Journal des débats 1998-nov-04 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): My statement today is directed to the Premier, and it's regarding the lack of psychiatric services in my region. I have to ask if anybody is really listening out there, because it sure doesn't seem to be that way.

Speaker, I have raised this issue in this House on a good number of occasions and you will know that. I have to tell the Premier and the Minister of Health that this issue is not going away. In northwestern Ontario we still, believe it or not, have psychiatric patients being locked up in jail. I just don't know how to get that through to the Premier.

Let me tell you what Mark Balcaen, the executive director of the Lake of the Woods hospital, had to say in his letter to the Premier. He said, "There is a growing frustration over the lack of response from the Ministry of Health for on-call coverage for psychiatry."

He goes on to say:

"Frustration stems from the delay in receiving any word on recommendations following a review of psychiatric services conducted by a consultant hired by the ministry. The review took place June 30."

Here we are on November 4 - still no psychiatric on-call services.

When one of the boards questioned the administrator about where the issue was going, he said it had been raised many times. He goes on to say, "The Premier seems to have lit a fire under the Minister of Health and we are hopeful" that some activity will resolve issues of health care.

HOMELESSNESS

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): I'm making a statement on behalf of Ted Kapusta. Ted was injured in February 1985. His left hand was amputated, leaving only a thumb. The plant closed in 1989. He went to UIC, and when it ran out they put him back to the Workers' Compensation Board. At the WCB, he was retrained as a computer operator and had one job placement in 1994. That lasted as long as the WCB would pay the employer. He has applied for jobs and has written letters and not received one interview.

He gets a $600-a-month pension. He has lived for 20 years in his apartment and pays $520 a month rent. He has survived for several years with the help of family. His mother is also an injured worker on 60% pension and on dialysis.

This is an example of how homelessness is not only about people who are discharged from psychiatric hospitals or have problems with substance abuse.

He can't get family benefits because he's not medically unemployable. He cannot get social housing because the Harris government has stopped producing social housing and the waiting list is years long. He can't get a job, because the WCB no longer gives any active help and the Harris government has repealed employment equity.

He says:

"Mr Harris, your policies did this to me and are doing it to thousands of other ordinary Ontarians. I thought you represented all of us. Please explain this to me because I do not understand.

"Formerly of Etobicoke; now homeless."

ALBERTO FUJIMORI

Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): On Thursday, October 29, I had the distinct honour of meeting with Mr Alberto Fujimori, the President of Peru, at which time I welcomed him on behalf of the Premier and the province of Ontario.

This was the first official visit of a Peruvian president to Canada. Yes, he was here for consultation during the hostage crisis, which he settled typically with his do-it style, but this was the first in an official capacity.

President Fujimori's leadership since 1990 and his "see a problem - fix it" attitude have seen great strides in health, education, welfare and diplomacy. His willingness to enter into talks with Ecuador and solve a 170-year-old border dispute is evidence of his wish to fight poverty rather than his neighbours. This accord was signed less than two weeks ago.

His achievements are too many to list with the time allotted, but through various reforms and privatization - Hydro Peru, Telephone Peru and the old age pension plan - the President has led Peru to growth of 41% since 1993, the highest in Latin America. Exports grew by 92%, and inflation dropped from 7,650% to 6.5% in 1997.

A great number of President Fujimori's initiatives parallel the Common Sense Revolution, and the same positive results are either evident or expected.

All these factors will only mean a greater accord between Peru and Canada.

SIKH RELIGION

Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview): Today marks an important date for members of Ontario's Sikh community. They join Sikhs all over the world in observing the holiest day on their religious calendar. This is the anniversary of the birth of Guru Nanak Dev, who was born on this day in 1469 in the village of Rai Bhoe Ki Talwandi, Pakistan.

Guru Nanak Dev founded a religion that is today practised by more than 15 million people worldwide and several hundred thousand people in Canada.

Sikhism, as Guru Nanak Dev founded it and as it is practised today, is a way of life based on firm conviction. It seeks universal brotherhood. Its object is to create spiritual kinship and unity among all peoples. It believes that salvation is possible for all through devotion to God and a moral, responsible and selfless lifestyle.

Because of their strong beliefs and values, the more than 200,000 Sikhs in Ontario have made, and continue to make, strong contributions to our province. An education-minded people with an irresistible thirst for knowledge, they excel in all of the professional fields. They strongly believe in the equality of men and women of all races. They are family-oriented and self-sufficient. They give generously to their own institutions and to causes in the broader society.

Let us today reflect on the teachings of Guru Nanak Dev, who proclaimed the oneness of all peoples, religions and cultures, and let me say that it is a great privilege for me personally and for the Liberal Party of Ontario to recognize this very important day and this very important people.

GOVERNMENT CONSULTANTS

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): Speaker, I rise today to share with you, with my colleagues in this place and the people out there across Ontario how shocked I was yesterday at the revelation in the auditor's report about the Andersen contract and this government and the Ministry of Community and Social Services.

This is a continuation of the unrelenting attack on the poor in this province. When you consider the report of the Centre for Social Justice last week, which spoke of the growing gap between the rich and the poor, and its reference to the government's role in the widening of that gap, this is a shocking indictment of this government's deliberate, well-orchestrated, thoughtful and planned attack on the poor, those who are the most marginalized and vulnerable in our province, starting with the reduction of their income by 22%, the taking away of the nutritional supplement for pregnant mothers, the shutdown of all support and counselling opportunities. And now this: a contract with a high-priced, American gun-for-hire corporation to suck even more money out of the pockets of the poor and the communities they live in.

This is shameful. This is disgraceful. This is immoral and unethical. It is not in keeping with the Canadian story in any way, shape or form. This government should resign.

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CRIMINAL SENTENCING

Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): Bill C-251, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, introduced in the federal House of Commons by Albina Guarnieri from Mississauga East, recently passed second reading with all-party support.

This bill provides for the imposition of consecutive sentences where a person commits sexual assault against multiple victims or where the person is already serving another sentence at the time.

It also provides that a person sentenced to life imprisonment for first- or second-degree murder is not eligible for parole until the person has served, in addition to the portion of sentence that the person must serve for murder, one third or a maximum of seven years of any other sentence imposed on the person for an offence arising out of the same events or that the person is already serving.

The mandatory portion of each life sentence imposed on a person who is convicted of a second murder must be served consecutively before that person is eligible for parole.

This bill will finally put to an end the volume discounts for murderers and rapists. It recognizes that each sentence must apply to a specific crime and that the horror suffered by the victim is not less because they were the second, third or fourth victim. It is time that justice was found for the victims and not the predators in our society.

I urge the members of this House to contact their federal counterparts and -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you.

MEMBERS' CONDUCT

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): Mr Speaker, I would like to draw to your attention a matter which I know will be of interest to you. In fact I have a copy for you.

I have a news release from the Queen's Alma Mater Society, which represents 11,000 undergraduate students at Queen's, in which they express their outrage and disappointment with the member for Nepean, and I must say that I share their disappointment as well.

Let me read to you an excerpt from this release:

"While" David "Caplan," member for Oriole, "asked the question" about OSAP funding "Baird held up a sign that read `Mom, send money.'"

Tom Stanley, president of the QAMS, called the sign a disgrace. I quote:

"Mr Baird's insensitivity to students in need was absolutely disgraceful. We had a student there who is going to have to drop out of school in January if he doesn't receive financial assistance. Mr Baird's arrogance was in very poor taste."

Baird's sign-waving comes on the heels of another insensitive comment by Premier Mike Harris this week in St Catharines. When asked a question about student debt in Ontario the Premier said, "They'll just have to put off buying the BMW for one more year."

These comments are typical of the disregard and contempt that Harris and company have for the people and students of Ontario.

It's time the member for Nepean apologized to Queen's students and to all the students in Ontario. It's time that this Premier and the member for Nepean understood that not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Shame on the Premier, shame on the member for Nepean.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): All right, come to order, members for Windsor-Walkerville, Oriole, Yorkview.

COLLÈGE BORÉAL

Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East): The acting president of Collège Boréal in Sudbury recently wrote to me to describe the serious funding shortfall now facing the college.

This college, like the two other French colleges in Ontario, receives money from the official languages in education program. The program began in 1989 to help the startup of La Cité collégiale in Ottawa. In 1993 our NDP government renewed the Canada-Ontario agreement and invested significant funds in the creation of Collège Boréal and College du Grand Lacs in Niagara.

The terms of that agreement ended on March 31. Negotiations between the federal Liberal government and the provincial Conservative government should have begun long before that to ensure ongoing support to the new colleges.

Instead, negotiations only began in September. The first thing that happened was the Chrétien Liberal government announced it would not contribute any funds to the three colleges this year. The Harris government said it wouldn't contribute either if Ottawa was not involved. We now have a situation where Collège Boréal is short $2.8 million this year and will have to cut programs in the middle of the school year to make ends meet. All three colleges have requested emergency funding from the federal Liberals and provincial Conservatives. I understand that to date there has been no positive reply to this request.

This situation is ridiculous. If the Chrétien and Harris governments are truly committed to these three French colleges, then both governments will provide emergency funding and both must renew an agreement that will adequately support these institutions for the next five years.

MEMBERS' CONDUCT

Mrs Helen Johns (Huron): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I am particularly concerned about the personal slams that are going on in these 90-second statements. Could you comment on the validity of being able to talk about the member for Nepean as such? I think it was really unorthodox of the member from Kingston to do that.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): The fact is -

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): You can be unorthodox and parliamentary at the same time.

The Speaker: Member for Algoma.

The member has a point of order. She's right. Members' statements aren't meant to include personal attacks. They are meant as statements about their ridings or about goings-on within the province. I will say that was the original plan in, I think, 1985, when they were first introduced. I would only say to the members that they were designed for that and they weren't designed for that kind of partisan take on things. I appreciate the fact that the member brings it forward.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members in the opposition benches, the standing orders are written very clearly and I will read them if you like, but it's all there.

Mr Wildman: We are not to be partisan? Where do the rules say we are not to be partisan?

The Speaker: The fact is, if you want to read the standing orders, you can. The member has a point of order. I would ask the members to stand by the standing orders.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker.

The Speaker: No. Of order, possibly.

Mr Gerretsen: And also a point of privilege, both.

The Speaker: For a point of privilege, you have to give it to me an hour before the House sits.

Mr Gerretsen: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: My statement was taken directly from a news release, a press release issued by the AMS, the undergraduate society which represents 11,000 students at Queen's. Every word that I said in there referring to the member for Nepean was taken directly from the quotes that are attributed in this news release.

The Speaker: You know what? I'm not arguing with you with respect to where you got the quotes and I'm not arguing as to how you got them.

Interjection.

Mr Gerretsen: You ought to be ashamed.

The Speaker: Order. Members for Kingston and The Islands and York-Mackenzie, come to order, please. I'm going to get the standing order and I'll read the standing order in a few moments, and possibly that can help alleviate this concern.

Member for Kingston and The Islands, I'm not questioning whether or not you got it properly. It was properly distributed. I'm only suggesting to you, as the standing orders read, the member for Huron has a proper point of order.

REMEMBRANCE DAY

Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): Next week we will observe Remembrance Day in honour of the memory of Canada's courageous war dead and of our veterans who fought in defence of our rights and freedoms. We will remember all those Canadians who, in the words of John McCrae's poem, "lie in Flanders fields" and in other places where "the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row, / That mark our place...."

One of those places is Holland. Students in Holland continuously learn about the historic role Canada played in their country's liberation. Dutch students have a living relationship with that history as they maintain the graves of Canadian soldiers and send tulips to Canada in their honour.

I submit that it is as important for Canadian students to deepen their awareness of the meaning of Remembrance Day. This is why I am today initiating a province-wide petition in partnership with Ontario veterans' associations to develop a special Remembrance Day curriculum for all grades in our education system. This curriculum will help our youth forever remember the courageous memory and sacrifice of Canada's war dead and veterans. I ask all members of the House to support this petition.

I believe the following words of McCrae's poem speak to us and to our youth today:

To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

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MEMBERS' CONDUCT

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: On the point you raised earlier about the use of members' statements, I would appreciate it if you would clarify. The reason I raise that is that I think there are many examples of it. Last week in the House, Mr Speaker, you may remember, the member for Halton North referred to the member for Downsview, and it was a similar issue. I do think that we will need clarification from you of what is and is not, in your mind, permissible under members' statements, because there are several.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I appreciate the opportunity, member for Scarborough-Agincourt. Let me just say off the top, I didn't want to get too far into it because the history and tradition of the place has been that a lot of latitude has been provided in members' statements. But when they're brought forward or brought up like the member for Huron did, the Speaker has no alternative then but to interpret the standing orders and the rulings.

Now, I'm working from memory, but the standing order is 31(b), and the ruling was by, I think, Edighoffer. There are four different rulings, so I don't have to work from memory any more; four rulings, two by Speaker Edighoffer and two by Speaker Warner. I can't imagine who Mr Warner was talking about, actually.

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): He was talking about you.

The Speaker: "Members' statements should not be used to make personal attacks against any member," cited on April 30, 1986, by Speaker Edighoffer; November 2, 1988, Speaker Edighoffer; November 26, 1990, Speaker Warner; May 27, 1991, Speaker Warner.

Let me say, no side of the House has proven any better than other sides. We know full well that we've taken advantage of the situation on both sides.

Those are the rulings. I've been less than vigilant on it, but now that it has been brought up, now that all members understand it, I'll try to keep a closer eye on it. I appreciate the opportunity.

We have two points of order.

Mr Wildman: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: For clarification, then you're saying that according to the rulings, your ruling and previous rulings, members should not use members' statements for personal attacks against other members but it is in order for us to be partisan.

The Speaker: I would never rule partisanship out of order. If I ruled partisanship out of order, we wouldn't be here, I guess.

No, you're right. Maybe I misspoke myself when I said "partisan." What I meant was personal attacks.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): Mr Speaker, on the same point of order: I repeat that my statement merely reiterated the actions of the member for Nepean -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Member for Kingston and The Islands, please sit down.

Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): He is going to force you to be a gentleman for 15 minutes.

The Speaker: Member for Brant-Haldimand. Thank you.

I think what I'm trying to point out to you, member for Kingston and The Islands, is that I appreciate where you're coming from on that particular statement, but I'm saying to you that I consider that to be a personal attack, and that's what it comes down to.

Hon Norman W. Sterling (Minister of the Environment, Government House Leader): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: You know I've sat in this House for a long period of time -

Mr Wildman: Too long.

Hon Mr Sterling: Yes, some would say too long. I'm particularly concerned, and I always have a concern, when a member challenges another member who is not here. I feel that I must speak on behalf of Mr Baird, who is attending his grandmother's funeral and cannot be here to defend himself.

The Speaker: Thank you.

Mr Phillips: A point of order, Speaker.

The Speaker: Is this a different point of order, member for Scarborough-Agincourt? Are you up on the same point of order?

Mr Phillips: The same point of order. Just to respond to the government House leader, I'd say that last week there was a similar personal attack on one of our members, who was not here, who was not in the House, and so -

The Speaker: Government House leader and member for Scarborough-Agincourt, please take your seats. I think you're both right. There have been incidents on both sides of this House. No one is pure on this issue, so let's just leave it at this. In future we'll deal with it, from this day on. I don't think there's any point in comparing past histories, because they're all checkered.

PROVISION OF INFORMATION

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): On a point of privilege, Mr Speaker: Pursuant to section V, subsection 21(a) of the standing orders of the Legislative Assembly, I rise today on a point of privilege. I believe the rights and privileges granted to me as a duly elected member of the Ontario Legislature have been abused by the government. As a permanent member of the administration of justice committee of the Ontario Legislature, I am charged with the duty to give due consideration to government legislation placed before that committee. Legislation is referred to committees of our Legislature to gather public comment and expert advice in order to give due consideration to each bill. Amendments are then moved based on that knowledge.

When Bill 75, the Alcohol, Gaming, and Charity Funding Public Interest Act, 1996, was being considered by this Legislature and its committee, the government had in its possession a major legal brief commissioned by the Ontario Lottery Corp that offered the opinion that the private operator model of gambling employed by the Ontario government was contrary to the Criminal Code. Chris Hodgson stated in an October 31 Toronto Star article that, "There are other legal opinions that disagree with that report."

I believe my rights and privileges have been abused by the contempt the government holds for the legislative process. My integrity and the integrity of the legislative process has been corrupted by the government through the withholding of expert opinion from legislative scrutiny. I believe that to feed its voracious appetite for revenues, the government purposely obstructed our free and open legislative process.

While I realize the government is not compelled to provide information to the Legislative Assembly, I believe in this case, when the government's advice was that this bill contradicts the Criminal Code and therefore was possibly an illegal act, that I and all members are now complicit in executing that illegal act. Mr Speaker, therefore I ask you on behalf of all of us who sit in this assembly to consider my point and render a decision.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I want to say first off that I appreciate the opportunity you've given me an hour beforehand to review your point of privilege. Let me state very clearly that there are only two ways I can entertain that point of privilege. The two ways are if this Legislature directed the minister to provide that legal opinion to this place or the committee and he didn't do that; or if the committee itself directed the minister to provide this to them and he didn't do that and the committee voted to take it to this House.

Those are the only two ways, in my opinion, that I can see that would allow me to even entertain that point of privilege. Seeing that neither of those things happened, it's an issue that you must take up at committee. If you take it up at committee and a majority of members of committee believe and feel the same way you do and then vote a majority to bring it to this House, I can seize control of the issue. Unless that happens, I have no way of dealing with it.

Once again, I want to thank you for bringing forward that early.

Interjection.

The Speaker: I know. I'm with you on that one.

VISITORS

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): It's bring your child to work day today. If anyone has brought their child to work today, I think it's important that we recognize them; otherwise, if I don't, we'll be breaking up the meeting all day. I want to introduce Mr Michael Marchese in the gallery, who is here with his father, working very hard, I'm sure. In the back we've got Mr Liam McGuinty. Is he still here? He came with his dad.

Anybody else? OK, those are the two. If any more come in, you're more than welcome to stand up and introduce them. I see the member for Oxford motioning. Please go ahead.

Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): I would like to introduce my daughter, Megan, who is on the other side.

Interjections.

The Speaker: You know what? Next time you have that trouble I'll put her in the Speaker's gallery. It's not a problem.

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I beg leave to inform the House that today the Clerk received the 11th 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.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

MENTAL HEALTH AMENDMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LA SANTÉ MENTALE

Mr Patten moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 78, An Act to amend the Mental Health Act / Projet de loi 78, Loi modifiant la Loi sur la santé mentale.

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

Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): This bill, An Act to amend the Mental Health Act, is an attempt to help those persons who have serious mental illnesses and who have had a revolving-door experience, with often sad and tragic results. The intent is to provide them and their families with the best possible supervision, care and treatment while balancing their medical needs and rights with the public at large.

DEFERRED VOTES

NORTHERN SERVICES IMPROVEMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR L'AMÉLIORATION DES SERVICES PUBLICS DANS LE NORD DE L'ONTARIO

Deferred vote on the motion for third reading of Bill 12, An Act to provide choice and flexibility to Northern Residents in the establishment of service delivery mechanisms that recognize the unique circumstances of Northern Ontario and to allow increased efficiency and accountability in Area-wide Service Delivery / Projet de loi 12, Loi visant à offrir aux résidents du Nord plus de choix et de souplesse dans la mise en place de mécanismes de prestation des services qui tiennent compte de la situation unique du Nord de l'Ontario et à permettre l'accroissement de l'efficience et de la responsabilité en ce qui concerne la prestation des services à l'échelle régionale.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Call in the members; this will be a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1401 to 1406.

