Journal des débats 1998-nov-30 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): "We want to breathe clean air." That's the rallying cry of the Sudbury Committee for Clean Air. The co-founders of this committee, Marie France Daoudi and Primo Steffan, want the government to act, and they want the government to act immediately. They and the rest of the citizens of the regional municipality of Sudbury who signed this petition are tired of the quality of air that they're breathing, and they want that to change. They want the industry and the ministry to come together and establish a proper set of criteria for SO₂ emissions in the regional municipality of Sudbury. For too long there has been an acceptance on the part of this ministry of unfair amounts of tolerance with regard to sulphur dioxide emissions from Inco and Falconbridge. That must change now.

This committee and the residents who signed the petition understand that the cuts to the Ministry of the Environment have negatively affected the regional municipality residents, and they want that changed immediately. They also want strict government guidelines. They want those in place immediately. The funny thing is, they have industry co-operation. What they need is a Minister of the Environment who will act to protect the quality of Sudbury air.

ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES LEGISLATION

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): Last Thursday I was honoured to attend a hastily called meeting sponsored by the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee in London, Ontario. My colleagues Dwight Duncan from the Liberal Party and Bob Wood from the Tory party were with me to hear the disgust, disappointment and distrust expressed by the disabled community in London towards this government, and the betrayal they felt at the introduction of Bill 83, which incidentally they refuse to call an Ontarians with Disabilities Act.

I'd like to read into the record a letter sent on November 24 to Premier Harris from David Lepofsky on behalf of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee. I'll read one paragraph of that.

"We cannot accept your bill as in any way fulfilling your election promise to enact an Ontarians with Disabilities Act to achieve a barrier-free Ontario for people with disabilities. Your bill will do nothing to redress the barriers we face. It does not even speak to the vast majority of barriers that we face, namely, those outside the Ontario government. Of those that it does address, namely, those within the Ontario government, it leaves their removal and prevention to the sole discretion of each ministry. It is unenforceable, provides no remedies, and is, with respect, a hurtful insult to the one-and-a-half million Ontarians who now have a disability. It fails to comply with any of the 11 principles which the Ontario Legislature unanimously adopted for this bill on October 29, 1998."

HURRICANE RELIEF

Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): It is my pleasure to rise in the House today to congratulate the men and women of CFB Trenton. Since mid-October these constituents of mine have been working tirelessly to coordinate and deliver Canada's aid to the victims of Hurricane Mitch in Central America.

During the initial phase of the operation there were five C-130 flights per day. These flights deployed the DART teams, who immediately began the process of setting up water purification systems. Tests revealed local tap water to contain 10 times the fecal content that would close an Ontario beach. In all, more than 50 flights left my riding of Quinte during the first 10 days of the relief effort.

The base has now moved into the sustainment phase of the relief operation. One Airbus leaves the base every day containing food and medical supplies.

At its peak, 1,000 people were involved in the air lifts, with many more in support roles. This continues to be an enormous operation, with the two air squadrons on the base dedicated to this mission 24 hours per day.

I want to thank the members of squadrons 429, 436, 437, 424 and 426 for the excellent job they have done to deliver hurricane aid. I would also like to congratulate the chief government whip for the fine work he has done to coordinate Ontario's relief effort.

VICTORIAN ORDER OF NURSES

Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): Today we had a very sad announcement, that the VON has cancelled yet another area of home nursing, in Lanark. This is the third area in Ontario that has made the decision to stop delivering nurses' services in those regions.

What is so sad about it is that if we look at the Common Sense Revolution, nowhere in those flimsy pages did it say that the VON would be forced out of nursing services because of the Conservative Mike Harris government, but that is what's happening out there in the field. If we ask patients who are waiting for that blue car to arrive up the driveway to take care of their patient needs, they don't care who sends the nurse there, they just know that's their VON nurse.

What we know this government has done is put in a competitive bidding process that is slanted in favour of private companies, and these companies are taking the business away from the VON, the VON that for over 100 years has delivered this service. Unfortunately, Lanark is but the third. How many more are going to fall because of this government's policies that favour private business?

All we can say is that we hope, before it's too late, the Conservatives will hear from people who say, "We want VON in the nursing business," and not slant policies against the VON.

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NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY AGENDA

Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): I want to take a few moments here to speak about why I've chosen to become a New Democrat and why I will be supporting the NDP platform in the upcoming provincial election. Last week, there were unfortunately some wild and inappropriate comments about my decision to join Howard Hampton and the NDP caucus and I think the record should be set straight.

