L059B - Wed 25 Nov 1998 / Mer 25 Nov 1998 1
The House met at 1832.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
GREATER TORONTO SERVICES BOARD ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA COMMISSION DES SERVICES DU GRAND TORONTO
Mr Leach moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill 56, An Act to establish the Greater Toronto Services Board and the Greater Toronto Transit Authority and to amend the Toronto Area Transit Operating Authority Act / Projet de loi 56, Loi visant à créer la Commission des services du grand Toronto et la Régie des Transports en commun du grand Toronto et à modifier la Loi sur la Régie des transports en commun de la région de Toronto.
Hon Al Leach (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): I'm very pleased to move second reading of Bill 56, the Greater Toronto Services Board Act. The members will recall that this act, introduced in June, would, if passed by the Legislature, create a Greater Toronto Services Board, and our goal is to have that board up and running by January 1, 1999.
Just at this point I would like to indicate that I'm going to share my time this evening with the member for Mississauga West and the member for Perth, who I recognize.
Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't believe we have a quorum. Can you please check?
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Yes, I will. Would you check and see if there's a quorum present.
Acting Clerk at the Table (Ms Tonia Grannum): A quorum is not present, Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker ordered the bells rung.
Acting Clerk at the Table: A quorum is now present, Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the Minister of Municipal Affairs.
Hon Mr Leach: As I was saying, the members will recall that this act, introduced in June, would, if passed by the Legislature, create the Greater Toronto Services Board, and our goal is to have it up and running by January 1, 1999.
The purpose of this new board would be to promote better co-operation and integration of municipal services within the greater Toronto area. This would lead to better service delivery at lower cost to taxpayers.
The legislation would enable the board to prepare strategies on how GTA municipalities provide the sewer and water pipes, the roads and transportation systems their communities need, and how to make sure they are efficiently used. The board would manage GO Transit through an authority that would be called GT Transit. It would help coordinate economic development and tourism in the GTA. It would help resolve disputes among GTA municipalities. It would be a forum for municipalities to discuss the administration and costs of social assistance and social housing programs within the greater Toronto area.
There are 29 municipal government in the GTA, each planning for its future, each providing various types of infrastructure, each delivering services. This board is not intended to change that. It is intended to allow those activities to be coordinated so they can happen as efficiently as possible, so GTA municipalities can work with each other rather than at cross-purposes as sometimes happens at the present time.
As a matter of fact, one only has to look at the dispute between the cities of Toronto and Mississauga on the issue of public transit. There clearly is a need to have the municipalities of the GTA work together, a need that has been discussed, that has been researched and that has been consulted on. Both Anne Golden, who was appointed by the former government, and David Crombie studied municipal government in the GTA. Their reports, Golden in 1995, and Crombie in 1996, came to the same conclusion: a lack of coordination is hurting the economic competitiveness of the region and, by extension, the whole province.
In 1997, Milt Farrow consulted further and proposed principles for the establishment of the Greater Toronto Services Board. Alan Tonks went further still, talking to municipal officials about the nuts and bolts, as set out in draft legislation released in March of this year. I would like to take a minute to thank all of these people. This bill was shaped by their discussions. It represents what we believe to be a workable compromise.
Mr Tonks has continued to talk with municipal councillors across the GTA. He has worked to clarify the purpose and substance of the bill for them. He has listened to their concerns, their reservations and their recognition of the need for greater coordination in the greater Toronto area.
I'd like to talk for a few minutes now about what is in the bill. The legislation calls for a Greater Toronto Services Board with 40 members. That would include at least one member from each municipality in the greater Toronto area, plus a chair, plus one member from Hamilton-Wentworth appointed only for the purposes of GO Transit. The proposed membership of the Greater Toronto Services Board respects the important principle of geographic inclusiveness. Smaller municipalities told us they wanted a seat at the table; perfectly understandable. We've listened and we've responded.
The chair would be elected by the Greater Toronto Services Board members. He or she would not be a member of any municipal council within the regional transit area, which of course includes all the greater Toronto area municipalities and Hamilton-Wentworth. All GTA regional chairs and mayors and the regional chair of Hamilton-Wentworth would be members. The city of Toronto would have 10 additional members, and the city of Mississauga would have one additional member who is also a member of Peel regional council. The additional members would be appointed by their municipal councils.
After each national census, the Greater Toronto Services Board would be required to review the composition of the board to reflect the population changes in the greater Toronto area. But each municipality in the greater Toronto area would continue to have at least one member.
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A quorum for matters other than GO Transit would have to include a majority of members entitled to vote on any issue, that is to say, at least 21 of the 40 members. A quorum would also have to include at least one member from a majority of the participating regions - one member from within the geographic areas of at least three of Durham, Halton, Peel, Toronto and York.
A quorum for GO Transit matters would include a majority of the members entitled to vote - again, at least 21 of the 40 - and it would also have to include at least one member from within the geographic area of four of the affected regions: Durham, Halton, Peel, Toronto, York and Hamilton-Wentworth.
All GTSB members would have at least one vote. Votes would be weighted to achieve representation by population on a regional basis.
Let me speak for a moment about what the proposed board would do. The board would promote coordination of decision-making among the municipalities of the greater Toronto area. It could, for example, encourage them to coordinate transportation and transit decisions to make it easier for people to take public transit across municipal boundaries or to improve the flow of traffic on major roads.
It would exercise general direction and control over the Greater Toronto Transit Authority, approve the authority's budget and allocate the costs of Greater Toronto Transit and the borrowing to meet the capital requirements of GT Transit.
While GTA municipalities would continue to be responsible for all their own services functions, the GTSB could have a number of additional roles, including acting as the liaison among municipalities and other levels of government; helping to resolve matters of inter-municipal concern within its mandate when asked to do so by an affected municipality; facilitating resolution of matters outside its mandate on a request from a member municipality and with a majority vote of the GTSB. It could also provide for the coordination of economic development and tourism within the greater Toronto area, which is important to us all. It would also promote and coordinate decision-making among and develop advisory strategies for municipalities within the GTA with respect to the administration and the costs of social assistance and social housing.
The GTSB may also prepare strategies with respect to providing and efficiently using infrastructure. Adoption would require a two-thirds majority vote to ensure that the decision is supported by a broad consensus among the GTSB members. Municipalities would then determine whether to implement a GTSB strategy when planning for municipal infrastructure requirements. For example, a GTSB strategy that dealt with solid waste management could not mandate the use or location of existing or new landfill sites.
The GTSB would be able to levy, to cover its own operating costs against the city of Toronto and the regional municipalities of Halton, Peel, York and Durham. For GO Transit purposes, it could also levy against the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth.
The GTSB would be required, prior to December 1, 2000, to review its size and its composition and the number of votes assigned to members, its powers and its boundaries. It would report to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing on or after January 1, 2001. The review may consider redefining boundaries to enable a municipality to opt out of the GTSB, but it could not consider expanding the current GTSB boundaries.
As I mentioned earlier, the legislation would also establish a Greater Toronto Transit Authority, GT Transit, as a corporation without share capital. GT Transit's responsibility would include the operation of GO Transit rail and bus services.
GT Transit has four objectives as proposed in the legislation: It would be responsible for the operation of a regional transit system, currently known as GO Transit, serving the regional transit area and other municipalities by agreement. It could be responsible for the operation of local transit systems within the regional transit area. This could only occur with the agreement of the GTSB and the municipalities which each local transit system is operating. It would exchange information on the operation and design matters and integrate services with the other transit systems.
I know Mr Baird from Ottawa is greatly interested in this subject and I know he's going to pay very close attention.
Until 2000, members of GT Transit would include a chair appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, the mayor of Toronto and the chairs of Durham, Halton, Hamilton-Wentworth, Peel and York regions. These are the members of the current Toronto Area Transit Operating Authority, which now operates GO Transit, and should ensure a smooth transition.
I'm very pleased to see that the member from Scarborough and the member from Kingston are paying very close attention, because it is an extremely important subject. I'm glad to see their interest.
After the year 2000, GT Transit would consist of six members who are also members of the Greater Toronto Services Board, plus a chair. One member would be appointed by Toronto council, one member by each of the regions of Durham, Halton, Peel and York, and one would be the chair of the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth. If one of these members is chosen to chair the transit authority, the municipality that appointed the member to be chair would appoint another one of its members as its then GT Transit member. Each member of GT Transit would have one vote. The chair would only vote to break a tie.
GT Transit would be subject to the general direction and control of the GTSB. Subject to this direction, GT Transit would have the power to undertake the objectives set out above. Powers would be very similar to those currently provided to the GO Transit board. For example, it could acquire and sell land, acquire transit vehicles and equipment, operate parking lots and enter into agreements in connection with the operation of a regional transit system.
GT Transit would employ a managing director and other employees it needs to carry out its mandate. The GTSB would be able to impose two levies against member municipalities for GT Transit purposes, one to cover the cost of running the system over and above what it receives in fares, and the second to cover GT Transit capital borrowing costs.
In my discussions with the municipalities, I've heard both praise for and concerns about the legislation, and so has Mr Tonks in his visits with the municipalities. Let me take a couple of minutes to address the concerns that we've heard.
One is that the proposed board does not give a strong enough voice to rural communities. We made several changes to address that concern when we introduced the bill before us in June.
First, we ensured that all municipalities in the greater Toronto area would be represented on the GTSB. Rural municipalities would now have 11 of the 40 seats at the table. With weighted voting, those 11 members, representing 7% of the population, will wield 10% of the votes. Furthermore, this bill permits municipalities to send alternates to GTSB meetings. That should make it easier, particularly for municipalities that only have one representative, to make sure they don't miss any meetings.
The bill contains new quorum requirements, along with a new requirement that certain important GTSB decisions must receive a two-thirds majority vote to pass. A broad consensus would be needed on these matters, and a single jurisdiction would not be able to control the agendas.
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Several rural municipalities asked for a mandatory review of the board's jurisdiction within three years. The legislation now requires the board to review its size, to review its composition, to review its voting distribution and powers and area of jurisdiction by the end of its second full year.
I would like to emphasize that the Greater Toronto Services Board would provide a new forum for all municipalities in the GTA, urban and rural, to discuss their intermunicipal concerns. It would give rural municipalities a forum in which to work together on issues of concern to them, and a chance to bring their unique concerns to the attention of other greater Toronto area municipalities. I've told the rural representatives that I continue to take their concerns very seriously and that their voices will be heard, and I'll be looking forward to hearing what they and others have to say during this legislative process.
Another concern we've heard is that the bill goes too far, that it would impose a third level of municipal government on the greater Toronto area. Well, the Greater Toronto Services Board will not be another level of government. It has no service delivery responsibilities other than overseeing the operation of GO Transit, and it has no direct taxing authority. It will simply encourage and promote better coordination and co-operation among GTA municipalities.
At the same time, other people have told us that the bill doesn't go far enough, that it doesn't give the board enough power to get done some of the things that really need to be done. To these people, I say that the bill is a compromise made in the interest of moving forward. As I said earlier, virtually everyone who has looked at the greater Toronto area agrees on one thing: Better coordination and co-operation is needed. I think the important thing is to get on with it.
We need to walk before we can run. I fully expect that the Greater Toronto Services Board will evolve in the future. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, the legislation requires the board, before the end of the year 2000, to undertake a full review of its size, of its composition, of the number of votes assigned to members, its powers and its boundaries. So ultimately, the member municipalities of the greater Toronto area will decide on how the GTSB should work and what it should do.
I've also heard from some people that this legislation favours Toronto. Others say it favours the outlying areas, the 905. Those who say it favours Toronto point to the fact that Toronto has half the votes, that nothing can happen if Toronto opposes it. To them I would respond that Toronto does have half the population of the GTA and that we generally operate on a system of representation by population.
Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough-Ellesmere): Makes sense to me.