The Speaker: All those in favour please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Ayes

Arnott, Ted

Barrett, Toby

Bassett, Isabel

Beaubien, Marcel

Bisson, Gilles

Boushy, Dave

Boyd, Marion

Carr, Gary

Chudleigh, Ted

Clement, Tony

Cunningham, Dianne

Danford, Harry

Doyle, Ed

Ecker, Janet

Eves, Ernie L.

Fisher, Barbara

Flaherty, Jim

Ford, Douglas B.

Fox, Gary

Froese, Tom

Galt, Doug

Gilchrist, Steve

Grimmett, Bill

Guzzo, Garry J.

Hampton, Howard

Hardeman, Ernie

Hudak, Tim

Jackson, Cameron

Johns, Helen

Johnson, Bert

Johnson, David

Jordan, W. Leo

Kells, Morley

Klees, Frank

Leach, Al

Marchese, Rosario

Marland, Margaret

Martel, Shelley

Martiniuk, Gerry

Miclash, Frank

Morin, Blain K.

Munro, Julia

Mushinski, Marilyn

O'Toole, John

Palladini, Al

Pouliot, Gilles

Preston, Peter

Rollins, E.J. Douglas

Runciman, Robert W.

Sampson, Rob

Shea, Derwyn

Sheehan, Frank

Silipo, Tony

Snobelen, John

Spina, Joseph

Sterling, Norman W.

Tilson, David

Tsubouchi, David H.

Turnbull, David

Villeneuve, Noble

Wettlaufer, Wayne

Wilson, Jim

Witmer, Elizabeth

Wood, Bob

The Speaker: All those opposed please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Nays

Agostino, Dominic

Bartolucci, Rick

Brown, Michael A.

Caplan, David

Castrilli, Annamarie

Cleary, John C.

Colle, Mike

Conway, Sean G.

Cordiano, Joseph

Crozier, Bruce

Duncan, Dwight

Gerretsen, John

Grandmaître, Bernard

Gravelle, Michael

Kennedy, Gerard

Kwinter, Monte

McGuinty, Dalton

McLeod, Lyn

Patten, Richard

Phillips, Gerry

Ramsay, David

Ruprecht, Tony

Sergio, Mario

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 64; the nays are 23.

The Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

Resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

ORAL QUESTIONS

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Leader of the Opposition): My question is to the Minister of Health. Earlier today your boss, Mike Harris, made a stunning public admission. He said it was true that he had broken his promise, that he had failed to keep his word when it came to the matter of health care in Ontario. To be more specific, he said it was absolutely true that he failed to keep his promise about not closing hospitals in Ontario. He specifically said that today publicly. You tell me, Minister, why should anybody in this province today rely on anything that you or the Premier is about to commit to in terms of health care for purposes of the next provincial election? He broke his promise in the past; there is every reasonable expectation that he will continue to do so in the future. Why should we believe him?

Hon Elizabeth Witmer (Minister of Health): Earlier today the Premier did speak to the Ontario Hospital Association, and he pointed out that when he was elected Premier he had the opportunity to review approximately 60 reports that had been provided for our government by district health councils and others. Of particular note was the one that came from the Toronto District Health Council, which indicated there was a need to eliminate some 10 hospitals. There was also an indication that a separate commission should be set up.

The Premier indicated that certainly, after having very carefully considered all the input that had been provided by people throughout the province, many of them urging that hospitals in their communities be merged and closed, we decided to set up the commission, an arm's-length body that would have the opportunity to respond to some of these -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Supplementary.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, many Ontarians relied on Mike Harris at the time of the last provincial election when he said that he would not close hospitals. You've decided that the best defence is to be offensive. He broke his word. He did not keep his promise. Why should we believe you now when you tell us that you're going to act in the interests of Ontarians with respect to their health care? That man said he wasn't going to close our hospitals; he's closing 45. Why should we believe you now?

Hon Mrs Witmer: Our Premier and our government have always indicated that we want to do everything we possibly can to strengthen health services in Ontario. We want to make sure that we bring services close to home, we want to make sure that we provide the services at every stage in the individual's life, and that is exactly what we are doing. We, as you know, have created more dialysis centres throughout this province in order that people who formerly had to drive an hour or two or three for four hours of dialysis a day can now receive dialysis in their own communities.

We saw this last week when we travelled to Woodstock. We met one young woman who had been receiving dialysis since age 12 and who was forced to temporarily stop her studies, who now was receiving dialysis services in her own community of Woodstock and wasn't being required to drive to London every day. These are the stories that we have heard, and that is the reason that we are doing everything we can to strengthen our health services.

Mr McGuinty: Mike Harris broke his promise. He failed to keep his word and Ontarians are paying the price.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Leader of the official opposition.

Mr McGuinty: Public confidence in public health care is at an all-time low in Ontario today and that's a direct result of Mike Harris breaking his promise.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members on the government side. I think we should be able to hear his question.

Mr McGuinty: Waiting lists in this province are at an all-time high. People are stacked up in hospital corridors. Ambulances are being redirected from hospital to hospital. We've got people desperately trying to figure out a way to jump the queue so they can get their surgery or their diagnosis in a timely way. That's a direct result of Mike Harris's failure to safeguard health care for Ontarians.

Today he publicly admitted for the first time that he broke his promise, that he failed to live up to his word. I ask you one more time: Why should we believe you and, more importantly, why should we believe Mike Harris when he tells us that he's got health care and the interests of Ontarians at heart in terms of the next provincial election?

Hon Mrs Witmer: I would say that our Premier is the one individual who actually has safeguarded health care. In fact we have increased our spending -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Minister.

Hon Mrs Witmer: Yes, our Premier is the only one to safeguard our health care in this province. We have increased health care funding from $17.4 billion to almost $19 billion this year, despite the fact that your federal colleagues have taken away, cut, slashed, about $2.5 billion in health and social transfer payments.

We are proud of our record and we will do everything we possibly can to continue to strengthen health services in this province. We are responding to the 60 reports we had. We are moving forward to provide services in communities whether it's mental health, dialysis, building new cardiac centres, cancer centres, focusing on substance abuse, introducing Healthy Babies, Healthy Children, pre-school -

The Speaker: Thank you, minister. New question, official opposition.

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SCHOOL CLOSURES

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Leader of the Opposition): A question to the Minister of Education: Over the past couple of days I have been spending time visiting community schools that are on the Mike Harris hit list. I've been talking to parents, students, teachers and principals.

I asked you yesterday if you would not accompany me, visit those schools and learn first-hand that community schools are a lot more than square footage, the cost of heating, the cost of lighting. They're the heart and soul of a community, and you have unleashed something the likes of which you have never experienced. Trust me on this one.

I have a very simple question for you, Minister: Will you set aside that ridiculous funding formula that bears no relationship whatsoever to the value of community schools in our communities?

Hon David Johnson (Minister of Education and Training): I will say that the previous government asked a former Liberal cabinet minister, John Sweeney -

Interjection.

Hon David Johnson: You do remember John Sweeney, a very well respected member of this House - to look at a number of issues around schools in Ontario. One of the observations that Mr Sweeney made was that too much of the money was being spent outside the classroom, about half of the money. This is a former Liberal member commissioned by the NDP. Too much money was spent outside the classroom.

We happen to agree, so the approach of this government is to focus the monies in the classroom; to insist on a reduction of funds going outside of the classroom - waste, administration - and focus that money in the classroom to ensure an excellent opportunity for a better-quality education for all the children in Ontario.

Mr McGuinty: Parents and students regularly ask: "What advice does the Minister of Education have for us? What advice does the man who is closing our schools have for us?" I tell them, "What he has said is that you should cut back on your heating and your lighting and your cleaning expenses." In order to implement that policy, I'm just wondering if, as part of standard issue now for Ontario students, we might not provide them with a scrub brush to do their own cleaning, a candle that does both heating and lighting -

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Minister.

Hon David Johnson: The member for Ottawa South says to trust him on this one. Is there any doubt about trust when stunts like this are pulled in the Legislature, politicizing a most serious issue faced by communities and parents?

I would say to those parents, fight the Nyberg list. We intend to fight the Nyberg list. Join us in fighting the Nyberg list. It is a wrong list; it has its priorities wrong. The boards should be looking at their administrative space, their administrative costs, their costs to run the schools, as the Provincial Auditor has said. The Provincial Auditor has said they've got their priorities wrong and they should be looking at increasing the community use in their schools to make their schools more viable. Fight the Nyberg list. That's what I say.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, out there where you fear to tread among those community schools, they don't talk about any lists other than -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Member for Scarborough East, withdraw that comment, please.

Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): I will withdraw it.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Final supplementary, official opposition.

Mr McGuinty: Out there they're only talking about one list and that's the Harris list. Nobody else's list. You know what else? They're asking some very simple questions: How could the Minister of Education, how could the man charged with the special responsibility of the education of Ontario's children, be involved implicitly in a project to close community schools? They're wondering why you're not standing up for the schools. Why aren't you out there with them? Why aren't you at the nightly vigils? Why aren't you walking the halls with principals, teachers and parents and learning more about schools? Why aren't you standing up for community schools in Ontario?

Hon David Johnson: The members of this government are pleased and proud to be involved in their community schools. Each and every member of this government has been involved in their local schools, going to meetings in their local schools over the months and over the years. My colleague the Minister of Health last evening opened a new elementary school in Waterloo - another new school opening in the province of Ontario. The Minister of Energy opened a new school in Ontario last evening - another one. Twenty new schools were opened in Ontario in the month of September - more new schools because that's the nature of the new funding formula. On a fair and equal basis it allows school boards the opportunity to meet the needs of their students, to open up new accommodations where accommodations are needed - a fair and equal opportunity.

GOVERNMENT CONSULTANTS

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services and it is about the Harris government's corporate welfare boondoggle with Andersen Consulting. A year and a half ago, we warned you -

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): Why don't you laugh now, Janet? This is a funny question, isn't it? Laugh now.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Member for Kingston and the Islands, come to order.

Leader of the third party.

Mr Hampton: A year and a half ago, we warned you not to sign this contract with Andersen Consulting and yesterday when I asked you about it, you said, "We consulted with jurisdictions around the world that have used this particular company."

Minister, did you talk to the government of Canada? In 1995 the federal Department of Public Works cancelled a $44.5-million contract with Andersen Consulting after the firm failed to meet its contractual obligations and refused to proceed until the contract price was doubled.

Did you talk to the auditor of New Brunswick, where Andersen Consulting ripped off the taxpayers for $3 million in 1996? Minister, did you talk with either Canada or New Brunswick about the almost $50-million rip-off by Andersen Consulting before you signed the deal with them?

Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): As the honourable member will probably know, the process was started by his government to find a private sector partner to do this important reform. References were checked. As a matter of fact, New Brunswick did recommend that we use Andersen Consulting for this particular reform initiative.

I would also like to remind the honourable member that one of the changes that has already occurred that is saving $20 million just to date is a change in how information is reported to the system. It was a change that, under their government, the ministry had attempted to do, was unable to do it, recognized that they needed private sector expertise, and in one year Andersen has been able to achieve those savings of $20 million. That is good news for the taxpayers of this province. It is also good news for the million people out there who depend on this computer technology because they're getting the payments and the benefits they need when they need them.

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Mr Hampton: The minister can repeat that rhetoric, but the auditor knows that this company, Andersen Consulting, is already ripping off the taxpayers of Ontario to the tune of $13 million. But let me go on because the story gets better.

Fairfax county, Virginia, 1996: Andersen Consulting's contract to redesign the social services computer had a 150% cost overrun - another rip-off.

Texas 1997: The cost of Andersen's contract for an automated child support tracking system ballooned by over 600% from the original price - another taxpayer rip-off.

Nebraska 1997: Andersen's contract for the welfare food stamp and Medicaid automation projects - a $24-million cost overrun. The state auditor said: "I've been auditor for six years now and this is the most wasteful project I've ever heard of. It's like pouring money down a deep, dark hole."

Then the Harris government goes out and signs a contract with these corporate welfare rip-off artists. Minister, who's responsible -

The Speaker: Thank you. Minister.

Hon Mrs Ecker: We checked with many other jurisdictions that had very good things to say about this particular company that recommended we should use this company. The ministry recognized that we did not have the expertise to manage a change as significant and as important as this change was.

I would also like to remind the honourable -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. I'm having difficulty hearing the minister. Could the members come to order, please. Minister.

Hon Mrs Ecker: I would also like to point out to the honourable member across the way that one of the reasons we have a maximum cap in this arrangement is to protect taxpayers. Secondly, one of the other protections is that the company does not get paid unless there are savings achieved, and that has been very clear. I might like to remind the honourable member that he may wish to look at what the auditor said on one of his television interviews last night about the protection for the taxpayers.

Mr Hampton: I want the minister to table the list of the jurisdictions that she checked with, because if you checked with Canada and you checked with New Brunswick and you checked with Texas and you checked with Fairfax, Virginia, and you checked with Nebraska and then you went ahead and signed this corporate rip-off contract, then you should resign in disgrace here and now.

Minister, I'll give you one more example you should check with. In the early 1990s, a Conservative government in Great Britain of the same stripe as yours went out and signed a contract for a new computer system. This past September the main computer register of the National Insurance records of Great Britain collapsed, throwing the social security system in turmoil. Who was in charge? Andersen Consulting, heading up a contract worth almost $400 million.

Minister, if you can't take responsibility for this, if you can't get the money back, then you should resign. Do the honourable thing.

Hon Mrs Ecker: I would really suggest that the honourable member check his facts. There is no question that somehow money disappeared where it shouldn't have and that it can't be obtained or the taxpayers don't have it.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, order.

Hon Mrs Ecker: References were checked. It's a matter of public record. I'd be quite prepared to give the honourable member that information.

The second thing I would like to remind the honourable member of is that this technology system, which his government couldn't and wouldn't change and wouldn't reform, is in danger of collapsing. We could have ignored that. We chose instead to go out and make the changes that need to be made. We knew we needed help to do that. We went out and got expertise that would assist us in doing that, and we have achieved more savings on one project than they did in the entire time they were there.

The Speaker: New question. Leader of the third party.

Mr Hampton: I have more questions for the Minister of Community and Social Services, a lot more questions. Minister, you have signed a contract that pays corporate rip-off artists $575 an hour. Let's put that in perspective. You expect a single person on social assistance in Ontario to live on $520 a month. That's for food, shelter, clothing, everything. You can't blame this on mismanagement or bungling by somebody else. You signed this contract.

Minister, are you responsible, are you prepared to take responsibility, for this? You're paying this corporate rip-off more in one hour than you provide for a poor person to survive in this province. Are you prepared to take responsibility for that shameful course of conduct?

Hon Mrs Ecker: As the member well knows, this reform needed to be done; if he objects to that, I would like him to say so, because it would be interesting to hear. His government wouldn't proceed with this reform.

We needed expertise. We went out, through a public tendering process, to get that expertise. He may well think that you don't have to pay to get that expertise. Unfortunately, in the real world we pay people for the work they do. We also pay people for the work they do to make this reform happen.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Minister?

Hon Mrs Ecker: We've quite welcomed the auditor's comments about the management of this project. I said yesterday that the management was unacceptable, it was not good, it needs to be improved. We are indeed doing that. I had also given directions that the rates be renegotiated, because they are too high and we want to change that, and we are indeed doing that.

I repeat, they didn't have the courage to go out and make that reform so that those million people who depend on that system would know that the technology would be there to pay their cheques. He wouldn't do it. They refused to do it. We're doing it, and we're fixing that system for those individuals.

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Mr Hampton: You're right. I was part of a government that wouldn't sign a contract like this with a corporate rip-off artist. I wouldn't take money off the tables of poor people to pay this corporate rip-off artist.

Interjections.

The Speaker: You know what? It's going to take quite a while to finish this question period.

Mr Hampton: Minister, I want to stay on the issue of your responsibility. You passed legislation, Bill 142, that gives you sweeping new powers to take back money from poor social assistance recipients, even though it was your mistake that resulted in the overpayment. Under section 12 you can take people's homes. Under section 21 you can go after their spouse. You can even issue an order that says, "Enforceable against the recipient as if it were an order of the Ontario Court." You go after the poor people in Ontario no holds barred.

The question is, are you going to get the money back from Andersen Consulting? Are you going to get a court order against them? What are you going to do to get the taxpayers' money back from these corporate welfare rip-off artists? Tell us.

Hon Mrs Ecker: I might caution the honourable member that the auditor talked about the ministry's mismanagement of the project. The auditor did not talk about the quality of work that Andersen had done; the auditor did not talk about the company. I would remind the honourable member of that.

The other thing is that this is a public tendering process. The details are available, unlike the Highway 407 contract that his government signed. I'd like to remind people about that.

Secondly, he also knows that under his government, overpayments or underpayments to people on social assistance were always adjusted, as they should be if there are overpayments or underpayments. That was a policy that existed at the time his government was in place. They didn't feel they needed to change that.

I would also like to say to the honourable member that if there is money that should not have gone to Andersen, that money is being returned. We have said there was not a close enough check on the money that was being paid. That's why I've directed that there are new rules in place to be more accountable -

The Speaker: Answer.

Hon Mrs Ecker: - to make sure it is very carefully watched and checked in terms of what money goes to the company. I would also like to stress, however, that the only money that is being -

The Speaker: Final supplementary.

Mr Hampton: Minister, we've given you every opportunity to take responsibility for this. We've given you every opportunity to admit that you signed a sweetheart deal, that the taxpayers are being taken advantage of and you should get the money back. We've asked you what your strategy is to get the money back, but all you do is search around for someone to cast blame on. It's either the ministry or it's the bureaucracy somewhere else.

Minister, you signed this contract. No one else signed it for you. This is your initiative. You have to take responsibility. If you're not prepared to go out and get the taxpayers' money back - and you've given no indication that you're willing to do that - then there's only one recourse: Resign. If you can't do the job, get somebody else who can.

Hon Mrs Ecker: No one is ducking any responsibility here. We've been very clear. The auditor has said the project was not managed well. We accept that. We're taking steps to fix that.

The second thing I would like to remind the honourable member: If there are indeed inappropriate payments that had gone to Andersen that were not supposed to go, those monies will be returned. There is no problem with that. For the member to suggest that somehow or other there is something nefarious going on - again, I would urge him to check his research. The auditor certainly didn't make any such statement whatsoever.

The other thing I would like to remind the honourable member is that the only payments this company receives are payments that come from savings that are already achieved.

The Speaker: New question, official opposition.

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): My question is on the same issue with the Minister of Community and Social Services. I want to return to what has to be one of the grossest wastes of taxpayers' money that we have ever seen here in the Legislature.

You signed a $180-million contract, and you said that they only got money for savings. I want to say to you that the auditor pointed out that you authorized $15 million of payments to this company, the first $15 million, that was unnecessary, unearned, inappropriate. Why did you authorize it? To use the language of the auditor, it was to demonstrate the project's success. You wasted $15 million of taxpayers' money - the auditor said "unnecessary money" - just to make the project look successful. It had nothing to do with Andersen Consulting; it was to make the project look successful.

I want you to answer to the taxpayers today: How could you possibly justify spending $15 million of taxpayers' money unnecessarily, just to make you look good?

Hon Mrs Ecker: With all due respect to the honourable member, he is incorrect. We have had savings on one piece of this project of approximately $20 million. Andersen's expenditures are over $44 million to date on this project. As he well knows, they bear the upfront cost and the risk of this particular project. If there are savings, they get paid from those savings. The work they did on this project allowed us to have a savings of $20 million. The ministry had been attempting to complete this particular reform since about 1994 and had been unable to do it. With the assistance of Andersen, they were indeed able to do that.

We acknowledge that there are management procedures on this project that were not in place. They should have been in place. That's why we have a new team and we've got new rules. I have directed that there be an independent review of this management process to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

Mr Phillips: The minister is wrong. The auditor points out $15 million of unnecessary expenditures. You authorized $15 million of the taxpayers' hard-earned money, and the auditor said, "Why?" Just so you could make the project look successful. This is gross waste.

