Journal des débats 1998-mai-27 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Tomorrow this Legislature will debate Bill Pr18, my private member's bill entitled the Protection of Children Involved in Prostitution Act.

Tomorrow this House will have an opportunity to support the principles outlined at the International Summit of Sexually Exploited Youth, entitled Out from the Shadows, when they declared:

"That all children and youth have the right to be protected from all forms of abuse, exploitation and the threat of abuse, harm or exploitation; and

"That the issue of child and youth sexual exploitation and abuse through prostitution must be a global priority. Nations and governments must not only hold their neighbours accountable, but must also be accountable themselves."

These children need all the help they can get. People across this province, be they in Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Toronto, London or Windsor, be they from a small community or a large city, need to know that children are being sexually exploited right now. If they keep thinking, "It's not in my city, not in my town," they are sadly mistaken and will be sadly surprised to find out that children in their very own community are being sexually exploited and abused through prostitution.

Provincial laws should reflect, as this act does, the belief that sexual exploitation of children and youth is abuse. We, as members, must take the responsibility of ensuring that this exploitation does not take place.

I look forward to everyone's support.

ANTI-RACISM DAY

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): In the House today I will be tabling a resolution urging the government of Ontario to take steps to ensure that April 4, the anniversary date of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, be observed in Ontario as Anti-Racism Day. I believe we should be taking this action to commemorate the assassination and to recognize that it occurred as a result of growing hatred and racism almost 30 years ago. I believe we should be remembering Dr King's death as we continue to struggle against racism that still exists in our society.

In Dr King's last days, which included leading a demonstration in Memphis on March 28, 1968, in support of striking sanitation workers, one demonstrator was killed and more than 50 people were injured. Dr King left Memphis distressed over this violence. He returned on April 3 in the hope of leading a peaceful march. One day before his death, he told the crowd at the Memphis Masonic Temple, "I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."

Let us each work on Dr King's dream of getting to the promised land, a land that shows zero tolerance towards racism and a community that does not shirk from its responsibility to actively pursue anti-racism.

CANCER PREVENTION

Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): I rise this afternoon to recognize the Search for a Cure campaign, which is undertaking an ambitious bicycle journey across Canada to raise funds for cancer research.

The leadership and vision for this campaign comes from Stephen Faudemer of Newmarket, Ontario, who lost his father, grandmother and an aunt to cancer. He will ride his bicycle from St John's, Newfoundland, beginning June 1 and finishing in Victoria, BC, on September 29.

Throughout this courageous undertaking, Stephen will be asking all Canadians to pledge in the Search to reach the campaign of $100,000. One hundred per cent of all funds raised will be distributed to programs for cancer education and prevention, clinical trials in local hospitals, patient services and children's camps such as Camp Trillium and Rainbow Lake.

To lead the Search for a Cure Mr Faudemer has been granted an unpaid leave of absence from his position with the town of Georgina, which is one of the sponsors of the Search. This undertaking demonstrates the true humanitarian nature of Mr Faudemer and his entire campaign team. They represent the best of Ontario.

As they leave the province today and begin the final preparations for this endeavour, I ask my colleagues in the House to join with me in extending our best wishes for success and clear skies, along with our thanks to Stephen, who is here today with his mother and his aunt and his entire campaign team. Please join in welcoming and thanking them.

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): I rise today to make a statement on behalf of hospital-affected communities all around the province. A hospital shutdown happens to be in my riding. The people of York South are badly affected by the shutdown of Northwestern Hospital and the merger of the hospitals in that area engineered by this government.

It isn't in the headlines every day, but what happened in that shutdown was that in four months the hospital was taken away from the community. That was done because the merger was engineered in such a way as to remove any community vote. No community members can vote any more in the hospital corporation. Because of the provincial government's premature and reckless plans with hospital adjustments, 80% of the people who used to go to that emergency now have to go to another region altogether.

On January 30, senior citizens, about 45 in number, occupied that hospital for nine hours to make the point that they're not going to let the Harris government get away with this. Even though an emergency report came out and said that the hospitals in this area have the worst emergency care in the province, no one is giving up. Instead they are saying very clearly to this government, "We will not have discount health care in northwest Toronto."

While it may be the first hospital to be shut down, it certainly won't be one that the Harris government will get away with. The citizens of York South deserve credit for standing up to the Harris government's agenda of getting rid of quality care, of trying to put something over the citizens of this province. When hospitals shut down and care is taken away, this government is the one that's going to get the discount -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Statements?

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MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): Starting tomorrow and for the next two days, the Ontario Federation of Community Mental Health and Addiction Programs will be holding their 12th annual conference. This is a group of community agencies dedicated to serving those who experience addictions or mental health problems. They are deeply concerned about the multiplicity of program changes, policy decisions and funding decisions this government has made that are impacting on their ability to serve the community that they are mandated to serve.

Two per cent of Ontarians, 200,000 people, will have serious mental illnesses at some point in our lifetime, and 9.2% of adult Canadians self-identify as having problems with their drinking. Yet we saw in the budget that this government brought forward, despite all the talk about transfers to the community of treatments, no mention of funding transfers, even though the government is closing the psychiatric hospitals, is bringing people back into the community and has the recommendation of investing those dollars.

The housing issues for those who have these problems, the social assistance issues particularly, given Bill 142, and all of the needs that are there in our community remain unserved.

ELMVALE DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): Two weeks ago I introduced my private member's bill, An Act to make Parents Responsible for the Wrongful Acts of their Children. While this bill is aimed at those few youths who break laws, today I honour the many more youths who accept social responsibility and contribute to their community.

Focusing on this, I draw your attention to a school of 475 students in Simcoe East, who for the past 19 years have annually given one day from their life back to their community. Today the students of Elmvale District High School are teaming up to paint, rake yards, wash windows, hoe gardens, babysit, wash cars and even count inventory for the people of Elmvale.

Peer Helpers is an accredited study course taught by Graham Shaw. Those signed up for Shaw's course assist their peers and teachers and help as volunteer leaders for younger students. The Elmvale high school Peer Helpers course is moulding future volunteers and is responsible for the leaders we'll have tomorrow.

As members of this provincial Legislature, we owe a "thank you" to those industrious students who have taken their school letters, EDHS, and converted them into the slogan "Elmvale Deserves Help from Students." I am proud of this school, their teachers and especially students like Edward Holley. I expect one day we'll proudly share a seat in this Legislature with a former student from Elmvale.

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): When Dalton McGuinty and members of the Ontario Liberal caucus fought the passage of Bill 160, apologists for the Harris government said that the bill's opponents were being alarmist, that the consequences predicted by the Liberal leader and his caucus colleagues would never be seen.

In the Niagara Peninsula, it is obvious that schools will close and teaching positions will be eliminated, just as Dalton McGuinty and Liberal education critic Lyn McLeod predicted. Radical changes to our education system are being forced upon the province with reckless abandon and without taking into account the adverse impact upon the students in that system. The district school board of Niagara sent out layoff notices to 152 secondary school teachers this week and has designated 35 schools for possible closure. When schools reopen in September, it is likely that schools left open will have 150 to 200 fewer teachers.

What Bill 160 was really about was snatching control of education decisions from locally elected trustees and centralizing the decision-making in the offices of the Harris government, cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from education programs in Ontario and eliminating thousands of teaching positions from schools throughout the province.

As Niagara trustee Helen Hall put it, "This certainly will touch kids in the classroom." Trustee Don Brockwell observed, "Our system is going backwards." Trustee Dalton Clark said, "This cutback will have a real impact in terms of introducing new curriculum."

Members of the Liberal caucus will continue to fight against any reckless policies which will have a detrimental effect on our education system -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Statements?

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I rise today to report back to the House on a meeting I had at the Collingwood Collegiate Institute last evening, an absolutely marvellous example of schools in our province with a history of excellence in the care and teaching of students. I met with members of the community, and this was hosted by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation.

The concerns raised through the discussion reflected very clearly the same issues raised at meetings that I attended last week in Elliot Lake, Espanola and my own community of Sault Ste Marie. People are anxious about what they see happening around them and to them. They see people losing their jobs, being pink-slipped or pushed into short-term contract situations with no future. Of even more concern is that there is no plan, there is no blueprint. For example, teachers dedicated to their work and to their students have no idea what they will be doing come September of this year.

This should speak to every member of this Legislature and to every person out there in Ontario. If teachers and others like them have no idea what they are going to be doing two or three months down the road - and these are people who naturally like to be organized, have a tremendous commitment to the work they do, love the students they teach, care for the communities in which they live - if they're not being given the information and the resources necessary to do that job by this government, we all lose.

WENDY WRIGHT

Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): I rise in the House today to congratulate Wendy Wright of Stouffville District Secondary School, who is the proud recipient of the 1998 Daimler-Benz Award of Excellence. Stouffville District Secondary School in my riding of Durham-York is one of 50 grand prize winners of this most prestigious award.

Now in its seventh year, the Daimler-Benz Award of Excellence is a global awareness-raising program sponsored by Daimler-Benz and the Goethe Institute. It was conceived to promote understanding and friendship between young people in North America and Germany.

The 391 students who participated from Stouffville faced stiff competition this year, as over 213,000 students entered from over 2,000 schools throughout the United States and Canada.

Wendy, chosen by the school committee as their most distinguished student, will join a group of young Americans and Canadians on a three-week, all-expense-paid tour to Washington, DC, and Germany. Wendy is now one of close to 1.5 million young North Americans who have participated in the program since its inception.

Today's announcement is significant because only one other school in Ontario was chosen as a grand prize winner, and only five were chosen throughout all of Canada.

Wendy Wright, ambassador for Stouffville and the community, I want to again extend congratulations and best wishes from the community and the province of Ontario.

MEMBER'S PRIVILEGE

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: I want to correct the record.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Let's make it a point of order, because I didn't get any notice.

Mr Wildman: Thank you, Speaker. I appreciate it.

On page 726 of the printed version of the official record of debate for Tuesday, May 26, 1998, I'm quoted in the statement I made in tribute to Ted Jolliffe incorrectly, and I wanted to correct the record. In the written version it states:

"He soon became the provincial leader in 1942, a position he held until 1953. In 1953, Ted Jolliffe led the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation to within five seats of forming a government here at Queen's Park."

Obviously, Speaker, that's incorrect. It should be:

"In 1943, Ted Jolliffe led the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation to within five seats of forming a government..."

The Speaker: Amended.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT, (COMMUNITY SAFETY ZONES), 1998 / LOI DE 1998 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES ZONES DE SÉCURITÉ COMMUNAUTAIRES

Mr Flaherty moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 26, An Act to promote public safety through the creation of community safety zones / Projet de loi 26, Loi visant à favoriser la sécurité publique par la création de zones de sécurité communautaires.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

A short comment, Minister?

Hon Jim Flaherty (Minister of Labour, Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services): This bill, if passed, would amend certain parts of the Highway Traffic Act to allow the designation of portions of roads as community safety zones to better protect community and children's safety. The bill would also double fines for moving offences committed in a community safety zone. The intent of this bill is to protect the safety of our communities and our children. I urge all members to support it.

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STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

ROAD SAFETY

Hon Jim Flaherty (Minister of Labour, Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services): A few moments ago, I introduced a bill that would, if passed, significantly improve the safety of our communities and particularly of our children. This is of paramount importance to the government of Ontario.

The bill would amend the Highway Traffic Act to enable municipalities to establish community safety zones and double the fine payable for committing certain offences within these zones. We intend to extend extra protection to areas such as school zones and crossings, school bus stops, day care centres and children's parks.

These amendments to the Highway Traffic Act would give municipalities the power to establish special community safety zones, particularly around schools, where fines for many driving infractions will be doubled. Prominent roadside signs will let drivers know when they are entering and leaving the special zones.

The amendments would also allow the government to designate parts of the King's highways as community safety zones. King's highways are those Ontario highways patrolled by the Ontario Provincial Police and maintained by the Ministry of Transportation. What we have on these highways are too many irresponsible drivers who are just not getting the message that unsafe and aggressive driving is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. I believe this new initiative will help to drive that message home.

The responsibility of identifying and designating community safety zones will rest with participating municipalities. Municipal councils have the authority to pass bylaws and initiate measures to ensure the health and safety of residents.

The community safety zones initiative would provide municipalities with another tool to help make communities safer, especially for children. This measure, following as it does the $150-million commitment to community safety initiatives announced in this year's Ontario budget, shows that this government is determined to maintain our position of leadership in protecting the people of Ontario.

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): I would say to the minister that I can't imagine any person in this Legislature today, especially those of us who are parents, who would disagree with this initiative. But I think as parents what we would have to question you on is why you have bothered to open up such a large act as the Highway Traffic Act for such a narrow application of safety measures when we all know there are many more that need to be applied to the protection of our children and adults in Ontario society right across this province.

Minister, members in our caucus have talked to you over time and given you positive suggestions in terms of what more you could do to protect the citizens of Ontario. While this announcement is certainly welcome - obviously, we want to afford more protection to our children in those areas they frequent most often - it is important while you're doing this to be open to other suggestions and to afford more protection to our children in other parts of the province, and adults.

One of those ideas would first of all be, when you look at this, to ensure that our police forces, both municipal and provincial, have the adequate funding for enforcement. It's fine to double the fines, but if the police departments don't have the wherewithal and the tools to bring on the enforcement, regardless of whatever the fines are, they are going to have no effect on safety. It's going to be very important, in this time of trying to do more with less, which seems to be the philosophy of your government, that when it comes to public safety and security we have adequate funding in these areas.

We have talked to you about other issues. One of those is the red light issue here in Toronto. At high-speed, high-collision intersections in Toronto, we know we have a chronic problem now with people running those lights. Many municipalities have come to you asking you to authorize the use of high-speed cameras at those high-collision intersections. That is something we support. We think it's very important that our cities and towns, where they have such a problem, have access to those tools in order to protect our citizens.

It is absolutely necessary that every motorist and every pedestrian is certain that, once they start to cross an intersection, there is no traffic going the other way. Unfortunately, our present system has failed. We no longer have that certainty. So it's extremely important that you allow our police departments to utilize modern, low-cost tools that will ensure that we have safe intersections in the city.

The other issue, which I talked to you about a few weeks ago, is high-speed police chases. This is an issue that is front and centre before people, especially in our residential neighbourhoods in some of our larger cities. We have had nine deaths over the last few years from high-speed police chases, and it is very important, as I asked you a few weeks ago in this House, to look again at these criteria.

In the last example we had, a 73-year-old man was killed while riding his bicycle on the sidewalk in his neighbourhood here in Toronto. He was killed through a high-speed police pursuit of young offenders in a van who were being pursued because of suspicion of shoplifting.

I think we really have to start to look at the criteria of what begins a high-speed chase and how we continue, if we do at all, a high-speed chase, especially when it comes to residential neighbourhoods. This is something I implore you to look at as soon as possible before we have another fatality here in Ontario.

I would like to share my time with the member for Essex-Kent, because there's another issue you could have addressed here that he brought up in a private member's bill which I think should have been here this afternoon.

Mr Pat Hoy (Essex-Kent): Minister, we welcome your remarks today about opening the Highway Traffic Act, but I offered to the government, under my private member's bill, Bill 78, an opportunity to introduce vehicle liability which would have enhanced the protection of the 810,000 children who ride school buses daily from those drivers who fail to stop when the red lights are flashing on school buses.

You talk about safety zones. By bringing in Bill 78 and initiatives for vehicle liability, you could create 16,000 safety zones, that being those 16,000 buses that operate daily in Ontario, going twice a day, sometimes three times, through their route.

Do it in memory of Ryan Marcuzzi, a young student from Essex who was killed when a driver passed a bus. This continues to happen. There have been press stories continuing even this year where people are neglecting their duty to stop -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Responses; third party.

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): I can indicate to the Solicitor General that I have no doubt that all three parties are going to support this legislation. That's what it was designed for. It was designed to be so politically sanitary that nobody could contradict the proposition. But the fact is that at the end of the day, it remains incredibly hollow, purely political and, quite frankly, when you look at what this government has failed to do with respect to community safety, cynical and downright stupid.

The bottom line remains that if you don't have cops out there on the street identifying and apprehending these drivers that the Solicitor General is talking about, you can set up all the comfort safety zones you want - you can set them up around day cares, schools, at crosswalks, around seniors' centres, wherever you want to, but the bottom line is that police forces across this province are seriously understaffed.

I'll speak directly about the Niagara Regional Police Force, which is down anywhere from 80 to 100 members of what should be its appropriate complement. We've experienced in Niagara region - and we're not unique; this is common among communities across this province - incredible delay times in response to serious incidents, incidents of break and enter, assault, robbery, what have you. We've experienced the crisis level of having shifts where there are pathetically few cruisers and police officers on duty and out there on patrol.

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This government was warned in no uncertain terms during its manipulation of the Police Services Act about what it was doing to police forces in this province, that it was forcing police forces into the mode of revenue-raising. I suspect this Solicitor General isn't aware, but I'm going to make him aware today, of what police forces across this province have been forced to do. It's called option 4, Solicitor General. Let me tell you how it works.

Because police forces are under-resourced, they've had to dedicate on any number of days, any number of weeks, as much as three and four and five officers on a given shift to set up radar traps, and inevitably they're set up where you have a transition in the speed limit, from 60 to 80 or from 80 to 60. Police officers write out provincial offence notices, as is proper, because they catch a huge number of speeders in these zones.

These offenders are advised, of course, of options 1, 2 and 3 on a provincial offence notice. You're aware of those, Solicitor General - I'm sure you are - of options 1, 2 and 3, but you've created a new option. You've created an option 4. "Option 4?" you say. "My God, that couldn't be true." Well, option 4 is a little notice you get with your provincial offence notice, your speeding ticket, that says that if you attend at the local police station within 48 hours with the ticket and pay $55 cash, exact change, payable to the local police services board, the ticket will be torn up. Of course there's a skill-testing question. It's like when you win the free coffee over at Tim Hortons and they ask you to multiply 4 by 17 - the former Minister of Education has never won that cup of coffee, but I suspect you would. That is but a guise to prevent this from being seen as what it really is.

I tell you, this is happening across the province. You've put police forces across the province in the position of mere revenue-raising. I was advised by one staff sergeant that in one afternoon one municipal police force was able to raise $2,200 for its own coffers as a result of option 4. They don't like doing it and they know it's not an effective deployment of scarce police resources, but you've forced them to do it because you're insistent on police forces being understaffed across this province.

You have betrayed communities and you've betrayed the principle of community safety and community security by abandoning police forces across Ontario, the Niagara region and other municipalities included. Your government wants to talk a big game about safety zones, yet you've steadfastly refused to acquiesce in consistent and persistent community requests to use photo-radar-type machines at intersections, for instance, which could and would detect drivers going through red lights and stop signs. You've said, "No, this won't work," when you won't have police officers out there on the street enforcing it. You know it, and if you don't, you ought to know it. If you didn't know it, you should be ashamed of yourself, and if you do know it, you're a party to the crimes that are being perpetrated and that remain undetected and unenforced in every municipality in this province.

Hon Margaret Marland (Minister without Portfolio [children's issues]): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I would like to know if it's parliamentary for the member for Welland-Thorold to accuse the minister of being party to a crime, which is what he just said.

The Speaker: I don't think the member was suggesting he was part of an actual crime. I think it was just terminology.

Hon Mrs Marland: So you are defending it.

The Speaker: I'm defending it? No, I'm ruling on it. I'm not defending anything. If there was a crime taking place and there was an accusation, there may have been some point of order.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I beg leave to inform the House that today the Clerk received the first report of the standing committee on government agencies. Pursuant to standing order 105(g)(9), the report is deemed to be adopted by the House.

ORAL QUESTIONS

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Leader of the Opposition): I have a question for the Minister of Finance, but pending his arrival, I have another question for the Chair of Management Board.

I want to return to the issue that was raised in this House yesterday regarding the Niagara Falls casino. Minister, let's start with what we do know. We know that the object of the game here was to develop the tourism potential of Niagara Falls. The mayor told my office earlier today that they don't want to be known as a casino city; they want to be known as a world-class tourism destination.