Hon Mr Leach: Furthermore, the city of Toronto is in the heart of the GTA, and therefore we believe it is important to ensure that the central urban core remains strong and vital.
The member from Scarborough says that makes sense to her, and I have a great deal of faith in the judgment of the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere. I'd just like to mention that.
Just the same, every municipality in the GTA, both upper and lower tier, will have at least one member on the board with at least one vote. This means that every municipality will have a voice on the board and an opportunity to put forward its views and to participate in board discussions prior to the board voting. As I mentioned earlier, the quorum requirements - you need a two thirds majority, as I mentioned - would prevent Toronto or any single municipality from dominating the proceedings. As well, a number of decisions - the adoption of infrastructure coordination strategies, for example, or the allocation of the costs of GO Transit - would require a two thirds vote of the members present at any meeting.
I would also like to point out, as I said earlier, that the Greater Toronto Services Board representation model is not set in stone. When the GTA's population grows and shifts, the representation will change as well.
There are those who say it favours the outlying regions, that it favours the 905. They like to point out that Toronto has to pay half the cost of GO Transit, the only service the GTSB will be responsible for delivering and paying for, yet Toronto only has one vote on the GO Transit board, the same as Durham, the same as Halton, the same as Hamilton-Wentworth, Peel and York. But as I just mentioned, Toronto has half the votes on the Greater Toronto Services Board, which holds the purse-strings for GO Transit.
This bill is not necessarily in its final form. We have been listening to all of the stakeholders who provide input into this bill. If people have workable ideas of how we can improve this bill, we will continue to listen, as we always do. Mr Tonks is continuing to talk with the people around the GTA, and the legislative process that we are going through at the present time will provide yet another opportunity for input. I'll say again that not everyone agrees on exactly how government services and infrastructure should be coordinated across the greater Toronto area, but pretty well everyone agrees that it should happen, and it should happen now.
Last spring, the Markham Economist and Sun quoted Markham mayor Don Cousens as saying that we have to find a way of crossing our boundaries. "The public isn't served unless we look for a way of working across the GTA."
Elyse Allan, the president and CEO of the Toronto board of trade, said in a press release, "The GTSB is needed to cope with the stresses of rapid growth."
Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion was quoted in the Toronto Sun as saying that the proposed Greater Toronto Services Board would "promote and facilitate coordinated municipal decision-making on issues and services spilling over jurisdictional boundaries." I would like to point out that Mayor McCallion is also one of the vocal voices saying that this bill does not go far enough, that it should be stronger, that it should have more teeth. I talked to the mayor earlier today and indicated to her that we have to walk before we run, and that by getting this board up and running now, we will be able to start the process of coordination. I'm confident that the members of the board will expand the roles and responsibilities of the Greater Toronto Services Board as is needed.
This bill is a starting point. It's based on a number of years of consultation and discussion. The board which this legislation would create may have to change in the future. I'm quite confident that it will. As a matter of fact, I hope it will. That's the way the legislation is designed. This bill provides that starting point. It's that first step. It's vital to the future of the entire greater Toronto area.
I recommend that we take that first step now. It's an important first step. I think the members of the opposition would agree it's one that, while it doesn't provide the perfect answer for all of the stakeholders, needs to be implemented to get the process started, to start that coordination across the greater Toronto area, to fix those problems - as I mentioned earlier, simple transit problems of trying to get seamless transit across regional boundaries.
There is currently a dispute between Mississauga and Toronto on a single bus route that has the potential of causing disruption of hundreds of thousands of transit users every day. We need that coordination and that co-operation to ensure that this seamless transit operation can be put in place, and the Greater Toronto Services Board is the mechanism that would make that happen.
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Mr William Saunderson (Eglinton): I am very pleased tonight to be able to speak on Bill 56, which is the Greater Toronto Services Board Act, 1998. I might say that it's a great honour for me to be able to follow in the footsteps of my colleague the Honourable Al Leach, who I think has spoken very well tonight and has a very important bill in front of us.
The creation of the Greater Toronto Services Board makes a good deal of sense to me, and I'm very happy, as I say, to speak to it. I think we all acknowledge the need for coordination of the services in the GTA.
Over the years as Toronto, then Metropolitan Toronto and now the greater Toronto area has grown, this region has prospered, and changes have been required to keep pace with the demand for services.
I grew up in the city of Toronto. What was at that time a major Canadian city would be, by today's standards, hardly more than a town. I have witnessed great growth in this city and region and much change, and I am proud of the result. I think we are doing even better with this bill tonight.
Even then, Toronto was the engine of growth for Ontario. As the province and the country developed and changed over the years, the city grew, and as it attracted new residents from all over Canada and regions of the world, it also prospered. We now have over 100 languages spoken in the GTA region. Municipal government had to keep pace with the increasing demands for services over that period of time. I think we are doing that with this bill.
In 1953, to go back in history, the province had the foresight to plan for future development, and Metro Toronto came into being, not without its detractors at that time, just as we have had over the last few years with our new legislation. But in the long run, things have proven to be right, just as what we are doing will be proven to be right and is right now proving to be right.
Many of us remember the days of Big Daddy, Fred Gardiner, who many people regard as the father of metropolitan government, a very important man in the development of this region. Indeed, civic politicians and administrators came from all over North America to observe our experiment in municipal governance and to hail it as the way of the future.
Toronto and its suburbs continue to prosper and develop, each one competing for its share of commercial and industrial development while maintaining historic and individual characteristics. Metro started in 1953 - think of that - as 13 municipalities working together to provide essential services to the residents. There were growing pains, as there always are, and changes were made in how Metro was governed. In 1966, the number of municipalities was reduced to six. In January 1998, those local governments and the regional government were merged into one city of Toronto at last. All these changes or progressions were difficult, but they were and are necessary.
Now we must look beyond the new city of Toronto to the developing municipalities of the greater Toronto area and once again plan a coordinated approach to the delivery of services. The GTA is the engine of the provincial economy. It produces almost one half of Ontario's GDP. It is a regional economy, consisting of diverse communities which depend on each other for their economic well-being and quality of life. Quite frankly, for the purposes of planning, I would like to see the GTA operate some day as a single independent economic unit.
I want to focus right now on the economic advantages to the entire region of a coordinated approach to services. We need to continue to attract business and investment to our region. I can tell you, in speaking to people who are in the business world all around the world, these people are very clear about what they're looking for when they look for expansion in our province and in our region of Toronto. They're looking for lower taxes; we're giving them that. They're looking for a business-friendly approach; we are a business-friendly government. They're looking for no surprises. They don't want tax increases like the 63 tax increases over the previous 10 years before our government took over. They want predictability, stability. They want to know that what they plan will be possible. They want a superb infrastructure. We have a superb infrastructure, and with this bill we're going to produce an even better one.
The GTA indeed has a great deal to offer. We have a great location in the GTA. We are within a day's drive of almost 150 million people. We have an excellent workforce. Almost 60% of our workforce has some post-secondary education.
We have a quality of life. We have a social safety net. We have safe streets. We have a cultural life which is the envy of many. And a key component of all that they want, as I mentioned earlier, is our infrastructure. Ontario, and particularly the GTA, is well served by roads, rail, municipal services, our telecommunications network. It follows that access to an excellent, seamless public transit system is a plus. That's what people are looking for, and that's why I'm pleased to be able to speak about this bill. The GTA needs a coordinated and orderly approach to the region's infrastructure. This legislation is a first step in that direction. Following three months of consultation on the draft legislation, Bill 56 was introduced in this place last June. All involved municipal governments have had the opportunity to provide their comments and suggestions. It is now time to move forward on this legislation.
Bill 56 provides for the creation of a Greater Toronto Services Board and a Greater Toronto Transit Authority. Every GTA municipality would be represented by at least one member, with Hamilton-Wentworth having a representative for transit matters, as has already been mentioned. This is good governance. It provides for a businesslike approach, with the necessary officers being established and installed, a sharing of capital costs and all that goes with it, and other expenses. Quite frankly, this bill is a paint-by-numbers kit on how to run the various services needed in this region, and it makes sense.
In addition to exercising general direction and control over GO Transit, the Greater Toronto Services Board will provide a forum for municipalities to work together to coordinate and improve municipal services, and hopefully to avoid the duplication of services. What we don't want is duplication. As was the case with Metropolitan Toronto, the GTSB will evolve over time as needs dictate. This is an excellent beginning.
Representing a city riding - my riding is Eglinton - you may ask how the GTSB impacts on my constituents. I would like to tell you that creating a forum to develop efficient services across the GTA benefits everyone in this region, not just my constituents. The system of weighted voting ensures that the interests of my constituents will be fairly represented by their municipal representatives.
In studies of the GTA by Anne Golden, David Crombie and Libby Burnham, all very respected individuals in this community, all of those people identified the GTA as a single community of interests and expressed their concerns about the lack of coordination of services. I would draw your attention to the support for the GTSB from Elyse Allan of the Toronto Board of Trade, Don Cousens, the mayor of Markham, Steve Parish, the mayor of Ajax, Hazel McCallion, the mayor of Mississauga, and Gordon Chong, a Metro councillor. This is just to name a few of the many in this region who support what we are doing.
Improving our competitive position and attracting and retaining businesses in this region is essential to our economic growth. The GTA is not the only municipal region that is dealing with the problems associated with growth and the need for regional planning. The Greater Vancouver Regional District is a partnership among 20 municipalities and two electoral areas in the Vancouver region. It is not so much a regional government as a form of governance for certain functions. Its governing board is indirectly elected through appointments from and by members of municipal councils.
Last February, the GVRD board and the province of British Columbia established the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority, which is responsible for major roads as well as public transit. I think that Bill 56 offers a solution better suited to our needs than what they have in Vancouver. Greater Montreal is organized into 14 regional municipalities, and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs is currently reviewing a new governance institution, the Metropolitan Development Commission. So we are moving ahead in the GTA to resolve the duplication of services just like they're doing in Vancouver and Montreal. I think we're doing it better in the GTA region.
The regions anchored by Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto are all responding to the need for coordination of regional services to meet their own region's needs. I think that the solution proposed by this government is by far the most efficient and responsive compared to those other cities.
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I had the privilege of being at the World Economic Forum in Davos. When I was there in 1997, I was able to attend a session on mega-cities. The Mega-Cities Project is a non-profit, transnational network dedicated to sharing innovative solutions to the problems of the world's largest cities. If I may quote from their material, it says: "By the year 2000, more than half of the world's population will live in cities. It is projected that 23 of these cities will be mega-cities, with more than 10 million people in each." We are not of that size, and it'll take a long time for us to ever become that. But what they're saying I think makes a lot of sense.
Despite their varying political, economic, social and cultural characteristics, all of them face a common problem. They must provide workable cities for unprecedented numbers of citizens within limited budgets and severe environmental constraints. The time is right for new approaches. The time is right for the approach that we are making with Bill 56 in the GTA region.
Bill 56 is responding sensibly to what the mega-cities' concerns are. I note that in the Toronto Star today, Case Ootes, the deputy mayor of Toronto, is quoted as saying that: "We want the GTSB because that's the only way you can address the interregion transportation issues, the waste disposal issues and others that have interregion ramifications."
We're all fond of saying that there's only one taxpayer. So let's move ahead on providing that taxpayer - that's all of us and all of our constituents - with efficient coordinated services across the entire region. Bill 56 makes sense and will benefit all of our constituents.
Ms Mushinski: It gives me particular pleasure to rise in the House this evening and speak in support of Bill 56, and that's for a very special reason. I feel that I was very much a part of the original study process that took place, studies of the greater Toronto area done by Milt Farrow, Anne Golden, Libby Burnham and David Crombie. Certainly I can recall very well being visited by those individuals to ask what my particular impressions were of coordinating many of the services that were needed to be coordinated in the greater Toronto area.