You will remember that last year the major issue in my by-election in Ottawa West was health care. People in Ottawa West were upset with the Harris agenda to close hospitals, particularly closing the Grace and Riverside hospitals, downsizing the Ottawa Civic, the Elisabeth Bruyère and the Montfort. I asked, going door to door, if the Harris cuts to health care, education and social services were worth the price of the Harris income tax scheme, and people said no by an overwhelming majority. It is a fact that the Harris income tax scheme is costing the Ontario treasury $5 billion a year, is the reason why we're in a deficit today and why hospitals and schools are being closed by the Harris government.

Howard Hampton and the NDP have a plan to solve the crisis in health care and education that Mike Harris has created. They have listened to the public and have developed well-thought-out policies to meet the needs of Ontarians. We will finance it, in a balanced budget context, through rolling back for those individuals with taxable incomes of $80,000 or more the Harris income tax break. This will affect only the top 6% of income earners in Ontario, people with taxable incomes of $80,000 or more, and will provide the money that we need, $1.5 billion, to meet health care and education needs in our community. It's a sensible plan and I'm pleased to support it.

IMPERIAL OIL-ESSO REFINERY

Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk): This year, our local Imperial Oil-Esso refinery celebrated 20 years of operation at Nanticoke. My wife and I had the opportunity to attend their family open house and tour the facility this September.

Built by Texaco in 1978 and purchased by Imperial Oil in 1989, the refinery is a major employer in Norfolk: 240 full-time jobs and 60 regular maintenance contract workers as well. The refinery is located on over 1,500 acres of land and can convert 112,000 barrels of crude oil a day into a range of petroleum products, things like motor oil, aviation fuel and asphalt. This means that six billion litres of crude oil are refined annually. Products are distributed throughout Ontario and the northern United States by pipeline, truck, boat and rail.

During the 1990s, more than $100 million has been invested in sulphur removal and recovery units, an electric power generation facility, asphalt production facilities and a new hydrofiner unit to produce low-sulphur diesel fuel.

A commitment to safety has been made at Imperial Oil, celebrating six months of operation without recording a single employee lost-time injury throughout the whole corporation. Credit for much of this achievement is given to employees' attitudes towards their own and their co-workers' safety.

EDUCATION FUNDING

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the passage of Bill 160, a black day for education in Ontario. Bill 160 was rammed through this Legislature despite the protests of tens of thousands of teachers, parents and students right across Ontario. It was rammed through for one reason only: because the Mike Harris government needed to take control of education funding so that they could make the cuts they needed to pay for their tax cut. One year later, we have seen only too clearly that the Mike Harris cuts are hurting kids in the classroom and are disastrous for publicly funded education.

The Harris government will say they backed off the $700 million in further cuts that they intended to make - not because they care about education but because the public clearly would not tolerate any more cuts, and the public made that apparent last November.

But what the Mike Harris government doesn't say is that their so-called stable funding has to pay for the cost of educating 85,000 more students than were in the education system one year ago. The Harris government doesn't say that, but they know it. That's why they stripped maintenance funding and put some 600 schools across the province at risk of closure. They didn't care what happened to the students in those schools. They actually wanted the schools closed by September 1 of this year.

Once again, only province-wide protests stopped the immediacy of this disaster. Over and over again, only protests have slowed this government's destruction, slowed it but not stopped it. It is time to turn the protests into effective action to replace a government that doesn't care about education.

Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): As has already been noted, tomorrow marks the anniversary of the passage of Bill 160. I just want to remind members of the government that what they unleashed, what they thought they were doing when they passed Bill 160, was to take complete control of the education agenda and drive those decisions board by board.

What they have found instead is that school board by school board and school by school, parents have understood what the Harris agenda with regard to education is all about. It's about having less money in each school for the teachers to be available to do more with that less money, and it has led to the possible closure of hundreds of schools across the province and, in my own west-end community, of some 22 schools originally on the list threatened with closure.

What I want to bring to the government members' attention particularly is that tomorrow, parents who have not given up the fight - because even though the immediate threat of closure for some schools has disappeared, they know that the threat is there, and they know that just as easily, if the Mike Harris government is re-elected, the funding formula can again be changed and all those schools could be back on the danger list. They want to lobby MPPs of all parties to remind them of the value of education and the importance of putting money back into the system.

I want to say to the government members particularly that I hope they have the courage tomorrow to make themselves available here, or throughout the week, those members who will be here and not in their ridings, to hear directly from these parents why our schools need to continue to function to provide the quality of education -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you. The member's time has expired.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS TRAINING

Mr John Hastings (Etobicoke-Rexdale): I would like to inform the House of the official opening of the Telecommunications Learning Institute on November 4, 1998. Located in Etobicoke-Rexdale, a working group composed of members from the sectors of industry, government and academia, and led by Humber College, was assembled to address the lack of available training for the telecommunications/convergence sector, affecting some 350,000 workers in this most vital Canadian industry.