The second thing we know is that you asked an expert tourism panel to rate the various proposals that were put forward.

The next thing we know is that the winning bid did not finish first in that competition. In fact, it didn't even finish second. It finished third.

Minister, can you tell us today why it is that when the reason for doing this was supposed to be about increasing tourism, the bid that was supposed to win in fact did not?

Hon Chris Hodgson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet, Minister of Northern Development and Mines): The Leader of the Opposition is wrong. What I'm told is that there was a selection committee that made the evaluation, and it was reviewed by a review team. The selection committee judged each proposal based on its merit, and it was their job to determine which proposal best met the criteria identified for the request for proposals.

The selection committee asked outside experts in various fields, based on the various criteria, to give opinions on the feasibility of it. There was no ranking done by these outside experts. I know he's alleging a lot of things here, but what I'm told is that the selection committee made that evaluation itself, and the selection of the proponent that is now in negotiations, if those negotiations do not work out, then they go down to the next highest ranked proposal.

Mr McGuinty: We are told by the mayor that there is an expert panel that rated the proposals, that the object of the game here was to bring about real improvement to the tourism potential of Niagara Falls. One of those bids ended up winning; one of those proposals was rated first. But the proposal that was rated first by this expert panel did not win the bid. That's the issue here.

What we do know - and let me tell you what the mayor of Niagara Falls said. He said he's tired of the province treating council like a mushroom, keeping them in the dark and, I quote, "having some manure poured on our head." They feel they're not getting answers to the kinds of questions that I'm putting in this House to you today. The best proposal didn't win. The second-best proposal didn't win. It turns out that the winner was a company with significant ties to your party.

Why not, given these kinds of questions that you haven't answered, agree to conducting a legislative inquiry so we can get to the bottom of this?

Hon Mr Hodgson: I met with Mayor Thomson a couple of weeks ago, and we had a positive discussion. He said he had some concerns about not being informed of all the details of the proposal, and he understood the reason why there was confidentiality, that this was a competitive process. If the first bidder doesn't work out, you go with the second. You can't have your offer shopped in public.

But if you listen to your own question or if you read your own question, the mayor is left in the dark at the end of your question. He doesn't know what's going on. At the start of your question, you preface it all by saying, "The mayor tells us you didn't pick the best proponent." The mayor tells you, by your own question, that he wasn't involved in that process of the selection committee. So why do you continue to give these false allegations? Why don't you make them outside the House? In here you've got total immunity.

Mr McGuinty: Let's review the facts with respect to the connection to the Conservative Party.

The Latner family, which is a family with strong ties to your party, a family that has given your party over $40,000 during the last two years, stands to benefit because of the winning bid.

Who made the decision with respect to the winning bid? David Nash. David Nash is a long-time Tory fund-raiser and party activist whom you appointed to chair the casino selection process.

Who did the Latner family hire as their lobbyist? George Boddington, a member of the Bradgate group - that's Mike Harris's political strategy group.

Who acted as the lawyer in all of this? David McFadden, former Tory MPP and PC Party president.

Given the ties, once again, to your party, given that the winning proposal did not finish first - it finished third - will you open up the process and will you agree to have a legislative inquiry?

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Hon Mr Hodgson: As I mentioned to the NDP who asked this question twice, and these allegations were printed in the Toronto Star on the weekend, David Nash, chair of the Ontario Casino Corp, headed it up. He went through the agencies, boards and commissions process of this Legislature. Your own party voted for him because you felt, I'm assuming, that he would do a great job, be impartial. The selection committee was set up and there was a review team. The selection committee judged all the proponents based on the RFP and chose the best one to do that, and now what's happening is you're in negotiations with the number-one-ranked proponent. If that doesn't work out, you go to number two.

The same process has been used by former governments when they set up these casinos, and in the words of the president of the Ontario Casino Corp, Brian Wood, "Falls Management Co was selected because in the opinion of the selection committee, it had the highest-quality bid." Those are the facts that I have to deal with. If you want to deal with the innuendo and the mud-raking, make the allegation outside and be accountable for it.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): New question, official opposition.

Mr McGuinty: I will stand it down for the Minister of Finance.

The Speaker: New question, third party.

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): Since we're on the issue of the Falls Management consortium and their bid to build and operate the Niagara casino -

The Speaker: Who is the question to?

Mr Hampton: To the Chair of Management Board. I want to ask the Chair of Management Board this again. We understand that Michael French was part of a group of Conservative insiders who advised the Premier on how to go about bringing more gambling to Ontario, but after having advised the Premier on how to bring more gambling to Ontario, he then stepped into the position of making some of the major decisions as to who was going to run the casinos. For example, when we asked people in your government, "How did a bid that has the Latner family name written all over it, how did they get bumped up from third place to first place and get the Niagara casino?" we were told, "Michael French made that decision."

This smacks of political payola and it smacks of conflict of interest. Will you open the books so that people can see what's really happening?

Hon Mr Hodgson: The facts that I'm told aren't the same ones that you allege happened. What I am told happened is that the selection committee picked the best proponent based on the criteria that were outlined in the RFP. This French person you mention, I don't know him and I don't know if the Premier knows him, but I can tell you that the selection committee asked all kinds of expert panels to give advice on various components of the selection criteria, and the criteria were the concept, the financial plans, the business plans, management expertise and the tourism component. That's a major issue this government wants to see happen in Niagara Falls, more tourism. We're for more economic activity in the province, unlike your government that created a mess and lost 10,000 net new jobs in this province.

Mr Hampton: Just about everything the Chair of Management Board has said is discredited by everyone out there. People in Niagara Falls know that there is no convention centre of any substance attached to the Latner family's bid for this casino. They know that in terms of the tourism component it is completely inadequate. They know that this was a third-ranked bid, and because of political interference by Conservative insiders, it was bumped up to number one so the Latner family would get their return.

Minister, consider that, but also consider the Latner family had the inside track on one of the permanent casinos. The Latner family are going to benefit from your changes to medical lab regulations. Doesn't it strike you as a bit absurd that wherever you turn in terms of your government's awarding of contracts or awarding of benefits, the Latner family is there?

I want to add one more point to this. The Latner family, we understand, is a huge landlord. They're going to benefit from your changes to rent control. Don't you think you should at least look at -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Minister.

Hon Mr Hodgson: I guess in here you can make all the allegations you want. As the government, and being responsible, we have to deal with the facts, and the facts are that a selection committee was set up under a similar process to what you had when you were in government when you did other proposals similar to this. They had criteria that their request for proposals was based on and they evaluated them. Then there was a review team that looked at that to make sure it was fair and transparent.

Your allegations about individuals I invite you to make outside the chamber. You know full well in here you're totally immune from any allegations or any spurious comments you want to throw, so make it outside.

The Speaker: Final supplementary, the member for Welland-Thorold.

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): You know full well that Falls Management came third by the assessment of the panel of experts when it came to tourism. The Fallsview proposal came number one, yet Fallsview fell by the wayside. They didn't have the connections. They didn't have the inside track. They didn't have the players who clearly had some direct contacts.

How is it you can dismiss so readily the Fallsview group, rating number one when it comes to tourism, being bypassed, falling by the wayside, in favour of your political buddies in Falls Management winning a highly lucrative bid which also involves the complete abandonment of any tourism component to the casino development in Niagara Falls? Justify it.

Hon Mr Hodgson: I can tell you the facts on this matter. The process is set up at arm's length from politicians, so no matter what you want to say - I don't know if you're suggesting that politicians choose the bidders or not - I can tell you, in the words of Brian Wood, who is the president of the Ontario Casino Corp, that "Falls Management Co was selected because, in the opinion of the selection committee, it had the highest quality" bid. Your allegation that it was third, not first, is wrong, and I don't know why you keep repeating that.

EMERGENCY SERVICES

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): I have a question to the Minister of Health and it concerns people who are sick and who are not able to access the care they need, or if they are able to access the care they need, have to pay for it out of their own pocket.

In this particular case, it's Lise Pilon from Timmins who had surgery here in Toronto and then was sent home to Timmins three days later. She was sent home so quickly that she developed an infection in the incision. The infection was so serious that her physician said to her, "You have to have intravenous antibiotics every 12 hours and I'm going to send you to the Timmins and District Hospital to receive this in the emergency ward." When she went to emergency at the hospital they said: "No, you shouldn't be here. This is not an appropriate use of the emergency ward," and they tried to dissuade her from coming to the emergency ward to get that health care.

Minister, what is someone like Lise Pilon supposed to do when she goes to the emergency room, they try to persuade her not to come there -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you. Minister.

Hon Elizabeth Witmer (Minister of Health): I think the leader of the third party certainly does know any decisions that are made in emergency rooms in any of the hospitals throughout Ontario are clinical decisions that are made by the individuals who obviously have the expertise to make those decisions.

Mr Hampton: The minister is trying to confuse the issue. They tried to persuade her not to come to emergency. They didn't say, "We're not going to give you treatment." They said: "Please don't come here. It costs the health care system about $150 every time you come here." I understand why staff at the Timmins general hospital might do that. Their budget has been cut by $3 million by your government and they're trying to find ways to save money.

The interesting thing is that after trying to persuade her not to come to emergency they said, "Go to the community care access centre and get home care." We called the community care access centre and we asked them about home care. This is what they said, Minister, and you ought to hear this: "Miss Pilon cannot get home care here. We are so short of money, our budget has been cut so severely by the Harris government that we can only afford to deal with the elderly and the shut-ins. We can't help Miss Pilon." What is Lise Pilon supposed to do, Minister? She can't get the health care she needs.

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Hon Mrs Witmer: I think it's important to remember that our government has actually made an investment of $225 million into the emergency rooms. However, if you were to give me all of the information, I would be happy to follow up on that particular situation.

The Speaker: Final supplementary.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): The situation is outrageous. Your government is saying, "Patients come last." The patient is being forced to pay $200 per month for treatment and no one is responsible for her care. Minister, you have created confusion, a lack of coordination and reduced health care resources in my community. Furthermore, my constituent does not only suffer; she is being held responsible.

Minister, we've given you example after example of new user fees that your government has created. Are you going to tell Lise Pilon there are no new user fees in our health care system, and are you going to reimburse her and everyone else in the Cochrane district who comes to services for the CCAC who can't get them because you cut their budgets?

Hon Mrs Witmer: I think it's extremely important that we at least put some of the facts on the record. The reality is that the funding for all the CCACs has increased. In fact, as you know, our government made an announcement several weeks ago that we were investing into the long-term-care areas, we were investing into the community care services. We've announced that we are going to be improving the amount of money available by $551 million.

Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): I don't agree with her, Speaker.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Member for Cochrane North, come to order. I'm not going to warn you again, member for Cochrane North. Member for Sault Ste Marie.

Hon Mrs Witmer: If we could get all the facts - and I hope we have the accurate facts, as you're giving them to us, because in some occasions I found that some of the information being presented is not always accurate in here - we would be happy to follow up.

PROPERTY TAXATION

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Leader of the Opposition): In the absence of the Minister of Finance, I'll direct my question to the Chair of Management Board.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): So this is a leader's question, then.

Mr McGuinty: Yes, a leader's question, please.

I want to address the issue of your property tax reform, Minister. The objective was certainly a noble one. You said you were going to make it more simple and fair. So you started off with Bill 106 and you did that on the fly and you were going by the seat of your pants. Then you decided you'd better amend that by introducing Bill 149. Then you figured you'd better amend that by means of Bill 164. Then more recently you decided you'd better amend the whole lot by means of Bill 16, which by the way is twice the size of Bill 106, the original bill.

The Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario called your latest changes "a recipe for chaos and ruin." Municipal people throughout the province are frantically trying to figure out how to make this stuff work. What happened to your promise to make property taxes in Ontario fairer and simpler?

Hon Chris Hodgson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet, Minister of Northern Development and Mines): I refer this to the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

Hon Al Leach (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): First of all they talked about that we're rushing a bill through and we haven't had proper consultation. Let me just tell you who was consulted and who was met with when we were preparing and drafting this bill: the Canadian Federation of Independent Business; the board of trade; the tenants' tax coalition; a shoppers' mall; Cadillac Fairview; large industrial General Motors; AMO; the city of Toronto; Hamilton-Wentworth; the county of Lambton; the Ontario Restaurant Association; the hotel association; the business improvement areas association; TransCanada PipeLines; the Urban Development Institute.

We had more consultations in the preparation of the tax reform bill, probably, than any other bill we've ever had. We made sure we had the input from all the major stakeholders so that when we drafted the bill, we ensured that the concerns of all the individuals -

The Speaker: Supplementary.

Mr McGuinty: I'm going to encourage the minister to understand the significance of what took place in this precinct today. The Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario appeared here today and held a press conference. These people are dedicated, hardworking senior bureaucrats for municipalities across this province. Their job is to make provincial policy work. They are saying that this is not workable.

This is the first time, as I understand it, in the history of this province that they have come to Queen's Park and held a press conference. They said that what you have done with respect to property tax legislation in Ontario is a recipe for chaos and ruin. They want to help. They're asking that you permit debate and that you allow a committee to look at some proposals they have for changes to Bill 16.

I'm asking you, Minister, will you allow that to happen? Will we have the opportunity to have intelligent debate on this issue and an opportunity to have debate at committee?

Hon Mr Leach: Again to the Leader of the Opposition, we have received the concerns addressed by the clerks and treasurers. I will be meeting with the clerks and treasurers shortly to discuss their concerns.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Minister.

Hon Mr Leach: As I said before I was so rudely interrupted, we're aware of the concerns that have been brought forward by the clerks and treasurers, and we can address those concerns. There isn't any doubt about that. As I mentioned, I'll be meeting with them. The bill as drafted will be brought into law once this Legislature approves it and we can address the concerns that have been put forward by this association.

I can tell the House again that while this bill was being drafted we consulted all of the major stakeholders, including the major municipalities, the small municipalities, AMO, the board of trade, General Motors. Everyone that this bill would have an effect on was consulted in the drafting of the bill. It's plain to see that everyone had a chance to have input and their input was listened to.

Mr McGuinty: Bill 16, like the bills before it, is creating a mess in Ontario. We have some expert people here from municipalities across the province who want to lend a hand. They're trying to fix it. It's easy for you to say you're going to rush this thing through and you're not prepared to entertain any notion of having this go into committee. But they have to deal with this. They're on the front lines. They've got to make it work.

They are asking the same thing I'm asking, Minister: Will you not give us the opportunity now to debate this intelligently? You're going to shut this thing down and make this law by the end of the day tomorrow. They're asking for some basic kinds of amendments that will at least in some way make it a little bit more workable. Can you not delay this? If our committee has to sit in the evenings, we're prepared to do that. If our committee has to sit this weekend, we're prepared to do that too. Minister, can we not -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. It would be easier if you just passed notes back and forth instead of heckling, actually.

Mr McGuinty: Again, Minister, on behalf of the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario I am asking, can we not have more time to debate in a serious fashion a very serious issue which to date has struck fear into the hearts of municipalities across this province? You're creating an unworkable, unmanageable situation for them. Can we have more time?

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Hon Mr Leach: I appreciate the member suggesting that we meet through the weekend. Perhaps the first meeting can be about 3:30 Saturday morning, but all members would have to be present to take part in the debate.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Minister?

Hon Mr Leach: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. We know how important this bill is to the clerks and treasurers of Ontario. It's probably one of the most significant bills outside of the Municipal Act that they have to deal with. We are committing to meet with the clerks and treasurers to ensure that we can alleviate their concerns, address their concerns, and show them what is behind the bill and how it can work, as we're confident it will. They have the draft bill. They've indicated their concerns. We will meet with them and we'll address each one of their concerns as we go.

HOME CARE

Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): I want to address this question to the Minister of Health on another area where the chaos and mismanagement of this government is finding itself manifest. I want to talk to you about homemaking services. You've made a mess of them around the province, and today we learned that in Toronto specifically there are now 600 home care workers who may be forced to go out on strike.

They don't want to do this. They look after the frail elderly, people recovering from hospital operations, people who can't defend themselves and whose situations can't really be noticed because they're in their own homes.

Six hundred home care workers working for the Visiting Homemakers Association, which has been around for 72 years providing services, have been forced by your rules to turn around to their workers and look for salary and benefit cuts of 20%. They've been negotiating for four months. You should be aware of this, Minister. Vulnerable people could lose services. What are you going to do about it?

Hon Elizabeth Witmer (Minister of Health): We are well aware of the needs of people in this province. We are the ones, of course, who introduced the CCACs in order that people could have one-stop shopping to these organizations. There are 43 of them throughout the province. These organizations provide homemaking, nursing and therapy.

Recently, as the member knows, we recognized the fact that there was a need for additional money in order to support people with these community services, and our government announced that we were going to be bringing forward an additional amount of $551 million in order that we can provide the community services that are needed for people in communities throughout Ontario.

Mr Kennedy: We have a minister prepared to talk about these phantom dollars and not prepared to deal with people.

Right now, watching on television, are probably some of the clientele of the Visiting Homemakers Association, people who could lose their services.

It's your government, Minister, that put them at home. You pushed them out of hospital quicker and sicker. It's your government that reduced the number of hours they could get. It's now only an average of 15 hours a week they can get in terms of homemaking that is being given to them. It is your government that created a competition, a fight among home care services, that's driving the quality of services down, that is forcing wages to be reduced, that will mean less quality care for each person who is sick at home.

Minister, are you prepared to defend the people who are sick and vulnerable in their own homes? Will you speak up for them and will you stop this process of competition which is going to drive the quality and the care out of this home care system?

Hon Mrs Witmer: It is actually our government that introduced the quality and introduced the care into the system, because unfortunately, before these changes were made, people didn't have the opportunity of having access to these services.

I think it's also very important to remember that the 43 CCACs throughout the province have boards, and the boards that support the CCACs are members of local communities. I can assure you that the people who have taken on these responsibilities are very committed individuals, they are doing this voluntarily and they know about the needs of their community. I can assure you that the boards of the CCACs and the staffs of the CCACs throughout the province of Ontario are going to ensure that the necessary essential services will continue to be provided to the people who need them.

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): I have a question again for the Chair of Management Board. The Chair of Management Board in my last question said, "Step outside and make some of these allegations."

Minister, this is a prospectus and it's put out in part by one of the Latner family companies. In this prospectus they're trying to get money. They're saying, "The apartment units we have are worth something because our good friends in the Ontario government are going to do away with rent control and you'll be able to jack up the rents."

Our allegation here, Minister, and I suggest you take it seriously, is that friends of the Conservative Party are benefiting from your government's decision right, left and centre. The Latner family is part of a casino bid that was bumped up from number three to number one in Niagara, despite the fact it has nothing to recommend it on its merits. The Latner family is going to benefit from one of the permanent charity casinos.

Minister, will you open up the process at least of the Niagara casino to assure the public that the right bid, the best bid, is being selected by your -

Hon Chris Hodgson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet, Minister of Northern Development and Mines): I can tell the leader of the third party that what he is saying is absolutely false. This government is trying to conduct its business in the most ethical and fair manner possible.

I can speak specifically to the file that I've now been given around the casino process. I can tell you that the reason why the bid isn't out there, the reason why the mayor has concerns in Niagara Falls, is the fact that he is not involved in the negotiations. It is the Ontario Casino Corp. They took the advice from the selection committee, and now they are conducting the negotiations. There is no bid that has been finalized yet, but they're working through the number one proposal according to the selection committee. If that doesn't work out, you go to number two.

What you're asking for is to say, "Lay out the negotiations in public and then let them shop offers." We have an arm's-length committee for this purpose that has selected a proponent, and then the Ontario Casino Corp negotiates with the number one proponent.

Mr Hampton: The Chair of Management Board says that what we're saying is absolutely false. I've got news for you, Minister. The fact that your government changed the health lab regulations so as to benefit a Latner company, Dynacare labs, is absolutely on the public record. All of the small labs who are being taken advantage of now by your government in order to reward your corporate friends know about it.

The fact that the Latner family, through one of their other companies, is getting one of the permanent charity casinos is also on the public record.