It was fairly obvious a few years ago when Anne Golden said that the economic, social and environmental well-being of Toronto across the GTA truly are inextricably linked. It was also recognized, I believe, by both Anne Golden and David Crombie that there was a lack of coordination across the GTA, and that actually was a barrier to the overall economic health of the region. So it particularly pleases me to see Bill 56, which was introduced in June, because this bill actually creates that missing link that has really been needed for many, many years. It creates a Greater Toronto Services Board.
When I say that the current municipal structure has needed that necessary link for many years and decades, it has really been difficult to actually coordinate a lot of regional municipal structures. In fact, in some cases it has been virtually impossible. I agree wholeheartedly with my honourable colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, because he inherently recognizes that municipal boundaries should not stand in the way of providing taxpayers with seamless, effective and efficient service.
If this bill is passed, the GTSB will indeed create a forum for municipalities across the greater Toronto area to improve coordination of infrastructure, transportation, transit and growth management. The GTSB will ensure that the GTA remains a thriving, growing, prosperous region. The legislation would assist municipal governments in the GTA to work better for the people they serve. We have consulted extensively, and I alluded to that. I have had a number of discussions, both with Mr Crombie and certainly with Mr Tonks, as they have gone through this particular process to create this model, which I think is state of the art. They have made necessary changes that address the concerns of the various stakeholders. In fact, I believe Bill 56 is the culmination of a great deal of good negotiation and give and take between the various stakeholders - some of the rural and outer-region municipalities as well as those within Toronto itself. I think it has been an excellent process.
The bill, as introduced, will ensure that every municipality in the greater Toronto area, including upper and lower tiers, where they exist, will have at least one member on the GTSB. The GTSB's job will be to promote coordination in the delivery of services, but the GTSB will not have any direct service responsibilities at this time beyond the operation of GO Transit. I agree with the Premier and I certainly agree with the minister when they say that while we need this effort at coordination right now, we feel that the board will evolve over time. If, after several years of operation, the board chooses to make changes, these changes can certainly be made, and probably will be made at the time.
I won't go through all of the background of the GTSB, because I know Minister Leach did that, but I think it's important to highlight the endorsements that the process leading up to this bill - which I believe has been an excellent process - has led to. For example, the deputy mayor of Toronto, Case Ootes, said in the Toronto Star on November 25, "We want the GTSB because that's the only way you can address the interregion transportation issues, the waste disposal issues and others that have interregion ramifications."
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I'll just do a little sidebar here. When I was on Scarborough council, I was Scarborough council's TTC liaison. I used to go down and heckle Mr Leach, who was the general manager at the time, lobbying for more service for my region. I can recall at that time that one of the biggest battles facing the TTC was this issue of finding loops on the other side of Steeles Avenue in order to better serve the transit needs of Metropolitan Toronto riders. This particular bill is going to be able to encourage much greater cooperation to deal with those kinds of issues.
Elyse Allan, president and CEO of the Toronto Board of Trade, said on June 26, 1998, "The GTSB is needed to cope with the stresses of rapid growth."
Don Cousens, the mayor of Markham - I believe my colleague for Eglinton alluded to his support for this: "We've got to have a way of crossing our boundaries. The public isn't served unless we look for a way of working across the GTA."
To go on just a little further, before I wrap up, Steve Parish, the mayor of the town of Ajax, said: "It's not effective to have a debate in the Toronto Star on an ongoing basis. We have to have a forum to debate the issues."
I'm going to allot the rest of the time, if I may, to my colleague from Wentworth-East, and just urge that the whole House support this. It is one of the best bills for a co-operative effort of regions and municipalities that I can think of.
Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East): I'm going to be speaking on this bill tonight because of the effect it has on the Hamilton-Wentworth region as it involves GO Transit.
People may be asking who exactly will be responsible for the operation of GO Transit. The GT Transit Authority, reporting to the GTSB, would be established to operate the existing GO Transit regional transit system. The GTSB will be responsible for approving GO Transit's operating budget, major service changes, expansion, fare increases, and determining the formula by which GO's costs are apportioned among the GTSB municipalities.
GT Transit would supervise the day-to-day operations of the transit authority under the direction of its own board of directors. Just exactly who will be on the board of directors? For the initial term, the current GO Transit directors and chair would be the GT Transit board. For subsequent terms, each municipality, including my municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth, would appoint one member from among their GTSB members, with the chair chosen by the GTSB.
The GTA is indeed one very large economic community. The benefits of efficient transit across the entire area are felt far beyond the riders. The downtown businesses that employ those riders or depend on them as customers would all benefit. GO Transit has a positive effect on the economic health of the entire GTA inside Toronto and in the 905 regions, including my own of Hamilton-Wentworth.
The government is transferring responsibility for GO Transit to the city of Toronto and the regional municipalities of the GTA because it is consistent with the government's policy to transfer responsibility and accountability for local services to local government.
The allocation formula established in the Services Improvement Act and the Toronto Area Transit Operating Authority Act regulations was developed in consultation with the GTA, regional municipalities and the city of Toronto. Under the proposed GTSB act, the GTSB would have the power to change the formula if it so desires.
The Ministry of Transportation has received input from the affected regions on guiding principles associated with the continued operation and funding of GO Transit, including their suggestion regarding cost allocation. The guiding principles were ability to pay, level of service and systems used.
The allocation of capital expansion costs among the GTA municipalities will be up to the GTSB to decide. The formula which is currently in place through the Services Improvement Act and the regulations passed under the Toronto Area Operating Authority Act addresses only system operating costs and normal capital rehabilitation. The GTSB may change the allocation of GO Transit, the GT Transit costs, among Toronto and the regions with a two-thirds vote of the board. The city of Toronto or any of the regions may propose a new cost allocation formula for the GTSB to consider. Toronto will have 50% of the votes, the same percentage that it has when the GTSB is considering non-GO Transit matters. This differs from what had been recommended originally by Mr Tonks, by the way. Toronto would have had slightly less than 50% of the votes when the board voted on GO matters.
People may wonder, are Toronto and regions currently paying GO Transit costs? The answer is yes. The five regions and Toronto became responsible for the operating subsidy for GO Transit on January 1 of this year. Services operated beyond the transit services area will continue to operate following the transfer. Agreement may subsequently be negotiated between GT Transit and the affected municipalities. The province will continue to honour the terms and conditions associated with the sale-back agreement for GO Transit rail equipment. The province will also work co-operatively with the GTSB in planning and protecting GO Transit and broader provincial interests when conducting broader transportation planning studies. Once the Greater Toronto Services Board is established, GO Transit-related MCORF funds will be released.
The draft legislation does not provide for the automatic transfer of GO Transit employees to GT Transit. Management-excluded employees of GO Transit who accept employment with GT Transit will have their severance entitlement transferred to the new GT Transit. If GT Transit later terminates their employment, they will receive credit for both GT and GO Transit service. This is consistent with how similar transfers are handled in the private sector. For GO Transit employees whose jobs are within a bargaining unit, GO and GT Transit in association with provincial government representatives will discuss issues such as offers of employment, severance entitlement and other transitional matters with GO Transit unions.
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): It sounds like a newspaper report. Is it?
Hon Mr Leach: If it is, it's a good one.
Mr Doyle: I used to do that too.
GO Transit employees who do not accept employment with GT Transit, by the way, will be entitled to the same payments as employees who currently resign from GO Transit.
In my few minutes left I'd like to say that the legislation will result in the transfer of GO Transit to municipal control. The GT Transit operation will continue to need drivers, mechanics, ticket sellers, office workers and managers. For those non-bargaining employees who accept their employment with GT Transit, their severance entitlement will also be transferred to GT Transit. Under these circumstances, it would not be a good use of public funds to pay termination payments to these employees, since they will not have experienced any break in their employment. Therefore, the termination pay provisions in the draft GTSB legislation will ensure that no legal technicality requires the payout to those who will continue to be employed. The changes ensure that GO Transit employees will receive the same treatment as private sector employees. The Employment Standards Act provides for transfer severance liability in the private sector.
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Mr Gerretsen: The latest bulletin.
Mr Doyle: That's just been handed to me.
There may be questions about the necessity to have discussions with GO Transit trade unions. While these unions are the legal representatives of their members in employment-associated matters, ratification of any agreement would have to wait until GT Transit has been legally established. A similar problem was overcome in negotiations with bargaining agents associated with the transfer of the Queen Street psychiatric hospital.
For questions related to the GTSB generally, Hal Linscott at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing can be reached if further information is needed. We can give you his telephone number if you require it.
There are other points that I would like to make.
On June 25, of course, Bill 56 was introduced and, if passed, the bill will create the Greater Toronto Services Board which we're speaking about tonight. The need for coordination of services in the GTA has been recognized for a number of decades and under the current municipal structure coordination has been difficult, and in some cases it has been impossible.
Municipal boundaries should not stand in the way of providing taxpayers with seamless and efficient service. If the bill is passed, and I'm sure it will be, the GTSB will create a forum for municipalities across the greater Toronto area to improve coordination of infrastructure, transportation, transit and growth management. The GTSB would ensure that the GTA remains a thriving, growing and prosperous region.
This legislation would also assist municipal governments in the GTA to work better for the people they serve. We have consulted extensively, as the minister has said, on the GTSB and have made necessary changes to address concerns of the various stakeholders. The bill as introduced ensures that every municipality in the greater Toronto area, including upper and lower tier, will have at least one member on the GTSB.
The GTSB's job will be to promote coordination in the delivery of services, but the GSTB will not have any direct services responsibility beyond the operation of GO Transit. The board will evolve over time. If, after several years of operation, the board chooses to make changes, then these changes of course will be made, as Minister Leach pointed out a little bit earlier.
That's about all I have to say on the matter tonight. We certainly hope this bill will be given the recognition that is needed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Jack Carroll): Questions and comments?
Mr Gerretsen: I would just like to comment on the statements that were made by the minister and the other three members in one aspect in particular, and that deals with the fact that on a number of occasions they indicated that they were basically following the Anne Golden and the Crombie reports. I'm sure the people who are watching out there may be under the impression that in effect those two reports have been adopted in this bill when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.
You may recall, Mr Speaker, that the Golden report talked about direct election to this board. That's not happening. The Golden report also talked about actually giving this board some power and authority to make binding decisions upon the lower-tier municipalities. That's a very important aspect. That's not happening here either.
The only power that this board really has is to authorize itself enough money for the board itself to operate, but it cannot get involved in any kind of programming, any kind of servicing or even bind any of the lower municipalities to any of the decisions that the board makes. So what we really have here is sort of a grand version of a planning board and a planning committee. Although there is nothing wrong with that to start off this process with, to somehow leave the impression that the Crombie report and the Anne Golden report are adopted with the adoption of this law is simply incorrect in these two major aspects.
The other issue that we have is that here this board is intended to start operating I believe on January 1, which is not much more than a month away. Why has it been five months to the day since this bill was given first reading in order for this legislation to come back here again, allowing for very little scrutiny by the affected parties, by the people in this metropolitan area of almost four million people that we're talking about? The bill is lacking.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): This bill is yet another example of this government at the end of the day having to come up with ways to respond to inadequacies and shortfallings of previous initiatives and legislation. Don't get me wrong. I don't think there's anybody in this House who doesn't believe in the notion of coordination and having communities and different regions working together, but if this government had in the first go-round taken the time to listen to the people of Toronto and Metro and the GTA re what it was that they wanted, we would probably be going down a far different path at this time in our history. We would have a different combination of government vehicles delivering services which would go a long way to alleviating some of the difficulties we see apparent in the bill that we have before us here today.
