acting Speaker: Order. There are several conversations going on. I'd invite you to leave and have them elsewhere. They're not going to be happening here. We want to pay attention to the member for Dovercourt, and I invite him to carry on with his speech.
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Mr Silipo: I can tell you, as a former minister in that area, there are some 100,000 people who have historically hovered on the edge of qualifying for social assistance. Many of them were people with families who qualified nominally so they could maintain their support for the health benefits, and in fact some were getting partial support because they were working part-time and therefore had some income. All those people automatically dropped off the rolls when the tough guy, Mike Harris, changed the criteria for eligibility.
That tough-guy approach we saw reiterated in the speech from the throne, a reminder from Mike Harris that his colours haven't changed. The words maybe have changed, but the deeds have not changed. It seems that just when the government tries to put on a kinder, softer image, we hear or see the real Mike Harris.
Who can forget the events we saw transpire around this Legislature involving the Dionne sisters? Who can ever forget the turmoil that Mike Harris and his government put those Ontarians through? It speaks volumes about the kind of attitude and approach that the Premier of this province and his government take. Those things say a lot more than any words the Premier, Mike Harris, would ask the Lieutenant Governor to read in a speech from the throne.
Just in case people thought this was all a mistake and somehow we had all misunderstood, only days before the House reopens, in comes Mike Harris with another zinger about people on welfare and drinking beer. Again, it's that kind of pandering, that kind of catering to the lowest sentiments that I find completely appalling. I would find that completely appalling from any member in this Legislature. I find it particularly appalling when those words come out of the mouth of the Premier of this province.
Like it or not, Mike Harris is the Premier of the province, until the next election at least. I would have thought that some two years into the mandate, he would have finally realized that while, yes, in his own calculation, he only needs 40%, 42% of the vote to get elected -
Hon Noble Villeneuve (Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, minister responsible for francophone affairs): All you needed was 37%.
Mr Silipo: I'm not quibbling about that, I say to the Minister of Agriculture. The point I'm making is that even he should have realized by now that being the Premier of the province means that you are the Premier of the whole province, for all the people in the province, not just for that 38%, 40%, 42% or 45%.
What we have in Mike Harris and his government is an attempt to say, "No, we understand; we want to govern for the benefit of all," but at the end of the day what we get are their actions that tell us time and again that they govern for the benefit of a few.
My colleague from Hamilton Centre has already pointed out this evening that the underpinning of all of this, as we all know and as we've said time after time in this place, is the tax cut. I'm sure we will see in the budget next week the next and final instalment of that tax cut, perhaps even sped up to show they are really serious about that. What they would like Ontarians to forget is the price people are paying out there for that tax cut.
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): Yes, they are getting jobs.
Mr Silipo: No, they're not getting jobs as a result of the tax cut. You don't have to take my word for it, I say to the members opposite. Take the word of many, many economists who have said to us and have said to you that it isn't the tax cut that is bringing about the creation of jobs across this province. In fact, what we are seeing is a situation where to pay for the tax cut, $30 billion will be added to the debt by a government that wants to bring down the debt and the deficit.
The people who actually see a benefit from that are people who make well over $100,000. They will be the ones who will see a real benefit. The rest of us, most Ontarians out there, will see a decrease in take-home pay at the end of the day when they calculate in all the other things they have to pay. And they will also see the loss of services in health care, in education, in social services, whether it's services for kids or services for people with developmental disabilities. In all the range of services, people are seeing, have seen and will continue to see real cuts, real deterioration in those services.
I would love to go on, Speaker, but I see we're at 9:30 and I will pick up the debate the next time we get the opportunity.
The Acting Speaker: It being 9:30, the House stands adjourned until 10 am tomorrow morning.
The House adjourned at 2127.