The demand for this training is overwhelming. As technologies continue to evolve, the demand for training will continue to increase. A world-class facility, TLI's main goal is to populate the sector with people whose training enables them to fulfill the demand of the workplace.

TLI has developed learning solutions for companies and individuals who work in them. It offers a highly effective, technologically based, needs-assessment tool which will help clients to identify critical training requirements and to respond with specific action plans.

TLI's vision is "to leverage Canada's acknowledged leadership in telecommunications and be globally recognized as the pre-eminent telecommunications learning resource."

Not only does TLI constantly monitor the market to identify emerging trends and training needs, but it offers telecommunications professionals sector-wide certification and accreditation.

I am confident that TLI will have a very successful future.

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I beg leave to present a report from the standing committee on finance and economic affairs and move its adoption.

Clerk at the Table (Ms Lisa Freedman): Your committee begs to report the following bill as amended:

Bill 48, An Act to Improve Court Services for Families by Facilitating Expansion of the Family Court and to make other amendments to the Courts of Justice Act / Projet de loi 48, Loi visant à améliorer les services fournis aux familles par les tribunaux en facilitant l'expansion de la Cour de la famille et apportant d'autres modifications à la Loi sur les tribunaux judiciaires.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Shall the report be received and adopted? Agreed.

The bill is therefore ordered for third reading.

MOTIONS

HOUSE SITTINGS

Hon Norman W. Sterling (Minister of the Environment, Government House Leader): I move that pursuant to standing order 9(c), the House shall meet from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm on November 30 and on December 1, 2 and 3, 1998, for the purpose of considering government business.

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

All those in favour, please say "aye."

All those opposed, please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

I declare the motion carried.

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

Hon Norman W. Sterling (Minister of the Environment, Government House Leader): I move that notwithstanding standing order 95(d), Ms Churley and Ms Lankin exchange places in the order of precedence for private members' public business.

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

DEFERRED VOTES

RED TAPE REDUCTION ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 VISANT À RÉDUIRE LES FORMALITÉS ADMINISTRATIVES

Deferred vote on the motion for third reading of Bill 25, An Act to reduce red tape by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting two new Acts / Projet de loi 25, Loi visant à réduire les formalités administratives en modifiant ou abrogeant certaines lois et en édictant deux nouvelles lois.

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

The division bells rang from 1351 to 1355.

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

Ayes

Arnott, Ted

Baird, John R.

Barrett, Toby

Bassett, Isabel

Beaubien, Marcel

Boushy, Dave

Carr, Gary

Clement, Tony

Cunningham, Dianne

Danford, Harry

Doyle, Ed

Ecker, Janet

Elliott, Brenda

Eves, Ernie L.

Fisher, Barbara

Flaherty, Jim

Fox, Gary

Froese, Tom

Grimmett, Bill

Harnick, Charles

Hodgson, Chris

Jackson, Cameron

Johnson, Bert

Johnson, David

Kells, Morley

Klees, Frank

Leach, Al

Marland, Margaret

Maves, Bart

Munro, Julia

Murdoch, Bill

Mushinski, Marilyn

Newman, Dan

O'Toole, John

Palladini, Al

Parker, John L.

Pettit, Trevor

Preston, Peter

Rollins, E.J. Douglas

Ross, Lillian

Sampson, Rob

Shea, Derwyn

Sheehan, Frank

Skarica, Toni

Smith, Bruce

Snobelen, John

Spina, Joseph

Sterling, Norman W.

Tilson, David

Tsubouchi, David H.

Turnbull, David

Vankoughnet, Bill

Wettlaufer, Wayne

Wilson, Jim

Wood, Bob

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

Nays

Agostino, Dominic

Bartolucci, Rick

Boyd, Marion

Bradley, James J.

Brown, Michael A.

Caplan, David

Castrilli, Annamarie

Churley, Marilyn

Colle, Mike

Crozier, Bruce

Cullen, Alex

Curling, Alvin

Duncan, Dwight

Hoy, Pat

Kormos, Peter

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

Lankin, Frances

Lessard, Wayne

Marchese, Rosario

Martel, Shelley

McGuinty, Dalton

McLeod, Lyn

Morin, Gilles E.

Patten, Richard

Phillips, Gerry

Pouliot, Gilles

Pupatello, Sandra

Ramsay, David

Ruprecht, Tony

Sergio, Mario

Silipo, Tony

Wildman, Bud

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 55; the nays are 32.

The Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

ORAL QUESTIONS

CHILD POVERTY

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Leader of the Opposition): My first question is for the minister responsible for children's issues. Yesterday the Golden task force produced some very disturbing information insofar as Ontario children are concerned. Anne Golden tells us that after you cut welfare, there was a 60% increase in the number of applications for subsidized housing in Toronto. Today, of 100,000 people waiting for subsidized housing in Toronto, 31,000 are children. That's 31,000 kids whose parents are spending way more than they can afford on rent and, consequently, spending way less than they should on food, on clothing and on other items that are essential for the healthy development of children.

Why is it that you can find $47 million for political advertising but you can't help these 31,000 children growing up in poverty right here in Toronto?

Hon Margaret Marland (Minister without Portfolio [children's issues]): This question is being referred to the minister responsible for social housing, the Minister of Community and Social Services.

Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): We agree with the honourable members that any time a family or a parent, a mother with her children, find themselves in a homeless circumstance, that is indeed a tragedy. That is why we have taken many of the steps we have taken. For example, we are giving women who are on welfare the supports that will allow them to get off welfare and into paid jobs. We're very pleased to report that over 138,000 fewer children are having to depend on welfare in this province. That's certainly good news for those families and those children.

I'd like to also point out that we have made significant reinvestments to help women who are fleeing abusive situations, to try to make sure that they get the priority they need, that they get the money that is owed them from the deadbeat parent so that they don't have to rely on housing or welfare.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, your Premier said the tax cut was going to help Ontario's poor. Your economic policies were going to help our children growing up at risk. Anne Golden tells us that homelessness in Toronto has increased a staggering 123% on your watch among families with children. Your policies are condemning more of our kids to more poverty. More of them are going to school hungry, more of them are having problems at school, more of them are going to drop out of school and more of them are going to end up on social assistance again, condemning them to a lifetime of poverty and desperation.

Why don't you admit now that your policies, your economic policies in particular, have failed Ontario's children? You are making their personal circumstances worse.

Hon Mrs Ecker: I appreciate that the honourable member is concerned about this issue, as we all are, but to make rash judgments and statements based on those statistics is inaccurate because, as he knows, many thousands of individuals who are on that waiting list are already in subsidized housing waiting to transfer to another kind of subsidized housing. I really think it's unfair to use it in that fashion.

Secondly, as the honourable member well knows, there have been significant increases in those waiting lists under previous governments' administration. The point here is, what is the best strategy for getting people off the welfare rolls and out of the need for supportive housing? Our employment programs are indeed helping sole-support parents to do that. Our programs make sure that women who are owed money from fathers who are not paying, for example, get priority in the courts, priority in housing, and indeed get more money in their hands so they don't need to rely on welfare for their children.

Mr McGuinty: I'm talking about Ontario children. On your watch, there has been a 123% increase in the number of families who are homeless and looking for subsidized housing. That has happened on your watch. That information comes from Anne Golden, a reputable, highly reliable authority on matters of this type.

You cannot slough this off. Don't talk to me about people in general; I'm talking about Ontario children who are worse off today as a result of your economic policies. I'd hope that the minister responsible for children would look into this and speak to this issue. Some 31,000 Ontario children are growing up in poverty in Toronto, here, today, now. Your policies have caused this. What are you going to do about this? Why is it that you can find $47 million for political advertising but you can't find any money for these 31,000 children who are in need today?

Hon Mrs Ecker: The honourable member is refusing to acknowledge the success of many of the reforms this government has instituted. For example, as I said, there are fewer children, 138,000 fewer children, on welfare today. Perhaps he likes the record of his previous government when the number of children and people on welfare went up, even in good economic times.

More parents are in the workforce. We know that children are not well off on welfare, we know they don't do well, their families don't do well on welfare. They do better when they're into those jobs. That is the goal. Not only that, but when a parent can make the transition into that job, there is support through the national child benefit for that parent, there is support through the child care working supplement from this government. That means more money in the hands of that parent, mum or dad with kids, which helps them do better.

LANDS FOR LIFE

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Leader of the Opposition): My question is for the Minister of Natural Resources. Your Lands for Life exercise has become the subject of much discussion during the past few days. You will understand that what you are attempting to do there is something that is massive and highly ambitious. You're talking about something that is going to have profound implications for the economy, the northern Ontario economy in particular. It's going to affect the right not only of this generation but of generations yet to come to enjoy lands in their natural state. Virtually everybody who has had an opportunity to look at this is asking for more time. There's an artificial deadline of today: 30 days to comment on this exercise and the recommendations produced. People are asking for an extension.