This bill continues the bias that this government seems to not be able to get over re the city of Toronto. They're creating a very weak board that does nothing to prevent urban sprawl, nothing for economic development, and really nothing at the end of the day for public transit. The board locks in place the unfair system that sees Toronto pay 49% of the cost of subsidizing GO, despite the fact that an estimated 85% of the riders live in the 905. I suggest that we'll find, as we go along, that this bill presents other challenges of equal concern, particularly for the people of Toronto.
Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): I'm pleased to provide some comments on the speeches given by my colleagues the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the member for Eglinton, the member for Wentworth East and the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere. I thought they spoke very eloquently on the effects of Bill 56 and its impact on the Metro area, now known, of course, as the greater Toronto area.
I thought in particular the member for Eglinton was most helpful in his comments in which he spoke about how the city of Toronto is booming and how well they've done particularly since 1995, probably no coincidence since we were the government at that time. The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere also provided some comments and some insights into her own riding and how the projections for the greater Toronto area services will impact on Scarborough in particular. Of course the minister's comments tied things up quite nicely, I thought, in that he commented on how he would work together with the caucus members from the Toronto area in putting together the bill.
I thought with the four speakers we had a nice cross-section. We had the member for Wentworth East, who has not only helped with a last-minute bulletin, which of course he's used to dealing with in the profession he came from, but I thought he also provided a nice balance to the members from the Toronto area in that he analyzed the Greater Toronto Services Board issue from his position in the province. I thought their comments were quite useful. They were clearly well prepared, and I certainly enjoyed their speeches.
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Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I'm delighted to see that so far we haven't had an advertising campaign surrounding this bill. Now, it may be early - I know that - and we've got the bill up to $57 million now on what I call partisan political advertising, but I know that the government may be thinking of that. I even hate to mention it because a mere mention of that means we'll see my friend Al Leach's picture in all of these tapes and all these TV commercials with his friend the Premier extolling the virtues of this next bill. So I shouldn't mention that.
I should mention, however - as you would know, Mr Speaker, being from Chatham-Kent and having to come into Toronto - that there is a problem with transportation. You may be aware as well, Mr Speaker, that in fact the Ontario government has withdrawn much of its support for transportation within our communities. So I can see that both Toronto and the surrounding areas are going to be perturbed about this and trying to find ways to provide public transportation because, of course, our highways are clogged at this time and we know that we can help the environment - certainly the air quality in our province - by the province making an investment in public transportation, and as well we can make it much easier on the nerves of people coming into this large community if we have adequate transportation.
We would like to see in the Niagara Peninsula, for instance, coming to St Catharines or Niagara Falls, some transportation facilities on rail - perhaps an enhanced Via Rail system; perhaps a GO Transit system. I don't expect it's going to run the way it does from Mississauga into Toronto - that often, in other words - but I think there may be an opportunity to do that. I know the local transit commission, the St Catharines Transit Commission, is beside itself over the fact that it has lost so much funding from the province that it may be forced to cut back on the excellent service it provides the people of St Catharines.
The Acting Speaker: Minister, final comments.
Hon Mr Leach: I would like to thank all the members of the House who took part in the debate this evening with some very interesting comments.
I'd like to respond to the member for Kingston and The Islands when he indicated that we didn't implement the recommendations that were put forward by Anne Golden and Crombie. I would like to point out that's because we listened to the people in the regions and we consulted with all the stakeholders in the regions and modified the recommendations to suit what the regions and all the stakeholders indicated they needed to operate.
The member for St Catharines made a very good suggestion. This bill has a great deal of merit. The people of this area should know about it. His suggestion to have an advertising campaign may be well worthwhile pursuing. I'll see what I can do. I thank the member for St Catharines for that suggestion.
The member for Sault Ste Marie suggested that the funding formula for GO Transit is not fair. The city of Toronto pays 49% of the cost of GO Transit and that's based on the fact that they have 50% of the population. They also should take into consideration that the social services costs for across the greater Toronto area are now being pooled so that those people who are living in Mississauga and Durham are assisting the city of Toronto with their social services costs. That's one of the points of this whole bill, which is to ensure that the greater Toronto area operates as one entity; that there is coordination and cooperation for the delivery of services, for the delivery of transit, for the delivery of social services. By implementing this bill and having that board in place, we will accomplish that.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): I'm pleased to join the debate on Bill 56 on the establishment of the Greater Toronto Services Board. There's virtually no question by anyone of the need for some coordinating body. I think the minister said words to that effect. Certainly in my discussions with people and groups across what's called the GTA, the greater Toronto area, there's virtual unanimity on that. I say virtual because I think there are few who wouldn't necessarily agree with it. So the issue really is around what's the best form for that to take.
Just to review for ourselves the history of how we arrived here, I think we have been fairly well served by the political structures in the greater Toronto area. The first major attempt at coordinating policy across this area probably was taken by the mayors and the regional chairs I think about seven years ago when the GTA mayors and chairs committee was set up, led, I might add, by the mayor of Mississauga, and I think it was probably Hazel McCallion's idea. That forum has met monthly. I happen to attend as an invited guest. The ministers always sit at the table and I'm at the back with the spectators, but that's fine. That's the way it works. They're very courteous to me, I might add.
It performs a worthwhile function. It has taken issues and it has made progress on them. They established - I won't have the right term here - an economic group that on a GTA-wide basis coordinates economic activity, tries to attract industry to the area. I think that's functioned well. They also have taken on specific issues of concern. The mayors or their appointees study them and make recommendations. I can tell you that they are well-researched, well-thought-out proposals that without a question of a doubt influence the government.
Also, I think the fact that the mayors meet on a monthly basis - the size of the area is always interesting to me. They met once on Lake Simcoe, which is part of the GTA, and they've met from Oshawa to Oakville. They met recently at Glen Abbey, I think last week. No golfing, all business.
Hon Charles Harnick (Attorney General, minister responsible for native affairs): Shame.
Mr Phillips: Shame, as you say, but my point is this: The mayors and regional chairs meeting on a regular basis know each other well, they share the issues well and they tackle the issues well. But I think the vast majority have reached the same conclusion as most, that it is now time to take it the next step forward, which is to establish perhaps a more formal basis and mechanism. That's what we're discussing here tonight: What should the form of that be?
I thought the member for Eglinton articulated well what's at stake here. I think we live in probably the finest urban environment in North America, in this GTA. I think there are some objective studies that would support that. I always loved the expression that Toronto is closer to more major US cities than any major US city is, in that we are uniquely geographically located. It's no accident that trains that run from Boston and New York to Chicago run through Ontario, because we are in a terrific geographic location and it has been one of the reasons why this has been a terrific economic engine, led by, I might add, the auto sector.
What's at stake here is, how do we preserve and enhance and improve this urban living environment? I don't think there's much doubt that now we have to take another step. Actually, I don't think there's any choice, if we look at it objectively. First, the government has made the decision to download all of GO Transit. I'm not going to debate the merits of that one way or another. It's just a fact that it's been done. All the costs previously picked up heavily by the province will now have to be picked up by the regions in the GTA. So that's happened; that's a fact. We now have to establish a body that will deal with that.
Later on in my remarks I will say that's one area in the bill of significant concern to us, the way that the financial matters of the transit board are arrived at, the two thirds majority vote to change the existing formula. I would just want to express a concern that it could very well lead to gridlock on the GO system as opposed to the necessary expansion of GO. That is the first reason why it has to be done.
The second reason is that social housing and social assistance have been heavily downloaded - social housing, 100% - on to municipalities and now, in this area around the GTA, social housing costs are what's called "pooled." The minister mentioned this. The regions around the city of Toronto are now picking up a fairly substantial portion of the cost of social housing in the city of Toronto. That, without a question of a doubt, will lead in the months and years ahead to quite a debate, and understandably so. There's the old taxation without representation issue plus, of course, the obvious coordinating things that need to be done.
Everything from the transit board will work on transit coordination. This proposal also is that the economic coordinating body will be under the GTSB, and I think that makes sense. It allows for a study to be done on infrastructure in the greater Toronto area, and that makes sense as well.
It also allows for the board to take on mandates that are recommended to it by its members. If the board votes in favour of dealing with it, then the board can deal with it, although it has only one real decision-making power, and that is in the transit area. The rest is in an advisory form.
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That is the second issue that I think one needs to debate: Does this board have sufficient teeth? I appreciate the work done by the various studies to date: the Golden report, the Star report, the Burnham report and the Tonks report, each trying to find a workable format. The one we have before us I think has broad support out there. My understanding is that the city of Toronto is supportive of it and that many of the mayors are supportive of it. I think the region of Durham has some concerns about it, as do some of the what are called rural municipalities in the GTA. But overall it seems to have quite broad support.
The issue I want to talk about in a little more detail is the transit issue. The bill has a mechanism for dealing with funding for GO Transit. What has happened is that there is an allocation of the costs of GO: roughly 50% to the city of Toronto, and obviously 50% to the other municipalities around Toronto. That is a subject of debate. Toronto has 50% of the population, but should it pay 50% of GO Transit when I suspect probably 80% - I don't know the exact number - of the ridership comes from outside the city of Toronto: into Toronto and out of Toronto?
You could argue that they're coming in here and generating wealth and jobs in Toronto, so it's fair. I don't, but I do know this: To change that formula requires a two-thirds vote of the transit board, as does an allocation for capital. Those who are proponents of the bill will say, "This has a mechanism built in to balance it, and if the areas around Toronto want to expand GO, they're going to have to get a two-thirds vote to expand GO." To get a two-thirds vote, by definition you're going to need a significant number of city of Toronto votes. So you have this balancing mechanism. While the city of Toronto may object to the two-thirds majority to change the 50% funding formula, the mechanism for change in the funding formula could be through the decision made when the surrounding municipalities may want to expand GO.
It still is troubling. I'm concerned that we run the risk of institutionalizing stagnation at GO, with the city of Toronto saying, "We're picking up 50% of the cost of this thing and we just can't afford to see that budget increased substantially. We can't afford to see a substantial increase in the GO cost when we're picking up 50% of it." That is going to be a concern.
The decision we have to make is, is this a far enough step forward? My opinion is that we need a coordinating body of some sort. The mayors' and the chair's committee has served us well but now we need to move on from there. Is this far enough? It's got broad acceptance out there, but it has decision-making power on really only one issue and that is the transit issue.
It's silent on social housing and social assistance, other than saying that - this is what is called the compendium, which explains the bill. It says that the powers of the Greater Toronto Services Board are promoting coordinated decision-making among municipalities within the GTA with respect to the administration and cost of social assistance and social housing. I predict that will become a significant issue for the GTSB. Right now the only role it can play is in persuasion, and perhaps that's all that can be done at this moment, but it is a signal that it will only be a matter of a few years, perhaps a very few years, before that issue bubbles up. Without a decision-making mechanism at the Greater Toronto Services Board, I think we're going to see some frustration there, particularly recognizing that I believe the regions will be contributing probably $100 million to the city of Toronto for housing and for social assistance.
The process that's been followed in this has been quite long, but I think that most bodies have had significant input into it. From our party's perspective, we recognize and accept the need for a board; we recognize and accept the need for a board to be established sooner rather than later, and you will not find us standing in the road of the legislation moving forward. We have, as I say, a major concern on whether this formula for transit will lead to a log-jam on GO Transit. I just looked at GO Transit's annual report, and it is a system that works well. It has served this area well for 25 or 30 years now and it undoubtedly needs to expand and will. If this formula gets in the road of the necessary expansion, I think we've done more harm than good. As I say, one of the key reasons why this has to proceed is because of the downloading. I don't think we have a choice in establishing some board to deal with GO Transit.
I want to go back to some of the side benefits that I see in this coordinating body, things I don't have any question on. We are going to need to have a group of talented people focused on this urban area dealing with transit, which is obvious, but also on our road infrastructure. I'm supportive of Highway 407. I think the 407 is a necessary addition to our infrastructure, particularly when so much of our economy relies on the auto sector, relies on guaranteed delivery. The GTSB can play a role in making sure that our road system is coordinated.