Now the fact that the Latner family, through one of their other companies, is advertising far and wide that they're going to benefit from your decontrol of rents is also on the public record. We're asking you: Put the selection of the Niagara casino on the public record. What have you got to fear? What have you got to hide? Open up the process and show the people of Ontario that it's fair.

Hon Mr Hodgson: I know that the lab question, the allegations he said yesterday, were answered by the Minister of Health. He's also fully aware that they were industry-driven, and the Minister of Health gave a full explanation of that.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Order.

Hon Mr Hodgson: The allegation around the labs that the leader of the third party keeps throwing around so freely was fully answered by the Minister of Health. It was an open and transparent policy that the caps were in place. It's fully done in an appropriate manner.

Municipal affairs: The housing policy was done to benefit tenants and landlords alike right across the province. There were public hearings on that.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Minister.

Hon Mr Hodgson: I'd just like to sum up by reiterating that if the leader of the third party wants to make these allegations, I invite him to do so outside where he knows that he would be accountable for them. That's not a threat; it's just the facts. I've tried to lay it out the best I can that this government's operating in an open and fair and transparent manner that's accountable to taxpayers.

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EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr John L. Parker (York East): I know the member for St Catharines -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I need to know where your question's going.

Mr Parker: I'm going to get to that, Mr Speaker. The member for St Catharines wants the minister -

The Speaker: I need to know where your question's going. You have to tell me where your question's going first.

Interjection.

The Speaker: Chief government whip, if you want to stand up and state a point of order, be my guest. Otherwise, I suggest you not heckle the Speaker.

Mr Parker: I heard some enthusiasm for the Minister of Education -

The Speaker: I am not going to say it one more time. It's not funny. I need to know where your question's going.

Mr Parker: Mr Speaker, the question is going to the Minister of Education. As I know, and you are aware, the member for St Catharines is anxious that he have an opportunity to answer a question today.

My constituents in the riding of York East are seriously concerned about reports that are currently in circulation to the general effect that the Toronto District School Board may have to eliminate school sports programs. They're being told the story that because of the increase in classroom teaching time, teachers won't have time to coach those sports programs. They're hearing also that funding for sports equipment has been cut, in some reports by as much as 100%. What information can I bring back to my constituents to help set the record straight on this issue?

Hon David Johnson (Minister of Education and Training): I'd like to thank the member for York East for the question and the opportunity to clarify this matter because I, and this government, consider the extracurricular activities that go on in our schools to be of utmost importance. Myself, many years ago, I participated in sports such as football and basketball, the science club, that sort of thing, after hours. Those are important for the development of our young students.

I want to say frankly that I'm appalled that the students' programs are being held hostage by the school boards. This is happening at a time when the supplies and text fund has been increased by $43 million to the school boards across the province of Ontario. In the city of Toronto, where this question is emanating from, they have precisely the same amount of money in their supplies and text fund, plus they have access to hundreds of millions of dollars of other revenue. They only need to find one fifth of 1% of their total budget to fund these programs. The students should have these programs; there's no reason why they shouldn't.

Mr Parker: As I mentioned, there's also the concern that with the increase in hours in the classroom the teachers won't have the time to coach the programs. Where will the teachers find the time to coach these school sports programs?

Hon David Johnson: That's another very good question. I'm again very disgusted that I read in the Toronto Star that the head of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation has instructed his members not to commit to anything but normal classroom duties. That's abominable, because we have simply asked our teachers in Ontario to increase their classroom time from three and three quarter hours a day, by far the lowest across Canada, to just a little bit under the Canadian average.

We're not asking our teachers to do anything beyond what teachers are doing in other jurisdictions in Canada, beyond what the elementary teachers are doing here in Ontario. There should be no reason why those teachers who are interested in participating should not be able to participate in extracurricular sports. The funding is there. The teachers have the time, as teachers in other jurisdictions do. Our students deserve those programs; they should get them.

GO TRANSIT

Mr Mike Colle (Oakwood): My question is to the Minister of Transportation. According to the current managing director of GO Transit, Rich Ducharme, your underfunding of GO Transit is the root cause of the cuts in numerous GO Transit routes coming into Toronto. Today on radio, the well-respected Lou Parsons, the former director and former chairman of APTA, the American Public Transit Association, also agrees that it's your government's abandonment of public transit like GO and the downloading of public transit on to property taxes that has caused this disaster that's about to befall GO Transit with these cutbacks.

Minister, how can you run a railroad that, because of your funding cuts, can't afford now even to stop and pick up passengers? How can you run a railroad that way?

Hon Tony Clement (Minister of Transportation): I know the honourable member was trying very hard to find a way to blame the current situation on us, and that's par for the course, I understand that, but I'd like to inform the honourable member that a decision of this government, the Mike Harris government, in fact guarantees for this fiscal year extra money for GO Transit, for their capital, to the tune of $106 million. That is the fact. That is what's going on because of our decision.

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Mr Colle: There is no jurisdiction in North America, in the western world, that has downloaded public transit to municipal taxpayers. Nowhere in Chicago, New York, California, Germany or Italy does public transit go down to the property taxpayer. You've done that. You're the first government to do that. Because you've done that, you've created a recipe for disaster. You have walked away from that responsibility.

Rather than pointing fingers, I ask you to do the right thing: Step in and do something about the thousands of passengers who are going to be abandoned by your walking away from public transportation, especially GO Transit. Will you step in and help GO Transit serve the people who want to use it?

Hon Mr Clement: I'm not sure what facts the honourable member is referring to, because many public transit systems throughout the world are the responsibility of the municipalities.

Mr Colle: Where? Which one? Name one.

Hon Mr Clement: The Paris Métro that he mentioned, the London Underground.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Member for Oakwood, please come to order.

Hon Mr Clement: There is a reason why all of the great municipal transit systems in the world are run by the municipality. The reason is that the municipality has the ability to deliver better services for less in this particular area. Despite that fact, this province has had a commitment in the past to municipal transit services.

We just gave a cheque to Mel Lastman and to the Toronto city council for $828 million this year to ensure that their municipal transit system is run the proper way. I am proud of that commitment by this government. I am proud of the fact that we are continuing to ensure that there are strategic funds available for capital needs for GO Transit as well.

IPPERWASH PROVINCIAL PARK

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): I have a question to the Attorney General. Earlier this week I asked the Premier if he would stop stonewalling and call a public inquiry into the shooting death of Dudley George. Of course, he hid behind his usual excuses. It's been over two years, and maybe you people thought it was going to be forgotten, but I tell you, the people of Ontario will not forget Dudley George.

You also know I filed a letter with the clerk of the administration of justice committee. There's going to be an inquiry there. There are going to be witnesses called. With the mere 12 hours allotted, we're going to try to find out what the Premier has been hiding.

Earlier this week I talked about the new evidence showing that the OPP riot squad was ordered to enter Ipperwash. This absolutely contradicts sworn testimony by OPP officers and even the former OPP commissioner. This looks like a coverup, it stinks like a coverup.

Attorney General, your duties transcend partisanship. Will you fulfil those duties by committing today to calling for a full public inquiry into the shooting and death of Dudley George?

Hon Charles Harnick (Attorney General, minister responsible for native affairs): The very issues that the member raises in his question are all issues that continue to be before courts, that involve issues pertaining to individuals who I think are entitled to have their cases completed without any prejudice to them. Accordingly, it would be inappropriate to deal with the request at this time.

Mr Kormos: The Attorney General stands and refuses to answer questions or to call an inquiry because, as he would put it, he doesn't want to impede justice. At the same time, Attorney General, you refuse to assist in any way.

Over a year ago you, the Premier and the former Solicitor General were served with notices of examination for discovery and your lawyers wriggled out of it. The more you try to obscure the truth, the more you try to wriggle out of this mess, the more it's being asked, just what is it that you're hiding and covering up.

You've been a lawyer. You know how important the process of examination for discovery is to determining the facts. Will you confirm today that you, the Premier and the former Solicitor General will make yourselves available for examination for discovery in the George family's lawsuit?

Hon Mr Harnick: The member refers to a civil lawsuit that is ongoing. Counsel for various individuals have discussed those very issues that the member raises. There are issues pertaining to production of documents that are ongoing and at the appropriate time counsel will determine when that will be and those examinations for discovery I suspect will take place. Counsel will guide all the parties involved in the civil lawsuit as to the appropriate time for those examinations.

ROAD SAFETY

Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): My question is to the Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services, and it concerns actions that are being taken to make our communities safer as the government has committed to do. In particular, people in my community are concerned about the danger of careless and reckless drivers posing a threat to our children as they walk to and from local schools and parks. Can the minister tell this House what action is being taken by the government to keep children safe in these areas where children often walk?

Hon Jim Flaherty (Minister of Labour, Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services): I want to thank the member for Durham-York for her question. The priority of this government is the safety and protection of our communities and particularly of our children in those communities.

Today, I introduced a bill that, if passed, would establish special community safety zones to extend extra protection to areas such as school zones, crossings, school bus stops, day care centres and children's parks. Fines for driving infractions in the community safety zones would be doubled under the proposed bill.

The member for Timiskaming and the member for Welland-Thorold raised the issue of police resources in their statements today, which is why we've committed $150 million in the budget for up to 1,000 additional uniformed police officers in the province, 50% of their salaries to be paid by the government of Ontario, so we can have those additional front-line police officers on the streets of Ontario.

Mrs Munro: I want to thank the Solicitor General for his answer, because it demonstrates this government's resolve to protect our children and our communities from drivers who pose a danger to us all.

Can the minister please tell us what types of offences would have their fines doubled should the bill he has tabled be passed?

Hon Mr Flaherty: A number of moving offences involving motor vehicles would be subject to a doubled fine if they are committed within the community safety zones. If the bill is passed, this would include offences such as speeding, failing to stop, disobeying a red signal, disobeying an amber signal, improper turns and a number of other moving violations.

Taken together with the government's commitment to double fines for red light runners and following on our $150-million commitment to other community safety initiatives in the recent budget, we are sending a strong message of support for community safety and letting aggressive drivers know they will not be tolerated. We are keeping our promise with respect to safe communities.

IPPERWASH PROVINCIAL PARK

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): My question is to the Minister of Natural Resources and it has to do with Ipperwash Provincial Park. As you know, the key issue there is whether there was a burial ground at Ipperwash Provincial Park or not.

I imagine you are aware that there is a letter that indicates that when your engineers, people working for the Ministry of Natural Resources - it says: "When cleaning out this park recently, the engineer" - that is, the provincial engineer - "discovered an old Indian burial ground and stated if the band would make a request to the provincial government, he was sure they would be glad to mark off and fence the plot." The council, as you will know, went on to request that the province fence off that burial ground.

This is quite a significant development. The question to you is this: Were you aware that it was an engineer working for the Ministry of Natural Resources who found this burial ground, and what do you plan to do about the matter?

Hon John Snobelen (Minister of Natural Resources): I'll refer this question to the Honourable Charles Harnick.

Hon Charles Harnick (Attorney General, minister responsible for native affairs): As I have indicated, we have not received an official land claim pertaining to the site at Ipperwash park. As I've also indicated in this Legislature, if a request is made with respect to the definitive finding of a burial ground, we would certainly do our utmost to ensure that that burial ground would be protected. I've said that before and I say that again.

Mr Phillips: This is an extremely serious matter. An engineer working for your department, cleaning out the park, discovered the burial ground. It was the government's own employee. It wasn't the first nation that said it was there; it was your own employee who found it and said, "Request that it be fenced off."

I return to you, Minister, you who are responsible for this. Have you investigated this, and what did you find out when you investigated it? Will you return to the House and tell the House what you found out during that investigation? Will you commit to do that now?

Hon Mr Harnick: As I've indicated, and I've indicated this to this member before, if there are definitive findings that have been made pertaining to a burial ground, we would do our utmost to ensure that it was fenced off and properly protected. We've made that commitment and stand by it.

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PROPERTY TAXATION

Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): In the absence of the Minister of Finance, I want to ask a question to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Yesterday we asked a question on this issue of Bill 16, the property tax bill, and your colleague the Chair of Management Board defended the government's persistence in proceeding with the bill without committee hearings. You did the same today in answer to questions.

We know that the time allocation was scheduled to be called this afternoon and we've just been advised by your House leader that he won't be calling this question. Does this mean, Minister, that you're finally coming to your senses and you're prepared now to send this bill to committee, where it belongs?

Hon Al Leach (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): To answer the member of the third party, what the House leader calls is the House leader's business, but I can tell you that we are meeting with the clerks and treasurers as we speak - the meeting started at 3 o'clock, I believe - to go over that bill clause by clause to make sure they understand it, because we're sure that all the concerns they put in their letter can be addressed and the bill can proceed.

Mr Silipo: You can do it today or you can do it after the meeting or you can do it tomorrow and you can do it outside instead of doing it in here, but the reality is that it seems to us that you're finally realizing what the administrators who are going to have to implement this bill municipality by municipality have told you in writing. In 12 pages in this document they have outlined legislative errors, drafting errors, let alone the kind of "political and administrative nightmare" - their words - that they say will take place if this bill doesn't get out to committee and get fixed.

Why don't you just tell us today, give us your commitment that you've finally understood the need for this bill to be out in committee so we can at least fix the administrative problems, let alone the political nightmare you're going to cause for municipalities across the province?

Hon Mr Leach: Again, what the House leader calls, the House leader calls. But we are going over the concerns that were brought forward by the clerks and treasurers to make sure they understand the bill. Our understanding is that there are parts of it that they have misinterpreted, and we want to make sure they clearly understand the meaning of the clauses. We're meeting with them to go over it clause by clause, and I'm confident that after that meeting their concerns will have been addressed. It's that simple.

CHILD CARE

Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): My question is to the Minister without Portfolio responsible for children. Over the last three years I have had a number of constituents come forward who are concerned about the fact that there's nothing in place that recognizes parents who want to make the choice to have at least one of the parents stay home to look after children.

Minister, we know there are tax credits available for working parents, but could you clarify for us and for people in the province what this government is doing to recognize and support families who want to choose to give up one income to stay at home to look after children?

Hon Margaret Marland (Minister without Portfolio [children's issues]): I'm very glad to have this question, because this government has always felt that parents need to have a variety of child care options. While a family may decide to place their child in a formal or informal child care setting, they may also decide that the best choice for their children is to have one parent stay home, if it's possible, to raise the family.

Of course, as you've stated, if a parent chooses to stay at home, not only do they rely on a lower income for that family, but they've also been shut out of the traditional child care benefit. Our government has recognized this, and we've very proud of the options we are now giving to those parents.

Mr Klees: I know that many families across the province will be pleased to know that finally a government has recognized that stay-at-home parents do in fact provide a valuable service in this province. There will be questions about eligibility. I wonder if you could clarify for the House and for the families across this province precisely who can apply for this supplement, and how many people do you think will benefit from this?

Hon Mrs Marland: This child care supplement is designed to help modest- and middle-income families with children under seven years of age. We've combined the Ontario child care tax credit and $100 million from the national child benefit to improve and expand child care options for Ontario families.

While the previous tax credit system allowed for a maximum credit of $400 per child, the proposed benefit from the supplement would rise up to $1,020 per child under seven for families with work earnings. This is a great improvement for families in Ontario.

This new supplement means that the vast majority of families who received the 1997 Ontario child care tax benefit would receive a larger benefit from the new program. Our new supplement would reach 210,000 families and support 350,000 children.

Families have told us they need more choices. We're responding to the needs of both families working outside of the home and stay-at-home parents in Ontario.

PETITIONS

ABORTION

Mr Pat Hoy (Essex-Kent): I have a petition signed by a number of residents from Woodslee.

"Whereas the Ontario health system is overburdened and unnecessary spending must be cut; and

"Whereas pregnancy is not a disease, injury or illness and abortions are not therapeutic procedures; and

"Whereas the vast majority of abortions are done for reasons of convenience or finance; and

"Whereas the province has the exclusive authority to determine what services will be insured; and

"Whereas the Canada Health Act does not require funding for elective procedures; and

"Whereas there is mounting evidence that abortion is in fact hazardous to women's health; and

"Whereas Ontario taxpayers funded over 45,000 abortions in 1993 at an estimated cost of $25 million;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to cease from providing any taxpayers' dollars for the performance of abortions."

I affix my name to this petition.

PROTECTION FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

Mr Bob Wood (London South): I have a petition which I wish to present on behalf of the member for London North.

"Whereas nurses in Ontario often experience coercion to participate in practices which directly contravene their deeply held ethical standards; and

"Whereas pharmacists in Ontario are often pressured to dispense and/or sell chemicals and/or devices contrary to their moral or religious beliefs; and

"Whereas public health workers in Ontario are expected to assist in providing controversial services and promoting controversial materials against their consciences; and

"Whereas physicians in Ontario often experience pressure to give referrals for medications, treatments and/or procedures which they believe to be gravely immoral; and

"Whereas competent health care workers and students in various health care disciplines in Ontario have been denied training, employment, continued employment and advancement in their intended fields and suffered other forms of unjust discrimination because of the dictates of their consciences; and

"Whereas health care workers experiencing such unjust discrimination have at present no practical and accessible legal means to protect themselves;

"We, the undersigned, urge the government of Ontario to enact legislation explicitly recognizing the freedom of conscience of health care workers, prohibiting coercion of and unjust discrimination against health care workers because of their refusal to participate in matters contrary to the dictates of their consciences, and establishing penalties for such coercion and unjust discrimination."

ABORTION

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): These petitions were gathered by Knights of Columbus councils in and around the city and region of Sudbury.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas Ontario taxpayers funded over 45,000 abortions in 1993 at an estimated cost of $25 million; and

"Whereas pregnancy is not a disease, injury, or illness, and abortions are not therapeutic procedures; and

"Whereas the vast majority of abortions are done for reasons of convenience or finance; and

"Whereas the province has the exclusive authority to determine what services will be insured; and

"Whereas the Canada Health Act does not require funding for elective procedures; and

"Whereas there is mounting evidence that abortion is in fact hazardous to women's health;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to cease from providing any taxpayers' dollars for the performance of abortions."

CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH CARE

Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): I have a petition to the Legislature of Ontario.

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to recognize the contribution made by chiropractors to the good health of the people of Ontario, to recognize the taxpayer dollars saved by the use of low-cost preventive care such as that provided by chiropractors and to recognize that to restrict funding for chiropractic health care only serves to limit access to a needed health care service."

I submit this petition on their behalf.

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SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION

Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): My petition is to the Honourable David Johnson, Minister of Education and Training.

"Whereas no new capital funds have been provided by the province to address English Catholic school facility needs in Ottawa-Carleton since 1994; and

"Whereas failure to provide capital funding has resulted in a space crisis at Holy Trinity school in Kanata, evidenced by the current loading ratio of 144%; and

"Whereas continuing growth in student enrolment is projected to increase the overcrowding to 153% of the school's operational capacity by this September; and

"Whereas the crisis in accommodation will be compounded by the smaller class sizes announced by the government under Bill 160; and

"Whereas the current overflow of students is being accommodated by 30 portables and site restrictions prohibit the installation of further units; and

"Whereas no other alternative exists to accommodate increasing student numbers either at Holy Trinity high school or neighbouring board high schools; and

"Whereas current students number in excess of the capacity of the school are overtaxing core and specialty areas of the school, washrooms, lunchrooms, library, gymnasium, tech areas, laboratories etc, and as a consequence are negatively impacting program delivery and student safety; and

"Whereas the construction of the new high school will take approximately 18 months to complete;

"Be it resolved that the undersigned require the Minister of Education and Training to alleviate the space crisis at Holy Trinity high school in Kanata by providing the required funding to construct a new Catholic high school in the western sector of Ottawa-Carleton in Stittsville in sufficient time to permit opening of the new school by September 1999."

I add my name to this petition, which involves hundreds of parents.

SCHIZOPHRENIA

Mr Dave Boushy (Sarnia): I have a petition on behalf of the people in my riding.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas you may be aware that schizophrenia affects approximately 1% of the population, it has a devastating impact on individuals, families and society, there are no cures and until recently, the treatment could be almost as devastating for some as the illness;

"Whereas recent drug developments have offered some new hope that the horrible effects of older drug therapies can be avoided; however, doctors must prescribe the older drug therapies to anyone without a private health plan; people are dying every day needlessly; over 300 people with mental illness jumped from the Bloor Street bridge in Toronto to their deaths this past year alone;

"We believe that all people should be allowed the best medical drugs available and therefore we petition the Ontario government."