Given the scope and the breadth and the depth of this undertaking, Minister, do you not agree that this deadline ought to be extended to make sure we have all the input necessary to get it right?

Hon John Snobelen (Minister of Natural Resources): I thank the member opposite for the question today on Lands for Life. I think it's the first time we've heard a question on this process from his party.

As the member might know, this has been a very extensive public consultation process. In fact, for over 16 months we have had round table meetings across Ontario. They've had some 95 public meetings, some 15,000 people have attended Lands for Life sessions over the course of their considerations, and 770 people made presentations over that course of time. I believe the member opposite will recognize this as the largest, broadest public consultation on the use of public lands in the history of Ontario.

I was pleased to receive the consolidated report of the round table chairs and to make that report public. We are now going to examine the comments that we heard over the last month and make some determinations about what the future of that process will be.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, we're talking about an exercise here that's going to affect 46 million hectares of Ontario's public lands. That's more than half of Ontario's land base. You say that you are satisfied with the 16-month process. When BC undertook their process, they took four years. The last time we did something here in this province similar to this undertaking, we took 10 years. You tell us that 16 months is satisfactory; I'm telling you it's not nearly sufficient.

There is an artificial deadline that expires today. You established that. You said 30 days were adequate for the general public to comment on these recommendations. Thousands and thousands of Ontarians are coming to learn of this exercise just recently. They want an opportunity to provide their input.

Interjection: Where have you been? Everybody knows about this.

Mr McGuinty: What have you got to lose now, Minister? What have you got to lose by extending the deadline to allow more ordinary Ontarians an opportunity to give their input?

Hon Mr Snobelen: In answer to the member opposite, I think if the Leader of the Opposition were better informed about the kind of opinions that have been voiced to the round tables and had a chance to look at the recommendations of the round tables on public land use, he would know that there have been voices calling for an extended consultation even beyond the two extensions we've allowed for this process so that we'd have more public input. He would know there are also voices calling for certainty so that this process can in fact end in good policy for the protection of those public lands. I think the balance between those two opinions is where we seek to be.

I can tell the member opposite this: We'll be looking at the submissions that have been made over the last month that result from the consolidated reports of the round tables, that come from the 16 months of public consultation, that come from the hundreds of presentations that have been made to our round table chairs and the 15,000 people who have attended those meetings, and we will give those public opinions that come in over this month very weighty consideration.

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Mr McGuinty: Minister, you know that virtually every participant in the process is calling for more time to respond, whether we're talking about environmentalists, northerners, native leaders, the Environmental Commissioner, tourist outfitters and the forest industry itself.

One of the members opposite says: "Where have you been? Everybody knows about this." I know that we've been spending a lot of money on advertising in Ontario but I haven't seen anything on our television that tells us about this undertaking and what it's going to mean to future generations.

What have you got to fear? Why are you so afraid to extend the deadline to give ordinary Ontarians a greater opportunity to provide their say on what should happen to one half of the province? It's going to affect northern Ontario's economy and it's going to affect our collective right to preserve our natural lands for generations yet to come. Again, what have you got to lose by extending the deadline to ensure ordinary Ontarians have an opportunity to have their say?

Hon Mr Snobelen: Again, in answer to the Leader of the Opposition, I can tell the honourable member this: The Lands for Life process involved a lot of advertising by the Lands for Life process itself, by the round tables that let people know what was going on, where they were having public meetings, some 95 public meetings.

They also have widely distributed their considerations and some of the detailed information that they considered this public land use process from, some of the details provided by the Ministry of Natural Resources to those round tables. We have put the consolidated report on our Web site, where thousands of people can access this report and make comments on it, and we have received thousands of comments from people across Ontario on that report.

Unlike the member opposite, I am not going to prejudge public opinion, I am not going to prejudge the response we have to these round table reports. I will look at the responses and I can tell you that we'll give them great consideration, great weight, and we will design the future of this process.

WOMEN'S SHELTERS

Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): I have a question for the minister responsible for women's issues. For the second time in less than a week your government has received damning criticism about its record on women and violence. Today, women from shelters across this province came to Queen's Park to mark the end of Wife Assault Prevention Month. They released a report that tells a story that you, Minister, your Premier and your government should be deeply ashamed of.

More women and children are asking for shelter services today than before your government started its vicious cuts, but shelters cannot meet that demand because you've cut the heart out of the programs and services that help women and children find their way out of abusive situations. Shelters are having to say to desperate women, "We don't know how we can help you," and it's on your head, Minister. How many more women have to die? I'm asking you, will you commit today to give back the money you took away from emergency shelters and second-stage housing?