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There are also going to be waste disposal issues in the future, environmental issues. Crombie, who has been active in this process, continually reminds us that we are dealing with an integrated ecosystem that doesn't stop at municipal boundaries, that needs that coordination, and I see this body playing that role. I see this body playing an expanded role in the development of our economic coordination. I see this body wrestling with the issue of social housing and social assistance, because I think it's going to be a very difficult issue for the body to deal with.
I have had an opportunity to hear from virtually most of the municipalities involved in this and I think that the proposed structure probably has struck, in terms of representation, not a bad balance. There was significant concern among the more rural communities that their voices would not be heard on this board. It may not be perfect, but there is a significant recognition of that. Many of the mayors - if my memory serves me right, of Oshawa, Mississauga, Markham and Brampton; I may not have this right - advocated a slightly stronger board with more power, if I'm not mistaken. But it may be that to get this rolling you have to, as someone once said, walk before you run on it.
To summarize my own conclusions and thoughts on the bill, I don't think there's much doubt that we need a coordinating body. We need to take the next step forward, as I've said. This is a body that has less authority than certainly any of the three studies proposed: Farrow, Burnham and Golden. I think they all proposed more authority for this board. I recognize that we may have to take our first step here, have them work through the issue of the GO Transit and deal with that issue, and begin to wrestle with some of the other issues before they get a complete mandate.
My major concern is, on the one issue where the board has financial authority, that there is at least the risk of a log-jam here where the city of Toronto is saying, "We're funding 50% of this thing but we don't see 50% of the benefit," but needing a two-thirds majority to change the formula, and the other body is saying, "The minister is saying we don't need the" -
Hon Mr Leach: GO has a different formula.
Mr Phillips: The minister says, GO has a different formula for funding. I'll be interested in hearing that because that's not my reading of the bill. If the GO formula - the minister is suggesting that they don't need a two-thirds majority to change the allocation.
Interjection.
Mr Phillips: The allocation is 50%, and if you want to change the 50%, you need a two-thirds vote. You don't need a two-thirds vote to approve their budget, but if you want to change the funding allocation, you need a two-thirds vote. If that's not the case, I'll be interested to hear that, because that's not my reading of the bill. The minister may be able to clarify that before we go too much further.
That is a major concern. We do not have a problem with the establishment of a board. We do not have a problem with the need for a board and we are supportive of the need to move sooner rather than later on the establishment of a board.
With those comments, I'll let my colleague take over.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Gary L. Leadston): The member for Kingston and the beautiful Islands.
Mr Gerretsen: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I know that you know they're beautiful islands because you've been in the area many times, having one member in your own family reside in that beautiful part of Ontario.
Just dealing with the issue that my colleague and the minister were talking about - and maybe the minister can help me out on this - when I read section 61 of the act, it states, "For the purpose of carrying out its object" - and that's basically to run GO Transit - "the board may, by bylaw,
"(b) apportion the costs of GT Transit, including the board's cost of borrowing for the purposes of GT Transit, among the participating municipalities;
"(c) borrow money for, and pay such money to, GT Transit in respect of its capital requirements...;" and
"(d) direct one or more participating municipalities to pay money to GT Transit in respect of its capital requirements."
Those are the three sections that basically deal with the funding of GO Transit.
Then when you look at subsection 61(3), it specifically says that the passage of a bylaw under the clauses I referred to "or an amendment to such a bylaw requires a two-thirds majority of the votes cast."
What that is saying is that if you want to do anything with respect to the funding formula and arrangements between the municipalities, two thirds of the members who are on the board will have to agree to that. If you have a situation where 50% of it is paid by Toronto and 50% by the areas outside of Toronto, it may be very difficult to change that amending formula for cost sharing if in effect you need a two-thirds vote on that. Unless the minister can clarify that, the direction set out in the proposed legislation is quite clear and the concern we have in that regard is, has the board been set up in such a way that the current funding formula will never be changed if the people who are representatives on this board feel that by changing that formula it would be disadvantaging the areas they represent? It's going to be difficult to change that, and unless an amendment is going to be brought into that in that respect, it's simply not going to happen.
I find it very curious, as indicated before, that here we have a bill that was introduced on June 25 and given first reading, and now it's November 25, exactly five months later, and it's being given second reading. It's supposed to be implemented by January 1 of next year, so that gives us less than five weeks. One of the reasons the minister gave was that all the stakeholders had been consulted initially, I suppose, through the Anne Golden report, then through the Crombie report, and then Milt Farrow was retained by the minister to negotiate with the stakeholders as well.
I'll compare that to something that has happened with another bill that we discussed this afternoon - I'm just doing this for comparison purposes only - which is Bill 79. If we are to take the minister at face value that all these consultations have taken place, and it's only with the stakeholders, which is interesting - I'm not sure how much consultation has in fact taken place with respect to the citizens who are out there; I'm sure that many of them really don't know what's going on in this respect right now, but let's for the moment accept the fact that a lot of consultation has taken place - my question is, with respect to an issue that is of great importance to all of the property taxpayers in the province of Ontario, particularly the commercial property taxpayers in this province: Why did that same level of consultation not take place with respect to Bill 79, which is the latest of the seven property tax bills that have been introduced here?
You don't have to take our word for that, but let's just see what the Clerks and Treasurers have said about that. They came right out with a 14-page document today in which they are condemning Bill 79, in which they are basically saying it is one of the worst pieces of provincial legislation they've ever seen. The worst part of it all is that these are the Clerks and Treasurers who deal with our taxation bills on a day-to-day basis in our municipalities. These people have offered their services to the province.
They've been wanting to consult with the province ever since February 1997 and they have been totally ignored. We had a meeting with them earlier today and they have basically said that even the civil servants, for whom I have a high respect, don't return their calls any more. They have set up a panel of experts to deal with the property tax situation, to allow the government to implement its proposed will in a more systematic way, in which the chaos and confusion that has been created over the last year or so is going to be absent from the scene, and they have refused to do so.
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I will get back to this bill on the Greater Toronto Services Board in a moment, but let's just hear what they say about Bill 79. They say that Bill 79 constitutes a direct intrusion by the government into municipal tax administration. The Clerks and Treasurers are not supportive of the role assumed by the provincial government in setting an education levy. That levy is to be collected by the municipalities for the use of the province.
Hon Mr Leach: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I think the purpose of the debate in the Legislature is to debate the bill in question. Although I know we allow leeway for members to ramble on other issues, the member deliberately stated that he was going to digress from the bill to speak about Bill 79. I would respectfully request that you remind the member that the bill in question is Bill 56.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): A point of order.
The Acting Speaker: I'll take one point of order at a time. The honourable member is quite correct. I'd ask you to pertain your comments in the debate to the bill at hand.
Mr Len Wood: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I don't believe we have a quorum in here. I know the Conservative members are quite interested in what's going on, but we should have a quorum here to listen to the debate.
The Acting Speaker: Is there a quorum present?
Clerk at the Table (Ms Lisa Freedman): A quorum is not present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.
Clerk at the Table: A quorum is now present, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker: Did you have another point of order?
Mr Gerretsen: I don't have a point of order. I just want to continue with the debate on this very important bill.
You may recall that my reason for bringing up those points was because of something the minister stated. The minister stated that with respect to Bill 56 there had been widespread consultation with the stakeholders. I was merely comparing the alleged widespread consultation with respect to that bill to the non-consultation with the experts on Bill 79. But I accept your ruling, Mr Speaker. I will address Bill 56, but I think it is rather interesting -
The Acting Speaker: Member for Kingston and The Islands, I have given you a ruling on the point of order. I'd ask that your comments pertain to the bill that we're debating this evening.
Mr Gerretsen: And I will do so, Mr Speaker, because I respect your position and respect the ruling that you have made. But I do think it's kind of interesting how the government members apparently don't want to listen to anything that's said about any other bill, including Bill 79, which has been promoted by this government as a bill on which rests its entire municipal taxation policy. But I will get back to the other bill.
Somebody may say, "Why is it that a non-Metro member or a non-greater-Toronto-area member would be speaking about this bill?" One of the reasons I'm interested in it is because I'm like so many of the other members in this House who come here while the House is sitting every week, and we have to negotiate our way into Toronto, whether we're coming from the west, the east, or the north. We all know that it is almost impossible nowadays to come into downtown Toronto during rush hour and come into this place and not have that distraught feeling about the tremendous difficulties that we each encounter in getting to Queen's Park in the first place. Because if you come into this place on a weekly basis - and many people who work in downtown Toronto do it on a daily basis - the traffic problems into downtown Toronto, along our highway system, are just horrendous.
I am greatly concerned that with all the downloading this government has done with respect to the transit services - the cost of transit is now to be borne totally by local municipalities - and with respect to the downloading of many of the transportation services - the road building, the road maintenance services etc - that the idea of there being built into the downtown of Toronto a sufficiently large highway system so that - the massive traffic problems that many people encounter on a day-to-day basis will only get worse if there is no longer dedicated funding involved from the provincial government.
Let me just read to you some of the comments that have been made in that regard. I'm reading here from a Toronto Star article dated June 26 of this year, which was the day after this bill was given first reading here. It talks about the Anne Golden report. It states that in that report it was estimated that the GTA will need up to $90 billion, which is only slightly less than the public debt of this province, to which this government has contributed at least $20 billion to $25 billion since it took office.
Ninety billion dollars is going to be required over the next 25 years for the infrastructure of this province. With the downloading of services on to the local level - that includes transit, remember, and many of the highway and road responsibilities - you wonder how this kind of an investment of $90 billion is ever going to be done in this greater Toronto area if you in effect no longer have a provincial involvement in that.
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Anne Golden had concerns about that. David Crombie had concerns about that. That's why both of those individuals and their boards thought it was so important that the Greater Toronto Services Board be given real powers, real taxation powers. I know the minister will say, "We wanted to take it one step at a time," but the point that I would simply like to make is that when you look at the transit funding and the fact that, in order for the funding arrangements to change, you need a two-thirds vote by the members on the board, and you look at these various other issues, the likelihood of something constructive happening, other than maybe along sort of the philosophical planning lines, the ability to implement that by the Greater Toronto Services Board is going to be very limited. That's why these two studies clearly indicated that something much more than what's suggested in Bill 56 should have been done.
That wasn't the only comment that was made. There was a further comment made on September 12 of this year in an editorial in the same newspaper, the Toronto Star. It states: "The Greater Toronto Services Board must make transportation planning a priority when it begins operations next year. But the question remains - who will pay for the necessary expansions of transit and road networks to ensure that we can get around?" That's the issue. It's not going to be the issue as to what should be planned in a philosophical or in a grand-scheme-of-things notion as to what should happen, but rather, who's going to pay for any expansion?
The editorial goes on to say: "The province must resume funding transit. If provincial politicians are unwilling to do this, then they must at least allow transit agencies to share in their revenue raised by gasoline taxes, vehicle licences or parking surcharges. There are also a growing number of municipal politicians calling on the federal government to help pay for transportation infrastructure," and I happen to agree with that. I don't think it's just a provincial responsibility, but it should be a federal responsibility as well.
That is totally absent from this bill. To somehow invoke the names of Anne Golden, who has an excellent reputation in this community and throughout the province, or David Crombie and to somehow have the people out there think these two individuals are endorsing this kind of scheme I think is really unfair. What they were endorsing was something that had much more power than this particular board has in Bill 56. It is kind of like taking the one aspect that everybody agrees on, and that's the fact that there should be some sort of coordination in the greater Toronto area, and saying that since Crombie says that and Anne Golden says that, and probably everybody out on the street says it, therefore all of these people are in favour of that. The question is, how do you implement it and what do you do? In that respect, this bill is very weak.