I add my signature.

HEALTH INSURANCE

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"We, the undersigned, do hereby request that the provincial government reconsider the action taken effective April 1, 1998, which decrees that only 20 visits will be allowed under OHIP to patients requiring physiotherapy treatment per year."

I have affixed my own signature to that petition.

LEGAL AID

Mr Gerry Martiniuk (Cambridge): I have a petition signed by the good citizens of Cambridge.

"We, the undersigned citizens of Cambridge, Ontario, petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"To immediately cease the use of Ontario taxpayers' money for payment of Paul Bernardo's public defender fees for his appeal;

"We, the undersigned, find this decision abhorrent, extremely unacceptable and an insult to his victims, their families and to society in general.

"We feel that Mr Bernardo has a right to appeal his sentence but not at the expense of the citizens of Ontario."

CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH CARE

Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): I have a petition addressed to the Ontario Legislature.

"Whereas the Ministry of Health has recently strengthened its reputation as the Ministry of Medicine through its $1.7-billion, three-year agreement with the Ontario Medical Association; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government is restricting access to alternative cost-saving treatments for patients of the province; and

"Whereas two recent reports commissioned by the Ministry of Health called for increased OHIP funding to improve patient access to chiropractic services on the grounds of safety, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness; and

"Whereas one million Ontario adults now use chiropractic services annually, increasingly those with higher incomes because of the cost barrier caused by government underfunding; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government has shown blatant disregard for the needs of the citizens of Ontario in restricting funding for chiropractic services;

PROTECTION FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

Mr Harry Danford (Hastings-Peterborough): I have a petition signed by a number of my constituents with regard to health care. Given that another petition has already been presented this afternoon, I will only read the operative clause.

SERVICES FOR THE DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED

Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): I have a petition to the Legislature of Ontario.

"Whereas the Ottawa-Carleton Restructuring Advisory Group has prepared a preliminary report for the Ottawa-Carleton Development Services Restructuring Project; and

"Whereas the consultation process was selective and limited; and

"Whereas those who require services are being pitted against those who have services; and

"Whereas service to one group should not be at the expense of another, regardless of age or language; and

"Whereas the Ministry of Community and Social Services' `corporate agenda' is one of wholesale destruction of the support system for the vulnerable; and

"Whereas this corporate agenda will threaten the health, safety and likely the lives of many disabled people;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislature of Ontario to stop this destructive restructuring project and provide adequate funding for quality services to the developmentally disabled."

I affix my signature to this.

CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH CARE

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I have a petition to the Ontario Legislature. I'm presenting it on behalf of the Minister of Health, who cannot present petitions in this chamber. It reads as follows:

"Whereas the Ministry of Health has recently strengthened its reputation as the Ministry of Medicine through its $1.7-billion three-year agreement with the Ontario Medical Association; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government is restricting access to alternative cost-saving treatments for patients of the province; and

"Whereas over one million Ontario adults now use chiropractic services annually, increasingly those with higher incomes, because of the cost barrier caused by government underfunding; and

"Whereas the Mike Harris government has shown blatant disregard for the needs of the citizens of Ontario in restricting funding for chiropractic services;

SERVICES FOR THE DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED

Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): I have a petition to the Legislature of Ontario.

"Whereas the Ministry of Community and Social Services is currently engaged in a restructuring process across all communities in Ontario which will affect all people and their families supported by developmental services; and

"Whereas the consultation process was selective and limited; and

"Whereas those who require services are being pitted against those who have services; and

"Whereas service to one group should not be at the expense of another, regardless of age or language; and

"Whereas the Ministry of Community and Social Services' `corporate agenda' is one of wholesale destruction of the support system for the vulnerable; and

"Whereas this corporate agenda will threaten the health, safety and likely the lives of many disabled people;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislature of Ontario to stop this destructive restructuring project and provide adequate funding for quality services to those with developmental disabilities."

I add my name to this petition.

LEGAL AID

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): I have a petition of 1,443 signatures from Grey county and Dufferin county which is entitled "Stop Paul Bernardo's Appeal."

"We, the undersigned, are opposed to the government funding of legal aid for Paul Bernardo's appeal. We want the government to prevent tried and convicted murderers, with admission of guilt, from using legal aid funded by taxpayers."

I have signed this petition.

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PROTECTION FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): I have a petition here signed by a number of people and is addressed to the assembly of Ontario. It reads as follows:

"Whereas nurses in Ontario often experience coercion to participate in practices which directly contravene their deeply held ethical standards; and

"Whereas pharmacists in Ontario are often pressured to dispense and/or sell chemicals and/or devices contrary to their moral or religious beliefs; and

"Whereas public health workers in Ontario are expected to assist in providing controversial services and promoting controversial materials against their consciences; and

"Whereas physicians in Ontario often experience pressure to give referrals for medications, treatments and/or procedures which they believe to be gravely immoral; and

"Whereas competent health care workers and students in various health care disciplines in Ontario have been denied training, employment, continued employment and advancement in their intended fields, and suffered other forms of unjust discrimination because of the dictates of their consciences; and

"Whereas health care workers experiencing such unjust discrimination have at present no practical and accessible legal means to protect themselves;

I'm affixing my signature to this document.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

TAX CUTS FOR PEOPLE AND FOR SMALL BUSINESS ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA RÉDUCTION DES IMPÔTS DES PARTICULIERS ET DES PETITES ENTREPRISES

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 15, An Act to cut taxes for people and for small business and to implement other measures contained in the 1998 Budget / Projet de loi 15, Loi visant à réduire les impôts des particuliers et des petites entreprises et à mettre en oeuvre d'autres mesures contenues dans le budget de 1998.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): First of all, I should say that we are surprised at this time that this order should be called since it was slated to be called this evening. What we were anticipating of course was the time allocation motion or the closure motion that the government was going to call with respect to Bill 16.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Whatever happened to that?

Mr Gerretsen: It's interesting to know what would happen with that. I think what the people of Ontario should understand is that Bill 16 is a very important piece of legislation. It is in effect going to set the tone as to what you will pay in your local municipality as far as property taxes are concerned, from a business viewpoint, from an industrial viewpoint and as a residential taxpayer.

What's happened here over the last couple of days is really extraordinary. We've had an organization known as the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario come forward with a 13-page letter addressed to the government, saying, "You can't possibly let this bill pass without some very serious amendments or else you are putting the whole financial situation of our municipalities into chaos."

We had a meeting with this group this morning and they had a press conference at 1 o'clock this afternoon, basically to once again implore the government not to go ahead with it. There were questions raised about that issue in the House today by Dalton McGuinty, our leader.

Who knows? Maybe the government has come to its senses and realizes that rather than passing another bad piece of legislation - remember now, we've had four different bills dealing with basically the same issue. We've had Bill 106, Bill 149, Bill 164 and now this Bill 16. To prevent you from having to come back with another piece of legislation that would correct the mistakes you're doing in Bill 16, just maybe you've come to your senses and said to yourselves as a government, "Perhaps we should listen to the organization of municipal clerks and treasurers."

These are the people who will be dealing with this legislation. They're the people who will be dealing with the property taxpayers in our municipalities on a day-to-day basis. They know what the problems are with respect to this bill. They've outlined it in this letter that's 13 pages long. They have referred to this bill in such ways as: "This bill is complicated, cumbersome, confusing and, too often, badly drafted. It serves to perpetuate the bad system that the government was so bent on eliminating."

For the sake of the property taxpayers of this province, whether they're in your municipality or mine, whether they're residential property taxpayers or commercial-industrial taxpayers, I hope the government is for once listening and saying: "Let's listen to the experts. Let's at least make sure that we've finally got it right and that we're going to pass a piece of legislation the municipalities can work with." I hope the government is taking that into account.

Since we're dealing with the implementation of the budget in Bill 15, I just want to address one other issue that is related, because it was talked about in the budget as well. It deals with the one-line statement that was made in the budget in which it states, "The government is committed to supporting people with disabilities through a variety of measures, including the creation of an Ontarians with Disabilities Act."

Mr Speaker, that you were probably visited last week by members of this organization in your riding. I know that I was in my riding, and I know that many members of all parties were visited by the people with disabilities last week in their constituency offices. What these people are basically asking is, "Live up to your commitment." Mike Harris made a commitment during the 1995 election campaign in which he stated that if he were Premier he would pass a bill known as the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. All these people are asking for at this point in time is that this bill be brought forward and that the bill be discussed with these people, that you open it up for consultation. That's all they're asking, which I think is probably about the least anybody could ask of a government. So bring the bill forward, no more delays.

The other day the Minister of Citizenship and Culture was asked about this: "When are you bringing the bill forward? When are you letting it out for consultation with the disabled community, and with the abled community as well?" Do it. Why are you holding back? Let's see what the real issues are out there for the disabled community, and let's see if we, from a legislative viewpoint, can help push that program along so they can become productive citizens in our society. That's all these people are looking for. So I just urge you to bring that bill forward as quickly as possible so that a meaningful dialogue with the disabled community can begin.

People sometimes ask me in my riding, "Is there anything good about this year's budget?" I have to admit there's one aspect I like about this budget. That deals with part IV of this particular bill, the Land Transfer Tax Act.

Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Would you ascertain whether or not there is a quorum present, please?

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Would you please check if there is a quorum.

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

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Kingston and The Islands.

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Mr Gerretsen: As I indicated before, there is one thing I like about this particular bill and that is the section dealing with the Land Transfer Tax Act. It basically extends the refund of the land transfer tax to first-time home buyers of newly constructed homes. I think this is a good idea. I think we all know that whatever we can do to get the construction industry moving, particularly home construction, is a good idea. Now, a good argument could be made as to whether or not it should be opened up for first-time home buyers of perhaps not-new construction as well, but that's an argument we can have at some point in time in the future.

That's one positive aspect about the budget, but there are also, as you well know, some very negative aspects of it.

One of the issues that my colleague from St Catharines feels very strongly about is the whole issue of gaming. What this bill does is it allows an amendment to the Ontario Lottery Corporation Act to basically expand the list to include, under the Ontario Lottery Corporation Act, the provision of health care services. It goes on to say further that at least one half of the corporation's net revenue from table gaming must be spent for those purposes.

I don't believe that health care, which we all value and for which we are known throughout the world for always having been accessible and for being a caring society, that the health care costs of our system ought to be paid for out of gambling revenue. I happen to think that is simply not a wise course of action to take. To link it to a circumstance which, let's face it, destroys a lot of individuals, destroys a lot of people who become addicted to gambling etc, I don't think is a wise thing to do. I would urge the government to reconsider that aspect. I just don't think that our health care costs, the system we all value or at least we all should value, should be paid for out of a revenue source like this. I have some grave concerns about that. Undoubtedly the member for St Catharines will be addressing this in a more comprehensive fashion later on.

I suppose one area that I also have great difficulty with and I've talked about before is the whole notion of an income tax cut. Let me be absolutely clear about it. Would I like an income tax cut? Definitely. Who wouldn't like to pay less taxes? The real issue, though, is whether or not we as a society can afford an income tax cut at this time.

As I've said in this Legislature before, and I will say it again, how can you possibly cut the revenue side of the provincial financial statement? How can you possibly collect less taxes from individuals, particularly since the income tax cut benefits the richer people in our society, while at the same time you are still running an annual deficit?

Yes, the annual deficit is less than it was three or four years ago and, yes, economic times in parts of Ontario are better than they were. I can tell you that in eastern Ontario we certainly haven't seen much of this economic recovery that seems to be taking place in some sectors in the Metro Toronto area and perhaps in the Golden Horseshoe area. You talk to the average person in the Kingston area, you talk to the people in construction, you talk to the people in sales and they certainly haven't seen the economic recovery that everybody seems to think is taking place in Ontario.

How can you cut income taxes when you're still running an annual deficit? As I've stated before and as your own budget document clearly indicates, the public debt of this province during your term of office is going to increase from $89 billion to $115 billion. What that means basically is that we can't afford an income tax cut right now. Your own document indicates that the interest cost on the public debt has gone up from something like $7.8 billion three years ago to over $9 billion today, which is more than what this province spends in social service costs. The social service budget for the Comsoc ministry is something in the neighbourhood of $7.8 billion.

So, yes, would I like an income tax cut? Of course. Who wouldn't like an income tax cut? The problem is we can't afford it as a society. We cannot afford it as a society at this time.

I have some great difficulties with that. I think that as the tables in the budget clearly indicate, the people who make the most money stand to gain by far the biggest share of the income tax cut, as the member for Scarborough-Agincourt pointed out yesterday. It's kind of interesting that the people who are making $250,000 or more in yearly income will in effect be getting $500 million of the total income tax cut. It's kind of interesting that this figure happens to equal the amount of money you have downloaded on municipalities.

Yes, there are some municipal councils around this province that have been trying to keep tax increases as low as they can, or maybe even reach the zero limit, because basically you have shoved the problem back down to them. But nobody has ascertained yet what this has meant in those municipalities as far as services are concerned. Are services going to be at a much lower level than they were before? I suppose only time will tell.

I see that my time is almost up, and I would just once again implore the government to take a look at the income tax cut. You know, as I mentioned yesterday, I think you would have been intellectually honest if you had said, "Okay, we want to make all these various cuts, but at least we would be getting the deficit numbers much lower than they currently are."

The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?

Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): I'm delighted to comment on the speech made by the member for Kingston and The Islands. I will confess that I wasn't able to follow all of it. I just want to clarify one piece, and if he dealt with this before I came into the House, I'll be happy to go back and take a look at the Hansard.

He will know that I agree with him and we in the NDP agree with the Liberals when they say they are against the tax cut. We point out, as we have all been pointing out, the problems that the tax cut has caused and will continue to cause to the average family out there. As I have said on other occasions, half the taxpayers in the province make less than $35,000. Typical families will end up paying more rather than less as a result of the tax cut. While they may get, on the one hand, some benefit from the tax cut, they will end up paying more than that benefit through increased property taxes; through increased user fees, which Mike Harris used to call taxes and now says they're not; through a variety of other things like payment for medicines if they're seniors; increased - in the hundreds of dollars, and in the thousands of dollars by the time this term is over - tuition fees for college and university.

We agree with the kind of devastation that the Mike Harris tax cut is causing. We have proposed as a New Democratic caucus that we would undo the portion of the tax cut that goes to people making over $80,000. That, in fact, would get us $1.5 billion to $2 billion that we want and need to reinvest back in education and health care. I want to know from the member for Kingston and The Islands why it is that he, if he believes so strongly that the tax cut is wrong for the province, would not seek to undo it, in part or in whole, why he would persist in keeping the tax cut he so strongly opposes.

Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): I listened with great interest to the speeches by both the member for Scarborough-Agincourt and the member for Kingston and The Islands. The member for Kingston and The Islands says we can't cut taxes until we balance the budget. Yet I can very well remember the provincial Liberal Party promising to do that in the last election campaign. So when the member speaks about being intellectually honest, I know he'll want to review the Liberal Party's plan because I know they presented a plan.

What did they promise to do in the red book? We know that Lyn McLeod's word was her bond with the people. If they were going to wait until the budget was balanced before they cut taxes, that's not what they said during the election. "The Liberal government would cut taxes by 5% during their first term. They would put $1.7 billion back in the pockets of Ontario." And they wouldn't just cut income taxes, they were going to cut taxes on auto insurance, on first-time homes, on land transfer tax, on money spent by property owners, on forestry management. The Liberal government wanted to cut small business corporate taxes. The Liberal government wanted to cut the number of small businesses required to file corporate minimum income taxes and give businesses a 10% tax cut for investing in certain areas - all kinds of tax cuts. I've checked the finance table, and it was before the budget was balanced.

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I just wonder, have they repudiated that policy? Have they said, "We totally disagree with everything we put forward in the last provincial election"? Are they abandoning it? I simply can't understand how they can change gears. And now they've changed gears entirely again. Not only are they against cutting taxes, but the foundation of the Liberal Party's economic plan is to keep all the tax cuts. They were bad when they were presented, they are morally wrong today, but under Dalton McGuinty that's the foundation of his economic policy.

It's important that we look at action, action speaking louder than words. If it was good enough for Liberals to promise before an election when they wanted people's votes, surely to God it would be good enough now to help create jobs for hardworking taxpayers in Ontario.

Mr Bradley: They must keep the members of the Conservative caucus and their people very busy, particularly the ones who write the material, for even the new ideologues in the House to come forward with this, because constantly we have the Premier's lackeys get up - that's not a good word, I guess - the Premier's friends get up with these little arguments.

I must say I agree with the member for Kingston and The Islands that what we have hidden in this is an opportunity to introduce more gambling, to escalate gambling in this province. Just as my friend from Beaches-Woodbine has been concerned about this escalation of gambling opportunities, I am concerned about it, particularly with the situation we have with the expansion of so-called charity casinos or, as I call them, the Mike Harris gambling halls.

Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea): Will you close them up?

Mr Bradley: The member interjects. I should ignores it, but I have to say this to him: What you want to sign is eight-year contracts with your Tory friends for these things and then you want the people of this province to pay to get out of those contracts with your friends. You've got a lot of nerve, my friend. You've got a lot of nerve saying that.

I admired the view Reverend Derwyn Shea, my good friend from the west end of Toronto, expressed when he talked to the Hamilton Spectator and said he was against this expansion of gambling. I agreed with him then.

If you stick the next government with year-eight contracts, you're going to force people in this province to pay to get out of those contracts. That's why you should stop it now. That's why the member for Beaches-Woodbine gets up and says she doesn't want them in her neighbourhood. That's why I get up in this House now. Block them now. Join us, as you have said to the Hamilton Spectator. You join us, Reverend Shea. We want you on our side.

Ms Lankin: I appreciate having the opportunity to respond to the member for Kingston and The Islands.

I just say in response to the member for St Catharines, if there was a way in this bill that we could stop the charity gaming casinos, I would be right there with him to stop them. Unfortunately, this bill is not about that.

This bill is about a number of things. The centrepiece of it is the completion of the Mike Harris tax scheme, putting in place a tax scheme in the province which will benefit primarily the wealthiest of the province by a return of tax dollars. We've seen the implications of that and what it means in terms of cuts to services in health and education and a wide variety of government services.

I am perplexed in some ways by the member for Kingston and The Islands' comments. While I agree with him very strongly that we should be opposed to this portion of the tax cut, as we are opposed to the entire tax cut, I still remain perplexed, given that his party and his leader have said, "However, don't ask us to do anything about it if we're elected."

As recently as this weekend, on Sunday, the leader of the Liberal Party was at an event along with the leader of our party, Howard Hampton. When he said the Harris government has its priorities wrong, it shouldn't be doing a tax cut, it should be putting money into children's services, he was asked by parents of children with mental illness, who are struggling for more funding for their system, if he would therefore reverse this tax scheme the Harris government put in. He said, "No, because then I wouldn't be elected Premier."

What's the story here? Either you believe it is morally wrong or you don't believe it is morally wrong. Either you believe it is bad government policy to give money back to the wealthiest in this province and to strip our health care, our education, our children's services, or you don't believe that. You can't talk out of both sides of your mouth. So I say, while I support the sentiment of being in opposition, I'm proud to be of a party that's prepared to do something about that.

The Acting Speaker: Member for Kingston and The Islands, two minutes.

Mr Gerretsen: I'd like to thank the members for Dovercourt, Nepean, St Catharines and Beaches-Woodbine for their comments.

There has been a very interesting phenomenon take place in this House since we've come back, over the last week and a half or so. It's as if the right-wing neo-cons have now joined the left-wing socialists in an attack on what I consider to be the reasonable centre, where most of the people of Ontario are. It's going on here on a day-to-day basis.

Read your own budget if you want to know where the money is coming from. As I indicated last night, the revenues from retail sales tax alone have shot up by $2.5 billion in a matter of three years. Corporation taxes have gone up another $2.5 billion. There is $5 billion of revenue in two areas alone that have come in to more than enough pay for any campaign promises that we may make.