I'll go on. You find that they increased their rate 63%. I ask the people of Ontario, have any of you had a 63% increase in your salary? No. But Andersen Consulting, under the minister, was allowed to increase their rate 63%. This is one of the most absurd things: They submitted their bills and then they charged the government $500,000 interest unpaid on the bills, and then they marked up the interest charge. They made profit on the interest charge. This thing is obscene, and the taxpayers know it.

Now you've been found out. The auditor has exposed you, and now you say, "Okay, I'm going to do something about it." Surely you knew 12 months ago about this obscene contract. Tell us what you did 12 months ago to deal with the obscene rip-off here of the taxpayers by you and Mike Harris.

Hon Mrs Ecker: What the taxpayers of this province know is that we have saved, in the last three years, $2.8 billion for those taxpayers because of our welfare reforms.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mrs Ecker: What the taxpayers also know is that, despite that $2.8 billion worth of savings they have received, there are over 323,000 individuals who are no longer on welfare, because of our welfare reforms like Ontario Works. That's what the taxpayers know. We don't apologize for moving forward with reforms. We recognized that this was a new process, that it was a pilot project. The auditor has made some excellent recommendations about how to improve the management of that project, and we are indeed acting on them.

CONSERVATION OFFICERS

Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East): I have a question for the Minister of Natural Resources. Minister, the auditor made it clear that your cuts to MNR are putting our natural resources at risk. Your government claims that you have maintained 280 conservation officers' badges, so there's no problem with enforcement. But the auditor made it clear that 65 people with CO badges don't do any enforcement activity at all and the rest can't do their jobs properly. Seventy per cent of the COs surveyed said they couldn't patrol effectively because of poor vehicles and equipment and bigger patrol areas. Budgets for enforcement ran out seven to eight months into the fiscal year, and there are now restrictions on the number of kilometres that can be driven per month in a patrol area. As a result, many of the COs are doing enforcement only in high-risk areas. Overall, charges are down by 12%, and in the northeast and northwest, charges are down by 24%.

Minister, COs can't do their job because of your budget cuts and our natural resources are being put at risk. How can you defend your appalling record?

Hon John Snobelen (Minister of Natural Resources): I thank the member opposite for the question. She's quite right that the number of badges for conservation officers in the province has been maintained at the levels under the previous government, and on top of that I'm glad, and I know many people around Ontario have seen, that the conservation officers have recently been re-equipped in better, newer, more modern, efficient vehicles. There have been better communications systems provided for them. In fact, contrary to what we have heard in the question, their budgets have been increased so they can patrol more areas. They have a very difficult task. We are learning to do enforcement procedures in better ways and in alignment with other agencies in Ontario, and I think we're doing a better job now than ever in enforcing the laws of Ontario.

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Ms Martel: Minister, you must be the only one who thinks you're doing a better job than ever, because the auditor tells a much different story.

Not only are you not in a position to protect fish and wildlife in the province, but you are failing to ensure that field programs for fish and wildlife are even being carried out. The auditor noted that $4.5 million was taken out of the fish and wildlife special purpose account but was not spent on fish and wildlife activities. You know that the money in this account by law has to be spent on those activities. You also know that by law you are supposed to table in this Legislature an annual report of the fish and wildlife special purpose account. As of this morning, it hasn't been tabled for 1996-97 or 1997-98.

Minister, where did the $4.5 million go and how much of it was spent on your lands for strife consultation process?

Hon Mr Snobelen: The auditor's report is very useful in that it has drawn to our attention that we definitely need to have a better linkage of the activities of the ministry and the performance and the results that are generated, better ways of tracking the expenditures inside the ministry. I have told the ministry, and they are working now to meet the requirements that are set out in the auditor's report, and we will do that. I also want to say that as soon as we receive a report from the Fish and Wildlife Advisory Board, it will be tabled here in compliance.

DRUG USE IN CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES

Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): My question is directed to the Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services. Last month I spent a Friday night in jail. I need your help. It was not personal business. In fact, I responded to constituent concerns about disturbing inmate activities at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre. I visited the facility for a tour. During my tour I had the opportunity to speak with several corrections officers. The corrections staff told me that one of their challenges to ensuring public safety and inmate security is drug use and drug smuggling into detention centres. Some offenders have serious addictive drug use problems and will go to great lengths at great risk to continue their habit once incarcerated.

Minister, I know we're in agreement on not tolerating illegal drug activity inside our jails. What steps are being taken to deal with the issue of contraband drugs in ministry correctional facilities?

Hon Robert W. Runciman (Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services): I want to commend the member for Wentworth North for his initiative, an excellent example for all members of this House with respect to acting upon a concern and reporting to my office with respect to his findings. As a result of his visit, we had an assistant deputy minister visit the institution and talk to management and correctional officers.

As he said, any illegal drug use in a correctional facility is completely unacceptable. The corrections officers conduct frequent and thorough searches of inmates, their living accommodation and institutional grounds. We're doing what we can in a very challenging situation, visited upon us to a significant degree by the federal government.

Mr Skarica: Minister, I appreciate your prompt action in addressing my concerns. In fact, I can tell you that the constituents I contacted were very pleased and very appreciative that you and your department responded so promptly.

What I think many of my constituents are concerned about and many other people across the province want to know is, why is drug possession within provincial jails such an ongoing problem? Since the ministry is obviously going to great lengths to address this problem, why does drug use remain an ongoing security risk in our provincial institutions?

Hon Mr Runciman: A major cause of problems we have in the institutions across the province is intermittent sentences. I've raised this at federal-provincial-territorial conferences of justice ministers for the past three years and again raised it a week ago in Saskatchewan. Last year we had consensus of nine out of 10 provinces to make intermittent sentences optional. The federal government has not acted upon that consensus. When I raised it again, they described it as an administrative inconvenience. That shows you how aware the federal government and justice officials are with respect to reality in the institutions across this country.

We have hundreds of people coming into the institutions on the weekends, these weekend sentences. It is not realistic for us to put all of these individuals into dry cells and observe them for 24 hours in terms of what they may pass. It's a very difficult public safety issue for inmates and for correctional officers. I just plead with the federal government to get off their tail and do something about this very important public safety issue.

HOSPITAL FUNDING

Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): I have a question for the Minister of Health. You were part of the charade this morning trying to fool Ontarians that something is changing in terms of health care. It was the Premier trying to run away from his responsibility. I want to find out today if you're going to run away from yours.

Today you talked about cuts to hospitals. I'm not talking about the automatic and arbitrary cuts, but you tried to make hospitals feel like they would be more secure in future. Instead, the cuts that your commission said are happening to a number of communities, you've just said you're going to send to a committee. What that means is that communities all across Ontario not only have been ravaged by what you've done so far; you have more cuts in mind.

Minister, I want to ask you specifically about the $22 million that is there in the commission's directives to be cut from Hamilton, the $14.4 million to be cut from hospitals in Kingston, the $24 million to be cut from hospitals in Kitchener-Waterloo, the $207 million you're still planning to cut from hospitals in Toronto, and the list goes on. Are you still planning to take the money from these hospitals, yes or no?

Hon Elizabeth Witmer (Minister of Health): Unfortunately, the member opposite does not seem to understand that what our government is doing is that we are responding to the concerns and the suggestions and the input that we have received from the people in the province of Ontario. They recognize that we are spending more money today on health than at any time in the history of this province. They also know it's the federal government that has reduced health spending to the tune of $2.5 billion.

I would also like to add that we are ensuring that our health dollars are spent in the right places. That means we are directing money to community services, because that's what people are telling us is required. As you know, that was part of our commitment when we introduced the plan for long-term care. The reason for that was because your government and the other government -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Answer.

Hon Mrs Witmer: - had done no planning for 10 years and no new long-term-care beds had been created. So I am pleased that our government is moving forward to provide the strengthened health services -

The Speaker: Supplementary.

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Mr Kennedy: I think that means the minister is going to be cutting, and it's consistent, because in estimates her deputy minister said that further cuts are coming. The Premier said this morning, "We're going to implement 100% of the recommendations of the restructuring commission."

What that means is that in Essex, in Windsor, they're going to be cutting over $14 million more. In the Niagara region, where you told the Hotel Dieu to close down, you're going to add injury to insult by cutting another $18 million. In Brantford, there's $18 million more. In Sudbury, it's $27 million more.

Minister, which is it? Have you bumbled the management of hospitals in this province, are you taking it back, or is it just a public relations exercise and you're still going to slash and cut patient services, fire more nurses and take down the quality of health care in this province? Minister, tell us the straight goods today.

Hon Mrs Witmer: The straight goods are that our government has not cut any money from health care. We have added, from $17.4 billion to $18.7 billion, and I would indicate to you that next year and the year thereafter we will further increase health -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Member for Hamilton East, you must withdraw that comment.

Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East): I withdraw it.

The Speaker: Minister?

Hon Mrs Witmer: We have not made any cuts to health care in this province. We are making sure that as we move forward we put in place the services people are asking us for, whether it's the healthy babies program, whether it's more dialysis in their own communities, whether it's more MRIs, taking cardiac centres and cancer centres closer to home, making sure that we have the substance abuse programs everywhere.

Last week when we were in Thunder Bay, the community indicated to us that they wanted more community services for mental health, they didn't want all the resources in the hospital, and that's what we're doing.

The Speaker: Answer.

Hon Mrs Witmer: We are making sure that the health resources are spent in the right places, as close to home and made available -

The Speaker: New question, third party.

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): To the Minister of Education: Last night in my riding over 400 parents came together to fight your school closures. They made it clear that they don't buy your act of trying to vilify the Toronto District School Board or the chair of that board. Minister, they know their own schools, and they know that the wide halls and many other spaces that are in these old buildings are not usable classroom space. They know that your rigid funding formula says that it is.

I would like to suggest a solution to this. You had a report of an expert panel on pupil accommodation grants. This was not made public until the court case this summer on Bill 160, and then it was filed as an exhibit. This is exhibit G. I want to read to you - because it appears they knew this problem was likely to come up in cities like Toronto. They noted that, "In the implementation phase, there may be a need for an appeal process to permit adjustment for boards in which area per pupils in place in existing schools is significantly greater than these benchmarks because of physical characteristics of the building."

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Question.

Ms Lankin: This is a recommendation for an appeal process that you ignored. Minister -

The Speaker: Minister?

Hon David Johnson (Minister of Education and Training): In anticipation of what the question would be if the member hadn't run out of time, I would say that we have asked the school boards to look at the numbers. The numbers have been out for a while now, and we asked the school boards to respond by last Friday in terms of if the numbers are incorrect or if there is any particular problem with the numbers. Slightly over half of the boards have responded, and we expect the rest of the boards to be responding in the near future. At that point in time, we're going to take a look at the responses coming back from the boards.

The ministry bases its decisions on the numbers given to it in the first place, but if any errors are made, they will be corrected. As well, the ministry is more than happy to look at any other suggestions the boards have at the same time.

Ms Lankin: It's not a question of error; it's a question of your formula and what it counts as usable space and the fact that it doesn't work in some cities. The report suggested an appeal process, and I'm asking you to consider implementing that appeal process.

You're talking about transition measures now. The Premier says: "We're prepared to look at transitioning. We're prepared to work with them to transition through." Later on, one of your ministry officials is quoted as saying that they need something that will get them past the election. So this looks like another patchwork solution to buy you political time.

Minister, I've got a suggestion for your new education ad. Take the little boy who starred in the health care ad who ripped the Band-Aid off and show him putting the Band-Aid back on. If you're going to have just temporary solutions, people are not going to buy it.

Will you please examine the funding formula and will you please agree to look at putting in place an appeal process that makes sure you don't have a cookie-cutter approach but that it works for communities whether it's in Toronto or right across this province?

Hon David Johnson: The third party has been very interested in what the auditor has had to say today.

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): We didn't ask you about the auditor.

Hon David Johnson: I'm sure you're interested in what the auditor has to say. The auditor in his comments indicated, "At the time of our review of the ministry the school boards we visited did not have satisfactory systems and procedures for the acquisition and management of school facilities." Now they say, "The new funding model for pupil accommodation will encourage boards to more prudently manage their facilities and resources and will require boards to publicly demonstrate that they have done so."

The auditor seems to think that the funding formula is going to be helpful - helpful to boards, more accountability. I will say, in addition, the funding model does allow for vastly different circumstances: small schools, rural schools, urban schools, across Ontario. But again, I'm more than happy to look and I will be looking - that's a process that's already set in place - at the comments of the boards as they come in over the next couple of days.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): My question is for the Minister Without Portfolio with responsibility for privatization and the government's lead on auto insurance. I've been contacted by a constituent who was involved in an automobile accident in which no fault was assigned by the police. My constituent was surprised to learn that her insurance company had assigned fault to her. On behalf of my constituent I would like to know why her insurance company assigned fault when the police did not and why her insurance company assigned fault if we have no-fault insurance in Ontario?

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): Good question, Ernie. That's a good one.

Hon Rob Sampson (Minister without Portfolio [Privatization]): I agree with the opposition member, that is indeed a very good question, and I want to thank the honourable member for Oxford for raising it in the House today.

The no-fault system that he's speaking to refers to the accident damage component, the damage to the physical part of a car - the sheet metal and glass, as they say in the business - as a result of an accident. Indeed, that is a no-fault system. The advantage of the no-fault system is that for anybody involved in an accident, when they have a claim against sheet metal or glass damage as a result of an accident, it eliminates the need for lengthy delays, usually resulting from tort claims.

Even if police don't lay charges against a driver as a result of an accident, the insurance companies still use what are called the fault determination rules to try to assess fault. They're very interested in determining who is responsible for the act so they can assess the way in which the driver behaves, the way in which the driver drives his or her car, to determine the level of risk associated with any particular vehicle being insured. That indeed is what the fault determination rules have been set up to do, to allow insurance companies to allocate that risk so they can then go and reinsure that vehicle or individual.

Mr Hardeman: I appreciate the explanation and I'll be sure to pass it on to my constituent. I wonder if the minister can tell us a little more about the fault determination rules. Have they always existed, or were they brought in as part of our government's reform of auto insurance?

Hon Mr Sampson: The fault determination rules were the creation of the Liberal government when they were involved in something called OMMP, the Ontario motorist protection plan. In fact it was a construct that tried to provide some stability to auto insurance. I can't say that they were successful in providing stability to auto insurance, because of course that would be misleading the House and I wouldn't want to do that.

What it did do is provide an environment where disputes involving physical claim damage could be settled without having to go to court. I think that does have some merit and that's why we have chosen to continue it with our particular bill that has lowered auto insurance rates in this province 10% since it was introduced two years ago. I say to the members across the floor who are heckling now that they voted against the bill that allowed us to lower auto insurance rates in the province, and I think they might want to explain to Ontarians why they were against lower auto insurance in this province.

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TRUCKING SAFETY

Mr Joseph Cordiano (Lawrence): I have a question for the Minister of Transportation. Yesterday, you will know, the OPP did a surprise spot check on our highways. They were shocked at what they found. Of 141 rigs that were inspected, 60 were taken in for inspection and 33 had to be taken off the road completely. If that isn't alarming enough, one truck was found to be held together with duct tape and chicken wire. You said with your Target `97 that you were going to make the road safer. What are you going to do about this latest crisis you now have on your hands?

Hon Tony Clement (Minister of Transportation): I thank the honourable member for the question. The opposition is always quick to proclaim a crisis. What I want to say to him and indeed to the entire assembly is that this is an issue of great importance to this government. We have a priority in the Ministry of Transportation to make Ontario's roads the safest in North America. We're not quite there yet. We're in the top five, but we want to be number one.

That is why over the past couple of years we have introduced such things as the commercial vehicle impoundment yards, which have impounded 189 critically defective commercial vehicles. We have instituted 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week truck inspection stations throughout the province of Ontario. We've hired over 80 new inspection officers, not only at the site itself, but roving officers to find these vehicles that are evading our truck inspection stations.

So yes, there are improvements that have to be made. I'm quite concerned about some of the rollovers and some of the jackknives that have happened over the last few days. But I want to assure the honourable member that it is the top priority -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Supplementary.

Mr Cordiano: I can't believe the minister is not concerned about this. You have a crisis on your hands. Let me reveal what has happened over the last number of months. There used to be only two or three rollover accidents a week in the province. You know what? In the last three months there have been two or three jackknives and rollovers a day. Not every month; each and every day.

You know what I think? I think this minister has been spending too much time trying to unite the right rather than taking care of business on our highways. You know what, Minister? Time to get back to the drawing board. Time for you to do what you really should be doing, which is -

Interjections.

The Speaker: Question.

Mr Cordiano: Obviously, Minister, your Target '97 plan is a failure. When are you going to recognize that and when are you going to go back to the drawing board to make sure our highways are safer? Because that's a really serious issue.

Hon Mr Clement: Yes, I've noticed, as every driver has noticed, that in the past few weeks there have been some problems on our highways. We want to monitor that and deal with that on an everyday basis. I applaud the OPP for doing the snap inspections. We have, year upon year, done random inspections in this province. I will say to the honourable member that every single year since this government has been in power there has been a decline in the number of rigs pulled off the road, and we are proud of that record. We will continue to do more.

The honourable member talks about uniting. I want him to know that this caucus is united in the belief that we have to get at this problem and we have put our money where our mouth is. We are dealing with the problem.

COMMUNITY CARE ACCESS CENTRES

Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): My question is to the minister responsible for long-term care, but in his absence I'm going to direct it to the Minister of Health.

Yesterday's auditor's report was quite critical of your long-term-care initiative. The auditor concludes that your ministry doesn't have adequate procedures in place to measure and report on the effectiveness of community care access centres. Financial statements from CCACs were six months overdue. There are no procedures for handling complaints even though the Long-Term Care Act requires the establishment of a formal process for receiving, reviewing and recording complaints. Minister, without such inspections, how can your ministry effectively evaluate the quality of care and service to communities?

I suspect that many of these concerns that have been raised by the auditor apply directly to the Windsor-Essex Community Care Access Centre. I suspect, because it's impossible to get information directly.

I understand that an independent auditor has been retained to look into this. I hope it's not Andersen Consulting. Minister, will you confirm this today and, if so, don't you think it's appropriate that the executive director step aside until that audit is completed?

Hon Elizabeth Witmer (Minister of Health): We appreciate the recommendations of the auditor, and we will be following through and making sure that we follow those recommendations.

PETITIONS

PHYSIOTHERAPY SERVICES

Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): There's a looming crisis in the delivery of physiotherapy services in northwestern Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I need to see a petition; I need to hear it.

Mr Gravelle: I have a petition that reads:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas as of April 1, 1999, G467 therapeutic physiotherapy services will not be covered by OHIP; and

"Whereas the only recourse for patients will be through hospital outpatient services that already face waiting lists of three to four months; and

"Whereas these same services are provided in other areas of the province through schedule 5 clinics, which are funded through a $39-million allocation by the Ministry of Health; and

"Whereas of that $39 million none has been allocated for northwestern Ontario; and

"Whereas if the delisting of G-code physiotherapy services goes forward because there are no schedule 5 clinics in northwestern Ontario, there is a real fear that a two-tier system for physiotherapy services will be the norm, that one system would accommodate those who have private insurance or enough money to pay out of pocket, while the other tier will be one where those in need wait for months on waiting lists while continuing to suffer; and

"Whereas as our population ages, those requiring physiotherapy will increase and without these services the strain on our medical system will only increase as people aggravate old injuries that were not properly treated through modern physiotherapy treatments; and

"Whereas the delisting of G-code physiotherapy services is further indication that there is a real erosion, by this government, of sound medical services in northwestern Ontario;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to stop the planned fee schedule delisting of G467 therapeutic physiotherapy services and provide northwestern Ontario with a portion of the $39-million Ministry of Health allocation for physiotherapy services."