Let me just review some of the actual sections in the bill in order to give you, Mr Speaker - and I know you have a profound interest in this subject - a better insight as to what this Greater Toronto Services Board is all about. When you look at section 3, for example, it states, "The following are the objects of the board" - and there are two very specific objects - "1. To promote and facilitate coordinated decision-making among the municipalities in the greater Toronto area." I think we can all agree with that. It's kind of like motherhood and apple pie. Is there anybody in this House or anywhere in this province who is not in favour of some sort of coordination between all of the area municipalities in the greater Toronto area? I would think not.
Then it says: "2. To exercise general direction and control over GT Transit and allocate the costs of GT Transit, in accordance with this act." They're the only two objects. Of course, we've already talked about the fact that the GO Transit funding formula is almost going to be impossible to change, because in order to do that you need a two-thirds vote, and half of the people come from inside Toronto and half of them come from outside Toronto. The likelihood of getting a two-thirds vote is very small.
Let's deal with the powers of the board, Mr Speaker, because I know this is another section in which you have great interest. That's section 21 of the bill on page 11. It states, "The board has the capacity, rights...of a natural person...." That's good enough, but what does it say in subsection (2)? It says, "Subsection (1) does not authorize the board to do any of the following....
"2. Acquire or guarantee any interest in a security of a corporation.
"3. Impose fees or charges except for records, documents or publications...."
So it can't impose a fee or a charge on anybody.
"4. Incur a debt or make investments."
So it can't make the kind of capital investments that may be necessary to make the board function sufficiently.
Those are the three main areas. Basically it doesn't have any taxation powers. As a matter of fact, the only thing it can do when it comes to issues like that is it can charge for the actual operation of the board itself. That's all it can do, just charge for the cost of operating the board. In every other respect this board is just a planning agency, and if for some reason the members are unable to agree, perhaps not by unanimous voice but certainly by the vast majority of the members there, then in effect it won't be able to make any decisions in that regard.
As I finish my comments on this bill, I can tell you that even the people who live outside the greater Toronto area, like myself and many members of this House, have a tremendous interest in this. We have an interest in the greater Toronto area and in Toronto itself being regarded and being a world-class city. I think most of us, perhaps reluctantly, have pride in what's happened in Toronto over the last 25 or 30 years, as there always is a reluctance by the smaller municipalities to somehow like a larger municipality, but I think all of us, deep down in our hearts, want Toronto to be successful. We all come here to shop at some time or other, or to go to its various entertainment facilities. We want to have a real pride in our provincial capital.
That is going to be severely tested if the ability to come in and out of this city is going to be tougher and tougher as time goes along. I can remember a time, when I first lived in Toronto some 25 or 30 years ago, when you had rush hour for maybe two hours in the morning and two hours at night. I can tell you that now, and I'm sure you experience the same thing coming in and out of the city, rush hour here is not quite yet a 24-hour operation, but it's getting close: from about 6 in the morning until 10 or 11 at night. Trying to get in and out of Toronto can at times be a major enterprise, and not just for the people who come in and out once a week like we do, Mr Speaker, but how about the people who live on the outskirts, who live in the greater Toronto area and work downtown? They have to face this each and every day.
If the province is no longer willing to pay for the infrastructure, which obviously it isn't willing to do, because of its downloading of transit services and of highway and road services etc, and if we don't give a board like the Greater Toronto Services Board the powers to implement some of the planning decisions they're going to make with respect to transit and transportation matters, then the desirability for people from outside to come into Toronto is going to be less and less, and I think this city, this area, will suffer more and more as its overall transportation and transit problems become worse and worse.
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I will simply leave it at that for now. The bill is a step in the right direction, but it is just a very small and narrow step. This government could have, if it had really taken a serious look at the Crombie recommendations and at the Anne Golden recommendations, taken a real, giant leap into the future and into the 21st century. It didn't do so, so I guess for the time being we will just have to go along with the small step they're taking in this regard. I will now turn it over to the member for St Catharines.
Mr Bradley: I want to thank my colleagues the member for Agincourt and the member for Kingston and The Islands for being kind enough to allow me a few moments to speak about this important bill, which in the total municipal picture has some significance. Believe it or not, I think I can probably relate it to my own municipality and draw some comparisons as to what's happening.
First of all, I want to say that I am assured that this bill does address problems related to transportation. I can tell you that in every constituency in this province, including the greater Toronto area, we have a growing problem with transportation as it relates to the fact that the provincial government apparently is going to abandon or has abandoned public transportation. All of the bus services and the train services - that's essentially what we talk about when we talk about our public transportation in this area - are now suffering from a dearth of funding from the provincial government.
This was part of the downloading operation. That's the operation, the Minister of Municipal Affairs will know, where his government dumped on to the municipalities a large number of onerous responsibilities and assumed some responsibilities which obviously cost less than the responsibilities which were dumped down on to the municipalities.
I don't know what it's like in Kitchener-Wilmot, but I can tell you in Niagara some $18 million is the difference between what the regional municipality used to be responsible for and what it's responsible for now. In other words, they're down $18 million and have to find that money somewhere. I'm glad there will be some coordination of transportation services, because what I'm concerned about is that as the province abandons the responsibility it had for assisting in the operating costs and the major capital costs of local transit commissions, that new responsibility falls on to the backs of municipalities which have had to assume other additional responsibilities and therefore would not have the money they would like to have to devote to transportation services.
We see great benefits, as I'm sure we all do. You see, coming in from the Kitchener-Waterloo area - I come in from the St Catharines area - the advantage of having GO Transit, for instance, partway along the way to both of our municipalities. I see it in Burlington and Oakville and Mississauga; at the edge of Toronto we have the GO train coming in, the government of Ontario train. That takes a number of people off the road. You probably could say it's easier on the nerves and it's a pretty efficient service, although it has some expenses to it. Just as GO Transit and the transit commissions in the greater Toronto area are finding it more onerous to deal wit their needs because of the lack of provincial funding, so is the case outside the greater Toronto area.
We know that very often the people who are reliant on public transportation services are people who first of all may not have a vehicle of their own to drive, or may not choose to drive their vehicle very frequently. Second, there are those who because of physical reasons or other reasons associated with health or age cannot or choose not to use personal vehicles and must rely upon public transportation. There are people who because of their financial circumstances must rely on public transportation because they cannot afford the cost of operating a personal automobile, which of course is a considerable cost these days.
When I see the province withdrawing from that area, I am perturbed. I was talking to an individual the other day who is a small business person who repairs automobiles. One would think, "Here's a person who would believe we should have more highways and not worry too much about public transportation." This person probably voted for the Mike Harris government in the last election. By the way, he said he's not going to vote for them in this election. But this person was saying how important he considered public transportation to be, though he himself was not a person who would on any frequent basis at all be utilizing public transportation.
When I look at the role of the provincial government - and there are roles that each level of government has - I see a significant role both in terms of straight transportation and in terms of contributing to a better environment. I see the role of the provincial government as wanting to enhance and promote and fund public transportation.
You know - Mr Speaker, you would be aware of this - when we talk about subsidizing, for instance, the St Lawrence Seaway, the ships that are going through, people who are opposed to that will say, "Isn't it awful we're subsidizing this form of transportation?" Then if you talk of providing some infrastructure, perhaps some, for want of a better word, subsidization for rail service, whether it's for passenger purposes or freight purposes, you again hear a hue and cry about the fact that there's some subsidization for that.
We don't hear any hue and cry about the subsidization for trucks that are on the highways. We keep building the highways wider and wider, and we have to resurface them and deal with other problems that we confront with those highways on an ongoing basis. We seem to accept the fact that we will invest in our highways, but often seem reluctant to invest in rail or water transportation. It would be my submission that this is a role the provincial government should play, a leadership role and a funding role, as I hope it will play within the jurisdiction of the Greater Toronto Services Board.
The problem we face, for instance, on our highway system is that people in various parts of the province often have to come to Metropolitan Toronto to receive some sophisticated or specialized medical services, or they have other business to do in Toronto. If they are reliant upon their own vehicle, they will find that they are in jeopardy very often if there's an accident or weather conditions which do not allow them to proceed easily into Toronto. That is why it's important to have that kind of transportation service coming into our provincial capital and essentially our economic capital here in the province of Ontario.
The fact is that the buses are helpful in that regard, but once the cost of public transportation rises above a certain level, it starts to become uneconomic. With all of the downloading that's taking place - for instance, I go back to the medical situation. People coming in from the Kitchener-Waterloo area or the St Catharines-Niagara area for some specialized medical services need good public transportation. Again, many of those people are not in the right physical condition or the right health care condition to be able to travel by themselves, and it's often onerous to ask others to drive them in for those purposes. Parking, of course, is prohibitive in major metropolitan centres in terms of cost.
It seems to me that the Ontario government can play a significant role in transportation services, whether it's within the regional municipality of Waterloo or the regional municipality of Niagara or the internal cities or towns within that jurisdiction. It seems to me the provincial government can play a role by restoring that funding. I think it used to be 75%. When I was the chairman of the transit commission back in St Catharines on city council, I think 75% of the capital cost was then paid by the province for new buses and bus terminals and things like that, and approximately 50% of the operating cost.
Interjections.
Mr Bradley: You're going to get some order for me, I know, Mr Speaker.
The Acting Speaker: Could we just have a little less conversation.
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Mr Bradley: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for bringing some order to the House, because I know many members are very interested in the discussion that's going forward this evening.
You have in your area and we have in our area some hospitals which are able to handle certain circumstances. For instance, in St Catharines we have the Hotel Dieu hospital, which has oncology services - that's chemotherapy given to people suffering from cancer - a huge and expanding kidney dialysis portion, a palliative care service. It deals with people with autism and it has diabetic services and many other services there. By the way, I should say that I hope those remain at Hotel Dieu hospital and that the provincial government doesn't accept the recommendation of the hospital destruction commission, under Duncan Sinclair, who had to get private service the other day, to close the Hotel Dieu hospital.
Despite the fact that we have that, there are still going to be occasions when we have to travel to Toronto and other areas, and that's where I think this board is going to have some potential. It's often said that people in the opposition tend to be negative. Well, one of the reasons we are is that we know all government members are born with a third hand to pat themselves on the back. We know that if anything is done by the government, there will be a press release from each of the people there. They will gather together at the Albany Club and clink the glasses of champagne and then come out and announce some good news for the province. That's why we in the opposition tend to be those who will check to see that all is fine with what the government has proposed.
There's another reason - if you're ever in opposition, Mr Speaker, you'll wonder again - and that is that if you say anything good about the government, you end up reading it in print somewhere, like in a Conservative Party pamphlet, or it's read back to you in the House. It makes you discouraged about offering some positive remarks about what the government is doing.
But I break from that today by saying to the Minister of Municipal Affairs that I think there's some potential for this board to be able to coordinate those services. I've dwelt on transportation services because I think it can apply to my own community, where we're seeing cutbacks in transportation services within the boundaries of the city of St Catharines. That's tragic for senior citizens and people of very modest income, for students and others who simply, because of environmental reasons, choose to use public transportation. I hope the government comes to its senses and restores the funding that used to be there. I hope I don't have to get a letter from GM and Ford and the new Chrysler combination that has been mentioned -
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): DaimlerChrysler.
Mr Bradley: Exactly - as we did with the apprenticeship bill, where the government thought it had all of big business on its side. Sometimes the CAW and the Big Three don't see eye to eye, but there they were, the brothers and the sisters and the company together, standing shoulder to shoulder, saying, "Mike Harris is wrong again." I appreciate those letters coming forward. The Minister of Education was flummoxed when he was confronted with these letters, to say the least. He was sputtering and talking about rhetoric.