Hon Dianne Cunningham (Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, minister responsible for women's issues): Everyone in this Legislative Assembly understands that violence against women is a serious crime and it will not be tolerated in Ontario. I will also say to the member who asks this question that here in Ontario, when I first became the minister, we asked what the recommendations of the community should be and we acted on those recommendations by producing a framework to stop the violence against women.

The shelter movement told us that one of their priorities, and a very important priority to them, was stable funding, which in fact they received. In the meantime, yes, they did have a reduction of some 5%, but you should know that on their base that would be approximately, on average, about half a staff person, maybe one staff person. We hope that with the stable funding they can go ahead and plan.

Violence against women is a crime. It won't be tolerated. We are proud of our record in the new services we have provided across nine ministries in helping to fight this violence against women.

Ms Churley: Minister, I hope you don't call cutting the services at shelters for women and children who have suffered violence "stable funding." The fact is that you have cut funding for shelters and second-stage housing across this province. You have made devastating cuts, and you won't accept that.

If you cared, women wouldn't be returning to their abusers because they have no place to go. If you cared, you wouldn't be spending more money selling your government propaganda than you spend on all 98 shelters. A single woman fleeing domestic violence can expect to get a maximum of $520 per month on social assistance, which is what your Andersen consultants got paid for one hour of work. This is shameful, Minister. Meanwhile, your pals down on Bay Street making $200,000 a year are getting back $583 a month from your tax scheme.

Minister, when are you going to start standing up for women? How many more women and children have to suffer?

Hon Mrs Cunningham: I think that question would be appropriately referred to the Minister of Community and Social Services.

Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): I appreciate the honourable member's concern about this issue, but I would like to correct her. A woman with children gets more than that amount on social assistance here in Ontario and, frankly, we have some of the most generous social assistance benefits in the country, as we should have, and I think most Ontarians support that.

The goal of our reforms is to make sure we are preventing that violence, that we are giving women the tools they need to fight back, to get the money they need, to get people in jail, if that's what it takes to stop that abuse. They've got more money through the legal aid plan; they've got more priority in the courts. We've increased the prosecution success rate for people who are abusing their children and their spouses. There are a number of things this government is doing to try to help those women, to prevent those issues, to give them more tools and to get them linked up with the economic supports they need so they can be independent and self-sufficient and not have to depend on the social assistance system. They certainly don't want to be there.

Ms Churley: Minister, you know less about what your government is doing to women who are victims of violence than the minister responsible for women's issues. The United Way says three to four women are murdered by their intimate partners each month in this province. Women are fleeing violence and then finding that there's nowhere for them to go, no way for them to survive. They can't find a safe place because there isn't room for them in the shelters. When they get to a shelter, they are there for months and even years because they can't find adequate housing.

Minister, I want to know what kind of choice you think they have. They have to choose between feeding their kids or paying rent. The tool you've given them is a hammer to hit them over the head. They have no choice at all. Your government is punishing women for leaving their abusers. Their punishment is hunger, poverty and homelessness. Speak up for women and children and force your Premier and cabinet to provide affordable housing again in this province for these women and children.

Hon Mrs Ecker: One of the alarming statistics has been for quite some time the number of women who return to an abusive relationship. I understand the Stats Canada study that was done under the NDP government had indicated it could be as high as three quarters of those individuals were going back. That's why I think, as she acknowledges, we have to have improved and better supports and services for those women, so they do have choices.

We have more subsidized housing units in this province than Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia combined. Women who are fleeing abusive relationships get the priority for going into those housing units, as they should. We've also increased the ability for those women to take steps in the courts, through legal aid and other supports, to make sure that if it's restraining orders they need, or other things, they get the support for that.

The other point is that they are getting more money -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Answer.

Hon Mrs Ecker: - from deadbeat parents. There are many things we have done to try to assist these women. We remain committed to continuing to do that and continuing to improve those services, because it is a very important -

The Speaker: Thank you. New question, third party.

1420

SHELTER ALLOWANCES

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): My question is to the Minister of Housing. Yesterday, Anne Golden said 31,000 children in Toronto alone are waiting for subsidized housing. Those children are in danger of becoming homeless. Over 1,600 children are already homeless. You crow about keeping your promises, but one promise you didn't keep is on page 13 of the Common Sense Revolution, where you promise "a shelter subsidy program for all Ontarians who need help in affording a decent level of shelter."

Minister, you kept your promise to implement your phony tax scheme for the wealthy, you kept your promise to slam the door on affordable housing, and you kept your promise to whack the poorest people in the province with a 21% cut in social assistance. Will you keep your promise this term and fund the shelter allowance program for the 31,000 children and all other Ontarians who need it?