I totally agree: The vast majority of the people of Ontario feel that they're paying too much in taxes. For any party, in my opinion, to start talking about increasing taxes simply isn't going to fly with the people of Ontario, particularly when there are other revenue sources already available to pay for those election promises or to pay to restore some of the health care cuts and the education cuts that have already -

Ms Lankin: That's nonsense.

Mr Gerretsen: She says, "That's nonsense." I guess we'll just have to wait and see, because it can be done and it will be done.

In the last 10 seconds I have, I cannot understand how a party that preaches fiscal responsibility can allow the public debt of this province to go up from $89 billion to $115 billion in just three years.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): I'm happy to have this opportunity to speak to Bill 15, the Tax Cuts for People and for Small Business Act. I will be speaking to two parts of this, although there are many: one, the Ontario Loan Act, and the other, the Ontario Lottery Corporation Act.

On the first matter, under the Ontario Loan Act, this authorizes borrowing of up to $4.6 billion, all of which, we argue, will go to pay for the phoney tax cut. We want to talk about that, because it's an important part of this centrepiece for this government. We do our best to expose it to the extent we can and to talk about it, because a whole lot of people out there don't have a good sense of what this is all about.

You will recall that this government has cut billions of dollars out of essential areas of service that the province has been providing for years; $5 billion to $8 billion has been cut from our budgets. Areas of health, education, environment, labour, culture, every ministry connected to this government, have been decimated by them, and even the revenues coming in simply cannot make up for these devastating cuts. They can't. That's why the debt is high and that's why the deficit continues to be high. But the reason this deficit and debt remain particularly high is because of the phoney tax cut scheme. The gross indecency of this tax scheme connects to those who earn over $80,000, and that is about $2 billion of this tax cut.

We have had revenues in this province over the last two years that would have dealt with our deficit by now. We have had interest rates that have been low, in the history of this province and this country, which should have dealt with the debt and deficit we have had in this province. We have had more job opportunities - it's true indeed - and that has brought more revenue into the province that should have dealt with the deficit and debt.

But we haven't dealt with it, in spite of the claims by these family value Tories on the other side. To the contrary, we still have a high deficit, largely due to the income tax cut that is putting a tremendous burden on our system.

This Ontario Loan Act authorizes borrowing of up to $5 billion, largely for the purpose of paying this phoney tax cut you have given to folks. It's a phoney scheme, and we do our best to expose it. We argue, as New Democrats, that in an economy that is booming, we should not be giving money away, literally, to those who do not need it. Those who earn over $80,000 do not need money in their pockets. Presidents of banks who earn $1.5 million in salaries, excluding other benefits they make, do not need Tory generosity. They already earn enough.

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The people of Ontario urge you to reconsider. Obviously you're not going to reconsider, because the final phase of this phoney tax scheme will apply as of July 1, so you will not go back. That is quite clear. That is why we talk to the public and not to you, because of course you will not reconsider, except if the public tells you that you have made a profound error in giving those who don't need money the generosity of a Conservative ideology in their pockets. It's got to end. It is obscene.

We could have had plenty of money to deal with our educational system needs. We could have had plenty of money to deal with the health cuts, the hospital closures, the atrocities you've inflicted there. There would have been sufficient dollars available to help out had you not given money away to people who didn't need it.

You continue to profess that all this money that goes to rich people is going to generate jobs in this province. You continue to say it, in spite of any evidence to the contrary. You in fact have never, ever produced any evidence by anyone that says, "Because of this income tax scheme, particularly to those who do not need it, we have created thousands of jobs," other than the fact that the economy has generated jobs, but not due to the income tax cut.

Recall that the feds didn't do it, and they have experienced an economic boom as well, so it can't be because of the income tax cut, but other reasons. But you continue to claim as Tories that it's your income tax scheme that is producing these jobs. It isn't so. You have not brought forth any evidence from anyone to show the contrary.

We argue to you that this is an ideological thing with you folks, designed to cater to your rich buddies. We as New Democrats argue that that 6% which earns close to $2 billion of your income tax scheme should be stopped. That $2 billion in a healthy economy could be redistributed in areas of need, in areas that produce a civil society, that is good for us all as opposed to the ruinous effects that you are imposing on the province and the people of Ontario.

We believe that as more and more people understand this, they will make you more and more accountable. You have done a good job of convincing people that there is a whole lot of money going into their pockets and you've convinced them that you have created jobs as a result of it.

We do our best in opposition to put out our position as best we can and show them that you are in complete error in a direction that has nothing whatsoever to do with creating jobs, but has to do with supporting friends of yours. We're saying to the Liberals, who are on the right side of us, that they need to come up with their own ideas, ideas that do not vacillate, that are anchored somewhere concretely, because Liberal politics generally means they are anchored nowhere but anchored everywhere. We call the Liberal politics the M and M of mushy movables. We urge them to anchor themselves somewhere concretely so that people know where they stand.

Yes, we are in opposition together and are friendly to each other clearly because the enemy is over there, no doubt, but with the Liberals it is difficult to tolerate their speeches and their remarks saying, "We can't afford it now." This tax scheme has been passed already and it's in its last moments of life - I wish it were - but they are implementing the last 7%. You folks have done it. It's a done deal.

They say what you have done is bad and they repeat our arguments and sound like New Democrats, but when it comes to proposing an alternative to this income tax scheme they don't have one. I find that objectionable. I have to tell you that. It isn't sufficient for them to say, "It's wrong at this time." They need to propose something, and they haven't. New Democrats have proposed that $2 billion of that income tax scheme be phased away, be taken away from people who do not need it.

I urge people who lean to the Liberals or who are Liberal supporters to hold them accountable to this big issue, because when the recession comes - and it always does, by the way, every seven years or so, as unlucky as we were while we were in power - and the sources of funding cease and people are unemployed and more money has to go out by the province to protect people who are left aside by the market, when money is needed to maintain a certain level of civil society to do that but the money is not coming in because the economy is not working and you have an income tax system that is draining money out because you've got to borrow $5 billion a year, what do you do then?

Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber): Hire people.

Mr Marchese: What do you do then? Hire people? How do you do that, Mr Ford? How do you hire people? What's he talking about? I think you'll understand, because Tories usually talk about Economics 101, as if they understand anything about what they talk about -

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Marchese: When recessions come, what it means is you have high levels of unemployment. It means that people are not working and revenue is not coming in. With an income tax cut of $5 billion that is draining your economy, what do you do then?

Mr Shea: You stimulate the economy.

Mr Marchese: You stimulate the economy, which is what New Democrats say, but Tories don't like to stimulate the economy. In recessions, they like to kill the economy by stopping their spending. That kind of economics would create a worse state of economic affairs.

Interjection.

Ms Lankin: Pure arrogance.

The Acting Speaker: Order. It's becoming personal. It shouldn't be.

Mr Marchese: Recessions come, and the Liberals will have to face that as well. They faced it in the past at the federal level. The Tories -

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: Member for Etobicoke-Humber, please.

Mr Marchese: I love their interventions, Speaker, please. As long as I hear them, I like them. I need him for my remarks. Please, Mr Ford, you continue, but be clear in your remarks.

This income tax scheme will at some point become a matter of debate for the public. It will become part of public discourse. It isn't now, but it will become so as people begin to understand the effect it has on them as individuals and on communities and on the general society.

Sadly, many issues are not part of public discourse; for example, the matter that was dealt with here yesterday in terms of the Calgary resolution. The CBC did a program this morning and went to Union Station and asked a whole bunch of people, "What do you think about the Calgary resolution?" Most people didn't have a clue. Some didn't care. That applies to many issues we deal with in society. It's true.

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With the income tax scheme it's a little different of course, because as long as the minister of privatization goes out there saying, "This means a whole lot of money in your pocket, this is good for you," people are going to say, "Yes, I guess so; maybe I'm not seeing much of it, but I guess it's good if you tell me it is." But when it becomes part of an intelligent dialogue and discourse, then people having an opportunity to review that stuff will have a different point of view in this matter. So it's a question of time, and we say to the public, make Liberals accountable for their ideas. Don't simply accept that mushy, movable thing that belongs as the property of the Liberals. Don't accept it. Pin them down to something.

You need to be able to hold them accountable as well, particularly on this income tax scheme, because the Liberals say they will put more money into the health care system and they will put more money into the educational system, presumably the environment and children and everything else. Where will they get the money from? A booming economy, which is where the Tories are getting the same money from. But we have sustained cuts in all these areas.

How could the Liberals deal with that issue any differently with the same money? How could they? It's the same problem they would face as the Tories are dealing with. We are sustaining cuts in a way unseen ever before because these people are eliminating the role of the state. These folks are taking themselves out of the picture except when big business needs them.

On issues of the multilateral agreements on investments, those big boys, the Fortune 500 boys, the ones with the big grease, those people are coming to the government, saying, "We need you; we need you to get every barrier out of the way for us." When they need governments, governments are there to protect the interests of the big multinational corporations. The Tories don't mind playing that kind of role for them, but when it comes to protecting the interests of society, those who are left behind by the market, they're not there.

That issue will come up. I know it will be the subject of debate in this election, no doubt, and it will continue after the election. I have no doubt about that as well.

I want to move on to the Ontario Lottery Corporation Act, because there it speaks of repealing all provisions related to the video lottery terminals and also adds providing health care and funding charities to the authorized list of purposes for the lottery corporation's net profits.

You will recall that on Monday we had this debate and I spoke to this issue, and you will also recall that the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay was saying that we had various alternatives, that we could have fixed the old system or moved on to something new. I say to you they should have fixed the old system. That would have been the better thing to do. Those Monte Carlos, nomadic little casinos might have had problems, no doubt. We say to the government, "Fix that problem; do not through the usual incompetence of your government create another problem," which is what they did.

They eliminated these Monte Carlos on the notion or basis of saying, "We're going to create 44 more established, controlled casinos." The problem is, most communities don't want them, so those charities they make reference to that have no access to those dollars any more, of course, are crying foul. They say, "We need the money," and they do. They need it because governments have no other source of providing it and they've been cutting the source of funding in those areas. So these poor charities, who do good deeds in our society, have no money. They're stuck. They're stuck because municipalities do not want these casinos and these guys can't stick them there.

What have they tried to do? They've said in their April 9 announcement, "We will replace the VLTs with slot machines." VLTs must have some demonic kind of connotation, because they have agreed to eliminate the video lottery terminals and replace them with slot machines. Slot machines, as I said on Monday, are as equally evil as the VLTs, except with the VLTs the money is robbed out of your pockets faster than with slot machines. None the less they've announced they're getting rid of them.

They've also said, "We are increasing the take for charities," as a way of bribing them to then have charities exert pressure on the communities to have casinos established there. They increase the take probably from $10 million or so to $180 million to these charities. It's a form of bribery. They are using the charities as a cover, as a front for grabbing huge revenues from their own citizens.

The final one is to advance funding for charities during the transition time. However, we don't know, but we think it's tied to conditions, including whether or not a municipality approves permanent casinos.

All these tools are given to municipalities in order to bribe charities and to bribe communities to have casinos in their own backyards. It's an obscenity, really. It speaks to the gross incompetence of this government. On almost every bill we have dealt with in this assembly, there has not been one bill that has not been infected by the incompetence of this government. Each time they do so, they have had to introduce yet another bill to fix the previous incompetence. On Bill 16 they don't want to have a debate. People around the city and everywhere are saying, "Please, let's review this, because it's full of mistakes." Bill 16 needs to be defeated in this House.

The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?

Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South): I'm pleased to respond to the member for Fort York's comments. The bottom line is, it's well known across Ontario that tax cuts are working. Tax cuts are working because they're creating more jobs, an enormous explosion of jobs happening this year, and I anticipate through the rest of the year into the next and hopefully beyond.

If you look at the statistics in the Niagara Peninsula, for example, there was 14.2% unemployment back in 1993-94, when the NDP and the unions ran the province with high taxes, high spending and high deficits. We had high unemployment as a result, 14.2%. Now, following through on our commitments in the Common Sense Revolution, cutting taxes, working towards a balanced budget, eliminating red tape - a complete turnaround across Ontario and in the Peninsula, where unemployment today is not 14.2%, not 13.2%, not even 8.2%, but down around 7.2%, cut in half.

That means companies like Ronal Manufacturing in Stevensville, just winning a major contract - home of the Tim Hudak Action Centre - and companies like Fraser Ship Repairs in Port Colborne have doubled their employment under this government. It makes sense. Tax cuts make sense because they return more money to consumers' pockets, their own hard-earned money, and also give them an incentive to work longer and to work harder, because for every additional hour they work, they're keeping more of their money.

The member for Fort York said there's been no support for the tax cut, but I have an entire list, and I think I'll use some more in the debate later. The chief economist at CIBC Wood Gundy said, "In today's economy, tax cuts make a lot of sense." The Ontario Real Estate Association is in favour. "The government's efforts to eliminate red tape and the tax cut should assist in attracting new investment to Ontario." An interesting one as well: "They" - the taxpayers - "have more money in their pockets, therefore they have more money to spend. Tax cuts increase domestic consumption." Ironically, that quote is from the federal minister, John Manley, a Liberal.

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): I'm listening to the rhetoric and I kind of enjoy it in many ways. You would think that the economy was being driven by this made-in-Ontario solution in terms of taxes. There's something to be said - everyone knows it's expansionary when you borrow a lot of money. That's an expansionary fiscal policy. You're doing that. You're borrowing pretty close to $20 billion to pay for your programming and for your tax cuts and those kinds of things. Yes, you're going to get some expansion. That's the way it works - 101 I think the member for Fort York calls it - and that's nice. But I want to talk about real people in the real world. I just wonder if the government knows. I had a gentleman in my office about a month ago in Elliot Lake. He has worked very hard in the community for the past 20 years, maybe more. He's worked with the Navy League.

The Navy League has for some time had a camp north of Elliot Lake. It's used by, not only the kids in the Navy League and the Sea Cadets and the Army Cadets, but by the Boy Scouts, church groups, Girl Guides. Guess what? He gets a bill, backdated: "You owe $900 in property taxes on this camp," some land they lease from the ministry. On the decrepit buildings that are still on the property they have to pay $900 in back taxes. Now they're going to have to start paying $400 to $500 to $600. They raise their money through tag days. That's how they get their money. They raise them at bingo. But now they raise less because of the competition and the things the government has done to bingo. They're wondering, what's going on?

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Ms Lankin: I'm pleased to respond to my colleague's comments. I of course agree with him very much. I think of the ludicrousness of a government fiscal policy which borrows more, continues to run a higher deficit than is necessary and continues to add to the debt, particularly from a government which says one of its most important objectives is to eliminate the deficit, the ludicrousness of doing that and at the same time creating havoc in our health care and our education system and with cuts to children and family services. That has real problems in terms of how government supports people in need in our communities. I fail to understand what could be at all referred to as common sense in that approach.

One of the other comments my friend made I thought was interesting. He referred to the mushy movables. With all due respect to all members of the House, he was referring to the official opposition's position with respect to this issue of taxation and the tax cut. The Harris tax scheme is one which benefits the wealthiest in this province and takes money away from needed programs in health and education. It's one which we deplore and which the Liberal Party says they deplore. Yet at the same time the leader of the Liberal Party continues to say, "However, I would do nothing about changing it." I don't understand that.

Our leader, Howard Hampton, has said very clearly that we would reverse the tax scheme for those earning over $80,000 a year - the people who've primarily benefited from this tax scheme - and put that money back into health care and education. Where would the Liberals get the money to reinvest in health care and education? They say, "We're just going to grow the economy." What that means is that if the economy doesn't grow, if there is another recession, the Liberals do not have a penny to put into health and education. They would sustain those Harris government cuts. That, to me, makes as much sense as the Common Sense Revolution, which makes no sense in terms of good public policy for the people of Ontario.

Mr Shea: The people of Ontario must be watching this debate today and be totally bemused. They're watching a debate that occurred three years ago, I remind us. They're watching a debate that was in fact settled by the electorate three years ago.

The government of this day placed before the people of Ontario a number of policies that said: "We believe in tax cuts. We believe that we will stimulate the economy, that it will work, that over a period of time we will balance the budget and we will begin to pay down the debt." In the CSR, for those who are quick to speak about it, they will find the inflationary figures that are part of the borrowing costs, so we'll begin to pay down the deficit and then the debt. That was all laid before the people of Ontario, honestly, clearly, forthrightly, no one hiding behind any other facts or figures or gobbledegook. It was laid out very clearly for the electorate to decide.

The people of Ontario made a decision. The people of Ontario said; "Yes, we understand. Yes, we agree with tax cuts. Get on and do the job." That is what this government has been doing. It was not done in secret, it was not done in privacy; it was done openly, in a democratic procedure called an election. What this government has been doing is responding to the will of the people.

I take a little bit of umbrage with the inference that this is the government's money. We're talking about the money of the people. It is their money, the money of the hardworking people of Ontario, who have simply said: "It is time to make sure that we share directly in the dividends of our hard labour. It is time for us to have something to say about how our money is spent, that we will be able to make direct decisions about how that money will be spent." The tax cut is an issue that was dealt with, I put to you, three years ago by the people of this province.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Fort York.

Mr Marchese: I thank all the members for their comments. In response to the member for High Park-Swansea and the member for Niagara South - they both claim and argue that they're simply returning the money that belongs to them, or as the member for High Park-Swansea was saying, it's the money of the people - I understand those concepts; a lot of people do as well.

We don't disagree that this issue has of course been dealt with in the election three years ago. That's quite true. But what we are doing in these debates is to expose the problems that this promise of yours has caused for the people of Ontario. When we say that we are returning their own money, what we are doing is borrowing $5 billion a year to give money back to people. We don't have it in our pocket to give away, back to them; we are borrowing to give back to them.

Not only that, we are saying, "The money you are borrowing, as a way of increasing the deficit and increasing the debt, is going to people who do not need it." A banker who gets $120,000 back doesn't need the money. He's got a high salary. He doesn't need it. He's got a high salary and the bonus is high as well. It is indecent and unethical for these people to argue that they deserve this money and that it's theirs. It's borrowed money and it's hurting our programs because of it. We will put this to the electorate in the election coming, and we hope people will listen to the devastation this tax scheme has caused.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk): It's with pleasure that I rise to speak to this bill, Bill 15, titled Tax Cuts for People and for Small Business Act. The reason I am pleased to speak is the fact that this 1998 budget, the third budget introduced by our government, brings us one step closer to erasing the havoc, a word that was mentioned recently by the member for Beaches-Woodbine, wrought on us by the previous two governments, one step closer to bringing taxation levels down to where they were before the Liberals and NDP took power, and one step closer to realizing the important goal of balancing the budget and closing the book on the tax and spend chapter of Ontario's economic history.

One of the main reasons for this dramatic upswing in the fortunes of Ontarians is the tax cuts implemented by this government. They are already paying for themselves, in jobs and in the revenue that comes with those jobs. Very simply, I mean that taxes are down and jobs are up, and we know there are now 325,000 net new private sector jobs created since 1995 in Ontario.

Because taxes have been reduced and cash is left in the pockets of employers, employees and investors, revenue from new taxpayers has, at the very least, offset this cost of implementing tax cuts, not to mention the intangible values of self-worth and achievement now enjoyed by those 325,000 working Ontarians.

Catherine Swift, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, while speaking to members of the Haldimand-Norfolk Manufacturers' Association last week in my riding of Norfolk, had this to say:

"Optimism abounds for small business operators in Ontario. A strong US economy, good economic growth, low interest rates, increased job creation and" - I stress here - "positive relations between business and the provincial government have all contributed to brightening the financial outlook in the province."

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It's no coincidence that the two best-performing provinces since the early 1990s recession, which we have heard a bit about this afternoon, are the two that are distributing tax cuts, Alberta and Ontario. To continue the words of Catherine Swift:

"The recovery has been more robust and will last longer because of this government's policies." This was quoted in a local Simcoe Reformer interview. "There is no doubt in my mind that Bob Rae and his cronies made things worse in the recession with their policies."

We very recently heard the case put forward by the member for Fort York of the value of spending one's way out of a recession, and I wish to continue to refute that idea. We have heard this concept - it might be considered an economic theory in some quarters - that you could actually spend your way out of a recession.