I say, as I get into the last minute, that not only can this be a good coordinating body, but perhaps the Minister of Municipal Affairs will be able to persuade the Solicitor General to make certain that the new police officers who were reannounced - I stress reannounced - this week with a good deal of fanfare don't turn out to be of the cardboard variety that we're seeing showing up in Metropolitan Toronto, that they are real, front-line police officers. I met with them, and they were perturbed, as I know you, with your experience, would be perturbed, Mr Speaker, if we don't see that money translated into real officers. We may not see it, because the regional municipalities have so much downloaded on them, so much new responsibility financially, that I just hope they can afford their half of the cost of this grandiose announcement which was made by the Solicitor General and the Premier while there were many police officers in this building.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments? The member for Windsor-Walkerville.
Applause.
Mr Lessard: I appreciate the applause from the member for Nepean, but I have to let him know that my son isn't watching tonight. He's probably in bed.
I want to thank the member for St Catharines and the member for Kingston and The Islands especially for really impressing upon me the importance of the Greater Toronto Services Board Act for those of us who don't live in the greater Toronto area. Being from Windsor myself, I don't think I'll ever see the GO train extended to Windsor no matter how big Toronto gets. I don't think it's going to get quite that big.
The important provisions of the bill are those dealing with GO Transit, but it fails to prevent urban sprawl around the GTA, which I think is something we all need to be concerned about. It's something we are all concerned about around our own municipalities, because we know there needs to be some government regulation, some government control, to try and prevent the uncontrolled urban sprawl of municipalities. One way that can be done is by ensuring that there is appropriate investment in mass transit, in public transit.
In this bill, an unfair system is going to be locked in place that sees Toronto pay 49% of the cost of subsidizing the GO Transit service despite the fact that 85% of the riders live in the 905 area. This is not a fair way to deal with this system, and I hope this isn't a pattern that the government intends to establish throughout the province.
Hon Mr Leach: I would like to compliment the remarks that were made by the members for St Catharines, Kingston and The Islands and Scarborough-Agincourt. I'm extremely pleased that, while they're obviously not in favour of every aspect of the bill, they support the principle of the bill and recognize that there is a tremendous need for coordination of service delivery within the greater Toronto area.
I first of all want to reassure the member for St Catharines that the 1,000 policemen that the Solicitor General announced yesterday will be real, live 100% policemen who will be on the streets in the towns and communities of Ontario protecting the citizens. We are quite excited about that, so I just wanted to assure the member of that.
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There is one major concern that has been expressed by both opposition parties and that's the funding of GO Transit. I'd just like to point out that the funding allocation for GO Transit allows for changes. The funding allocation is based on one third population, one third service delivery and one third ridership. So as the services change, as the ridership grows in the suburbs or more service is put on or the population changes, then the funding formula will change. That formula now, which is a very fair and equitable formula for everybody involved, happens to assign 49% of the cost to the city of Toronto. That no doubt will change. So we've taken that into consideration.
I think perhaps with that assurance that we might be able to bring both parties on side for this important bill and perhaps get all-party consent, we would move forward very quickly.
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): A good number of comments were made by my three colleagues, but I think one that sticks out in my mind from listening to the three of them over the past hour is of course an issue around transportation where they're speaking about public transportation. GO train was mentioned and a number of other avenues of transportation.
I always think about Toronto, a place which I like to refer to as a place that I visit, compared to northern Ontario. When my colleagues were speaking they spoke about great amounts of public transportation that we in northwestern Ontario only dream about.
I have to make the comparison of what we're talking about here in terms of greater Toronto services in the area of transportation to what we face in terms of small-town northwestern Ontario and just remind the members in the House, assuming that it was this government that has not recognized that by ensuring that, northern drivers are going to be paying again their $37 registration fee to register their vehicles. Again, these are drivers who depend on their vehicles to go large distances, drivers who don't have access to what has been talked about here this evening in the greater Toronto area when it comes to public transportation.
As well, a good amount was actually talked about in terms of the cutbacks to the regions. We see something similar here in the greater Toronto area that we see throughout the entire province, things such as the $37 registration fee, the dumping of a fee on the drivers in northwestern Ontario, a lot of things paralleling that happening here in Toronto as well.
Mr Len Wood: I just want to briefly comment on my three friends from the Liberal Party. They raised a lot of issues during their leadoff debate on Bill 56, and some of the concerns that we have in our party as well. For example, the city of Toronto is currently paying 49% of operating costs, despite having only 15% of the riders. That's just one example of how the province, under the Conservative government, has downloaded and dumped on to the municipalities in the greater Toronto area the cost of transportation, which used to be subsidized by taxpayers in general right across the province.
Having lived in northern Ontario, and representing northern Ontario, transportation is a problem. Just within the last two weeks, the government, under the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, decided that two buses travelling from Hearst to Timmins through Kapuskasing and Cochrane were too much and we're going to have to reduce that down to only one bus per day, at the same time, as the member for Kenora pointed out, that they imposed a tax on every person who owns and drives a car - a $37 tax on their vehicles in northern Ontario, and at the same time cutting off the subsidy that has been paid to keep the public transportation system going.
The whole downloading and dumping that is taking place is because the Conservative government under Mike Harris cannot afford to continue to pay these costs because they're giving away a 30% tax break to the wealthiest 6% of people in this province. It's not right that that should be done.
The Acting Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for St Catharines for a two-minute response.
Mr Bradley: I will respond on behalf of my two colleagues to the scintillating remarks which I've heard, which are very helpful to me, from the minister and others in the House who have been most helpful in their remarks and right on target as well. I know that all of the members were wondering why in the little period of time I had I didn't mention the advertising campaign this government is embarking upon again.
I can recall when I saw there was a fuse box, I think, and the wires were all crooked and the government was going to fix them up. Of course what happened was they put them together and the Minister of Municipal Affairs was shocked as they hit together in Metro Toronto and other places. Then we saw the one with the Premier saying he was going to fix all this; don't worry, Mike will fix it all.
I think on just the political ads we're now up to - someone will correct me if I'm wrong. These is the blatantly partisan political advertising that we see in the form of television commercials, radio commercials, full-page ads in the newspapers and these pamphlets that show up at our house once a week. The government must now be spending $47 million on the propaganda alone. This doesn't include the advertising for jobs within the government, positions within the government, or the advertising for tourism outside the country and so on. If you add that together, the way the government likes to when it's comparing to the opposition, probably the government's over $100 million.
But I'm just talking about the phony ads, the blatantly political propaganda ads paid for by the taxpayers of this province. I'm waiting for Steven Harper of the National Citizens' Coalition and the Ontario taxpayers coalition to express their outrage at this abuse of public office.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Martin: I'm asking for consent to stand down our leadoff on this bill to another day when our critic can be here.
Interjections: Agreed.
Mr Martin: Thank you very much. I also want to say how much I appreciate the opportunity to speak this evening in this place on this piece of legislation and to share with my colleague from St Catharines my complete and utter dismay at the amount of money that this government is spending on advertising - blatant political advertising. If the amount is $47 million, it's obscene.
You have to put that in the context of what I think the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party and probably the Conservative Party spent in the last election, all told, on advertising, on leader's tour and on polling - somewhere around, what, $3 million? This government has already spent in the last few weeks taxpayers' money to advertise its programs to the tune of $47 million. It's obscene. It's immoral, it's unethical and I, like the member for St Catharines, am amazed that some of these folks who find it important to fight abuse of public money aren't marching the streets, aren't putting billboards up all over Ontario to object to this very wrong expenditure by this government.
Mr Bradley: You mean the tough talk show hosts?
Mr Martin: Yes, exactly, tough talk show hosts challenging this government for this expenditure, which brings me to the bill that we have before us here tonight.
I'm sorry to say to the minister that our caucus will probably at the end of the day not be supporting this piece of legislation. It is just not built on a foundation that we think is supportable and that will produce what all of us I think, by way of coordination of services in this very important piece of Ontario, needs to produce.
First of all, I want to talk about the lack of process, but then again it's not surprising because it's consistent with the way that everything else has been done over the last three years by this government. You have something in mind that you want to do that's usually ideologically driven, it's usually to placate some particular interest groups that have supported you or that have your ear or that is perhaps contributing to the next fundraiser that one member of your caucus is putting on.
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I have to wonder about this piece of legislation as well, because there's so much in it that will, at the end of the day go a ways to making sure that in the next election your government does as well as it possibly can in that 905 belt that surrounds Toronto. That's probably about the only place that you're going to get any support at all for your program. So you're going to do all you can to do something that talks about coordinating and co-operation, but not enough to actually do something worthwhile and meaningful for everybody else. That includes, of course, Toronto, which is going to take a beating by way of this bill and its playing out.
We know from some of the study that we've done of some of the pieces of this bill that, for example, Toronto will, at the end of the day, end up paying 49% of the cost of subsidizing GO Transit. We know that GO is important, that train transportation is important, that public transportation is important to Toronto, to Metro and to the greater Toronto area, but this government once again targets Toronto, as it has done consistently over the last three years, in this instance by forcing them to pay 49% of the cost of subsidizing GO, despite the fact that 85% of the riders of that system will come from outside of the Toronto area.
I want to talk a bit about this legislation as very much a piecemeal response to, yes, a very real and important need to coordinate services, as ideologically driven, about re-election in an election which will be coming at us, particularly as we look at the $47-million advertising campaign that is happening all around us now as we turn the news on at night, as we watch the football game on Sunday afternoon, all of the very expensive time slots that this government is finding money to promote its program in. We know that an election is coming. We know this government is going to play to its strength, the 905 belt, which for the most part got them here in the first place and which they're counting on to continue to keep them in power. However, I believe that at the end of that day there will be another story to be told.
This is ideologically driven. It's about re-election. It's consistent with everything else that the government has done to this time. There really is no planning. There really is no long-term planning and there really is no inclusive, comprehensive planning where it concerns the Greater Toronto Services Board Act.
Just as this government, in its rush to create the new city of Toronto, literally crushed the will of the people of the communities that made up Metro Toronto before that happened; just as this government did not take the time necessary to listen in a fulsome and wholesome way to the views of the people of Toronto as they made some very fundamental and long-ranging decisions, very impactful decisions about how the people of this part of our province would live together, would work together to provide services, to provide for each other, to support each other; just as they didn't take the time to think that piece out, to listen to what people were saying about it, to involve them in some meaningful way in the discussion and then, after taking the appropriate time, doing, at the end of the day, the right thing, I believe that in this instance they will do the very same thing.
They will put in place a system of government with rules and regulations that will fly in the face of some very obvious and logical approaches. If they had taken the time to actually sit down and listen to people and talk with them and maybe even pilot some things for a time, we might have ended up with something that would be long-serving and that would be most helpful and that would be in keeping with some of the new technologies we have out there, the new information that's available to us, and would recognize that there are some folks working very diligently in local governments out in the GTA who have something very valuable to offer. That, unfortunately, will be missed.
I'm putting on the table here tonight the issue that this government is not considering in any meaningful way, is not, it seems, wanting to take the time that is necessary to do the public consultations and hearings that will be necessary to get all of the proper and valuable information, just as they did in putting together the new city of Toronto. That will, in the end, hurt us.
As I look at this piece of legislation, I can't but help but think that it's being done in a hurry too in that we still haven't come to terms with the real impact of the change that was made re the city of Toronto and the new government that has now been put in place and how it will work to deliver services and collect taxes and pay for the things they are now going to be expected to pay for. When you look at the putting together of the new city of Toronto in such a short period of time, and against the wishes of so many of the people who call that area of our province home, and you look at the impact of the changes that this government has brought about by way of the download, the changing of responsibility for who pays for what services and who delivers what services and how that all meshes together, and the very difficult job that the government of Toronto is having right now - and any of you who want to, from time to time, flick to channel 10 on your television and check out the debate of that particular council - you'll come to understand and to realize the very difficult and awesome job that they have to do to try and put those pieces together, to live up to the commitment of Mayor Lastman, who has said that he is not going to raise taxes, to live up to the responsibility that has been put on their shoulders by this government to now deliver services that it was never imagined, I don't think, in anybody's wildest dreams municipalities would be asked to deliver.