Hon Al Leach (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): I thank the member for the question. The one thing I will agree with the member on is that to have a shelter subsidy for individuals would be a whole lot better than continuing with the housing boondoggle that was in place when you were in office.

Everyone will agree that to have one person homeless in a land that is as rich as Canada is a disaster, but I would also like to point out that during the NDP's reign from 1990 through 1993 the increase was 23,000, which is a higher rate than it is today for MTHA. The rate was increasing faster during your reign than it is at the present time, so don't be talking about something that's happened in the last year that has created a disaster. This is an unfortunate situation that has been with us for a long time, an unfortunate situation that we intend to work with all levels of government who have a role to play in this - the feds, the provincial and the -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Supplementary.

Mr Marchese: Minister, enough pettifoggery from you. We have been urging you to build housing for the last couple of years. You have been saying you don't believe in government funding for housing, and you pulled the government completely out of housing. That's what you have done. We have joined the city of Toronto, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and many other social agencies who have declared homelessness a national disaster. You seem to agree with that, you stated it right now, yet you do nothing. You don't want to build housing and you don't want to keep your promise to introduce shelter allowances to help them.

Minister, if you won't build housing for the homeless, will you at least keep the promise that you have made - not that I have made but that you have made - and announce shelter allowances for all the people, children and families, who need them? Will you keep your promise?

Hon Mr Leach: I think it would be a whole lot easier for any government, regardless of political stripe, to do something about housing if we weren't carrying $9 billion worth of debt on $4 billion worth of assets. If I had that $5 billion, we could do a whole lot.

The responsibility for housing obviously rests with all three levels of government - the federal government, the provincial government and the municipal governments. I have been in touch with my federal counterpart. We are planning to get together to discuss this issue and to develop some strategies for a national housing program. I know the Liberal federal government is anxious to do that. They have proposed, as you know, to mitigate down the federal responsibilities for housing to the provincial government. We believe the level of government best able to administer social housing is the municipal government, but there isn't any doubt that all three levels of government have to be involved.

Interjections.

The Speaker: I want to caution the members for Fort York, Lake Nipigon and Ottawa West. Come to order, please. I want to hear the answer the minister gives. That means you don't heckle.

Final supplementary.

Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): Minister, you and your colleague ministers are fond of saying that we selectively ignore some of the facts over here, but you're not responding to some of the real facts, and those real facts have faces. Those are kids' faces.

I want you to listen carefully to just three sets of numbers, please, and think about them. While homelessness in Toronto has increased by 55%, there has been a 123% increase in the number of families with children who are homeless in this city. Since you cut welfare by more than 21%, the number of applications for subsidized housing has increased 60%. You may think that's a coincidence, and if you do, I'd say get a reality check. Perhaps the most startling is that every night in this city, among those who are sleeping in shelters, 45% now are children. That is 2,000 little toddlers and children sleeping in shelters.

Your tax cut is being borne by those kids. Why don't you do something even now, on an emergency basis, to make sure those 2,000 kids don't go to sleep every night in a shelter?

Interjection.

Hon Mr Leach: My colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services makes a good point, that the money is on the table for the municipalities that are responsible for delivering that program, that the province of Ontario will stand there and pay 80%.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order. Minister?

Hon Mr Leach: I think it was pointed out that it was Anne Golden who produced the report and the statistics we're talking about this afternoon. She very clearly stated that no one level of government should accept total responsibility for the situation we have now, and that all three levels -

Interjections.

Hon Mr Leach: As I pointed out, there are discussions going on now, beginning between the municipal governments, particularly the city of Toronto, the federal government and ourselves, to sit down and deal with the report and the situation that has been brought up by Golden and by Jack Carroll, with our own statistics.

I would like to point out that the homeless and abused spouses get first priority for any housing. They go right to the top, first in the line. I'd also like to point out that the waiting list was increasing at a faster rate while you were in power than it is at the present time.

1430

SERVICES FOR ABUSED WOMEN

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): My question is for the minister responsible for women's issues. Last week our leader, Dalton McGuinty, asked for your government's response to the report of the United Way of Greater Toronto, Freedom from Violence. This report makes it statistically clear that women who are abused are at greater risk than ever because of your government's cuts to programs and services. One specific finding is that 66% of Ontario shelters reported that women were returning to or remaining in a situation with an abusive partner because they could no longer afford to leave.

Incredibly, you said last week that although you had this damning report in your hands, you had not read it. Have you now read the report and will you now acknowledge what this report makes so clear, that your government cuts have put women in abusive situations at risk?