Mr Marchese: Would the income tax cut have been good then?

The Acting Speaker: Member for Fort York, you had your turn. That's it.

Mr Barrett: As any farmer in my riding or any businessman knows, you can't spend your way to prosperity, especially when you bring in 32 tax increases, as the NDP did.

By the same token - I will mention the provincial Liberals and I wish to remind people of this - the provincial Liberals jacked up taxes 33 times, and they unfortunately failed to seize the opportunity to right some economic wrongs during those fantastic boom times in the mid- to late 1980s.

This combination of bad government policies had serious repercussions for people in my riding of Norfolk. For example, Ivey's Florists and Misner's Fishery both closed in my home town of Port Dover. In Simcoe we lost Nabisco Canners, Cronkwright Transport and American Can. I used to work at American Can and, at one time, so did 625 other local people. Now it's an empty shell of a factory downtown, full of broken glass and shattered memories of high-paying employment which was close to home.

Time is crucial. We must encourage small business and consumer and investor confidence. That is why in our 1998 budget we are proposing 36 new tax reductions in addition to the previously announced 30 tax cuts. Like the previous 30 tax cuts, these new tax cuts target low- to middle-income earners, small business, and are designed as well and are coupled with our program to remove barriers to prosperity.

In contrast to the plant closings of the early 1980s, last year Simcoe, the location of my constituency office, saw a $25-million investment in its largest private sector employer, the Good Humour-Breyers ice cream plant. As company president, Kevin Boyce, states, "Clearly deficit reduction, low interest rates, declining unemployment and a commitment to reduce the taxation burden are policies of the current government that are helping to sustain business confidence."

This sentiment is echoed by Dave Murphy, president of our local Simcoe and District Chamber of Commerce. Mr Murphy said, "The 1998 budget can only be beneficial to everyone from retailers to manufacturers." Mr Murphy added: "It will allow an injection of spending. The ripple effect will mean a stronger economy and a healthier atmosphere overall."

To continue to boost our economy both in my riding and provincially, our government plans to implement the final stage of the personal income tax cuts this July 1, a full six months ahead of schedule. This fulfils our election promise to deliver an average 30% tax cut to Ontario taxpayers. We're ahead of schedule to eliminate the deficit, and we will balance the budget by the year 2000-01. As well, legislation will be introduced to prevent further deficit spending.

This 30% cut in the provincial income tax rate provides a much-needed $33-million infusion of cash, which goes straight into the hands of my constituents in the region of Haldimand-Norfolk. This will obviously boost and continue to boost our local economy. The economies of neighbouring Brant and Oxford will also benefit from government getting off people's backs and out of their pockets to the tune of $36 million in Oxford county and $38 million in Brant.

Some naysayers across the way question this tax cut. It's being done for some very clear and historical reasons. This government is bringing in a 30% tax reduction because, very simply, we were elected to do so and a promise made is a promise kept. Just as this government has met such commitments as reducing the employer health tax and reducing the small business corporations tax, we are committed to honouring our promise: tax relief for the people of Ontario.

Business and industry will also benefit immensely from education tax cuts in my riding and across the province. When fully implemented, the Haldimand-Norfolk region will see a 21% cut in education taxes for both commercial and industrial property, Oxford county will see a 14% reduction and Brant a 22% reduction.

This 1998 budget contains no fewer than 35 job-creating tax cuts and credits. For example, the land transfer tax rebate for first-time home buyers will again be extended, for another 12 months. The retail sales tax rebate on building materials for farmers will also be extended for another 12 months, continuing this government's record of working for farmers.

What course of events has led us to make this promise to cut taxes? To understand this we must look back over the past 10 years when we were hit with a total of $7.5 billion in new or increased taxes, since the Liberal-NDP accord of 1985. From 1985 to 1994, personal income per capita increased by 54%, but the burden of provincial taxes per capita increased by 73%, more than eroding any pay increases people were receiving.

During that lost decade, free-wheeling government spending in combination with relentless tax hikes and failed job creation schemes contributed to Ontario's fiscal crisis. During that period government spending almost doubled, from $29 billion to $54 billion, and the provincial debt more than doubled under the NDP, from $42 billion in 1990-91 to $100 billion in 1995.

What did all this mean for Ontario? Quite simply, a lot of money was taken out of people's pockets and put into the accounts of special interest groups. The effect of all this? We remember the recession of the 1990s. The economy slowed. Consumers, businesses and investors all lost confidence. Rebuilding that market means leaving money in the hands of people who earn it.

When the Liberals took office in 1985, the first thing they did, with the support of their coalition NDP colleagues, was to raise the maximum personal income tax rate. They also increased alcohol and tobacco taxes - the sin taxes. Really what the Liberals did during that time of prosperity throughout the province was sinful in more ways than one.

In 1988 the Liberals gained a majority government and so ended the NDP-Liberal coalition. The new government's budget imposed even more tax increases. These increases were particularly hard on low- and middle-income earners. To ensure that the Liberal tax grab snagged everyone, they hiked the personal income tax rate to 51% in 1988 and 52% in 1989. The retail sales tax was also increased from 7% to 8% and its application was broadened. Gasoline taxes were increased and alcohol and tobacco taxes were again increased by the Liberals.

The NDP government introduced its first budget in 1991 and announced that it would spend its way out of the recession, as mentioned by the member for Fort York. That particular government drove the provincial deficit from $3 billion to $9.7 billion. This was a record year-over-year increase of something like 219%. In 1992-93 the NDP deficit rocketed to $12.9 billion. To finance this additional debt, the NDP raised taxes once again in the middle of what they described at the time as the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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Let's go on to the 1993-94 budget, and I ask my PC caucus to bear with me during some of these troubled times. The 1993-94 NDP budget inflicted further damage to middle-income earners and an already weak economy. That budget contained $2 billion in increased taxes and fees. This was the largest single tax grab in the history of Ontario. The provincial sales tax was broadened to cover more consumer goods, discouraging consumer spending even further.

During the NDP term in office from 1990 to 1995 consumer confidence hit bottom as the deficit soared and record amounts of taxpayers' money went into government coffers. Taxes were high, businesses closed, jobs were lost. Deficit spending is shameful. There ought to be a law and under our government there will be.

With the introduction of Bill 15, the Harris government is returning these tax grabs to Ontarians. For many, these reductions translate into their first real wage increase in years.

High taxes truly kill jobs, undermine government revenue and slow economic growth. If high taxes created jobs, there would have been zero unemployment in Ontario during this Liberal-NDP era. If high taxes were good for revenues, we would have seen budget surpluses and no accumulated debt. The tax-and-spend decade very simply didn't work. Now things have changed: Taxes are down and, as a result, jobs are up.

As I've indicated, the last two governments in this province hiked taxes 65 times, including 11 personal income tax hikes. Our government has cut taxes 66 times. Consumers now have 66 reasons to spend money in Ontario, businesses now have 66 reasons to hire new employees and investors now have 66 reasons to put their money in our economy; 66 reasons why our economy is recovering faster than any other province from the recession we've been hearing about this afternoon.

Despite those huge tax hikes, the previous government didn't really increase the dollars it took in. The reason was simple. For most Ontario families, after you paid the bills and your rent or your mortgage, fixed your kids' teeth and bought your groceries, there was very little to contribute to government.

Unlike the past NDP and Liberal governments, which made it their priority to try and raise the revenue of the Ontario government, our goal is to raise the revenue of the average family in this province. With 66 tax cuts, people in Ontario can think about a new home or a new fridge or a stove or home repairs or a new car or that restaurant meal, for example. They can think about paying down credit cards. Many families now can afford to do these things.

Small businesses, retailers, store owners in my riding of Norfolk live and die by customers' ability to buy. These entrepreneurs are the backbone of our local economy and our provincial economy. Small business owners create the vast majority of the new jobs in our province. The problem was, previously, not enough people were buying. This concept of disposable income had been disposed of by government taxation.

It really is time that government let the people of this province keep more of what they earn, to get people spending again, to boost the consumer economy, to allow hardworking people to enjoy the fruits of their labour, to kickstart our economy - very simply, to create jobs.

It makes common sense in order to be competitive. We talk of suffering a brain drain. The question is, why do people go to the United States? They don't necessarily go there for the bright lights or for social programs. In my mind, very clearly, people go south because the maximum income tax rate is half of ours and each dollar earned is worth at least 30% more.

Another reason why our government continues to cut provincial income taxes: It's good for the taxpayer, it's good for job creation and the economy, and it's good for our competitiveness. Most importantly, it's good for virtually everyone in Ontario.

If you include the GST and all the other taxes in Canada, every working person surrenders about 50 cents on the dollar to the state. In dual-income families, essentially one person works to support the government, and previous governments were not able to survive on that other half-dollar that was contributed on average by every family in Ontario. Previous governments borrowed on the assumption that our children and grandchildren could pay the debt.

To give credit where it is due, the last three Ontario budgets are not the only budgets to cut taxes in recent memory. In the early 1990s, the federal Tories cut taxes. But most provinces at that time, including Ontario, defeated the purpose by raising their own rates. Since then, Ottawa has been expanding what qualifies as taxable income, as well as increasing Canada pension and employment insurance premiums, which now have surpluses, very large surpluses. All the while, the federal government refuses its fair share for health care in Ontario which they are bound by law to do under the Canada Health Act.

All around the world, jurisdictions have been cutting taxes. Our trading partners and competitors already recognize the link between tax cuts and job creation. More than 50 countries, including most of the western industrialized nations, have lowered taxes on both individuals and businesses in recent years. The results have been real and impressive. Unemployment levels have fallen, private sector investment has increased, new jobs have been created and income levels have risen. And yet there are actually some people in Ontario who oppose tax cuts.

Bill 15 is a continuation of the direction set by this government to bring hope and prosperity back to Ontario. I personally would like to thank our Premier, Deputy Premier and my caucus colleagues for helping to restore this faith in Ontarians - faith in themselves and faith in the province.

Mr Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott and Russell): I am pleased to stand and comment on the member for Norfolk's speech.

The member for Norfolk mentioned that taxes are down and jobs are up, but it's funny. When we look at one sector, the sector that is the driving force behind the economy, which is construction, as of last week the construction industry had 22,000 fewer jobs than in 1997.

It's nice to say that the jobs are up, but I don't know where they are at the present time. Are they all those people who were on workfare who went to work for the municipalities for peanuts? I don't know if that's what it is, but definitely at the present time in the gearing force of the economy, the construction industry, there are 22,000 fewer jobs than last year.

This afternoon at the press conference I attended given by the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario, it was clear that there is real chaos at the present time. No municipalities will be able to issue tax bills. The Eastern Ontario District Health Council has, at the present time, had to call the municipality to get their bill paid. Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry were behind by $477,200.

Municipalities don't have the money. They will have to go out and borrow the money, because they won't be able to send the bills to the taxpayers. Who will be paying at the end? It's all the municipal taxpayers.

This bill should be delayed. Like our leader, Dalton McGuinty, has said, it's too early to go ahead with this bill.

Mr Marchese: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't believe there is a quorum in the House. I have two minutes, and I want people to be in the House for those two minutes.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gary L. Leadston): Is there a quorum?

Clerk at the Table (Mr Todd Decker): A quorum is not present, Speaker.

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The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Fort York.

Mr Marchese: I appreciate having quorum in this House, because those two minutes are valuable. I wanted to respond to the member for Norfolk, who is a member of the same Tory choir. They all sing the same kind of song and I hear it each and every time from every member, and there are lots of them in this place.

He makes several points. He says, "We have accomplished our objectives of bringing income taxes down and we are accomplishing our task by balancing the budget." Those two notions are inconsistent with each other. It's an oxymoron. It's like dark light, in order for people to understand what an oxymoron is. You cannot at the same time say that you will reduce income taxes and then with the same breath say you're going to balance the budget. They're inconsistent with each other.

You've got to borrow $5 billion from our pockets to give money back to those folks who don't need it. The member for Norfolk said that in the past the NDP said they would take money and give it away to interest groups. Isn't it abundantly obvious or discernible to you that when these people give billions of dollars away to those most wealthy Ontarians, is it not abundantly clear to you that that is one of the most obvious of the interest groups in this province, that that is a group of people who will profit in a way that is obscene? Do they not see that that interest group should be tempered somewhat, should be controlled, in terms of the money it makes? Of course that business community supports them. That's why we're against it.

Mr Gerry Martiniuk (Cambridge): It's a pleasure to speak to this bill and the good and excellent comments made by the member for Norfolk. Our government is carrying out the mandate we received in June 1995 to cut taxes and spend the money of the taxpayer more wisely. We want to let the private sector get on with creating jobs. Our government's plan is working.

As the finance minister underlined in the budget speech, Ontario's economy is booming. Our economy expanded by 4.8% in 1997 and private sector forecasters expect the province's economy to grow faster than any of the G-7 industrial nations over the next three years. The Ontario economy created 265,000 net new private sector jobs between February 1997 and February 1998. This was the largest number of jobs created in a 12-month period in this province's history. Overall 1998 promises to be one of the best years for job creation ever.

Our government promised the people of Ontario a 30% income tax cut over three years, and as a result of the first four steps the economy has performed better than expected, as we said in the Common Sense Revolution, issued in April 1994. As a result of these first four steps, we are going to be accelerating the last phase of the tax cut to July 1, 1998, for the betterment of the people of Ontario.

Mr Bradley: I am pleased to respond to the member's remarks in the House; a lot of cheerleading, as I would expect from my good friend, for what his government is doing. I want to ask him, however, how the people of his constituency feel about the increases in property taxes that will inevitably result, if not this year, next year or the year after, and how they react to the 247 tax increases this government has implemented since it has come to office.

Some people look puzzled as I say that. It's because I remember that during the last election campaign Mike Harris said that in fact a user fee was a tax, and if you either implemented a new user fee or increased a user fee, you were taxing the population. I have had some people go through your books and they have found that you have increased taxes 247 different times. You make reference to the other parties and so-called tax increases then. You have increased them far more.

What I worry about is that people of more modest income within the member's riding are in a difficult position because a user fee or a property tax increase does not take into account an individual's ability to pay. If that is not taken into account, then I believe those people are not better off with the tax decrease in terms of the income tax, which had to be borrowed, of course. The government had to borrow to make up for its spending requirements in the province.

Mr Barrett: I wish to thank my colleague from Cambridge for his comments. I think, as the member opposite indicated, we are guilty of singing from the same choir. We have a choir book, we have a plan. We have a plan for the future as well, and that is something I am not seeing coming from the members opposite.

The member for Fort York had some comments and referred back to the value of spending government money. Again, I just wish to remind the House that what really jump-started things for me was that first budget back in 1991, that budget where the NDP government promised to spend its way out of the recession, not realizing that in Ontario we don't necessarily have a revenue problem. Certainly at that time we had a spending problem. That was a very bad year. That was the year, as I mentioned, that we saw a record year-over-year increase of 219%.

The member for St Catharines raised the issue of property taxes and I am very pleased to report - I mentioned earlier that my home town is Port Dover, which is located in the city of Nanticoke in the Haldimand-Norfolk region. The city of Nanticoke bit the bullet in 1990, has not raised taxes since 1990. That particular municipality has one of the lowest property tax rates in Ontario; not quite as low as the city of Brantford - there is some new information there - but considerably lower than many, the municipalities in Niagara, for example.

We can spend money. We can spend money on areas like health care and education, and the money we're spending on health care can certainly put the federal Liberals to shame.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate. The member for St Catharines.

Mr Bradley: Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate. When you look at legislation, it's interesting, particularly the kind of bills the government brings forward. You find within some of the bills some supportable sections and some which are not. That's because we're seeing now more of a move toward omnibus bills, even omnibus tax bills.

Mr Baird: It's a budget bill.

Mr Bradley: The member for Nepean, who has been here a long time, is lecturing me, saying: "It's a budget bill. Don't you know? It's a budget bill." Thank you to the member for Nepean for once again correcting somebody in this House. We really appreciate it. I know your own members must appreciate that as well as I appreciate it.

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Nevertheless, what you're seeing is multiple considerations within one bill, which means that while you may find parts of the legislation supportable, you'll find other parts which are not. Of course, the hostage which is contained within this piece of legislation is the reference to gambling revenues. I don't know whether the government does it deliberately or not, but it includes it, for whatever reason, and makes the bill far less supportable than it might be otherwise.

The bill deals in one of its aspects with the income tax cut. In discussions even within the Conservative caucus and the Conservative party, considerable debate took place as to whether the income tax cuts would be implemented before the budget was balanced. In other words, what would be the target? I think every party in this Legislature wanted to see a move towards a balanced budget, and we heard all the parties say in the last election that there should be a balance budget.

Indeed, I well recall some of the cuts of the NDP Rae government, which I know did not want to cut in various areas - that was not what the government was about - but having to address the problem of increasing debt, felt there must be some cuts. For instance, the social contract was implemented. That social contract abrogated every -I must say "every" - contract in the public service in Ontario. The sanctity of the collective agreement was always something I believed my friends in the trade union movement were very concerned about and when those contracts were abrogated, it was because the government was in a difficult financial circumstance and so took some pretty drastic action.

I know, for instance - it's on the public record - some people like Gary Carr, the member for Oakville South, Morley Kells, the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, and Ted Arnott, the member for Wellington, were all the kind of people who publicly, at some Conservative meetings, expressed apprehension about implementing a 30% income tax cut when the government was running a deficit because it meant in effect that because of that loss of revenue - according to the Dominion Bond Rating Service it was about $4.8 billion a year fully implemented - the government would have to do two things. One was pay a higher interest rate. Right now the government's interest rate is the same as the Rae government's, AA-. It is not the AAA rating that was in existence in the late 1980s. That is one factor; they were paying more in interest than they otherwise might have to.

Second, they have to borrow the money for the tax cut.

I think what most members of the Conservative caucus who were thinking ahead would have preferred was that the government implement its tax cuts after the budget was balanced. For instance, the Saskatchewan government of Roy Romanow in its last budget had some tax cuts. The reason it had those tax cuts I think is because they have balanced the budget now in Saskatchewan and felt that when you have the budget in balance, when you're not battling with this accumulating debt, that is the time when you should implement tax cuts. Down the line, when our budget is eventually balanced, the tax cuts won't have the same kind of detrimental effect they have today.

I know that Conservative economists will tell you, for instance, that the combination of an income tax cut of 30% and drastic cuts in public spending actually have a contractionary effect on the economy. In other words, it may be the case today that the budget of this province could have been balanced this year, and indeed that the deficit wouldn't have been as high in other years, if the government hadn't proceeded so quickly and so drastically with its tax cut.

It would have been understandable if the government said, "Look, we're about tax cuts and we want to move in that direction." If it had moved in a slower way, for instance, it would have found out that it would have lost less in the way of revenue. It would have had to borrow less money because, believe it or not, under a Conservative government - if I asked people out there, "What is a Conservative government about, a Mike Harris type of government?" they would have said, "Debt reduction." They would have said, "Let's get rid of the deficit soon." That's what they're about and that's fair enough. That was pretty clear that that's what they're about. That's why they were concerned when the government decided to implement an income tax cut before the budget was balanced.

In the national scene now, for instance, the federal government, now that it's in a position where it's in a surplus, has that ability to implement some tax cuts and to spend the dividend on programs which for a number of years have been reduced because of the desire to meet those fiscal obligations. So it has a contractionary effect. Virtually any economist will tell you this.

The chief economist for the Royal Bank and the chief economist for the Bank of Montreal both said the same thing. When you ask these people, "Why is Ontario's economy doing well?" - and I'm telling you I'm delighted that we're in a better position today in terms of the economy than we were, for instance, five years ago in the midst of a deep recession. There's nobody in this House who should not be delighted to see our whole country coming out of a recession. But the main reason is that our high interest rates are now low interest rates. Under Brian Mulroney, the Progressive Conservative Prime Minister of Canada, we had high interest rates, which discouraged business from expanding; it was more costly for business to expand as a result. Therefore, with the low interest rates, we find business expanding rather rapidly.