I am very pleased to sign my name to this petition.

PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): I have a petition that has been given to me by the NDP nominee for Hamilton Mountain. It reads as follows:

"To the Honourable Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario,

"We, the undersigned citizens of Hamilton and the surrounding communities, beg leave to petition the government of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas the Health Services Restructuring Commission has announced the closure of Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital; and

"Whereas the government of Ontario through the Health Services Restructuring Commission is divesting its responsibility for mental health care without hearing from the community first; and

"Whereas community-based mental health care providers will bear the brunt of this ill-fated decision by being forced to meet what is sure to be an increased demand for their services; and

"Whereas the government of Ontario is not adequately monitoring community-based mental health services for their effectiveness, efficiency, or whether they're even delivering the agreed-upon programs in the first place, according to the 1997 annual report of the Provincial Auditor; and

"Whereas the community pays the price for cuts to mental health care;

"We, the citizens of Hamilton and area who care about quality, accessibility and publicly accountable mental health care for all Ontarians, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately set aside all recommendations to divest and/or close Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital and the programs and services it provides, and further, to call for full hearings to seek community solutions to community issues and to democratically decide the future of mental health care for the citizens of Hamilton and area."

I am proud to affix my signature.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): I wonder if you could keep your petitions short. Just asking.

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PROTECTION FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"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 the 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."

I present this on behalf of 200 signatories in my riding.

PROSTATE CANCER

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): This petition is to the Ontario Legislature.

"Whereas prostate cancer is the fourth-leading cause of fatal cancer in Ontario in 1996;

"Whereas prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of fatal cancer for males;

"Whereas early detection is one of the best tools for being victorious in our battle against cancer; and

"Whereas the early detection blood test known as PSA, prostate-specific antigen, is one of the most effective tests at diagnosing early prostate cancer;

"Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, petition the Ontario Legislature to encourage the Ministry of Health to have this test added to the list of services covered by OHIP and that this be done immediately in order for us to save lives and to beat prostate cancer."

Of course I'm in support, so I will affix my signature to this petition.

PALLIATIVE CARE

Mr Bob Wood (London South): I have a petition signed by 21 people.

"Whereas most Ontario residents do not have adequate access to effective palliative care in time of need;

"Whereas meeting the needs of Ontarians of all ages for relief of preventable pain and suffering, as well as the provision of emotional and spiritual support, should be a priority to our health care system;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to resolve that a task force be appointed to develop a palliative care bill of rights that would ensure the best possible treatment, care, protection and support for Ontario citizens and their families in time of need.

"The task force should include palliative care experts in pain management, community palliative care and ethics in order to determine effective safeguards for the right to life and care of individuals who cannot or who can no longer decide issues of medical care for themselves.

"The appointed task force would provide interim reports to the government and the public and continue in existence to review the implementation of its recommendations."

DIABETES EDUCATION SERVICES

Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): I have a petition that reads:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the Diabetes Education Service in Kenora is a necessary program; and

"Whereas the Harris government has refused to provide long-term funding for diabetes education in Kenora; and

"Whereas the Ministry of Health has acknowledged that the program is cost-effective given the volume of clients seen and the degree of specialization required;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, join our MPP, Frank Miclash, in calling upon the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to demand that the Harris government provide long-term, stable funding to the Diabetes Education Service in Kenora."

I'm certainly in agreement with that petition and have added my name to it.

PROTECTION FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): Mr Speaker, I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It's quite long and I'll cut it down pursuant to your request.

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

"Whereas public health workers in Ontario are expected to assist in providing controversial services and promoting controversial materials against their consciences" - it goes on to indicate further details, and it concludes:

I agree with the contents of the petition and I affix my name to it.

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): This petition is to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas due to the Harris funding cuts to education, the district school boards are being forced to consider the closing of schools in Ontario before next September; and

"Whereas the parents do not want these schools closed, because they are operating at full capacity and fear the further chaos and crisis the Harris government is imposing on the education of their children; and

"Whereas there is apprehension and turmoil in our communities due to the government rules which determine that hundreds of students will have to find new schools to go to next September;

"Therefore we, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislature of Ontario as follows:

"We call upon the Minister of Education, who has the primary responsibility for providing a quality education for each and every student in Ontario, to:

"(1) Listen to the views being expressed by the teachers, parents and students who are concerned about the disruptive effect these school closures would have on their lives;

"(2) Recognize the fundamental importance of our local schools to our neighbourhood communities; and

"(3) Live up to its commitment to provide adequate funding for the important and essential components which make up a good education and not allow the closing of schools, because education in community schools is important."

I affix my signature to this petition as I am in support.

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT RESTRUCTURING

Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk): I continue to receive petitions, over 5,000 signatures to date, from people calling for the elimination of regional government in Haldimand-Norfolk. These petitions are from a group called RATH, Residents Against Tax Hikes.

"Whereas the Haldimand-Norfolk region has downloaded a 17% tax hike on residents, without attempting to cut its own costs; and

"Whereas for the past 25 years, there have been meetings, petitions, referenda and studies calling for a restructuring of regional government; and

"Whereas 80% of the residents did not want regional government in the first place, and in recent referenda 75% of the residents of the city of Nanticoke and 60% of the residents of the town of Simcoe voted against retaining regional government; and

"Whereas residents in the region do not want and clearly cannot afford two levels of municipal government;

"We, the undersigned, respectfully request that provincial legislation be passed to freeze taxes and eliminate regional government in Haldimand-Norfolk, and institute a form of restructured local government in keeping with the wishes and the financial means of the local residents."

I agree with this petition and hereby affix my signature.

PROSTATE CANCER

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): This petition is another one with regard to prostate cancer.

"Whereas prostate cancer is the fourth-leading cause of fatal cancer in Ontario;

"Whereas prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of fatal cancer for males;

"Whereas early detection is one of the best tools for being victorious in our battle against cancer; and

"Whereas the early detection blood test known as PSA, prostate-specific antigen, is one of the most effective tests at diagnosing early prostate cancer;

Of course, I affix my signature to this petition.

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Mr John L. Parker (York East): Mr Speaker, in accordance with your suggestion, I will read just the essential elements of this petition. It's addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the Toronto District School Board has proposed the closure of over 130 schools in the city of Toronto; and

"Whereas the TDSB is still using all six headquarters buildings and properties that are valuable real estate; and

"Whereas consolidating these buildings first before uprooting any students and selling the extra administrative buildings would give the TDSB a boost in capital which they can use to upgrade and renew existing schools, not close them; and

"Whereas the TDSB spent 50% more per pupil for maintenance and operations last year than the Toronto Catholic board, with the Toronto board spending $1,052 per pupil compared to $621 per pupil for the Catholic board;

"Now, therefore, we, the undersigned, respectfully petition the Legislature of Ontario to force the Toronto school board to find administrative efficiencies first before closing any schools, and further that the Toronto District School Board be required to publicly release a line-by-line analysis of their budget justifying all administrative costs prior to any school closure."

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Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas due to the Harris funding cuts to education, the district school boards are being forced to consider the closing of schools in Ontario before next September; and

"Whereas the parents do not want these schools closed, because they are operating at full capacity, and fear the further chaos and crisis the Harris government is imposing on the education of their children; and

"Whereas there is apprehension and turmoil in our communities due to government rules which determine that hundreds of students will have to find new schools to go to next September;

"Therefore, we, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislature of Ontario as follows:

"We call upon the Minister of Education, who has the primary responsibility for providing a quality education for each and every student in Ontario, to:

"1. Listen to the views being expressed by the teachers, parents and students who are concerned about the disruptive effects these school closures would have on their lives;

"2. Recognize the fundamental importance of our local schools to our neighbourhood communities;

"3. Live up to its commitment to provide adequate funding for the important and essential components which make up a good education and not allow the closing of schools because education in community schools is important."

I forward that with my name attached as well.

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East): I have with me a petition signed by over 2,000 residents of Grimsby and the surrounding communities. In summary:

"The Health Services Restructuring Commission has made its interim report for Niagara region that keeps the West Lincoln Memorial Hospital located in Grimsby open and part of the rural health care framework. It also preserves its governance structure and management services contract with the Hamilton Health Sciences Corp.

"The undersigned encourage the restructuring commission to keep these recommendations as part of its final report and adhere to the rural health care policy."

I gladly add my name to the list.

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Yet another petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas due to the Harris funding cuts to education the district school boards are being forced to consider the closing of schools in Ontario before next September; and

"Whereas the parents do not want these schools closed because they are operating at full capacity, and fear the further chaos and crisis the Harris government is imposing on the education of their children; and

"Whereas there is apprehension and turmoil in our communities due to government rules which determine that hundreds of students will have to find new schools to go to next September;

"Therefore, we, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislature of Ontario as follows:

"We call upon the Minister of Education, who has the primary responsibility for providing a quality education for each and every student in Ontario, to:

"1. Listen to the views being expressed by the teachers, parents and students who are concerned about the disruptive effects these school closures would have on their lives;

"2. Recognize the fundamental importance of our local schools to our neighbourhood communities;

I affix my signature to this petition.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

FUEL AND GASOLINE TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 MODIFIANT LA LOI DE LA TAXE SUR LES CARBURANTS ET LA / LOI DE LA TAXE SUR L'ESSENCE

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 74, An Act to amend the Fuel Tax Act and the Gasoline Tax Act / Projet de loi 74, Loi modifiant la Loi de la taxe sur les carburants et la Loi de la taxe sur l'essence.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Further debate?

Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't believe we have a quorum in the House.

The Acting Speaker: Would you please check if we have a quorum.

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

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Clerk Assistant: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): Mr Speaker, with unanimous consent, I may share some of my time with my colleague from Durham East.

The Acting Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): That's mighty generous, Doug.

Mr Rollins: It is, I know.

I'd like to speak on this Act to amend the Fuel Tax Act and the Gasoline Tax Act. It's something that's fairly close to my past history. We've had some experience in the gasoline business that maybe has some input on this bill.

One of the things this bill does is to try to implement a faster measurement of taxes collected from the people who pay the taxes, when the oil companies, particularly the major oil companies, have such a delay in the time to remit their taxes to the government. When you stop and think that some 14.7 cents comes into the provincial coffers every time that gas pump rolls around, that kind of money would amount to somewhere in the neighbourhood of $4 million if we could increase the payment coming into the coffers a little more quickly. When we allow the oil companies, particularly the larger distributors, which in many cases collect more than $12 million a year per large distributor, to drag that out for anywhere from between 15 and 45 days, it makes for a lot of money that could be put into the treasury. Particularly in the province of Ontario, it would increase the dollars we have access to without having to borrow and keep our house in a little closer order.

I know there aren't too many companies or businesses that, when they collect taxes, aren't supposed to put their taxes in relatively quickly. The oil companies and the major distributors have been allowed to work with that 14 cents a litre. When you look at that 14 cents a litre on a huge tractor-trailer load of gas or one of those pup loads of gas, when you look at 60,000 litres of gasoline and multiply it times 14 cents, in many cases the person who gets that load of gas writes a cheque for it. Even if they don't write a cheque for it, the time of credit has been squeezed, from the oil companies down to the people in the distributing business, down to somewhere less than 15 days. They collect that money, and the oil companies may have another 30 or 60 days before they remit that money to the treasurers, whether it goes to the federal government or the provincial government. Those kinds of dollars would make a large difference in the amount of money that we could be having put into our treasury each day.

I know that small businesses sometimes, because we don't submit too much in the form of provincial tax, are allowed to put it in on a 30-day or 60-day basis, or maybe even on a quarterly basis if you don't put in very much. But when we have so many dollars being put in by the very large companies, I think they should be brought to task and we should make sure they pay that money upfront a little more quickly so it saves the burden on all of us. When you pull up to the pumps, there aren't too many of us who have 15 days to pay for our gasoline. That money comes out of your bank account relatively quickly, or you pay for it before you pull away from the pump. There aren't too many people who have the privilege of signing their name and not paying for it. So that money is already put in there.

One of the other things in the bill that is a big concern of mine personally - and I know it isn't completely addressed in this bill - is when we talk about bringing the product to 15 degrees Celsius. Now, 15 degrees Celsius is somewhere in the vicinity of 62 or 64 degrees. That's a relatively warm temperature. Most of the product that we pump out of the ground is at a much colder temperature than that. True, if we were to do the same number of gallons or litres of product in the wintertime as we do in the summertime and it was everything perfect in a perfect circle, it probably would make very little difference. But in Canada, we don't have the pleasure of bringing the product out of the ground at 15 degrees. We bring the product out of the ground year-round at closer to the 42 or 46 degree mark, or closer to 6 degrees Celsius. That makes a big difference, and when you take that 6 or 7 degree split in there that we're paying on, it makes a fair amount of expansion, and we pay tax on that expansion. That tax is actually paid into the treasury, but we're paying on to it.

It's another question we must take a look at, to see whether that 15 degrees - it may well be 15 degrees in Saudi Arabia and it may well be 15 degrees on the world market, but it isn't 15 degrees in Canada and it isn't 15 degrees in Ontario. It may be in one part of Canada - Victoria or Vancouver may well be getting closer to 15 degrees - but I can guarantee you in the province of Ontario it isn't close to 15 degrees.

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When you take that into consideration and then you add the GST on top of that tax that you're paying - when you pull up to the pumps, you don't see the GST; it's all worked into the price of the gasoline at the pump. But when you look at gas at around 50 cents a litre, add your GST on to it, that's about 3.5 cents a litre for the GST. If there's a margin of profit to the dealer of only approximately three cents a litre, he has to then add on to that his wholesale cost and his retail cost. That's another amount of money that's sent in.

That money is generally spent the very day the truck delivers that load of gas to that station, to that distributor. It doesn't allow 15 days; it doesn't allow 45 days. This is trying to bring back some continuity to the way we collect the tax. If it's fair that you or I as a consumer have to pay the tax as soon as we get it, why do we afford the pleasure to the big companies of 15 or 45 days extra, after their allotted time, to put that tax bill in? When you stop and think of the number of days those big trucks go down the road with some 60,000 litres, and multiply it by close to 32 cents a litre that it can add up to when you put your GST, your markup and everything else on, that's a lot of money that should be coming into your and my bank account. That's one of the things that has always bugged me a little bit as far as the way that we as a country or a province have looked at it.

I think moving in this act will speed that process up. We have to look at some of those things to make sure we can make some headway on improving it. We've had some different decisions as far as being able to look after the price of gasoline and trying to make it more fair. We're very upset with trying to look at the price of gas jumping up eight and 10 cents a litre. Mr Speaker, if that had gone back to the days when you and I first started driving a car, it would have been back to gallons. That would have been an increase of some 32 cents a gallon. I can tell you they would tar and feather any company that ever raised the price of gas for a weekend by 32 cents a gallon. I think they would be just in doing that, because it's absolutely highway robbery to allow the major companies - and it has been going on a long time, and it needs to come to a halt. I know this bill doesn't specifically deal with every aspect of making sure that stops, but we have to continually take a look at that and make sure we drive that down so that we have some continuity in price.

Some of the regulations in the tax collecting, harmonizing it - I know in excise tax as far as liquor is concerned, that money is sent in a lot quicker than it has been in the fuel consumption. It's to the advantage of the oil companies to make sure they drag their feet as much as they possibly can to give that money back to the government. If our coffers were full, if we had excess money and we didn't need it, it would be quite different, but when it costs us some $4 million a year that we could save, just the province of Ontario, for looking after having that money collected earlier so we wouldn't have to pay that kind of interest, it's very important to make sure that happens in that respect.

The waste that happens in reproducing used oil, particularly from waste oil that they put back and recycle into the system - we've got to watch very closely to make sure when it's recycled, you and I, as the people who supposedly look after the tax collectors of Ontario and of our country, that those people are paying the proper taxes on that, because that's not oil that's coming out of a refinery; it's not oil that's being shipped in by boat or by tanker truck; it's oil that has been produced from waste oil. That oil is not measurable and sometimes there can be a loss in there, making sure those taxes are properly adhered to.

I know the bill speaks about the dye and the colour as far as gasoline is concerned. Having been around the industry for a while, I know there are different colours for different codes of gasoline that mark it for the use you have. They also make a different dye colour particularly for diesel fuels and fuels that are used for off-road consumption. It's very illegal to use coloured fuel in a vehicle, yet we as a government sometimes do not stand up to the test as quickly as we should to make sure that dye is in properly, to make sure that if somebody were to stop a vehicle and test the fuel, that vehicle does not have coloured fuel in it.

If it does have coloured fuel in it, under the bill you can get up to a $200 fine or up to a $1,000 fine. That, to me personally, is way too low. I think it should be increased because when we allow coloured fuels to be in vehicles on the roads, a vehicle seizure is not the wrong thing to do. But that's only Doug Rollins speaking; it's not that part of it. We have to make sure we don't allow people to cross out and not pay the taxes - because that's what it amounts to when that coloured fuel is in there. Some people are trying to put some input in to evade the tax man, to make sure he doesn't have to write that cheque out. When it gets up to better than half of the price of gasoline being tax, it becomes very lucrative to say: "Maybe we can miss it. Maybe we can cheat on it a little bit." That is something, to make sure we don't miss those taxes. We have to have them for our use. We certainly need them.

A lot of the taxes we collect from fuel is spent on roads. The federal government takes a lot of its tax, and we don't get it back in the response to make sure the taxes they collect are put back into transportation. It goes into their coffers. Mr Speaker, in the past couple of years, we in Ontario - I know from driving up and down from your town and my town on those roads, particularly the 401, the dollars we've spent to improve those roads. Are they where they need to be? Absolutely not. But are they better than they were? They certainly are. Supporting Bill 74 can well play a part to improve the lot of Ontario and the way we collect taxes.

I'll now share my time with my colleague from Durham East.

Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): On a point of clarification, I just hope that Mr Rollins and myself are not splitting the same 20 minutes. Maybe there was more debate time on this.

I think there were a couple of points that the member for Quinte made that are important, but when you look at any finance bill, arguably it would put most of the audience to sleep. This is really a kind of administrative bill. When I was asked to speak on it - I enjoy speaking on legislation because it encourages me to read some of the detail in the bill. Quite often the most important highlight is to read the preamble to the bill, which gives you a fairly good overview of what really is happening.

The member for Quinte, with his experience, has covered some of the ambient temperature issues. It's a very important issue and I could go into some detail with the briefing notes I've been provided.

For the person viewing today, the bill amends the Fuel Tax Act and the Gasoline Tax Act to implement measures contained in the last two budgets, 1997 and 1998.

"Both acts are amended in connection with the following matter: The period for assessing taxes payable is extended from three years to four years. The period for assessing penalties for a failure to collect taxes and for claiming tax refunds is similarly extended," from three to four years. So really we're eliminating the loopholes for tax avoidance.

Second, "Taxes collected or collectible by certain persons are deemed to be held in trust" for the province. "Related amendments are made concerning the disposition of property held in trust, and concerning when assessments.... In other words, they're really bumping up their access to the courts in terms of the liability. The province will become an earlier claimant in any business failure.

Third, "The objection and appeal procedures are amended, changes relate to such matters as the contents of a notice of objection; the service of a notice of objection; the scope of an appeal to court from a decision of the minister concerning an objection; and the payment of a fee when an appeal is commenced."

I could go on to some extent, but as you can see, it's a fairly technical bill.

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In the four minutes remaining in my portion of the debate, I just want to concentrate on a couple of points. My riding is Durham East, and in my riding we have a federal member who has championed the cause of the price of gasoline, Dan McTeague. He's the Liberal member for Ajax-Pickering, I think, or Whitby-Ajax. I have a lot of respect for his crusade to watchdog the price of gasoline.