Now, even before that job has begun to, in any meaningful way, roll out, even before we understand in any real and meaningful way how that will all come together and how the new council of Toronto will respond and be able to provide those initial very basic and important services, we're going to put this other layer now in place and keep our fingers crossed and hope that it will all work. I suggest to you that this is problematic, that it will present to those of us who will return after the next election to be members of this House some very real problems that we will have to revisit and redo.
Then again, as I said before, this is in keeping as well with the way this government operates. We've seen bill after bill presented in this House in a very rushed fashion, without the usual consultation, without the usual input from people, without the time necessary to think out all the ramifications, and then having to return six months or a year later to bring in new legislation to fix some of the problems that the initial legislation created in the first place. I suggest that that's exactly what we will be doing, because the people who should be involved in this process, the people who should be consulted in this process, are right now too busy coming to terms with those very other overwhelming problems and challenges that they've been presented with by the present Ontario government.
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That's one piece of this that I wanted to make sure I put on the table tonight by way of observation and challenge and hopefully by way of people out there understanding why it is that we in this caucus will probably not be supporting this piece of legislation at this particular reading as it goes through the House.
The other thing I think we have to understand as well is that this doesn't just concern the delivery of services to the greater Toronto area and doesn't only impact on the new city of Toronto, which is what I've been talking about up to now, and how it's important that we not foist on them any more than they have to deal with at the moment. We should perhaps wait a bit and rethink and work this through some more with them when they're able to get their heads above water to take a deep breath from everything they're involved in right now.
This involves as well an understanding, I think, of how our whole province is going to evolve. It seems to me that the trend so far by this government - and we see this in some very real and meaningful ways, and particularly those of us who come from northern Ontario see this - is to bring everything to Toronto, to see Toronto as the centre of everything that happens and to not worry about what happens beyond its boundaries. We have Toronto and then we have the GTA, and then beyond that nobody in this government seems to really, genuinely and sincerely care what happens.
Mr Len Wood: Written it off.
Mr Martin: They've written it off, exactly.
I suggest that it's important, particularly when we look at a bill such as the Greater Toronto Services Board Act, which will, yes, speak to some need to coordinate some of the services that will be delivered down here, but you can't do anything here that doesn't ultimately, at the end of the day, affect all of the regions and parts of Ontario, because we're connected, we're one province, we're one community of people, when we talk about economic development, when we talk about infrastructure, when we talk about transportation, we have to consider what it is that we want for the whole of the province.
In putting together the Greater Toronto Services Board and responding to some of the needs that we see in the greater Toronto area, are we considering the possibility that we might return some day to an initiative that was started, yes, by the Liberal government of David Peterson and carried on by the New Democratic government of Bob Rae, which was to diversify, to decentralize, to move some of the government plant out of Toronto and into other important centres across this province?
If you do that, you have to ask then, what does that mean re the level of service that is delivered in the greater Toronto area? How does that impact? What does that call for when we sit down and start to talk about how the regions of the greater Toronto area work together? How do they then at the end of the day work together with cities like Sudbury and Sault Ste Marie and Thunder Bay and Peterborough and Ottawa and Windsor and so on?
I suggest it is important, as we look at this bill and have an opportunity to talk about the infrastructure that's necessary in a community as big as the greater Toronto area, to consider how else we might develop into the future an ability for all the people of Ontario, those people who call other parts of Ontario besides the GTA home, to be an important element of the economy and of the infrastructure that's going to be necessary if we're going to sustain development, if we're going to attract investment, if we're going to be able to live up to some of the commitment we've made by way of our participation in the global community to environmental standards, to standards of health and safety in the workplace, to protecting farmland, to protecting some of those things that we know are essential to vital and viable communities.
If we continue to see Toronto and the greater Toronto area as the only place that's going to grow and develop and prosper, you're going to see other communities, such as my own, Sault Ste Marie, and Sudbury and Thunder Bay and some of those other very important communities, begin to shrink and not live up to the potential that they have to be very important players in the bigger picture of Ontario as it moves forward.
I think it's really important that we put all this in context, that we look at what's happening re the new city of Toronto, on how they're going to deal with some of the new challenges that are presented to them by way of the money they have to spend and the services they have to deliver. I think we have to look at this in terms of the evolution, the development of the whole of the province and what role other parts will play in the further economic development and opportunity for all of us who call Ontario home, and then how that connects to the greater Toronto area and what it is that the greater Toronto area needs to deliver and needs to have and what it is that we can perhaps share with other regions so that we do what's right by way of sustainable development and viable and vital communities.
We'll be asking most particularly re this piece of legislation for further hearings. We'll be asking that this government go the distance in hearing from people, and not only hearing from people in the GTA but hearing from people across this province re what it is they think the GTA should look like and what it is they should have to service their people and how that impacts on those who live someplace else. Thank you very much, Speaker, for this opportunity this evening.
The Acting Speaker: I'd like to take a moment and beg the indulgence of the House to introduce a group from Cambridge, the riding of Mr Gerry Martiniuk, and the honourable former member who's here from Cambridge. The delegations are on a tour of the Legislature. Welcome.
Minister.
Hon Mr Leach: I'd like to respond to the member for Sault St Marie. I must say that I was extremely disappointed that the member doesn't recognize the need to coordinate the services within the greater Toronto area and indicated that his party may not support the bill. That's extremely disappointing, because I think just about everybody in the greater Toronto area recognizes the important need to coordinate those services.
They talked about not consulting with the people. In 1996 there was a major report completed by Anne Golden that was started by the NDP government. In 1997 David Crombie did a follow-up report, followed again by another report by Milt Farrow, looking in and consulting all the way along. Only then did we draft the legislation. Did we introduce the legislation? No, we sent it out for more consultation with Alan Tonks, who took it to every municipality and every stakeholder in the greater Toronto area. Only when we had that input did we introduce it for first reading. Did we rush after first reading? No, we did not. We sent the bill out for further consultation from June of this year until this day. I don't think there is a piece of legislation that has been before this House in this session by this government that has had as much consultation as the greater Toronto Services Board bill. We have talked to every stakeholder, every municipality, every head of council. We've met with every council. We have had public meetings.
Everybody in this greater Toronto area recognizes the need for coordination of services across the greater Toronto area. This is the first step to achieve that. I know that the Liberals, to their credit, recognize the need for that and have indicated that they would probably support the bill. I would hope the NDP would be as insightful.
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Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I profess no expertise on these matters and my friend from Scarborough and others have spoken to it with far greater authority than I expect to. But I do want to make one observation: that for the better part of a quarter of century I've driven in and around this metropolitan community and in recent times I have become increasingly concerned by the absolute horrific gridlock that one encounters from Oshawa in the east to Burlington in the west.
In recent weeks I've had the opportunity to find myself in a car in busy times driving around Washington and Boston. I was struck by the fact that my weekly drive in and out of Toronto was as bad or worse than the Beltway at rush hour.
We have a problem; we have a very real and serious problem. I'm quite prepared to support this bill if somebody can give me this assurance: Will I live long enough in this province and in and around this city to experience a time when I can actually get on a rail transport in downtown Toronto that will take me to the Toronto international airport, which is currently on site at what we call the Pearson complex in the Malton area?
We've got lots of studies and we've got lots of planners, and I know most of them and they're all good people. Whether it's Alan Tonks or Don Cousens who takes over this services board - and no greater and more active campaign is to be imagined than the one that Tonks and Cousens are apparently now engaged in for the chairmanship of this services board. They're good people; I know them both. I just hope that I live long enough to see the day when Toronto and area will have advanced to that state of modernity where a citizen will actually be able to get on some form of rail transport in the interior of the city and travel to the metropolitan airport without having to face the gridlock that we do on so many occasions today.
Mr Lessard: The member from Renfrew makes a good point about transit services being available to the Toronto airport. I know a number of members in this place who travel to the airport and back on a weekly basis. Multiply that by the number of people in various government departments who have to go back and forth to the airport. I think that probably results in a parade of taxis and other vehicles going back and forth to the airport, just as a result of the business that we do here and that would relieve congestion on the 427 if we were to have that service available just for this place.
My friend from Sault Ste Marie has once again indicated how this bill that we're debating with respect to the Greater Toronto Services Board is really something of importance to many of us in Ontario, no matter where we may live. It is important that we ensure that transportation in our provincial capital runs smoothly and that there is a commitment to ensure that public transit continues to play the important role that it is required to do here. That's good not only for speed of access in and out of this city, but also to enhance protection of the environment as well. We need to do what we can to encourage people to take public transit. I see what's happening in this bill as perhaps leading to a deterioration of that service and leading to greater urban sprawl as well.
As well, my friend mentioned the amount of money that's being spent by this government on advertising. I suspect that there will be an advertising campaign on this bill as well. We'll be looking forward to seeing that in our mailboxes soon.
Mr Carroll: It's a pleasure to make some comments on the speech of the member for Sault Ste Marie. There's one thing I want to take a little exception with. He made the comment that nobody in this government cares about the rest of the province outside the GTA. I would like him to know that more than half of our members, including our Premier, represent areas of this province outside the GTA. Quite frankly, we represent them very well and they are very important to us. So please don't try to assume that because we're passing a bill that has to do with the GTA that we don't have an interest outside of that.
I've had the opportunity to live in different parts of the GTA. I went to university here in the city of Toronto. I lived in Oshawa. I met my wife out there, actually, and got married and lived in Brampton for a while. It's a great part of the province. Next to that part of the province that is west of London, it's the greatest part of the province. I still would prefer the great southwest, as Mr Lessard I'm sure would agree, but next to that it's a great part of this province.
However, it does need some coordination. If we are going to provide to the citizens of the GTA the best services at the best price, we need some coordination, not just in transportation. We need it in all areas. It's really surprising that the New Democrats would come out and say they're not going to support this bill.
Having lived around here - all of us have lived here some part of the last three and a half years, some people longer than that - we understand the need for coordination of all the things that happen in this great part of the province. So if the bill passes, and we hope that it will - obviously the Liberals are on side; at least so far they are. We'll see what happens when the vote comes. The New Democrats are not but we can probably carry the bill without them. The GTA needs it to provide the best service at the best price. It's a good piece of legislation. Hopefully all in the House will be able to support it.
Mr Martin: I thank the member for Windsor-Riverside, the minister from St George-St David, the member for Renfrew North and the member for Chatham-Kent.
The minister says there has been sufficient consultation. A lot of that consultation, Minister, was based on a different premise. It was based on a model that saw the lower level of government staying in place and your government, your Premier, your leader, committed to that, and then a larger GTA that would coordinate services. That's not what we have now. We have a completely different picture. So that's why we're concerned that you haven't done the consultation in light of the new reality that we have in front of us.
On one hand, you've got Toronto, which is struggling with a challenge that I don't know how they're going to get themselves out from under, and you're going to stiff them even more with this bill by expecting that they will pay 49%, for example, of the subsidizing of GO, when 85% of the riders live outside of the Toronto area.
The member for Renfrew North spoke about a problem of traffic and transportation. That's only one of a whole whack of problems that we're beginning to see more and more of in Toronto now as it expands and as urban sprawl takes hold.
I suggest to you that if we do a wider study, if we think about this in the context of the whole of the province and how other areas can help the area of Toronto in terms of development and growth and taking some of the opportunity out there, we will end up with a better system of coordination and cooperation in the GTA. All I'm asking you and your government, Minister, is to take the time to do that, to have some hearings and hear from the people.
The Acting Speaker: It being almost 9:30 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 10 am tomorrow morning.
The House adjourned at 2129.