The second factor is the Canadian dollar. Talk to people in industry, the auto industry, for instance, which is doing very well now. They will tell you that the effect of the lower dollar is absolutely tremendous. People from Oakville and people from Oshawa and other places -

Interjection.

Mr Bradley: The member for Etobicoke-Humber interjects. I think he wants to remind me of something I mentioned in the House before, that I went to northwestern Ontario and talked to a vice-president in the pulp and paper industry who said that one percentage point on that dollar was worth $17 million to that company.

So the lower dollar has had a major positive effect in terms of exports. It has some other problems, but at least in terms of exports it does help, and our economy is export-driven at this time.

The second thing we have to recognize is that south of the border the interest rates are very low and the economy is booming. Ontario more than any other province, by far more than any other province, has a trading relationship with the United States. Back in the late 1980s when the economy was doing well south of the border, the Liberal government of the day benefited from that by having a lot of economic activity in this province, much of it export-oriented but not all of it, not to the same extent as today.

People will ask, if it's so much the United States, what about British Columbia? Well, British Columbia deals more with the Asian market than it does with the United States market, compared to the province of Ontario, and therefore it's understandable.

We're delighted to see that we have improvement in our economy across this country, and to be parochial, I'm happy to see it in Ontario. I think there are many factors that contribute to it. One of those is not the tax cut. If you have a tax cut, I suppose, with no spending cut, in recessionary times that may have some positive stimulus. It does not in these circumstances.

I go to conservative economists and that's what they tell me. One I always mention is Dr Joseph Kushner of Brock University, who, I have said in this House many times, has been referred to as Professor Negative or Dr No and Frosty the No-Man because he's a very conservative person when it comes to spending the tax dollar. It was Dr Kushner who introduced, at St Catharines city council, the motion asking the provincial government not to proceed with the income tax cut until such time as the budget was balanced in the province, and he's a very conservative economist.

I know there was debate within the Conservative caucus. I agree with Ted Arnott, the member for Wellington, in this regard, who cautioned against it. I don't want him to put this in his campaign literature, but I've found myself in agreement with Ted on a number of occasions. You always have to worry about how you word this, because I remember that Morley Kells one day put in his literature some complimentary remark I'd made. He took it a bit out of context; I didn't mind, because I like Morley Kells and I found it rather amusing. But that's why you have to watch in this House. You know how people say, "Why don't you people in opposition be more complimentary?" It's because when we are, I'll find it somewhere in the literature of my good friend the member for Niagara South if I happen to say something complimentary about his government. So I have to be cautious when I do that.

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So we've got the chief economists of the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank both saying that the factors I've mentioned are much more responsible than anything else for any improvement in the economy in the province of Ontario.

I mentioned as well, when the member for Norfolk was up, the effect of downloading. While we have an income tax cut - income tax does take into account a person's ability to pay - we're going to see increases in user fees at the local level or property taxes, but not necessarily in the first year, because desperate as they are, some councils, I think unwisely, frankly, are grabbing at the transitional funds. It's like the bait put out there: "Let's have some transitional funds."

I can tell you what the transitional funds are for: They're to tide this government over till its election. But come the time of the municipal election, I can assure you that the crunch will come for those municipalities. They'll have to cut services even further - and frankly they've done some real cutting already - or they'll have to increase the property tax, that does not take into account a person's ability to pay, or they'll have to increase user fees. As my good friend Mike Harris said on many occasions, a user fee is a tax. As I say, I've now counted - I can't remember whether it's 246 or 247 tax increases under the Mike Harris government. You know that health tax out there that nobody mentions? They even increase that tax from time to time. I think that might even be in this budget, that you're going to see an increase in that. So there are some taxes out there.

I believe that wisdom would have dictated that you be cautious, that you proceed with caution when you want to implement that policy. If you wanted to implement your tax break, the best time to have done it is when you had the provincial budget balanced.

One of the problems in this is the gambling revenues. I know that among the Conservative non-cabinet people, and even some in the cabinet, there's a lot of angst about these so-called charity casinos. They're called the Mike Harris gambling halls in many communities. Jack McNie, a former Conservative cabinet minister from Hamilton, is leading the charge in Hamilton against these. I can't speak for Jack, but I would think he'd be concerned about a number of the policies of the Mike Harris government, because he comes from a more moderate area, the Robarts and Davis era, which was a more moderate Conservative Party in this province, one which probably represented a balanced view of the province much better than the present government. He recognizes very well what's happening with these charity casinos.

You see, the word "charity" is put there as a front. They're using charities as a front out there to make it sound as though they're beneficial, when really what the charity casinos are about is drawing money like a vacuum cleaner, drawing the discretionary funds to be spent in a community from that community. If you're running the Canadian Tire store or another business that some members might be involved in, you're going to find that the people won't have as much discretionary money to spend in other businesses as they would otherwise.

While you might have a casino in Windsor or Niagara Falls which are tourist destinations, where over 50% of the people are coming from outside that area, probably from the United States in most of the cases, what you'll have with the charity casinos are local folks there. Who will be there? People have told me - and I don't say this in a condescending way at all; I say it in a way of lamenting it - that very often if you go into a casino of this nature and look at who's there, you will say to yourself, "That's who should not be there," because they tend to prey upon vulnerable, desperate people in our society, addicted people.

Mr Ford: Have you been in there, Jim?

Mr Bradley: I have not been in one.

Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): Then it's hearsay.

Mr Bradley: If the member from Belleville wishes to defend charitable casinos, that's his business. I will not defend them. I suspect many of your colleagues in the Conservative caucus are deeply concerned and worried about the effect of the new Mike Harris gambling halls, the charity casinos, on their communities, because they're not tourist destinations. In fact, in this House we've been talking about how the people in Niagara Falls are looking for more than just their tourist destination casino. They want to see other tourist attractions in there. So do I. Many of us were disappointed when we saw the winning bid not having as many of those components as all of us would like to see, because all of us in the Niagara region - any area - would like to see people come to an area where there are a lot of tourist attractions. I worry about that.

The provincial government was under a lot of fire over VLTs. They said, "Well, the focus of attention is on these electronic slot machines, so we can get out of it. We desperately need the money," despite the fact that Mike Harris said in this House and during the election campaign, as did Ernie Eves, two good Conservatives out there, "We don't want anything to do with these gambling revenues." They said that, and you know something? I applauded them in the House when they said that. I was in agreement. I was thumbs-up when Mike Harris and Ernie Eves said they were against this kind of gambling revenue.

Yet we find them out now, the government, coercing municipalities, bribing municipalities by saying, "Look, we'll give you these administrative funds, and it could be worth $200,000 to you." But, you know, it's blood money. It's money which is going to be taken from the social fabric of this province if they accept it. A lot of pressure is put on. They go to the charities and say, "You know, you're not going to get any money." I remember the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Al Leach, one day was kind of warning: "Those charities better watch out. If their municipalities don't approve it, they're not going to get the money."

What's happening with governments all across this country expanding gambling opportunities is that the Lions Club and the Optimist Club and the Rotary Club and so on, who might hold an event of some kind or might have their local small bingo, are finding that those funds are drying up, so they are going to come knocking on the door of government for different kinds of funds.

I think it's a move in the wrong direction. I don't think you should ever say that your health care or your social services or your education should depend on revenues which are uncertain. As we know, our American friends are going to be getting into the lottery business in a very big way.

I mentioned there are some aspects of this bill which are supportable, which I think are good. On the extension for the first-home buyers, the credit that is available to them, we sent a letter across saying: "That's a good idea. Why don't you do it?" We're happy to see that in the budget. When you can help out in certain ways the small business community so they can thrive, because they can produce a lot of jobs, I think that's supportable as well.

The main concern I have with the final implementation of this income tax cut is that you don't have your budget balanced, so you are going to have to borrow more money and you are going to have to maintain deep cuts. I think you should at least postpone it. For your government to postpone it would have been wise, or to forget about it, but you are going to proceed with it.

I look at this bill and other bills and I worry about the effect on local communities. I worry that governments right across this country are becoming so addicted to gambling revenues that it's going to be hard to wean them off it. The Rev Derwyn Shea from west Toronto asked, "If you get these casinos up and going, will the next government be able to stop them?" That's the fear. That's why we need you now, in the government benches, to say, "Look, Mike Harris, let's stop this." Because you know what they'll do? I'll tell my friend from Etobicoke-Humber what they'll do. They'll sign eight-year or 10-year contracts which would cost millions of dollars to get out of.

That's why I look for his help and the help of other members I know must be uneasy about this policy to help out those of us in the opposition and opponents of this escalation of gambling. Help us out and try to put a stop to this now.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?

Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): I want to thank the member for St Catharines for his remarks. There's one thing that we can always say: He's very consistent when he is making those remarks, especially when he talks about the revenues from casino gambling and how they are supporting, by and large, this government's agenda. But the one thing that he did talk about, and this is something I think all governments of all stripes agree on, is that we should be moving towards a balanced budget.

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All governments have that intention in mind. However, there are times when you just can't predict accurately that your revenues are going to go down the way they did in the early 1990s and, contrary to what my friends in the Conservative benches say, it wasn't a spending problem. Revenues were going down to catastrophic levels. It really makes you wonder as well why this government is having a 30% tax cut when there's a deficit. It just doesn't make any sense, and that's something that the member mentioned.

There are tax cuts and cuts to spending on programs as well, programs like health care and education, and the member pointed out that there are many who will say that is really contractionary; that's actually going to reduce the vibrancy of an economy rather than increase it. But it's not just the member who's saying that. Listen to what the bond raters are saying. They are saying that the Tories are finally up to the level that the NDP were at when it comes to the ratings by the bond raters. That's what they think of your actions.

He talked about what the real reasons are for the expansion of the economy. But the question I have for the member is whether, after listening to that, he likes the tax cut or not, and what a Liberal government would do if they were in place.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Wentworth North.

Applause.

Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): Thank you very much. I'm not sure if that applause is good or bad, but I have to agree with the previous member, who indicated that the member for St Catharines is always consistent, because he always is.

Ever since 1995 when I got here, he has been saying you have to borrow money for the tax cut, and he keeps saying that even though that submission is not based on fact at all. I refer him to page 53 of the Ontario budget where the actual revenue numbers for personal income tax are. Actual in 1994-95 is close to $15 billion. Then after we took over and the tax cut started, the actual amount of revenues out of personal income tax rose. We didn't have to borrow any money to pay for the tax cut. In fact, we made money on the tax cut, which is consistent with all of history when tax cuts get too high.

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): Is that the kind of math that you guys do?

Mr Skarica: The opposition is now clamouring because it's the truth, it's right there in black and white. After the first set of tax cuts our revenues went up $5 billion and after the next set of tax cuts in 1996-97, they went up by another billion dollars. So as our tax cuts started to be implemented, in fact were increasing, so were our revenues. It's a simple fact that we stimulated the economy.

Why is there a concern about the deficit? The reason that the deficit isn't eliminated is in fact, if you look at the program expense, we're now spending more money than when we took over because we've increased the amount of money we spend on education and health care. We're spending more money in those areas than any other government in history. So what the member for St Catharines said is just not factual. We're making money on the tax cut and we're spending more money than ever on health and education. Those are the facts.

Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): I'm quite pleased to say a couple of words on the presentation made by my colleague the member for St Catharines. Yes, indeed, when Mr Bradley gets up, we can all look to him to give us always the best out of any particular document that is introduced in this House. Today is no exception. He has given, even though briefly, an in-depth description of what the document was.

Let me say, with all due respect, that the government must be terribly disappointed with the way business is going for the government. Otherwise, they would have been introducing a much better budget than they did. I can't help it, but since the Minister of Health is in the House, I can see the budget was introduced, which was no budget whatsoever because it was nothing but a hash and rehash of the announcements they made over the last three years.

Then we get the big announcement two or three days later by the Premier and the Minister of Health, saying, "We are going to put $1.2 billion," and they repeated that very slowly, very clearly, and then very hushedly, they said "over eight years." Can you believe that? This must be a terrible disappointment for the government and the members when their own Premier and the Minister of Health say, "We're going to be putting in there $1.2 billion in eight years." Why don't they say loudly what the budget should have been saying for the poor, the homeless, the sick, the students, the seniors? There's nothing in the budget for those people, and they must be terribly disappointed, and I am surprised really to see any members of the House that could not agree with that.

Mrs Boyd: It's always a pleasure to have an opportunity to respond to the speech of the member for St Catharines and to congratulate him on his great success in drawing the absolute nonsense out of the government members that we just heard from the member for Wentworth North.

I understand the member for Wentworth North is taking a course on financial planning. I also know that he's a lawyer, and I must say, with that kind of mathematical genius, selective reading of the figures in the budget, I'd be very nervous of entrusting him to tell me what the appropriate thing was that I should invest in. I must say that when the bond raters say one thing and the financial planner from Wentworth North says another, I'll take the bond raters, believe it or not, any day.

The reality for Ontario is exactly as the member for St Catharines said. This government continues to borrow more money than it takes in, even though it has decimated services in many parts of our communities, even though it has cut the assistance to those who are most vulnerable, even though it is closing hospitals and closing schools as a result of its policies.

This is a government that could easily have achieved a balanced budget if it were not for a 30% tax cut. This is a government that cannot escape the reality that it continues to spend more than it takes in, and it doesn't like to be reminded of that. It likes to pretend that the deficit does not exist, and they really resent the fact that the member for St Catharines keeps reminding them that they're financing this province on the backs of the poorest through casino gambling.

Mr Bradley: I appreciate the comments of the members for Windsor-Riverside, Wentworth North, Yorkview and London Centre. It's a good option to have available, to have this response. I want to say that I particularly like those who agreed with me in this case, so I have to mention my friend from Wentworth North as being in a bit of disagreement. What I want to say to him is that he would have found that the revenues would have been even more substantial for the government and he would have seen a diminishing of the deficit.

I'm not talking about Liberal economists. I'm talking about the most conservative people. When you have on St Catharines city council a person who is called Frosty the No-Man, who is noted as the most conservative person you'll ever find in terms of government expenditures, putting forward a motion asking the government not to implement its 30% income tax until such time as there's a balanced budget, then you know what economists are saying about this, and when you have the economists from the Royal Bank and the Bank of Montreal - these are not raving socialists; my friends in the NDP will tell you these are people who are pretty cautious in their approach to the economy and they're all saying basically the same thing.

I appreciate as well the member for London Centre's underlining once again the fact that gambling revenues are something that governments are getting all too used to. I'm not overly partisan on this. It's right across the country, and I just think all of us have to stop and say: "Enough is enough. Let's call a moratorium on it." We're not going to close down what you've got there in Niagara Falls or Windsor. I don't think you're going to see that happen, but let's pause and take a good look at this. Let's see what we're really doing. Is it really worth the price, tearing at that social fabric of Ontario? I suspect most of us think it's not. We have to persuade the most powerful people, the Premier and the Treasurer, of that.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

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Mr Lessard: It's a pleasure to be able to participate in the debate with respect to Bill 15, the next instalment in the Tory tax scheme. However, having said that - I just wanted to let you know, Speaker - I had expected to participate in a debate on Bill 16 this afternoon, the Tory closure motion on the property assessment tax overhaul, the fundamentally flawed fourth attempt, the fourth go-round, to deal with the changes to the property tax assessment. We know that is a bill that really deserves some further debate, but they were going to shut that debate down this afternoon. We're happy that they decided not to do that and to have a closer look at what the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers is saying to them about how flawed even this fourth attempt to fix up their mistakes has been.

In my office, I got hundreds of letters from people who work in stores in malls and in restaurants who are very concerned about what the Tory tax bills are going to do to their business. They're fearful of what this government is going to do when it comes to their tax changes, because they see what the Tory tax scheme has meant over the past three years. What it has meant is that there is a break for those who are the most well-off, and with Bill 16 that continues to be the case. If you own a large bank building downtown, you'll get a break on your taxes. Even in the government's press releases related to this, in the backgrounder materials its says, "Commercial and industrial property taxes cut by half a billion dollars."

Who are the people who own commercial and industrial property in Ontario? It's not people like me or the member for London Centre, that's for sure. We know who those people are. We might call them a special interest group. The people with a lot of money: That's the special interest group that the Tories seem to cater to on a regular basis. We know that when they're appealing to their special interest group, the people who are going to suffer are residential taxpayers in cities like Windsor and London and in other towns across Ontario, people who are seniors on fixed incomes, people who have seen user fees go up now having to pay for prescription medication that they didn't have to pay for in the past.

I've received letters from seniors who had been receiving colostomy supplies from the Victorian Order of Nurses for years and years who have seen those supplies being cut off by the community care access centre. They're going to find it increasingly difficult to pay those increased property taxes.

Students who are attending university, or their parents, are finding that their tuition fees are going to go up by ever-increasing amounts, adding to their debt load. This government likes to preach that they don't like deficits. Meanwhile, they're just transferring those deficits on to the backs of students and their parents.

Other groups that are losing when we see this government catering to their special interest friends are the working poor. People who have been able to benefit from the Ontario drug benefit plan are going to see those benefits cut off. That's the price they're having to pay. Also, those who are on social assistance had a 20% cut in the benefits available to them in 1995. So we know who benefits when this government puts in place their tax scheme and who ends up paying the price for that.

In the city of Windsor, I received a letter from people who have been involved very deeply in health care issues. In fact, we have a health system labour advisory committee. Two of the people who are involved in that are Parina DeBellis and Valerie Walter. They've sent me a letter about what the Tory tax scheme means as far as the quality of health care in the city of Windsor is concerned, how that is affected by the Tory tax scheme. They talk about the downsize of long-term mental health services in the London and St Thomas area. We're seeing that those mental health patients are coming back to communities like Windsor, and that's something that we agree with. But what we also agree with is that there have to be services available in the community to serve people who require those services in our community. But you know what? The government says they can't afford to provide those services in the city of Windsor, so persons who are relocating as a result of the closure of beds in St Thomas and London are coming to our community without those supports within them.

There are waiting lists for up to two years for children who need mental health services as well.

I met with several representatives recently from the Canadian Mental Health Association. They're quite concerned about the status of mental health reform under this government. They have asked me to use my influence to try and bring to the attention of this government what mental health reform means to them and how the need for transitional dollars for mental health services is critical so that we can develop supports in our community which are necessary to deal with the proposed closure of psychiatric hospitals and the downsizing of beds.

In the Windsor-Essex area we've been historically underfunded when it comes to mental health services. This is a government that says, "We don't have the money to provide those services, but we're going to close those hospitals," and basically says to people in our community, "You deal with the problem now; you're going to be faced with it."

We're also seeing many gaps in the health care system. This government likes to say they're actually increasing the spending on health and likes to lead you to believe that things are getting better with respect to health care. I know in my community people disagree with that.

One of my constituents, Donna Longmoore, provided me with a letter recently from Canadian Tire. You wonder, how does this relate to health care? This is what they're selling. This letter says, "Protect yourself from gaps in your hospital coverage and from unexpected hospital bills, plus get your health questions answered whenever you want."

This is a benefit that's being sold by Canadian Tire to deal with the gaps that are being caused by the Tory government in health care services. These are the people who are going to be providing those services that were traditionally government-funded - Canadian Tire. You apply for additional health care coverage to cover those gaps that are being created by this government. That's the sort of direction the Tory tax scheme is taking us towards. We say that's just the wrong direction.

Last week I had a round-table meeting, during constituency week, with persons who are providing services to those who are developmentally disabled. They were quite concerned about the contents of the document Making Services Work for People. Once again, those who are very vulnerable feel threatened by the actions of this government. This is a document that they refer to as not making services work for people but making people work for services, because increasingly they're finding that the services are being cut. They're measuring the services that are being provided by the minute, not by the results they're accomplishing for people. We see that as a move towards increasing institutionalization of persons with developmental disabilities and not a decrease.

It also is opening the door to privatization of services, because we know they're reducing the funding for services for persons with developmental disabilities, and the people who provide those services aren't going to be able to provide them with the funds that they have available.