As the member for Quinte said, when you look at it in litres - I'm from the generation that converts it to gallons - you realize it's really four times that amount. When I looked at Mr McTeague's report, I was surprised to learn the background. How much tax is in a litre of gas is quite frightening. Many consumers don't realize that. I'm not apologizing, as I'm a member of a government that spends taxpayers' money and I'm a member of a government that doesn't want tax.

So arguably, for the purpose of those listening today, I want to make it clear that 14.7 cents on every litre of gasoline is provincial tax; 10 cents per litre is federal tax; and on top of that there's the GST at 7%, which works out to be about 3.5 cents a litre. So each level of government is taking some 14 or 15 cents per litre, which is really 30 cents. When you look at what they actually pay for the product and you look at the poor little retailer who is only making one or two cents a litre to stand out in the cold and pump gas in your car and perhaps clean your windshield, you wonder why some of these independents are being squeezed out.

That isn't specific in this bill, I want to make that very clear, but for those viewing and listening, it's important to recognize that the government has a major stake in this. I think raising the consciousness of the consumer to look at what they are paying for gas, and the holiday weekend issue - it may all be media stuff, but I commend the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations for hyping up consumer awareness and having the gas-busters go around and make sure that people are watching the price of gas.

What this bill is really dealing with is the financial issue of collecting the taxes when they are due.

I think there are a couple of numbers that are worth knowing for the public. The issue of the ambient temperature or the temperature of motor fuel and the pricing is a reasonable solution to a very complicated problem. When you change the temperature or you change the specific gravity of a product, you have a different volume. So there was all this discrepancy between what you bought the fuel at and what it was shipped at. Everybody was taking these specific gravity measurements and there was this great adjustment to the price. There was some leakage in revenue based on temperature. So what they've done is taken a uniform temperature for measuring and paying for the gasoline, and that will avoid that confusion in the future. I hope it will.

The federal government, I must say, in their report in 1997 - Mr McTeague brings it up in his report - say there has been an industry standard of 15 degrees. Arguably, the member for Quinte has said that's too high. Well, I suspect on both ends that will work its way out. I'm waiting for the member for Renfrew North on that, but I think there's a lot of time and a lot of money lost on that issue.

As well, I think the issue about the timeliness of payment, with the amount of revenue in this whole wheel going around on the fuel tax and fuel issues, is that the earlier the government gets the money, the less money the government will have to borrow in its cash flow syndrome. In our notes, it says that that particular change alone is worth some $4 million to $6 million to the province. Who is the province? The province is the taxpayer of Ontario. Whatever party is in government, that better use of taxpayers' money is fundamental to this change.

There will be other points made by all parties, and I'm interested in listening to a finance discussion on this particular bill. Thank you very much for your time.

The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?

Mr Miclash: I was kind of amazed at the member for Durham East and his comment that he is a member of a government that doesn't want further taxation. I would just like to ask him where he was when Mr Harris decided that he was going to put a $37 registration fee on to the backs of the vehicle owners in northwestern Ontario and northern Ontario. They see that as the Mike Harris tax on gas. As you will know, we don't have access to transportation in the north as they would here in southern Ontario and in many urban regions of this province. It was a saving to the individual who needed a car to get to work, to get to events, to the hospital, to whatever; and again, a tax that came on the heels of Mike Harris.

He went on to talk about these gas-busters. I actually thought, when the minister came out with this idea, that they were to do something. They did absolutely nothing in terms of gas prices in northern Ontario. He himself admitted that it was a media event for the Mike Harris government which did nothing: a considerable waste of money. Maybe not the waste of money and the magnitude the Ministry of Community and Social Services would do in terms of the Andersen affair, but a terrible waste of taxpayers' money.

I think back to 1990, when we had a member running in Sudbury East who suggested that there was going to be equalization of gas prices across the province. I was quite excited when she became the Minister of Northern Development and sat there for five years. We still don't have equalization of gas prices across the province.

Again, I would just like to say to this member: a lot of rhetoric leading to nothing in terms of saving the taxpayers' dollars on gas.

Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South): I'm pleased to rise in response to the comments from the member for Quinte and the member for Durham East, both of whom I've grown to respect tremendously, and the comments they make on pieces of legislation. I will often listen very attentively. I say to both members as well, no bill passes by the scrutiny especially of the member for Durham East, who regularly gives us his thoughts on bills. Whether it's a finance bill, whether it's a rather non-controversial bill like this one, or some other pieces of legislation that elicit much more attention, Durham East always has some very relevant comments.

Of course, listening to the debate of the member for Quinte alone convinced me to vote for this legislation when the time comes. The member for Quinte is a small businessman who for some time ran his own gas station, and I think as well typifies the type of small business person who has become involved in government not, I guess, to govern or to defend government, but to bring changes, to make government work for the people, to ensure that taxpayers get the right benefits for their hard-earned tax dollars.

I think it's very fitting when we speak of Bill 74 that the member for Quinte, both with his experience in the gas industry and with that stance of somebody who's come in here to make government work for the people, speaks on behalf of Bill 74, which is precisely that: to ensure that the gasoline tax, fuel tax, is administered more efficiently, and, importantly, because of that more efficient approach to bringing in the fuel taxes, to tightening that up - I think every 36 days is current - bring savings to the taxpayer. It will improve the cash flow of the province and at the same time, because of that, it will cause the interest on the debt to be reduced.

Again, I enjoyed the comments from Quinte and from Durham East and look forward to hearing them speak even more often on this important piece of legislation.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions or comments?

The member for Quinte, two minutes.

Mr Rollins: I want to thank the members for Durham East and Kenora and Niagara South for their comments.

One of the things that I wanted to take a little bit of question with was that the man from Kenora said the gas-busters didn't have any results. I was a member of that, the gas-busters, and yes, in the north it still stayed reasonably even. Even when we checked the price of gasoline, it didn't lower it but it did stop. For the first five weekends that we looked after it and were out there looking at prices of gasoline, the price didn't move.

We did make an error, there's no question about it. On Thanksgiving weekend we didn't announce earlier that we were going to watch, and that Thanksgiving weekend is when we as taxpayers across the province took another kiss from the oil companies for their eight-cent increase over that long weekend, and we all know that. So I think the gas-busters did have some input into it. It's not over with yet. We'll keep pushing to make sure this fluctuation of prices comes to a little bit of a halt.

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I also want to mention the Dan McTeague report. One of the big things with that report is that we've got to be able to put some transparency back into the pricing, the way the oil companies look after their business. Many, many governments before us have tried to put the feet of the oil companies to the fire about price-fixing and everything, but they've never been successful. It has to be changed in the Criminal Code to be able to allow the consumer and corporate affairs minister to have the right kind of tools to make sure the oil companies do not price-gouge and put small, independent people out of business.

This bill does not deal with all the problems, but I do think that as taxpayers in Ontario we will be better served. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Conway: I'm pleased to join the debate today, especially in the wake of my friend from Belleville, who knows this business far better than I. My perspective is that of an individual who spends far too much of his time on the roads. I pay a lot of attention to gasoline prices.

I want to say to my friend from Belleville that I think privately we might all agree as to what the gas-busters are all about. It is almost fantastic to imagine that a group of well-intentioned politicians running around places like Belleville and Bancroft and Barry's Bay are going to stand up to the successors of John D. Rockefeller and say, "We'll meet you at high noon." I don't want to be too cynical, but on the other hand I don't want to assign too much authority and too much success to the gas-busters. As a practising party politician, I am more than a bit bemused at the sheer chutzpah of the whole idea, but hey, good stuff, we've all got to do our bit.

I want to give my friend from Belleville some credit. On the Monday of the Thanksgiving weekend I was coming from Pembroke to Toronto, and I was looking for gasoline around Tweed. Actually, the Esso station at Tweed was I think out of gas. I went to two or three of the pumps and they had none left. In Pembroke that day we were paying something like 54 cents a litre for regular unleaded. My friend from Belleville will be happy to know that having been unsuccessful at getting gasoline where I often do in Tweed at the Petro-Canada station on 62, just up by that Tim Horton's, just north of Belleville across from Wal-Mart, you won't believe what I paid: 47.9 cents.

Had I had the member's home phone number, I would have said, "Doug, I don't know what you're doing, but keep up the good work. That's the best price for retail" - maybe it was Harry who gets the credit, I don't know. But 47.9 in Belleville that day was the best price I've paid in months, so somebody was doing something. But the reality is that for most of the rest of the weekend I was looking at and paying five or six or seven cents a litre more.

I want to agree with my friend from Belleville. He makes a very, very good point. Can you imagine, in the pre-metric era of the imperial gauge, what we would have done as consumers with the Essos and the Mobils and the British Petroleums on the eve of any long weekend cranking up the retail price at the pump by 25 or 30 cents a gallon? We would have been ballistic. They wouldn't have imagined trying it, I can't imagine, because 25 or 30 cents a gallon? Wow. But it happens, and it's been happening with all too much regularity.

Bill 74, as our very learned colleague from Durham East pointed out, is a budget bill affecting a number of technical amendments to the way in which we collect the gasoline and fuel tax revenues, the way we assign penalties. I'm not going to get into all of that. There a couple of things I want to talk about this afternoon, some of which have already been touched on.

It's about a year and a half ago that our friend from Belleville, Mr Rollins, brought to this House a private member's resolution which I think carried unanimously. Let me just read the resolution standing in the name of Mr Rollins and debated that day in February 1997. As I say, it passed, according to my note, unanimously on February 20, 1997. The Rollins's resolution states that "the government of Ontario should urge the government of Canada to ensure that the powers of the federal Competition Act are exercised to their fullest in eliminating the anti-competitive practices in the retail gasoline marketplace and that the Competition Bureau place the highest priority possible on investigations that may affect the survival of small, independent gasoline retailers in the marketplace."

I supported that resolution and I really wanted to focus my comments today in a couple of areas: the future and the fate of small, independent gasoline retailers, particularly in the rural communities of the Ottawa Valley, or elsewhere across the province and the Dominion of Canada. In places like Barry's Bay and Beachburg and Bancroft and Griffith and Denbeigh, these small retailers of gasoline are facing an ever-tougher situation.

Our friend Rollins pointed out in the debate on that resolution that in a seven-year period from 1991 to 1997, the market share of the independents had dropped from something like 22% to 12%. If you drive around the province, particularly outside of the major areas, you can see that. More and more of the small operators are being forced out of business and a good bit of the pressure is, as I think we all know, the anti-competitive practice of the majors.

It has been already referenced this afternoon that the federal Liberal caucus, I think it was, under the leadership of Dan McTeague, the member from Pickering, produced I think a very good report in recent times looking at the situation facing gasoline retailers. I read the report and I thought they did some good work. They pulled a few punches, but generally I thought it was a very helpful report and I would recommend to any member of this House that if you haven't seen it and you're interested in this subject, you might look at it. For anybody out there watching this debate with an interest in this, you can access this particular material on the Internet at www.myna.com. I can't read the rest of it but, at any rate, it's available. I'm sure if you phone Dan McTeague, MP for Pickering-Uxbridge-Ajax, he'll make a copy of it available.

The point I want to make is that the small gasoline retailers, and particularly the small independent retailers, are being hammered every time they turn around. Before the debate this afternoon, I made it my business to phone three of my constituents who have been in this business for some considerable time. They all reported the same thing. One of them said to me, "You know, I want to get the bloody pumps out of here because it's no longer worth it to be in this business if you're in my part of rural Ontario." She said: "Do you realize the estimate I just got to get the pumps and tanks cleared out of here? Twenty thousand dollars. I can't afford that. I'd have to be pumping gas here for the next 50 years to recover that investment." She wants to get out of a business where she can't make any money and she said it's going to cost her 20,000 bucks to get the tanks removed and meet the environmental requirements.

I asked another one of my constituents who's in the business, "Do you want to" - and this person had, as many have been forced to - "buy the equipment to meet this new automatic temperature business?" For a small retailer, it's a minimum outlay of 5,000 to 6,000 bucks. I think it was our friend O'Toole from Durham East who made the point the margins in this business are not very great; they've been getting smaller and smaller.

At $20,000 just to close up your gas business, $5,000 or $6,000 or more just to meet the new industry standard of the automatic temperature control, you don't have to be Albert Einstein to figure out what's happening to that small operator in Barry's Bay or Bancroft or Beachburg. Oh yes, the big people, the majors, the big company-owned shop in Belleville or Pembroke or Renfrew or North Bay or Sarnia, they're not going to have a problem. As the McTeague report makes plain, the big, integrated companies have made their money by the time the product leaves the refinery. Everything else for them downstream is gravy. So you betcha, they can afford to use the leverage of their integrated status to go out and hammer the living hell out of the small operator up in Denbigh or out in Beachburg or up in wherever, and they're doing it, without a doubt. Those small people are rightly complaining.

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Some people might say: "What's the issue? What's the public interest?" If there was no province of Ontario north of Highway 7, it wouldn't be a major concern, but there is a world beyond Highway 7. I'll tell you, if you do as I do, drive every week from Pembroke through Belleville through Kaladar and up to Baker and Denbigh and home to Pembroke, there's a lot of land where there's not a great population and you're bloody happy to see that small operator in Denbigh or in Northbrook or in Marmora or wherever. We have an interest as a community in having those operators there.

It's not just the big operators, the big oil companies that are causing difficulty. Let me tell you, governments are doing their part as well, sometimes inadvertently. I'm not here to argue for a diminution of environmental standards, but let me tell you, a lot of the environmental rules we're writing have no regard to the mom-and-pop operator out there who is essential to the community but does not have the capital outlay to say every two or three years, "I guess we fork out another 5,000, 6,000 or 7,000 bucks."

I suppose you can say, "You can get your gas in Belleville and don't look for anything between Belleville or Pembroke." I can tell you, that's not going to be a very effective strategy either. These small operators will often say to me: "Can't you people in government decide what you want? Every 18 months the rules change; yet another new diktat with a big price tag attached to it." Because too many of the decision-makers, whether they're big business or in big government, just do not understand that there is another reality, one that should not be excused from a good environmental standard, but one that must be understood for what it is: a smaller, more financially fragile, but nonetheless equally essential service in a country as large as this, where transportation is so absolutely critical.

Gasoline is the lifeblood of the Canadian existence. We're not all like the Minister of Health. We don't have K-W Transit, if that's what it's called. We don't have OC Transpo, we don't have the TTC. If you want to drive from downtown Belleville to Bannockburn or Eldorado or Sterling, you'd better not be counting on public transit because I don't think there is any, Doug, that's going to get you there, outside of the Greyhound bus, if it runs. Those are, quite frankly, a number of the concerns that I hear, particularly from the small operators.

I want to get to the bill on one very essential matter and that is the issue of automatic temperature compensation. It has already been referred to. Here I think the government of Ontario and the government of Canada are in collusion with big oil. Let me tell you how they're in collusion. My reference is subsection (4.4) of the bill, the Fuel and Gasoline Tax Amendment Act, found on page 21 of the bill. There it reads:

"(4.4) The tax imposed by this act shall be computed in accordance with the following rules:

"1. If the volume of gasoline, aviation fuel or propane is measured by the adjusted temperature method for the purpose of determining price, the volume of gasoline, aviation fuel or propane shall be measured using that method for the purpose of computing the amounts in respect of the tax" to be collected.

The way I read that, and I'd be happy to be corrected, if you're going to use the ATC, then that's the basis on which the tax is to be collected. Am I correct? If you're not, then some other rule applies. Well, the fact of the matter is that in talking to my constituents who are in this business, the automatic temperature compensation is the operative rule for just about everybody, so let there be no confusion about that.

Let me say loudly and clearly, Doug Rollins is right when he says that the industry-imposed standard of 15 degrees centigrade is an unfair gouging of the Canadian consumer. Do you hear that? We are not in Pasadena, California. We are not in Charlotte, South Carolina, or wherever Charlotte is - North Carolina, I suppose. Fifteen degrees centigrade is an American standard that's being applied to Canada, and the big loser in this is the Canadian consumer. I am told by my operators that a more likely standard in this country would be something between 8 and 10 degrees centigrade, perhaps higher, but they all tell me this: 15 degrees centigrade is unfair; it penalizes the consumer and it penalizes a number of operators who have not been able to afford to buy the equipment to make their adjustment.

But who wins? Let me tell you who wins: Big oil wins, and since big oil has now imposed the automatic temperature compensation methodology at 15 degrees centigrade as the standard, government also wins, because we are taking a slice and we are taking our slice on that ATC calculation. I'm sure it's inadvertent, but that does not excuse it. Randall Denley, writing in the Ottawa Citizen of June 15, 1998, writes as follows: "The oil industry's most eye-catching piece of robbery is the adjustment of gasoline pumps to take into account the fact that the volume of gasoline contracts as the temperature goes down. Unfortunately for consumers, the pumps are set to a temperature of 15 degrees, although the average temperature in Canada is only six degrees. The effect is that most of the year drivers are actually getting less than the pump indicates. This payment for no product provides the oil industry with an annual windfall of $100 million in Ontario alone."

If the Ontario oil industry is getting a windfall of $100 million, the Ontario government and the federal government in Ontario are getting a windfall as well.

I simply want to say here today that there is some very good sense and wisdom to what my friend from Belleville is telling us, and he's not just your garden variety member when it comes to this subject. Doug Rollins, like most of the Rollinses I've ever known in Hastings county, has spent a lifetime in this business. It would behoove this Legislature to listen to what Mr Rollins is telling us and what Mr McTeague is telling us in what I have said is I think a good report. One of the places where I think the federal government is truly culpable here is imposing the GST on not just the raw product but on the provincial and the federal taxes before the GST gets applied. According to the McTeague report, the structure of pricing, including taxation, is such that the GST applies not just to raw product but applies to other provincial and federal taxes.

I don't think the government of Canada, whether it's Liberal, Tory or Farmer-Labour, should be very proud, on such a resource and such a commodity as vital as gasoline, of being in the business of taxing the taxes on gasoline and pocketing the revenue.

In my part of Ontario, in the Ottawa Valley, particularly in these smaller communities, and particularly the communities away from the big-volume highways - in my area that would be Highway 17. In from the Highway 17 corridor, when you get on that Highway 60 corridor from Renfrew sweeping up through Eganville, Barry's Bay, Whitney, into Algonquin Park, or the Highway 41 connection sweeping southwestward from Pembroke down through Eganville and Denby into Tweed or Napanee, you're dealing with a lot of small communities that are struggling to keep their gasoline outlets open. Many of them have already closed.

These people are crying out, not just to me but I know to other members, that we're making their lives more and more difficult. I repeat, 5,000 bucks just to install the equipment that these small operators require to be able to measure the automatic temperature compensation - 5,000 or 6,000 bucks in a business where the margin, as John O'Toole told us a while ago, is one or two cents a litre. Is that about right, Doug?

Mr Rollins: Three.

Mr Conway: Three cents a litre.

My constituent today was telling me, "I want out of this business, but I'm going to have to spend 15,000 or 20,000 bucks to take the tanks out." She said: "I can't go forward, I can't stand still and I can't even back up. I'm caught every which way."

This automatic temperature compensation deserves a very careful look. I'm very concerned, on the basis of what I've heard from my constituents and what I've read in reports like the McTeague report, that it's not just the oil companies that are taking in windfall profits, but because of the way the tax structure works, both provincially and federally, governments are creaming off a windfall at the expense particularly of Ontario consumers. Like my friend from Belleville, I'd like to see that addressed, if for no other reason than in the interest of gasoline consumers who feel very much put upon by the price and tax structure they're already confronting.

The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?

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Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): It's always a pleasure to listen to the member for Renfrew North. There are just a couple of points I wanted to make on the things he addressed this afternoon.

He talked a bit about the plight of small gas station operators and the kind of difficulties they are having vis-à-vis the big oil companies. I certainly would concur, because whether that's in small-town Ontario or here in the city of Toronto, that's a situation we find all over. When many of us complain, as we tend to do, about the variations and how easily it seems gas prices can move up and down - usually up, particularly when weekends or long weekends come around - we tend to vent our anger most directly upon the small operators, and by and large they're not the ones who are dictating those policies.

I was also particularly intrigued by the comments the member for Renfrew North made with respect to this whole issue of the temperature-adjusted provisions in this bill, that are, as I look at them, the principal section of this bill. I found it interesting to hear his comments and juxtapose them against what I gather the ministry is telling us, which is that the industry, they say, is currently complying voluntarily with this measure of having taxes applied in a way that's consistent with the temperature the gasoline is adjusted to.

This provision generates now about $4 million a year, they indicated to me, and the amendment in the bill confirms the existing practice. That seems to be a little bit different than what the member was saying. Knowing the kind of credibility the member has, I was struck by that very stark difference in the kinds of things we were being told by the officials versus what he was indicating today.

Mr Rollins: It gives me pleasure to rise and make some comments about my colleague from Renfrew. Many times in this House we're never on the same page; we're always in opposition and we don't agree with one another. But I think on this subject we are a little bit closer to being on the same page.

The major oil companies - the one I know a little bit more about today is Shell Oil, and they claim they have 800 outlets that they control and operate through their structure in Ontario. At one time they had some 3,500 but they cut down to 800. Of that 800, they say: "We only have 200 of those that we control ourselves. That leaves a lot of independents out there, some 600 independents." However, they fail to tell you they control 70% of the market through their 200 outlets, because they have the 200 most prime outlets.

The temperature compensation was nothing more than a win-win-win as far as the oil companies were concerned. Yes, as part of a government collecting those taxes, we're guilty of taking some of that money too. Does that make it right? Absolutely not. It absolutely doesn't make it right. But the temperature compensation, for you people who are listening and watching, go and get yourself a gallon can and mark it where it says a gallon, and go to the pumps when you buy it by the litre and put in four and a half litres, and then you will see how much you're getting - excuse me - hosed out of, because that's what you're getting: You're getting hosed something terrible. But the public doesn't look into the gas tank when they put their bill in. They can't see what's in there. They have to assume that's what there. But you put it in a gallon can. Mr Speaker, when you go home this weekend, buy a gallon can, not a five-gallon can but a gallon can. Then what you're paying for gasoline will scare the living daylights out of you, and one of the reasons is the compensation price. I wish I could talk more about it, but I haven't got enough time.

Mr Miclash: Many of the things the member for Renfrew North has spoken about are certainly issues that we face in a very similar type of area in the province, where we do have many smaller communities, many of them quite a distance from the main artery of Highway 17. The only thing I could wish is that we would see gas at 47.9 cents anywhere in my riding. We haven't seen that in years.

He talked a little bit about the gasoline retailers taking it on the chin and many of them withdrawing their pumps and that service to the community. I often watch, with that, the number of jobs that go. These are normally jobs that are performed by students for their spending money, for their extra money. I even know of a number of college and university students who take jobs at these retailers. To see them disappear from the community is not only a hardship for people like ourselves, who depend greatly on our vehicles to get from community to community, but is, again, a real loss when it comes to seeing these jobs disappear.

He also speaks - I have run into this a number of times - about retailers who have decided just to get out of the business and the cost to them. He mentioned $15,000 to $20,000 for them just to get out of the business. But when they're faced with temperature-adjusted provisions of a bill such as this - again, it is going to cost them anywhere from $5,000 to $6,000 to equip their stations - they're really wondering whether it is actually a benefit to them to have that product, and a good number of them, as the member has found in his area of the province and as I have found in the northwest, are simply just getting out of the business. Again, he made some very good points and some points that I share with the member when I travel throughout northwestern Ontario.

Mr Gilles Pouliot (Lake Nipigon): Bon après-midi. I always welcome the opportunity to listen to the member for Renfrew North. He is also the co-dean of the House. He has been here the longest. He's talented. It makes one quite envious. If you were to have a consensus, he would win hands down as being the most articulate, the best orator in this House. He is so articulate that no matter what subject matter he is addressing at any time, he brings to it confidence, knowledge - it's good that he is well researched. In fact, if it wasn't the Legislative Assembly of Ontario Library, it would be the Sean Conway Library. I guess we will have to wait another decade or so before it gets renamed. There's no question, member for Renfrew North, we need the darned stuff. Inevitably we're tied; it's a lifeline.

Mr Rollins, the member for Quinte, a member of the gas-busters, probably knows more than anyone in this House about the flow, about the way the system works, simply because he has been there, done it.

The member for Etobicoke-Humber, Mr Ford, knows likely better than anyone in the House the market conditions of those conglomerates.

As a consumer and as a citizen - again, you give at the pump handsomely if you live in Lake Nipigon; we're remote; the winters are longer; we're more dependent for we have no alternative - I think the fix is in. Is it a coincidence that most pre-statutory holidays the prices don't increase, they jump? It's not a matter of distribution. It's not only a matter of economy of scale. It's a cartel. It's a monopoly.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): The member's time has expired. The member for Renfrew North has two minutes to respond.

Mr Conway: I want to thank my colleagues for their comments and observations. I'm particularly interested to come back to a point that Mr Silipo, the member for Dovercourt, made. Let me be clear on my central concern. Under subsection 2(4.4) of the Gasoline Tax Act, we have the formula and the formula is very clear: "The tax imposed by this act shall be computed in accordance with," as a practical matter, the automatic temperature compensation. That's what goes on in virtually all circumstances today. The problem with that is, by all accounts, talking to people in the McTeague inquiry, talking to operators, because the automatic temperature compensation system is based on a 15 degree centigrade standard, that means in most cases the consumer is paying for more product than he or she will be receiving most of the time in Canada, because of weather.

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If you're paying for more than you're actually getting, that obviously produces a windfall, estimated by Mr Denley and others to be about $100 million annually to the industry in Ontario. If I'm wrong, Bill Grimmett or somebody will correct me. But I can't imagine that if the ATC, the automatic temperature compensation, formula is the one that's operating and it's flawed, because in Canada 15 degrees centigrade is too high an average, thereby meaning consumers pay for more than they get, meaning the oil companies get more revenue than they deserve for the product sold -

Mr Pouliot: A rip-off.

Mr Conway: It's a rip-off on the consumer and it's also a windfall to the province because of the way our tax structure is formed. I am concerned. If I'm wrong, will somebody correct me, because my constituents want to know.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate? The Chair recognizes the member for Dovercourt.

Mr Silipo: I just want to indicate that I'll be doing the lead speech for our caucus on this and I appreciate the indulgence of members in allowing us to defer it from last night's debate. I also want to say, as a courtesy to whoever is following from the government side, that I probably will not use up the entire hour, just so they know that.

I actually want to start my comments on this bill from what was being discussed in the last round in the exchange following on the presentation made by the member for Renfrew North. I sincerely regret that I wasn't able to be here earlier in the day to hear the member for Quinte. I caught pieces of his presentation when we were in subcommittee of the finance committee dealing with some preparations for meetings that we need to have. I caught a bit of the flavour.

One of the questions I would have as I look at this bill is, in light of what he was saying in response to the member for Renfrew North and in light particularly of the issues that both he and the member for Renfrew North were addressing, I'm not sure to what extent this bill, particularly with what I understand to be the central provision, that is, of changing the volume adjusted measurement of how we calculate taxes according to the temperature adjusted volume of gasoline, how that is going to at the end resolve the problem. In fairness to him and others, I gather he was saying that it may improve things a little bit, but it doesn't really resolve the fundamental problem.

I find that interesting, because this bill is being presented to us as essentially a bill that is not way up there in level of importance. In fact, it's putting into legislation something that the industry is already adhering to in terms of their practices, that is, they're complying voluntarily with this measure. This measure, as I understand it, and I certainly don't claim to be an expert in this aspect of taxation, right now we have a situation, at least as the law sits, that we don't have a match between the way gasoline when it's pumped measures in volume compared to how the taxes are calculated.

That is important because depending on the temperature gasoline expands or contracts, as the case may be, and as a result of that, as the member for Quinte was saying, if I understood him correctly, when you think you're buying five gallons worth of gas, you may only, depending on the time of year, be buying four and a half gallons but you're paying for five gallons. Then in terms of the taxes that come to the governments, both federal and provincial, of course it does make a difference as to what particular volume they are tied to, because if it's on 4.5 or 5, to use that example, there is a difference in the taxes that flow.

I appreciate very much the short, concise note I received from the ministry officials. When I asked yesterday in the briefing what this means in terms of industry practice now, I was told, and I think the officials reiterated, that this is something the industry is doing - that is, they're complying now with this provision - but obviously putting it in the law would be clearer, would make it more compelling and would make it enforceable where there may be companies that change their practices or might want to change their practices.

I am particularly interested in this issue that I don't think is resolved yet. Once you've addressed that issue around how you calculate taxes, you still have a problem if, as was pointed out earlier, you do not have a situation in which the temperature that becomes the standard for that, in terms of how you gauge the temperature up or down - if the standard in use, the 15 degree centigrade standard, is too high an average based on the Canadian reality, if that is based more on what would be sensible in the American experience, then you aren't providing the sense of fairness that I think we want to see and that I suspect this bill purports to bring about, but that I guess probably does not to the extent that we are being told it does.

As I look at this legislation, despite the very useful briefing, despite the comments I've heard from a number of members and others, I come out of it, at this stage of the game, with more questions than I have answers for in terms of what this bill actually does. I will be following closely the rest of the discussion and looking in more detail at this bill in terms of its impact, but whatever happens - obviously, this government is intent on passing this bill - we know there will continue to be some concerns that need to be addressed.

How many of us in this House have from time to time brought to the attention of the government the ongoing problem with gas prices at the pump, to the fact that whether you live in downtown Toronto or west-end Toronto, as I do, or whether you live in small communities in Ontario, we see this constant pattern evolving - perhaps it's not as predominant now that we're into the winter months but it still exists now in some parts of the province and certainly it's something that's quite prevalent during the spring and summer and fall months - of gas prices all of a sudden, seemingly magically, going up when we get to long weekends or generally most weekends, when we get to situations in which there's going to be greater demand.

As I was indicating earlier, our usual tendency is to take that out on whoever is pumping the gas into our car or running the booth, as more and more places are self-serve operations. We often find ourselves in a situation where we are taking out our frustration against the wrong people, because as was pointed out earlier, we see a situation in which many of those good people are either people who work in those places or, if they happen to be the owner-operator, are working under rules that they themselves do not set but are set by the big oil companies and over which they have very little control.

I believe there is an ongoing issue of how those prices are set, of how most consumers, in my view, continue to pay more than they should for gas. In terms of trying to be fair, one is always tempted to say that compared to other jurisdictions we are paying more than what is generally paid in the United States but we're not paying a lot compared to what many other jurisdictions like European countries pay. But I think we have an ability here, in terms of where the raw product comes from and our closeness as markets to the source, that there is complete justification for prices being much lower here than they are in many European countries, and there's justification for them often being lower than what they actually are at the pump.

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That is a problem that's going to continue. It's a problem that this particular bill, Bill 74, the Fuel Tax Act and Gasoline Tax Act, is not in any way addressing. I suppose, to be fair to the government, we should indicate that although they have set three days of debate on this bill for this week and thereby I believe indicated that they want to get it done, it's also fair to note that this bill has been sitting around since the last sittings. In fact, it's a reiteration of the former Bill 173. In fairness to the government, they haven't exactly plunged forward with this, saying this is the first and biggest issue they need to deal with, but it's interesting that they now want to clean things up and want to try to get, among other things, this particular bill passed.

I suspect that, come tomorrow, we may have a little further insight into why that may be. I am among those who believe that when this House recesses just before Christmas, we likely may not come back and that we will have a provincial election at some time in the spring. Depending on where you want to put your quarter, it could even be in late winter as opposed to spring.

It may be that the government simply is finally coming around to looking at the pieces of legislation that are outstanding and saying, "This particular bill, for a variety of reasons, either because we want to be consistent with the federal provisions" or because they want to be able to say to consumers that at least they are trying to do something here to address the way taxes are measured with respect to gasoline and fuel - they want to get this thing done before the winter session is finished. That may be an indication of what's going to come in the spring.

I pointed out earlier something that's going to be happening tomorrow. We just learned today that the Minister of Finance is going to make his annual economic statement tomorrow. I'll be looking forward to it not just as the finance critic for our caucus but as a member, and I'm sure other members will be looking forward to what he has to say about what has been happening.

This has not been a particularly positive week for the Harris government, so I'll be interested in how they try to spin whatever numbers and message are in the statement tomorrow. We know that central to whatever the Harris government portrays in its message is always the issue of taxes. How many of us can forget the days when the now Premier used to run around the province touting himself as the Taxfighter, whether it was around fuel taxes or income taxes or any kinds of taxes. Those were the days -

Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau): That's this week.

Mr Silipo: That's this week. Well, I don't know.

Mr Guzzo: He's still there.

Mr Silipo: He's still there? If he's still there he seems to have taken a very different tack to that. I just find it interesting that as the whole tax scheme of the Harris government - I don't mean just the 30% income tax cut but the whole tax scheme - unfolds and unravels, we are seeing more and more the true picture. The days when Mike Harris used to say that there was only one taxpayer, which at that point was important to him - in saying that, he would indicate that you could not resolve one tax problem, ie, the income tax problem, by pushing the problem on to another tax such as the property tax. Lo and behold, that was a convenient slogan for Mike Harris to use when he was sitting basically over here where we in the New Democratic Party are now, when he was the third party and he was running around the province saying to people, "There's only one taxpayer at the end of the day." Whether it's property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes or fuel taxes, for that matter, they're all at the end of the day being paid for by the same taxpayer. How true that is.

But how true it is also, in my view, that Mike Harris and his government and his policies seem to have forgotten that. What have we seen happen? The central piece of the Harris government's tax implementation - not message, but implementation - has been the 30% income tax cut. That 30% income tax cut is one which, even by the government's own numbers, shows that the vast majority of the benefits of that tax cut do not go to the average families in the province. They certainly don't go to the 60% of taxpayers who make under $38,000. That 60% of taxpayers earning less than $38,000, they don't get a big chunk of that tax cut. In fact, they get about the same amount, in terms of dollar value of that tax cut, that goes to the top 6% of taxpayers, a very small portion of taxpayers who make over $80,000, and it's that small portion of taxpayers who get about $1.5 billion in terms of the tax benefit.

As if that wasn't bad enough in terms of what that has done, because one of the things that has done is that it has spread the gap between the wealthiest citizens in our province and the poorest citizens in our province, it has also squeezed out people in the middle, the middle class, and we're going to talk a little bit more about this tomorrow with a private member's resolution.

Even within the middle class - and that's obviously shifting, whenever you use that term; it's a hard category to plant down and say it's people making between this amount and that amount. But people who are generally in that middle-income range, whether they're a one-income family if they're fortunate or have had to resort to being a two-income family, what do they find? They're finding that any benefit they've had from the tax cut is more than eaten up by additional costs they've had to pay, not because somebody else made those decisions but directly because of the decisions the Mike Harris government has made. They in part, although it's not obvious, see that in terms of what they deal with if they drive a car and have to pay the taxes whenever they put fuel in their tanks. Government members will say: "What's that got to do with it? That's not changed." It hasn't been made any better, I would say at the very least.

But they certainly see that when they pay their property taxes, for example. They see that when they try to pay the additional increases, 20% at least in tuition fees if they have children who are trying to go to college or university. They see that if they're seniors and they have to pay the additional amount to get their prescriptions filled. They see that in all sorts of ways that were not there before.

The time when Mike Harris used to say, "There's only one taxpayer," meaning that you shouldn't shift the tax burden from one category to another, seems to be way back in the background as far as he's concerned. I don't hear him saying that very much these days. Nor do I hear him talking about the fact, as he used to say, that, "A user fee is simply a tax by another name." Now municipalities are putting on all sorts of user fees. This government itself - through the direct imposition of fees through a number of the ministries and increasingly through a number of orders by ministers as a result of legislative changes that have taken those increases from having to be done by regulation and at least some element of discussion within the cabinet, if not in the public realm - has taken that power back into the hands of individual ministers and ministries, and there are now more and more user fees being imposed. There has been a huge array of increases on that front.

I continue to ask myself, as we deal with things like the Fuel Tax Act, what particularly the relevance is of trying to deal with something like this when you have all of those other pieces of legislation out there and you have all of those other activities out there.

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I still don't understand what message the government wants to give on this, if they're trying to make the system a little fairer, if they're trying to be tough with the big oil companies. If it's true that they're complying already with many of these provisions, then this is legislation that I suppose doesn't harm the situation, but it doesn't make much of a difference in terms of getting it implemented. If, on the other hand, even this legislation doesn't address the concerns members earlier were indicating, which I would concur are not being addressed, then why doesn't this bill address those very clear issues? Why doesn't it address the question of the kinds of practices oil companies have on an ongoing basis in terms of being able to not only bring prices up and down as they wish, but also this question of how even after these provisions are put in place they will be able to continue to control to some extent the temperature that's applied to the gas and fuels and then consequently what that means for the public coffers?

Is this, strangely enough, a situation in which the government is quietly not dealing with the problem because it wants to ensure that the revenue continues, if not increases? Dare I say, would that be, then, an instance in which the Mike Harris government is quite prepared to see a certain flow of taxes back into its coffers and indeed even perhaps some slight increases in taxes, this again from a government that says they're the Taxfighter, this again from a government that says that they believe there's only one taxpayer?

If that's the case, then I would say that the three days and more that we will be spending in debating this bill could have been better spent in dealing with those more significant issues of how to address and how to limit the kinds of increases that people see, in this case in terms of gasoline prices and certainly, as I've been indicating, in terms of other areas.

I said earlier that this has not been a particularly good week for the government. We saw earlier today in question period the kind of situation in which the Minister of Community and Social Services was continuing to try to defend the indefensible, trying to defend a situation in which she admitted yesterday here in the House and eventually admitted again today that the ministry - she kept saying "the ministry"; I found that interesting - had basically made a major blunder, a major mistake in the awarding of the contract to Andersen Consulting under the new procurement policy they have brought about for the business transformation project - I think that's the name of it - which is the next phase of putting in place a new automated system in the Ministry of Community and Social Services to develop and implement the business processes and the technologies that are necessary to run the new social assistance system.

I found it interesting that the minister at one point kept going back to the issue that we had begun this process. She kept saying, "You didn't resolve the issue." Just for the record, and it's not just because I spent a couple of years in that place as the minister, when we began the first phase of automating, bringing up to date the computer system in that ministry, which was way out of date and way out of line with the ability to keep up with the changing needs of the system and the changing complexities of the social assistance system, we did manage to bring into place the first stage of that. The auditor notes that in his report and notes that the first stage had been completed.

Then the government of the day, the Mike Harris government, began a subsequent stage, which they had to also modify because they had to put into that the Ontario Works provisions that they have been so staunch about doing. It was at that point - and I want to be very clear about this, not just because I say so but because the auditor makes that very clear - that we ran into the problems of the ministry, and I again use this term for now, entering into this contract with Andersen Consulting that we have been addressing here for the last couple of days. Why do I raise this? Because we are talking here about taxes, taxpayers' money that has quite frankly in this case been mismanaged.

From a government that prides itself on wanting to spend taxpayers' money wisely, prides itself on saying that they know how to manage things, we see a situation where the auditor blasts the government for signing a contract with a private consulting company that first of all they say did not follow the proper process in terms of identifying which should be the best company to do this work. They just set aside the traditional issues of dealing with which would be the most cost-effective of those companies, and they went from that into determining that they would do this on the basis of a company that they felt had some expertise. Under the new system that the government has set up there is nothing particularly wrong with that notion, but there is something particularly wrong when they then enter into an agreement, as the auditor finds, in which you basically say to the company, "You write the rules and we'll send a cheque." That's really what it comes down to.