This government likes to take credit for increasing the economic prosperity in the province. We in Windsor are lucky that we are leading the way with respect to increased prosperity. Family income grew in Windsor by almost 5%. More people are working in Windsor than ever before. The reason is, that economic rebound is increasing sales in the auto sector, the value of the Canadian dollar, the increased exports to the United States. I should tell you that the increase took place between 1990 and 1995, when an NDP government was investing in communities like Windsor

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. The member from Muskoka.

Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): Questions and comments, Mr Speaker?

The Acting Speaker: Yes.

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Mr Grimmett: I have been listening to the member for Windsor-Riverside and had the opportunity as well to see some of the comments made by the member for St Catharines and the member for London Centre. I also saw the comments of the member for Wentworth North. I thought it was an interesting debate and philosophical discussion about tax cuts. There has been quite a bit of talk on the budget about the philosophy of cutting taxes. I heard some comments that no economist in the world will support the idea of cutting taxes to try to reduce the deficit. I just want to report to the House that I did a little digging and I did find an economist who has a comment on this issue.

Mr Baird: A neo-conservative?

Mr Grimmett: I'll tell you who the economist is later, but I just want to read a bit. Some of the language is a little archaic, but if you follow this closely I think you will learn something.

"Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance than an increase of balancing the budget."

He goes on to say that it's really like a manufacturer who is losing money and decides to raise his prices. And, of course, that's what the NDP did. They raised their taxes and got less revenue. We've lowered our taxes and we're getting more revenue.

Mr Baird: Is that a neo-con?

Mr Grimmett: It is a guy named John Maynard Keynes.

Mr Baird: What?

Mr Grimmett: John Maynard Keynes, the great deficit economist and the person who is often quoted by both the Liberal Party and the NDP. The last time this was taken out of the U of T library was 1958.

Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): I listened fairly intently to the member for Windsor-Riverside and he does have a number of good points. I am just surprised at the activity of the members of the Conservative Party. I want to ask them a question in connection with the member for Windsor-Riverside, and that is, is it not true that you have increased the provincial debt by how many millions since you have come into power?

Mr Lalonde: Billions.

Mr Ruprecht: Right. It isn't just millions, my friend, that you've increased the provincial debt, because on the one hand you're saying, "We'll promise them tax cuts and we're going to promise to do them early and we're going to make some promises that we're going to keep," that mantra. Yet we're asking the question directly to you. Have you or have you not increased the provincial debt? What is your answer going to be? Yes. And the next question is this: By how much has the provincial debt increased since you have taken office?

Mr Sergio: Eleven billion dollars.

Mr Ruprecht: No, it is not $11 billion. It is $16 billion. That's what it is. Not $11 billion.

Mr Sergio: I thought it was $11 billion.

Mr Ruprecht: Let's get the facts straight. I am glad - when it's my turn I'm going to ask some more pertinent questions to you and I am very happy you are about to wake up, because now you have woken up to the fact of what you have really done to the provincial economy.

Of course, the member earlier had indicated that, yes, there has been some positive feedback and, yes, there have been some new jobs created. There's no doubt about that. We can read it in the paper. But at the same time, my friends, let's be clear. The provincial debt has increased.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Things were going rather smoothly.

I recognize the member for London Centre.

Mrs Boyd: Thank you, Mr Speaker, and certainly there is no question that the member from High Park can get things livened up later on in the afternoon on a Wednesday afternoon.

I want to congratulate my colleague from Windsor-Riverside. I know he was looking forward to being able to more thoroughly discuss this bill, but of course, as you may have noticed, under the new rules the time limit was changed for his speech to 10 minutes, leaving very little time for him to go into detail about his concerns around this bill. He did a very fine job of talking about the concerns that are there, a very fine job of describing why the people of Ontario are becoming very sceptical about the claims of this government.

We know this government likes to ignore the fact that the economic climate of the times, the kind of economy that is operating particularly in the United States, but certainly the global economy, which they are most happy to talk about at any other time, has a great effect on the economic health of Canada and of Ontario. It's very clear that the government likes to take credit for the change in economic times that has come about worldwide, certainly in the United States, that is propping up the revenues of this government.

When the members opposite, as the member for Windsor-Riverside tried to suggest, say it is their tax cut that has made the difference in terms of tax revenues, every economist can show that is not the major factor, that interest rates and the quality of the economy in the United States is a major issue.

Mr Baird: I want to comment on the philosophy of my colleague the member for Windsor-Riverside. He went into quite a long rant about taxation policy. We on this side of the House remember the previous NDP government. They raised taxes, increased the levels of taxation on families in Ontario, and they brought in less money.

In fact I would even agree with the member for Scarborough-Agincourt, the Liberal Party finance critic, Mr Phillips, when he said in the early 1990s that this $4-billion tax increase was going to kill 100,000 jobs. Regrettably, we waited and we found out he was right. The NDP's tax increases did kill jobs. What did we say? We said in opposition that those tax increases were wrong, that they were hurting middle-class families, and that if were given the great privilege and honour of forming a government, we would give that money back to the taxpayers, to those people who worked for it.

That money is not the government's money. That's the taxpayers' money. Some of our friends opposite like to take the view that somehow we have a 100% taxation system and the government just chooses once a year to allow people to keep some of their money. We on this side of the House take the exactly opposite view, that it's the people's money. It's their money and it's always their money. The government should take some amount of money to help pay for public expenditures, but it is the people's money. That is something that is extremely important.

I suppose we could have said that deficit reduction was more important than job creation, but we on this side of the House listened to the people of Ontario when they spoke out very loudly and clearly and said the top priority for their government should be job creation, should be trying to deal with the unemployment problem in the country and with the problems of poverty. Under the member's government we saw a tremendous increase. Child poverty doubled under the NDP government. We want to create jobs, get more families working, get more people contributing to the prosperity of the province.

Mr Lessard: I'd like to thank the members for Parkdale, London Centre, Nepean and one riding I didn't make a note of for their comments on my very abbreviated speech, abbreviated as a result of the Tory rules changes that restrict our ability to speak as openly and as often and as long as we would like, as really is necessary on many of these bills.

I want to thank the member for Parkdale as well, for pointing out the fact that notwithstanding the Tory economic policy and their objective to try and reduce the deficit, the provincial debt has increased during the time they've been in government. We're having to borrow the money to cover that increasing debt cost.

The member for London Centre mentioned that people are very sceptical of the claims that are being made by this province and pointed out quite rightly that a big part of the prosperity we're enjoying here in Ontario is a result of a very healthy economy in the United States, the value of the dollar and the tremendous increase in exports that we've experienced over the last few years.

The member for Nepean said the NDP were raising taxes and therefore revenues went down as a result, and completely ignored any of the things I said about user fees that are having to be absorbed by students, by seniors and by the working poor. Their leader, when he was over on this side of the Legislature, said that a user fee is the same as a tax, but I guess that was then and this is now and increasing user fees is okay.

To follow the member for Nepean's arguments to absurdity, he'd like us to believe that we should have a 100% tax reduction and therefore jobs will be created by the hundreds of thousands and we'll all be better off.

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The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Rollins: It gives me great pleasure to rise today and speak in support of Bill 15, An Act to cut taxes for people and for small business and to implement other measures contained in the 1998 Budget.

Mr Gerretsen: How about those gas prices?

Mr Rollins: We had a look at the gas prices last week, member for Kingston and The Islands, and it was fairly successful. We managed to keep the price of gas down.

Applause.

Mr Rollins: Thank you. Thanks for the gas prices. I might say that in eastern Ontario we were pleasured with a decrease in price, a little bit of a decrease. The presidents of one of the oil companies said that one of the reasons the gas price went down -

Mr Gerretsen: It's because you guys were watching them.

Mr Rollins: No, no, it was because of the competition pressure. I asked him when I was talking to him on the phone, how is he going to answer the competition to put the gas back up, but he didn't want to talk about that.

You people always want to grab this book out here and you always want to read it real quick. You always talk about the tax cut and what it's costing. I would like to bring out a little point about Frontenac county: When the tax cut is implemented, it's $51.5 million to Frontenac county. I would like the member from Frontenac to tell me what other activity he has done in Frontenac county that will generate $51.5 million to the pockets of the taxpayers of that municipality? In my riding in Hastings county, it amounts to $39 million. That's the money going back to the taxpayers, that's what makes this economy go.

Another thing you people get all upset about is who gets the rich tax cut.

Mr Gerretsen: I don't call you "you people." Be careful.

Mr Rollins: The people from the other side of the fence, then, okay? The taxpayers who earn between $25,000 and $75,000 a year get 64% of the tax cut, which amounts to about $3 billion a year. Those are, I would think, in the middle-income class of the people of eastern Ontario and all around Ontario.

Mr Gerretsen: How much do they get apiece?

Mr Rollins: Just figure it out, John, it wouldn't be hard. If you want to figure it out, if you're making $60,000, it ends up about $3,000 a year when it's all completed. Maybe that isn't any amount of money that you have to worry about, but I know a lot of people who like $60 a week. It doesn't hurt a bit.

Certainly the economy is expanding. We've had 4.8% in 1997. There is no question that the growth projected for 1998 is about 4%. We're supposed to be the fastest growing economy is all the G-7 industrial countries. Consumer confidence has risen by about 10% in 1998 already. Housing starts increased by about 25.6% in 1997; business building permits have risen by 32%.

Mr Gerretsen: In Belleville?

Mr Rollins: In my riding of Quinte there has been a fair amount of improvement. One of the things that's happened is a recent commercial development of a new Denny's restaurant, 6,000 square feet, just opened the last month or so. Recently completed was a free-standing eight-screen Famous Players complex at the mall. That also will be part of the Cambridge moneys that are being put in that they announced of about $31 million to be spent. That road, when you go by and Highway 62 crosses, if you just look to the right and you see the Belleville sign, you will see it being put up. That's the place there. That's where you stop in and get your milkshakes from Reid's Dairy every once in a while.

Mr Gerretsen: That's the piece of the 401 that's in really bad shape.

Mr Rollins: Yes, that's the same one.

Mr Gerretsen: You've got to slow down there because of the potholes.

The Acting Speaker: Member for Kingston and The Islands, I'd appreciate some decorum here. Also, you're not in your seat, member.

Please continue, member for Quinte.

Mr Rollins: Halla Climate Control has expanded 100,000 square feet. They've just announced that and they're going to hire another 200 people. That's not bad news for our riding of Quinte. The commercial and industrial developments that I've just mentioned in my riding in Quinte alone are the indicators that this government is doing what is right.

I look out of the windows of this place right here. I can tell you, when we came here three years ago - and you can look out any one of these windows - it was hard to find any construction going on. There weren't cranes. I defy you to look out any window in this building today from the fourth floor and you will see those cranes and those developments. I think that's the kind of economy that this province needs. It's the kind of jobs that it needs.

When that tax cut goes back to the province of Ontario - and I hope the member for Fort York is listening - that amounts to about $1,120,000,000 for the city of Toronto. I don't know where that money will be spent, but I do believe that it will make the cash registers in all our communities ring a little bit louder and make the business world a little bit better place to be in.

I know that the target to balance the budget we're reasonably in control of and in the right direction for. We've dropped it down to about $4.2 billion. It's $0.6 billion lower than the deficit target we started out with last year, and I know the budget will be balanced by the year 2000-01.

Creating jobs through tax cuts: The Ontario economy is getting close to 400,000 new jobs already. Now that's not far off of it. It's starting to be over halfway where we needed to be in the Common Sense Revolution when we said that we would produce some 725,000 new jobs. It's pushing on in the bottom half of it. I know at the start there was a lot of noise in here that we weren't going to make it, but it might just happen.

The unemployment rate in March dropped down to 7.4%, and the good news came out yesterday. April's numbers show us that it's 7.2%. We're leading Canada, and Ontario is once again becoming the driving force to make this country a great place to do business in.

The small business tax rebate: When we listened in the finance committee, we heard businessman after businessman come in and talk to us and say, "One of the things that we are being overtaxed with" - and one of the things that the minister has done in bringing in the new budget is to make sure that there's a starting down, cutting back the small business tax, because those people need to have that kind of consideration. This year it's down a half per cent and eight years from now we will have it down by half of what it is today. Those business people were very thankful for that.

One of the other concerns that we have for small business people is the banks. They all keep telling us that they're doing a great job. We have a lot of concern for small business. When they talk about small business, they talk about people that are under $3 billion or $4 billion. I'm talking about the person who needs the $5,000 job. I'm talking about the fellow who needs $10,000, the very small business. Those are the kinds of things I think we've got to encourage the banks to be able to support those small businesses, because we know those small businesses produce the mass number of jobs in Ontario.

One of the other problems we've had is under the taxation. I know in Hastings county our commercial and business taxes were about 17% above the Ontario average. Due to the numbers in the budget, the minister has given us the opportunity to put over $1 million savings over eight years to get those taxes for education on commercial and industrial businesses back down to where they should be so that the people are doing that business and keeping them going and it will work well.

Investing in jobs for the future: In the budget Minister Eves announced a $500-million fund to support leading-edge R&D. This is something that we that are in education, that those universities and colleges need all that good work to be able to get that learning research to be developed in our country, and also it will help our colleges and universities out.

Jobs in agriculture: With the grant that we had from the Minister of Agriculture, rural jobs in Ontario.

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These are all things that are helping work extremely well to make sure that this government's commitments are met, that we balance the budget by the year 2000-01 and that we can support our people and make sure that our children and our grandchildren will have jobs and work to do in this community.

The big thing is we've cut income tax down, we've got it to the last stage where we promised we'd cut, we've seen the increase in those jobs and we've seen the increase in our budget. As long as those moneys keep rolling in, we know we're on the right track.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?

Mr Ruprecht: I listened to the member for Quinte very carefully, and I say this to him: Nobody said you were totally wrong, and furthermore, nobody said your tax cut is totally wrong. But the question that surely must be asked is this: At what time should the tax cut be implemented, and at what price? Surely it is obvious to the people of Ontario that a tax cut should click in after the budget has been balanced, because otherwise you are borrowing against your tax cuts.

That, of course, as the member for Yorkview said quite clearly, would hurt and cause havoc among those in our population who are poor, who are homeless, the seniors, the sick, the disabled, and he also mentioned the students. They will have to bear the brunt of these tax cuts. Is it not true, are you not in the process of raising education tuition fees to such a level that it will become almost impossible for an ordinary person to send their son or daughter to school? Is that not true? I hear nothing on the other side. Again, it's a question of, "I see nothing, I hear nothing and I speak nothing," when the truth is being said.

Furthermore, let's have a look at these tax cuts that you're pronouncing as the most beautiful thing since sliced bread. What happened here? You chose to fire over 10,000 nurses. You plan to close over 35 hospitals. You've made deep cuts in the classroom. You've denied 60,000 four-year-olds the benefit of junior kindergarten. In fact, where you have cut and sliced and slashed, we know there's no room for poor, homeless, sick and students. That is the truth of it.

Mrs Boyd: I'd like to refer to the last sentence of the member's speech, where he said, "As long as the money keeps rolling in, everything's going to be fine." The problem is, as we well know, the money doesn't keep rolling in. We saw a Liberal government between 1985 and 1990 which made the same assumption you're assuming: that the money would keep rolling in, that the economy would keep on having the kind of return that it had.

As we all discovered, the economy was fickle and that was not the case. When the money doesn't keep rolling in, when there's a recession, governments need to take action to protect their citizens from the effects of that recession. That was the situation we were in in 1990 to 1995, and that's the situation, unfortunately, that if history continues to show the same economic cycles that it has in the past, the next government is likely to face as well.

Sure, as long as the economy is boiling along, as it appears to be now, all is well. But all it takes is a little downturn to begin to turn that whole situation around, to put a government in quite a different position than you find yourselves in now or than the Liberals imagined themselves to be in in 1989-90.

The Asian flu gave us all a little hint of what would happen to this globalized economy if that kind of downturn began. We all need to be very cautious about the claims that we make about the mechanisms, the levers that we have on the economy, and whether we can be sure they will continue to let the money roll in, as the member suggested.

Mr Baird: I want to congratulate my colleague the member for Quinte on his remarks. The member for Quinte brings a unique perspective to this place because he has run a small business, and he always adds a terrific amount to our discussions as a caucus with respect to small business. He, like I and my caucus colleagues, knows the importance of small business to the Ontario economy and knows the importance of small business to job creation. When we look at the jobs created in Ontario since 1995, going from 19,000 jobs to 825,000 jobs projected by the year 2000, we know that small business is driving -

Mr Gilles Pouliot (Lake Nipigon): You did all that?

Mr Baird: The member for Lake Nipigon asks, did we do all that? No. Small business has been doing 82% of the job creation and that is indeed good news.

Mr Pouliot: A buck an hour, 60 hours a week?

Mr Baird: The honourable member opposite doesn't want to hear the good news. They don't want to hear about the jobs the economy has been creating. They don't want to hear that unemployment in Ottawa-Carleton has fallen to below 7.4%. They don't want to hear that good news, but the honourable member for Quinte told them about it.

He also highlighted the impact of the tax cut in his community, in Hastings, for the people of Belleville and Trenton, and the effect that is having on small businesses in eastern Ontario. It's beginning to help create consumer confidence. Consumers themselves are going back out into the community and spending money and creating jobs. It's not the government creating jobs; it's hardworking consumers creating jobs - the honourable member for Quinte very accurately identified that - as are the provisions in Bill 15 to cut the corporate tax for small business in half over the next eight years, to make it as easy as possible.

Mr Gerretsen: Eight years.

Mr Pouliot: Eight years.

Mrs Boyd: Eight years.

Mr Baird: They spent 10 years raising taxes, and we'll spend eight years cutting that tax, because we know, as does the member for the Quinte, that small business is the economic engine in the province.

Mr Gerretsen: First of all, it ought to be said that I don't think there's a member in the House here who doesn't want to see a buoyant economy. We would all like to see a buoyant economy. We would all like to see as many people working as possible. We would all like to see people being productive and having a positive outlook towards life etc.

I find it interesting that at one moment the government members are saying that all this is happening because of the tax cut, and then the next member gets up and says, "Of course, you know the tax cut, whatever we cut here in Ontario, it has been increased federally." If that's the case, there has been a neutral effect on people's salaries and wages. That's certainly what I'm hearing from most people. If that is so, how can you say the tax cut is a positive force in the economy when in effect you are, on the other hand, saying that whatever money is being given back by the province is being taxed back by the federal government? That's the first point I want to make.

Interjections.

Mr Gerretsen: I hear the minister of privatization rambling on. We wonder what he's doing in his office on a day-to-day basis. When you think about it, we haven't seen any of the proposals that presumably he was appointed for.

Mrs Boyd: Thank God.

Mr Gerretsen: Thank God, yes. There are some of them we don't want to see.

Why doesn't the government just say, "We promised that we were going to privatize this, that and the other thing, we're not going to do it," and let's be done with it. Hand the limo keys back and become another backbencher.

Finally, though, I think it ought to be said that all of us on all sides of the House want to see a buoyant economy, but let's be a little bit careful as to who should take credit for it. Maybe the credit should go to the American economy, maybe to the feds, maybe to the province or maybe to a combination of all those forces.

Mr Rollins: I would like to address a couple of the concerns these people have addressed.

To the member for Parkdale, I'm not sure, I don't know whether this establishment sets the tuition fees across the province; I was under the impression that the tuition fees for the students were set by each university and college on its own. Also, we have put a lot of money out to make sure that's available for students to have some money sent to them.

To the member for London Centre, about the money rolling in, I think if you look at the budget numbers they indicate that there is more money coming in than there was before. No question about it. One of the reasons, we feel very strongly, that there's more money coming in is because of the tax cut.

I know a lot of people think we could have waited for the tax cut, but if we'd have waited and saved until we got to the point we had a balanced budget, we might not have had that increase in jobs, we might not have had the increase in the economy. Other provinces in Canada did not do it and they did not get the support of the growth that we have, and that's the engine that makes it work.

I know, Mr Speaker, it's getting awfully close to 6 o'clock and some of us would probably enjoy supper. Thank you very much and enjoy a good supper.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you very much, member for Quinte. It now being after 6 of the clock, this House is adjourned until 6:30 of the clock this evening.

The House adjourned at 1801.

Evening meeting reported in volume B.

27 mai 1998