Again I say, from a government that prides itself on being the Taxfighter, a government that prides itself on wanting to defend the individual and their families, whether it's on this issue in a general way or specifically on the issue of social assistance, taxes that go to pay for those services, taxes that come out of the taxes that we pay at the gas pump or anywhere else - you cannot have a situation in which the government continues to try to justify or tries to explain, as the Minister of Community and Social Services did today, that the throwing away, in my view, of up to $180 million and more, depending on the provisions of this contract, of taxpayers' money was somehow justified.

When the auditor himself finds that payments totalling $15.5 million to Andersen Consulting were made up to March 31, 1998, just taking that period alone, and that during that same period, of that $15.5 million, they were paid $13.1 million more than their costs for that same period - the auditor is saying very clearly, "You have paid this company $13 million more than you should have paid."

He goes on to outline line by line other problems, other costs that were paid. For example, Andersen Consulting was allowed to be refunded $1.4 million for out-of-pocket expenses. Then the auditor says, "We noted that Andersen Consulting charges for out-of-pocket expenses averaged approximately $26,600 for each full-time-equivalent position assigned to the project during this first year." I think it behooves us to continue to remind this government -

Hon Jim Wilson (Minister of Energy, Science and Technology): I don't think the auditor's report is part of the bill.

Mr Silipo: The auditor's report may not be part of the bill, I say to the minister opposite, but the issues that the auditor raises which have to do with the safeguarding of taxpayers' monies and the whole issue of how that relates to what has been central, I believe, to this government's approach and policies - which is that they know how to manage and that they have uppermost in their interest the interests of taxpayers. That's what they are telling us is here. That's why this fuel tax bill is here, and what we see is example after growing example in policy area after policy area of where the government is not doing that.

Hon Mr Wilson: What did the auditor say in education?

Mr Silipo: I would be happy to talk about what the auditor said with respect to education, if the minister wants me to do that.

Hon Mr Wilson: As long as it has something to do with the fuel tax.

Mr Silipo: Well, you asked. I'd be happy to talk about it, or I can go back and talk about -

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr Silipo: Speaker, I will obviously always bow to your rulings in terms of whether I move away from the topic. I come back to this issue of how the Mike Harris government is managing the public coffers of the province and how it goes about determining taxation. It's not only the unfairness that they create as they shift costs and as they shift the burden of the taxes and the services we pay for through those taxes more and more on to the backs of both low-income families but increasingly middle-income families, I guess it raises for me ongoing questions about even a bill like the one that's in front of us, Bill 72: How innocent is this bill and how innocent are the provisions?

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I'll be honest with you. When I looked at this bill, I thought, yes, there's the broader issue of gas prices, and we've all been talking about that, and in terms of what this bill purports to do, it sounds like it's a useful thing. But then you begin not only to hear about people's experiences at the gas pumps but you begin to look at the practices of the various oil companies and what is going on, and you ask yourself: Why would this government act in this way and not address the fundamental problems in this industry in terms of the still large role and flexibility that oil companies have to make the kinds of decisions they do about gas prices, primarily, and how does a government that purports to be the defender of taxpayers justify not acting on those fundamental issues?

As I said earlier, is it because in this case they want to make sure that the tax monies are there because they're finding they have growing problems they have to deal with? I'll be very interested to hear if the economic statement that the Minister of Finance is going to release tomorrow will shed any more light on that, will shed any more light, quite frankly, on the broader fiscal policies of the Mike Harris government. I'll be interested to see what will happen to some of the funds that have been accumulating in various pots, in various ministry lines and budget lines, as we go over the next few months and as we head into an election, as I believe will happen in early 1999.

There are many people, including myself, who are looking forward to that election and think it can't come too soon, so I'm not going to be complaining if what we see tomorrow and in the days subsequent are the signals that an election is coming sooner.

Certainly, as I go now to two and three meetings an evening in school after school in west Toronto, which has been severely hit by the school closures policy imposed by the Harris government, I can tell you that lots of parents and others in my community are saying to me, "The sooner we have the opportunity to turf out Mike Harris and his government, the better." What I am able to say to them is that what I have seen from Mike Harris and his government has been a consistent approach in terms of how they deal with taxes, and that approach has been based on the very clear premise that philosophically what the Mike Harris government believes in is making things better for that small portion of people who already are reasonably well-off.

I said earlier that 6% of taxpayers make over $80,000. They get $1.5 billion worth of the tax cut. That's 26% of the value of the tax cut. That same 26% at the other end has to be shared by 60% of taxpayers. What does the government have to do to find that money? It's all borrowed money, it's all money that adds to the debt, it's all money that pushes out the reconciling of the deficit year by year. What does the government have to do? It has to borrow some of that money, but it also has to find some of that money. From where? From within the major areas of expenditure, health care and education being the primary ones.

So it comes up with a new funding formula that says to school boards, "You're going to have, when that's fully implemented, less money than you have today." That's certainly the case here in Toronto, both on the public and the Catholic side. As a result of that, we're going to see school boards, certainly the ones here in Toronto but many others across the province, forced into having to close schools to meet the new funding formula.

When I look at what the Harris government is doing to schools in my community, I say not only is it time to change this government but it's also time to change to a government that's prepared to reinvest in education, that's prepared to also say, as we have been saying in the New Democratic Party, how we will find that money, quite frankly unlike our Liberal colleagues, who tend to say, "We don't like what Mike Harris is doing." But ask them how they will find the money to reinvest when they say they want to reinvest in education and you just get some answer that it will come out of the growth in the economy. That growth in the economy may be there or it may not be there, because who is able to tell you with any certainty what's going to happen to the economy of Ontario over the next two or three years? We all hope it will continue to grow. We all hope that will result, among other things, in more money coming into the public coffers and therefore allowing governments to deliver the services we want. But what we have seen is a deterioration of those services, and that's what I fear is going to continue to happen.

As I look at this particular bill, Bill 74, there is that kind of question in my mind: What does this do to deal with the problems we have all been raising in this House about the ongoing increases in gas prices? It doesn't do very much. It purports to deal with one piece of that in terms of how you calculate the taxes at the gas pump, but I'm not convinced that at the end of the day - I know it doesn't do anything about the gas prices. Even to take the ministry's own line, it's a bit of a wash in terms of revenue to the public coffers. The more fundamental issue, as I have been pointing out this afternoon, is, if it doesn't do anything to address that major issue, then why are we not addressing that issue? If this is a bill that isn't going to make any big difference in how taxes are calculated and what that means to gas prices at the end of the day, then what is the point of having this, against some of the other things that we could be and should be dealing with?

I don't want to belabour the point. I would rather listen to the exchange that will follow, particularly to the debate that will follow, although I would be delighted, if the Minister of Energy wants me to, to talk about more pieces of the auditor's report. I don't think he really wants me to do that, so I'll close by saying we will follow this discussion. We will probably not object to this particular piece of legislation going through, because in and of itself it doesn't make the situation any worse; in fact, it clarifies things in terms of how the taxes are calculated. But it certainly does nothing to address the fundamental issue of what the problem is in this area, which is both the increasing cost of gas at the pump as well as the issue of the continuing control oil companies have, particularly to determine those prices. I don't think this legislation does very much to rectify or improve that situation.

The Deputy Speaker: Questions and comments?

Mr Rollins: I would like to make some comments about the member for Dovercourt's comments. When he talked about the Mike Harris government worrying about the taxes, I think somehow or other he skipped a page here in this bill, because in this bill it does exactly that. It wants to make sure that the taxes collected out there are put back into the treasury at a much quicker rate.

I know that out in British Columbia they're trying to do it on the 15th of the month and the end of the month and the oil companies are crying. One of the reasons the major oil companies are crying is because it affects their cash flow. The cash flow they've been used to holding on to and being able to use for some 60 or 90 days they now have to put back that much more quickly. When that money is paid out that much more quickly into our coffers and our treasury, regardless of whether it's borrowed money or money that's above that red line, it still means that money comes back to the taxpayers to be spent in other areas much more quickly and we do not have to borrow the kind of money we have had to in the past.

I know that the major oil companies, the CPPI, feel that all the collectors, regardless of whether they're big or small, should be the same and that they should be able to have the same privilege as the big collectors or the small collectors. They're only doing it for their own interest, because if the oil companies do not have to write that $1 million or $2 million or $3 million cheque, they can hang on to it in their bank account - I'm sure their bank account works the same as yours or mine - and it shows up on the plus side and they can hang on longer to that money that really isn't theirs. If we were to do the same thing as the federal government, and that's what this bill wants to do, to follow it through the same as the excise money, they would pay it much more quickly. That's why we want to see this bill put through.

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Mr Miclash: It was with great interest that I listened to the comments of the member for Dovercourt. His expertise in this area and many others brings a great amount to the House.

It was interesting when he got on to the auditor's report, speaking a little about what it has meant for this government. It's always interesting to know that there is a little bit of nervousness among the cabinet and among government members when it comes to this. You see that when you get the chirping back from the ministers and the members who are present.

In terms of what he had to say about the control of the oil companies, this is a very serious matter. I go back to the 1990 election, when many of the folks in Sudbury East thought they were going to elect a member who suggested they had some grandiose plan about equalizing gas prices across the entire province. I tell you, that promise during that campaign resonated throughout my region. I heard a great amount about it, the member suggesting she could do that. Of course the question was how. Then we saw this particular member for Sudbury East, Ms Martel, get into the cabinet of the NDP government, and for five years I kept looking, as did many of my constituents, many people in northwestern Ontario, whether it be from Fort Frances, Rainy River or the new portion of the riding, for that promise to be fulfilled. But over those five years, nothing happened in terms of gas prices. All we saw in the northwest was their continuing to rise.

I go back to what we consider, in many cases, as the lifeblood of our existence in the northwest, where we depend on gasoline, and a commitment made by a former government that did nothing about gas prices over those five years.

Mr O'Toole: I have a couple of comments to make in response to the member for Dovercourt's comments. First, specifically on Bill 74, which he referred to as Bill 72 - it is Bill 74 - that's the discussion. Much of his debate was not specific to that, but I will comment on one thing. Talking to the motive fuel issue, I should bring to the member's attention that in the 1997 federal budget, the 15 degree ambient temperature was passed in their legislation. That's the federal Liberal position, that 15 degrees would be where this motive fuel temperature would be measured for volume. So we're following suit to make consistent agreements. I think it's a wash if you consider that the buyer-consumer and everyone is getting the same opportunity to pay at a consistent rate. That's going to address the issue of the volatility of the temperature between when it's loaded in the truck, when it's unloaded at the station etc. The federal Liberals passed that in the 1997 budget and I think it's important to be consistent.

In the couple of minutes left, the member for Dovercourt made a point of the high-end taxpayers. He's not telling the complete story on this. The high-end taxpayers of Ontario certainly are getting a tax break. In fact, it's less than 30%, arguably, and when you factor in the Fair Share health levy, which clicks in at around $50,000, they are going to be paying more. But for the record, you should know that over 70,000 Ontarians are going to receive a tax cut of in excess of 30%. A typical example of that, for the member for Dovercourt, is that a taxpayer with a family of two, earning between $25,000 and $75,000, will receive 64% of all the tax savings. Some 64% will go to that middle-income, hard-working Ontarian.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Dovercourt has two minutes to respond.

Mr Silipo: I appreciate the comments made by members on all sides. I want to say to the member for Quinte particularly, yes, if this bill makes the payment of taxes by the companies a little faster - and I appreciate that it does do that, in part - as I indicated, despite some of the reservations about what the bill does or doesn't do, we will likely give it our support. We don't think it brings about great harm, and certainly the attempt to bring consistency with the federal measure is at least sensible in terms of an approach. I was simply highlighting the fact that this doesn't do anything to address the broader issue, and I appreciate that this is an issue that no government has managed to resolve. We know that the jurisdiction for that doesn't all lie here provincially, that a lot of it lies federally.

It behooves us all to try to continue to address not just the issue of what the price of gas should be and consequently the taxes that come into the public coffers from that, but this practice of constant up and down and the manipulating of prices and setting of prices. I think that most people looking at this in a very commonsense way would be right in concluding that they don't have anything to do with market flows or with the flow of gas and the cost to the companies, that they have much more to do with how much money the companies feel they can make when for example you have a high-volume-traffic weekend coming up and all of a sudden prices go up.

That's an issue that applies across the province. I appreciate that there are some particular concerns in northern Ontario, and as an Ontario member I certainly will continue to be supportive of whatever we can do to improve that situation, which so far no government of any stripe has yet managed to fix.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Hudak: I'm pleased to rise to join the debate on Bill 74 this evening. Before I begin some prepared comments, I'd like to express my understanding of some of the issues that were brought up a little bit earlier in the debate this evening with respect to the differences of temperature and volume.

My understanding of this legislation is that it doesn't condone industry standards in terms of the 15 degrees centigrade or an ambient temperature or what have you. It simply ensures that there is tax consistency, whichever method is used. If a retailer were using the 15 degrees Celsius as his measurement, this legislation would ensure that taxation is arrived at using that method. Similarly, if ambient were the method being used, then the taxation would be at ambient.

What this legislation is calling for is consistency, a consistent approach, whichever of those methods or some other method is used. Fifteen degrees Celsius was used because that is a federal standard. As well, it parallels international standards. In fact, it's been around, I understand, for 70 or 80 years, from information that's been given to me.

Whatever the standard, to make it clear from the earlier debate, we want to ensure that taxation reflects that standard so that it's treated fairly and consistently with whatever method is used.

Second, to comment on Mr McTeague's report, the vast majority of that report deals with issues clearly in the federal jurisdiction. I want to bring that debate a little bit back home and put it into the scope of Bill 74.

Before I begin my prepared comments, which I will now do, Mr Speaker - I know you're looking forward to what I have to say on Bill 74 - you probably recall that yesterday my colleague from Muskoka-Georgian Bay, also known as Bill Grimmett, mentioned some of the major aspects of Bill 74, to use the vernacular. We talk about bill numbers, and the member for Durham East knows this well, but to make it clear, it's the Fuel and Gasoline Tax Amendment Act, 1998, Bill 74 for short, which delivers on the commitments in both the 1997 and 1998 Ontario budgets to make the rules for gasoline and fuel taxes more fair and more efficient.

First, this change to gasoline tax remittance fulfills a 1997 budget initiative to minimize liquid reserves and to optimize provincial cash flows by ensuring that revenues are collected and payments are made on a timely basis. The 1997 and 1998 budgets announced that the Ontario Financing Authority would look at ways of improving the timeliness of the province's cash flows.

One of those initiatives identified was accelerating the remittance of gasoline taxes. Currently, gasoline tax collectors retain taxes they collect at the pumps. Between 21 and 52 days is the typical range after it is collected. This Bill 74 proposes to change the remittance, reducing the time the industry holds on to provincial tax money from 36 days, on average, back down to about 22 days, so about a two-week reduction in the time of remittance.

That's going to have an impact on the bottom line, obviously. The money is flowing much more quickly into the provincial coffers: a two-week shorter time frame. That will have an impact on the province's overall finances. In fact, the estimation is that it will reduce the province's borrowing requirements by approximately $77 million. In the grand scheme of the overall provincial budget of some $50 billion it may not seem like a lot, but in bits and pieces, as we work to ensure that we keep our promise of balancing the budget by 2000-01, every bit helps, and Bill 74 plays a role, a stepping-stone in that direction. That will work out to annual public debt interest savings of approximately $4 million.

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I think I should use some of this time in my reflections on Bill 74 to discuss some of the other more technical matters in the legislation. I have a menu of items that I would like to bring up and put on the floor for discussion and debate for the rest of this evening.

One of the goals of this government that I would like to talk about, as well as working towards balancing the budget by the year 2000-01, cutting taxes to create jobs and ensuring work for welfare - some of the major themes of the Mike Harris government - is the goal to reduce red tape. Certainly, the greater encumbrances that red tape can impose on businesses and on government will cause a waste of taxpayers' dollars and a loss of efficiency, a loss of productivity in the economy. In fact, a colleague also from Niagara, my neighbour Frank Sheehan, the member for Lincoln, who sits across, near the member for Middlesex, in rapt attention to my remarks this evening, is the chair of the Red Tape Commission. His goal in his commission is to reduce the red tape that government imposes on business, on the private sector, on individuals, and the red tape that's also imposed on the government or transfer agencies, not-for-profits and such. I have to say too, and I think all members of the House would agree, that Mr Sheehan, the member for Lincoln, is doing an outstanding job leading that charge in reducing red tape across the province.

Applause.

Mr Hudak: A strong round of applause in support, I would note for the record.

To further reduce the red tape, Bill 74 - and I think Mr Sheehan will be very pleased with this part of the bill - contains simplification and consistency measures made in other tax statutes. Let me give you an example of a simplification measure. The minister will be authorized to establish what chemicals can be blended with diesel fuel to make coloured tax-exempt fuel. Coloured fuel is fuel which contains a dye as prescribed by the minister. It is coloured to identify this fuel as a tax-exempt fuel, which must be used for a non-taxable purpose. However, if this fuel is not used for its intended non-taxable purpose it of course becomes fully taxable. The permitted use of coloured fuel - I think that would be uses for non-taxable purposes - would include things like powering vehicles such as farming tractors and mining equipment and using it as a heating fuel in other such instances.

By formal agreement, Ontario and Quebec switched to a new dye in November 1996. You probably remember this. About two years ago right around this time, Ontario and Quebec switched to the new dye. Additional changes to the dye are likely to occur in the near future as the dye formula is fine-tuned. All provinces are looking at a common fuel dye to ease administration and reduce compliance burdens on the industry, which makes tremendous sense, because there's a great deal of tourist traffic and commercial traffic, and we talked about the impact that inconsistencies and red tape would have on the agricultural sector. It certainly makes a lot of sense for all the provinces to adapt similar approaches to items such as this. We're all encouraged by the progress that Ontario and Quebec have made and we look forward to further progress in the near future.

As I said, with ministerial authority to establish the composition of the chemicals in the dye and concentrations used to make exempt-coloured fuel, there will be more flexibility to react to changes in the industry or to update dye requirements to accommodate any agreements with other jurisdictions, I guess suiting my previous comments.

As well, I would expect not only the minister and members of this side of the House, but the chair of the Red Tape Commission, Frank Sheehan, and those on his commission to probably think this makes a great - I would never presume to speak for the member for Lincoln, but having worked with him in the last few years, I tend to know how he operates. Whenever he sees red tape being eliminated, it will usually bring at least half a smile to his face, a full smile when all the red tape is gone.

This measure would also permit the industry to provide government-approved tax-exempt product in a more timely manner.

Just to tell you about the dye requirement for exports, let me say that some Ontario dyers colour fuel to American specifications for export to the United States, as the Americans' coloured-fuel program accepts the same dye as Ontario's. However, the concentration must be double what it is in our province.

Although it is an offence to use coloured fuel to power licensed motor vehicles on the highway, this prohibition is sometimes disregarded. We have found that the existing prohibition and offence provisions are ineffective in deterring persons from engaging in illegal uses of coloured fuel. Therefore, in Bill 74 we are proposing new penalties which will deter the illegal use of coloured fuel and encourage compliance with the Gasoline Tax Act. That makes tremendous sense. Given the purposes I enunciated earlier as to why we have coloured fuel, to support areas like agriculture and mining, it isn't fair to the average taxpayer who will be paying at the pump, whether they're in Niagara South or in Perth, wherever they are across the province, to be using coloured fuel inappropriately. Where current methods are not successful in reducing the illegal use of coloured fuel, this bill is bringing in new penalties to deter that illegal use and make sure that coloured fuel goes to the proper purposes.

Bill 74, the Fuel and Gasoline Tax Amendment Act, 1998, also treats the use of coloured fuel in the tank of a licensed motor vehicle in the same way regardless of its source. The same civil and offence provisions will apply whether the coloured fuel was purchased in Ontario or out of province; some consistency once more.

Other simplification measures include the provisions relating to the collection and remittance of tax on special products such as diesel fuel produced from waste oil products. The issue of special fuel products deserves some attention. I've talked about it a bit, but I have a few more thoughts on this particular piece of Bill 74 for those in attendance this evening for the debate, or even those interested in Bill 74 watching at home.

New technology has produced alternative fuels and industry continues to look to alternative fuels for their uses as well. Several Ontario firms collect and refine oil into diesel and heating fuel, for example. Currently, the Fuel Tax Act defines "fuel" as "any gas or liquid that may be used for the purpose of generating power by internal combustion" but does not mention any other source than traditional crude oil. These companies do not have wholesale customers or terminal sites and therefore do not meet the act's current rules for collecting and remitting taxes and for dyeing fuel that they sell for non-taxable purposes.

To update, the member for Wellington has joined us this evening and I know the member shares many of these same thoughts I'm bringing forward. You might say these are words right out of his mouth.

The member for Simcoe West as well; in my conversations with him on Bill 74 earlier this evening, he was very interested in the impact this bill would have on the constituents in the Simcoe West area, which I visited not too long ago, a beautiful part of the province, not quite rivalling Niagara, but all the same having its nice characteristics.

I know the member for Kingston and The Islands is about to say something about his part of the province. I've had a chance to visit; I was at Queen's not too long ago.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): Beautiful part.

Mr Hudak: Yes, we'd all agree that Kingston is a nice part of the province. I think too many probably run through Kingston on their way to Ottawa, and we'd certainly hope that those who are driving through Kingston or Ottawa or Simcoe West are not using coloured fuel illegally. As I said, in Bill 74 we want to ensure that those who are driving through Mr Gerretsen's or Mr Wilson's or Mr Danford's riding are following the rules set out in Bill 74 to ensure that the proper gas is being used for the proper purposes.

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Another important aspect of Bill 74 - and I'd like to think that the member for Bruce had an impact on this, because I know this is important to the member for Bruce, who has joined us in the gallery this evening. She's another member paying rapt attention to my remarks. I know the member for Bruce is very interested in the impact of Bill 74 on the constituents who have joined her this evening from, where, Kincardine? Close enough. Bill 74 removes operation barriers and makes it easier for those fuels to enter directly into the marketplace.

Finally, the 1997 budget announced that the time period for assessing tax and refunding tax would be extended to four years in all the tax statutes. The bill fulfils this initiative and amends the Fuel Tax Act as well as the Gasoline Tax Act to bring these tax statutes in line with other statutes. This is another measure of fairness, as people who have been overassessed on their collection of taxes will be able to appeal those decisions for a four-year period rather than simply a three-year period as in the past.

Another aspect of Bill 74 - I know I've addressed a number of aspects in my remarks on Bill 74, but earlier we were concentrating on particular areas with respect to the 15 degree centigrade versus the ambient temperature. I'll say again for some of the members who have just joined us that my understanding of that is we're not endorsing or condoning or even suggesting particular industry standards; we're simply ensuring that the tax treatment is consistent. So if you're selling the gasoline at 15 degrees centigrade, the taxation system will be applied in the same way, and similarly if it's the ambient temperature that you're using. It's the choice. The government is not imposing any particular standard, but if you do choose to sell the gasoline at the ambient, then the taxation must be there. We just want to ensure that there is consistency at the pumps so that all those who are paying the taxes are paying their taxes in a fair and consistent manner.

Bill 74 will also provide consistency and a uniform, level playing field in the measurement of volumes by requiring the same system to be used for calculating fuel volumes, which is indisputably a fairer way to calculate tax.

Of course, the question is, what impact is this going to have on drivers on Ontario highways after the bill is passed and proclaimed? This bill will not affect Ontario drivers buying gas at the pumps but would benefit them as taxpayers. Since this government was elected in 1995, it has listened to Ontarians and taken steps to cut red tape and reduce barriers to business growth. It has made Ontario able to compete with other jurisdictions.

I can pause at this point to emphasize the things I have seen even in Niagara. I remember some time ago, in the early 1990s, the large number of businesses that were leaving the province, including those in my own riding, and heading to other jurisdictions. The reasons why were quite simple: high taxes, high debt, runaway $11-billion deficits and red tape mounting day after day.

I remember working at the border. I could swear that some of the trucks coming into Ontario were filled with red tape that the NDP government was bringing into the province. Certainly that did not transgress the Customs Act, so as much as I would have liked to send those trucks back across the border, I was not permitted to do so.

Instead, I've taken another route. I ran as a member of the Conservative Party and was elected here to join members like the member for York-Mackenzie and, as mentioned earlier, Frank Sheehan of Lincoln to try to do our best to reduce the red tape from within government, since we couldn't stop them at the border.

The member for Simcoe West: I had the pleasure of working with him as Minister of Health, a great deal of experience in government. As somebody who was new to the political system, I have certainly benefited greatly from the wisdom and the experience of the member for Simcoe West. I'm going to ask him as well if my comments this evening were fair. He seems to be the member who has taken the most interest. I don't know if I've said something controversial this evening. I have a reaction from Simcoe West, so I'll follow up with him as to exactly his reflections on my comments this evening.

But I was talking about Niagara, and on the other side of the coin we're actually seeing more jobs coming into the Peninsula. The flow has reversed. Just a few years ago, in 1993-94, Niagara had the ignoble distinction of being one of the highest unemployment areas not only in Ontario but across the entire country. We had a rivalry with Newfoundland for the highest unemployment rate. Now we've seen that cut in half, so instead of a 14% or greater unemployment rate in Niagara, it's down around 7%. That's because we have reversed direction. We're cutting taxes; we're working towards balancing the budget; we're making sure that red tape is being eliminated across the province.

There have been a series of bills to allow us to do this, bills that members of the opposition may have thought of in the past, under the Peterson or Rae governments, but frankly did not have the courage to bring forward to make those significant but necessary changes to get Ontario back on the right track.

In the annals of this government, I'm not sure today where Bill 74 will stand, but I certainly see it as an important piece in the entire work of this government to reduce red tape and to ensure that Ontario is the leading engine of growth in Canada once again.

The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions.

Mr Miclash: I have to say that we've learned a lot about the beauty of Niagara South and a number of other things about that area of the province. But what the member for Niagara South failed to address, of course, is the gas prices as they are throughout the entire province. If he knew anything at all about the rest of Ontario, this is a bill where we would hope he would talk a little bit about the taxation on gas as it applies throughout the entire province.

I have indicated a number of times this evening that if you take a look at prices in northern Ontario compared to some of the ones that have been mentioned already tonight, such as 47.9 in Belleville - we haven't seen prices like that for many decades, never mind years. But again, the member for Niagara South could have maybe redirected his comments to talk a little bit about consistency at the pumps, where prices would be consistent throughout the entire province. If he would listen to Ontarians, and when I listen to Ontarians, one of their major concerns when you talk about gasoline, of course, is the cost and the variation in that cost across Ontario. I go back to the fact that in northern Ontario, where we're off the beaten trail, you don't want to even know that you're going to be paying anywhere from 65 to 75 cents a litre for gasoline.

I was kind of hoping the member for Niagara South would have had a few insights into that and offered a few comments on that, rather than trying to tell the folks out there that everything is all rosy, with a cut in the debt. The last I heard, the debt is on the rise in Ontario, and for him to suggest that we are even close to having a debt that has not risen over the past three years of his government is total bafflegab as far I'm concerned.

Mr Rollins: I'd like to rise today in support of the speaker from Niagara South. I think he put a little bit of a twist on the bill than we have heard before today.

Having been around the industry for a little while, one of the reasons they dye-colour is so they can protect their product. One of the ways they can protect the product is that they know the product that is in there is a certain colour. If you see a product coming through the pipeline that, for instance, is regular grade, which has a kind of yellow cast to it, and all of a sudden it starts to turn to a red colour, you know then that it is a high-test gas.

They still have to purify the test of it, but it's another test so they cannot contaminate their higher product. That's one of the reasons the industry needs the colouring in the fuel product, particularly when they use more than one product on one truck and particularly when they use more than one product in different compartments on that truck, so they can see that the product that is coming out of there is the right product going into the unleaded tank, or the high-test or mid-grade tank. That's one of the reasons it's in there.

The dye colouring, when it goes into a product that's made from recyclable oil, as the member for Niagara South spoke about, makes sure that colour is put in there and also gives us the opportunity to make sure that our tax is collected. If our taxes aren't collected on that and we end up with people using and trying to evade the tax, it also gives us the opportunity to identify those people who are not paying the full tax at the start and are putting in fuel that hasn't had the proper tax adjustment. The colour does allow you to see that. I just want to support the member for Niagara South again.

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Mr Gerretsen: I certainly bow to the member for Quinte and the knowledge he has about this particular matter. As I understand, he was in this business before he joined us here in the Legislature.

I would also like to mention that I understand he is one of the gasoline commissioners, one of the three people out of the Conservative caucus who are going around the province to make sure that the gas prices aren't going up. As a matter of fact, one Saturday morning about three or four Saturdays ago, I heard the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, David Tsubouchi, saying in all seriousness - I heard this three or four times on the news that day - that one of the reasons the gas prices went up before that particular long weekend was that the gas-busters had not been working the day before. I'm sure they were doing other work, but he really wanted the people of Ontario to believe that because his three Conservative backbench members were not on duty and were not telling the gasoline companies what to do and what to charge on that weekend, that's the reason the gas prices went up. I may be a little bit skeptical about that.

First of all, I don't think these members, as well-intentioned as they are, could possibly cover the entire southern part of this province, even if they were able to get from place to place in a heck of a hurry. I somehow wouldn't like the people of Ontario to truly rely on the expertise of these three gentlemen to do something about the escalating gas prices, particularly right before long weekends. The problem goes much deeper than that, and the quicker the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations deals with the problem and tries to protect the interests of the motoring public in Ontario, particularly before long weekends, the better off we will be.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Niagara South has two minutes to respond.

Mr Hudak: Thank you for the comments and observations from the members for Kenora, Kingston and The Islands and of course Quinte, a tribute to whom I made a bit earlier in my remarks this evening as somebody who has a great grasp of this issue and this piece of legislation.

I'm going to centre my remarks somewhat on the comments of the member for Kenora. I don't recall if Kenora was a member of this House - I apologize; I should know this - during the reign of the Peterson-McGuinty Liberals. Certainly I would expect that some of the choices made at that time were supported by the current leader of the Liberal Party, Dalton McGuinty, and I expect some of the backroom whiz kids like Bob Lopinski may have been part of these decisions too, but I think we should reflect upon them in the minute or so that I have.

The member for Kenora was concerned about the impact of gas prices at the pump. We can't lose sight of the large number of significant gas tax increases that were imposed by the Peterson-McGuinty-Lopinski Liberals.

Mr Gerretsen: Lopinski Liberals.

Mr Hudak: Yes, the whiz kids like Bob Lopinski may have been behind the gas tax hikes. I'm not sure where the member for Kingston and The Island sits, but he's taking away some of my time.

In 1985 gasoline tax was hiked, a $79-million proposal, and fuel tax was hiked as well in 1985. The Peterson government took a break because an election was coming up, but then they came back with a vengeance in 1988, a $167-million tax grab by the Peterson-McGuinty Liberals in 1988, and they came back one more time, in 1989, with another grab, a $297-million gas tax rate increase, as well as a fuel tax increase. They were on a roll in the late 1980s, and we don't want that again.

The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Gerretsen: It's always a pleasure to follow the member for Niagara South, because he adds a certain amount of levity to the situation here. People who watch this on a regular basis must be getting sick and tired of always hearing what has happened in the past in this province. I know history is very important. It certainly is important to our schoolchildren in this province because you can learn from the past as you go into the future, but I think, and I've talked about this before in this House, we continually seem to be talking about what happened five years ago, about what happened 10 years ago, about what happened 15 years ago. I can tell you that the people of Ontario quite frankly aren't interested in that.

They want to know what the future of this province is going to be like, what the 21st century is going to hold for their children, for our pages here who have served us so well over the last six weeks in providing us with water and with various materials from our offices. Those are the people we should be concerned about. What is the 21st century going to hold for Ontario?

Yes, I will be speaking about this bill. This is a taxation bill, and I understand that according to the rules of the House, when a taxation bill is being discussed, a certain latitude is allowed in order to talk about other taxation matters, because we know they are all connected, one to another. I have it on great authority that you can do this.

Particularly when I heard the member for Niagara South talk about the goals of this government, it is interesting that the only goal he talked about was the reduction of red tape in this province. Let me say once again, as I've said many times before in this House, we as a party support the reduction of needless red tape. I totally agree that needless red tape at whatever level, provincial, federal or local, is probably one of the causes of our goods and services, our products that are being created out there going up in price more than anything else. Anything we can do in the reduction of needless forms and needless red tape at all levels of government, I think the public in Ontario would be better served by it. Whatever we can do in that regard we should accomplish and we should all be for.

We want to make sure that the public interest in different areas of public policy is safeguarded. It's absolutely essential that we don't throw out rules and regulations that are there for the protection of the general public. I agree with him when he says it should be the goal of his government or any government to reduce needless red tape, but that's the only goal he talked about.

What he didn't talk about was the other goal that I think the people of Ontario are much more interested in, and that is the goal of good-quality, affordable, universally accessible health care. That is a matter that concerns everybody in this province because all of us within our families know of people who need health care services. Whether it's our elderly mother, whether it's young children, whether it's the handicapped or a disabled neighbour, we all know of people who require good, accessible, affordable, publicly administered health care. It's something we've always prided ourselves on in this province.

My assessment of the situation is that a great number of people in Ontario, particularly those who have had something to do with the health care system in the last little while, are seeing a deterioration in the quality of health care. We see it in the numbers of hospitals, the 35 hospitals or so that are slated to be closed in this province. We see it, as I've talked about before, in my community, where some 2,000 patients used to enjoy the benefits of community care, home care. These are mainly elderly people or people who are disabled in one way or another who need the extra two or three hours of homemaking services, of nursing care within their homes, and we see that slipping away. Two thousand people have been cut off after the province has said over and over again, "We're going to restructure the health care system." Although they never said they were going to close hospitals, they're closing hospitals, "But don't worry, home care will be there for you."

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To have a hospital close in your community, such as the Hotel Dieu, which has been in my community of Kingston for 153 years, providing tremendous health care to the people in the area over all those years and respected by just everyone, as was evidenced by the 66,000 names that were collected in a petition to keep the hospital open, and to see that slip away and then at the same time see the funding for 2,000 people who were enjoying the home care services, that particular aspect of health care, slipping away - those people don't believe any of what the government is trying to say, that it's a goal of this government to improve the health care system in this province.

They also don't believe it when the government says it's their goal to provide a good educational system in Ontario, particularly when over 500 schools - and I understand that 15 or so of these schools affected by closures may be in your own riding. That's the main concern. It's not just the fact that buildings are being closed and students are being bused to other communities, to other schools at a great inconvenience; it's also the fact that once you take these schools that are quite often the heart and soul of their communities, of their neighbourhoods, away from there, the heart and soul of the communities in effect disappear. I'm not so sure whether the average person in Ontario, particularly the father or mother who has a child in a school that is slated for closure, really believes that the education system is being improved and that this government cares about the quality of the education system.

The other taxation matter I want to talk about, because I realize that this bill is about taxes, is how our tax dollars are being spent in this province. I always find it very interesting when we get the report from the Provincial Auditor of Ontario. The reason is that I think the people should understand that the Provincial Auditor is not accountable to a particular government department or a particular government minister. The Provincial Auditor is one of about five officers who is directly accountable to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It's not a government department. This is an independent person and a body that was created in order to be accountable to this Legislative Assembly of 130 elected people from across Ontario. That person and his department take a look at the various departments, the various ministries, from time to time and come up with recommendations. Yes, some of them are positive recommendations, but some of them are not so positive.

As was talked about in question period today, and yesterday as well, when we see $180 million of Ontario taxpayers' money being wasted in the Ministry of Community and Social Services on contracts in which there is absolutely no appearance of accountability at all, and when an independent person like the Provincial Auditor makes that statement, then I think it is something we ought to be very concerned about, particularly from a government, and I keep going back to this, that prides itself on wanting to run things in a businesslike fashion.

I would like to know how they could possibly have the people of Ontario believe that they're running this in a businesslike fashion when there seems to be little or no accountability as to what is going on with respect to the Andersen Consulting contract. One of the very interesting things that I found in this report is that Andersen Consulting, which is doing some work for the Ministry of Community and Social Services, can just unilaterally change the rate it charges for the various people who work in the consulting firm when they're doing work for the ministry.

On page 46 of the Provincial Auditor's report it talks, for example, about the proposed rates per hour that various people were going to be paid in the contract that was signed between the ministry and Andersen Consulting. The project director was going to be paid $300 to $400 per hour. You know what Andersen actually charged? It was $575 per hour. As was pointed out here earlier today, that is completely inexcusable. That is more per hour than we pay a single individual on social assistance in this province, which is $520, per month. That was just unilaterally changed by them because they have the right to do that in the contract.

I ask the member for Etobicoke-Humber, where is the public accountability of that? As a taxfighter, why didn't you stand up and tell your minister: "Yes, the Provincial Auditor is correct. We ought to do something about that. How could we let this kind of situation ever exist?"

We can go on to a technical systems engineer: proposed rate, $200 to $300 per hour; actual rate charged, $450 per hour. Design specialist: proposed rate, $200 to $300 per hour; actual rate, $335 to $472 per hour. I could go on.

That is a waste of the taxpayers' money, taxes that are raised in a taxation bill like Bill 74, the Fuel and Gasoline Tax Amendment Act. We raise taxes in acts like the one we're discussing here today so that we can make the proper disbursements to the people of Ontario to make sure that our system in the province operates correctly. But it's not money to be wasted when you sign contracts and you say you're going to pay people $200 to $300 per hour, which is a mighty big amount in itself - per hour; we're not talking about per day - and then in effect end up paying them $450 to $472 per hour.

Let's go on and look at some other aspects in this auditor's report. It states on page 47: "We noted that Andersen Consulting charges for out-of-pocket expenses averaged approximately $26,000 for each full-time-equivalent position assigned to the project during the first year." That is $26,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, on average, to each individual who worked on this project.

I say to the member for Hastings-Peterborough, a member for whom I have a lot of regard, there's something wrong with that. I know of absolutely no other job where people can ring up $26,000 worth of out-of-pocket expenses in a year. It shouldn't happen, not when you care about the public tax dollars in this province the way you would about your own money. I think that's the ultimate test that we should put ourselves and the civil service and all those people who deal with public money to. Let's just act as if it's our own money and I'm sure a lot of these loopholes in these contracts wouldn't occur.

Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): It is our own money.

Mr Gerretsen: Yes, you're right, it is our own money. Sure it's our own money. It's all taxpayers' money, correct. You're right. There's no question about that. But there seems to be a mentality around this whole area, that once the money is part of the public purse, people have a different notion as to how to expend it.

It always reminds me - many, many years ago when I was involved with the Ontario Housing Corp as its chair, it always used to bother me why plane tickets -

The Deputy Speaker: I think we'll hear that story a little bit later.

Mr Gerretsen: A little bit later on? Oh, it is almost 6 o'clock. Thank you very much for your kind attention.

The Deputy Speaker: It being almost 6 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 6:30.

The House adjourned at 1800.

Evening meeting reported in volume B.

4 novembre 1998