Hon Dianne Cunningham (Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, minister responsible for women's issues): I have read the report. I will not accept that. I will accept the responsibility, however, for establishing with other members in this Legislative Assembly and the community of Ontario the first framework across nine ministries to stop the violence against women.

I do not accept the recommendations in this report. I will be discussing them with Anne Golden tomorrow and I look forward to that discussion.

Mrs McLeod: Minister, you waited months to set up a committee to look at the recommendations from an inquest which said that women and indeed their children are at risk. You have taken no specific action to address any of the concerns that have been raised over the last year.

The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses is here today to back up the same concerns that were raised last week by the United Way. They also make it absolutely clear that women who are abused are at greater risk because of your government's cuts to shelters, to housing, to counselling and to legal aid.

As Eileen Morrow said, "In Ontario today, if you leave an abuser, you will be punished," yet your government's advertising budget continues to grow and to exceed, after 18 months, the entire annual budget for women's shelters in this province. Minister, let me ask you again, as my leader asked you last week, why have you determined that it is a greater priority to spend money on a political advertising campaign than it is to protect the welfare and safety of women and children?

Hon Mrs Cunningham: Obviously we continue to be very proud of the gains we've made in Ontario. There isn't a day that goes by that there isn't some program that is working with our ministry to make things better.

I will not accept this statement that we have cut programs to women and children. I will accept the fact that there is some good information in those reports. We will look at those reports, but there is a lot of information in those reports that is simply missing.

For instance, in today's report - I can't see the page, but I have looked at it - I will tell you that it talked about what the Liberal government did; it talked about what the NDP government did; it talked about the few reductions in very focused areas that were made in this area, some four small programs; it talked about the $27 million. But it does not get into the detail of expanding the victim/witness assistance programs that you started, of introducing the programs in hospitals, of starting these programs in our hospitals so we can get -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): New question.

ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES LEGISLATION

Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): My question is to the Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation. Minister, you say that your new Ontarians with Disabilities Act will require the government to review more than 600 pieces of legislation, as well as policies and programs, to ensure that people with disabilities are being treated properly. I wonder if the minister is aware of money being taken away from the children of disabled parents by your government. When the federal government implemented the national child benefit, your government deducted $50 per child from welfare benefits. But that money is not just being deducted from welfare recipients; it's also being deducted from families who depend on the Ontario disability support program.

That national benefit was supposed to help children in low-income families and it was supposed to help parents in low-wage jobs. Many of the parents receiving disability support will never be able to work. Their children need those benefits. I'd like you to tell us what kind of teeth your new legislation will have. Will your legislation mean an end to the clawing back of the national child benefit from disabled parents and their children by the Mike Harris government?

Hon Isabel Bassett (Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation): I'll refer that to the Minister of Community and Social Services.

Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): I think the honourable member's research is usually quite good and I think she probably understands that the goal of the national child benefit, the increase in money that Ottawa has given the provinces, is designed to go to families who are in low-income working situations. It's to be a top-up and an assistance to people who are in working circumstances. Any additional monies for the provinces are being reinvested in high-priority programs to help individuals who may well be in working circumstances and to help get people off welfare into those working circumstances. For example, we're using the national child benefit monies to help put actual hard dollars into the pockets of low-income working parents to help them with their child care expenses.

Ms Lankin: This is a further betrayal of persons with disabilities, and you won't even answer the question and defend your own legislation. To the minister who stands up and defends this: This money you're clawing back from parents who are receiving disability support programs, many of them are parents who will never be able to work. That national child benefit was supposed to help low-income children. It's supposed to help bring children out of poverty.

Hon Mrs Ecker: By getting them off assistance.

Ms Lankin: You're yelling at me that you want to take people off the system. These are people with disabilities. You said you were taking them off welfare. You said this was a different program. You're applying the same rules, and you're clawing back money from disabled families and children of disabled parents. That is discriminatory. That is not what you said you were going to do. Your legislation that your other minister won't defend obviously won't solve the problem. You explain why you're discriminating against families with disabilities and their children.

Hon Mrs Ecker: With all due respect to the honourable member, there is no change in their assistance benefit level. What they are eligible for remains what they are eligible for. We are not reducing or taking away the money that is part of their monthly income, and she knows that.

I think we should stress to the honourable member that our benefits for those who have disabilities who are on the system are 47% more generous than the other provinces. Again, Ontarians would very much support that. Perhaps she's prepared to say that because someone with a disability is living on income support, somehow they're not going to be capable of employment. Certainly that's not what we heard from people with disabilities. Their program had a 50% failure rate getting people into employment. People with disabilities said that was unacceptable. That's why we developed the new Ontario disability support program, with its employment supports, so that those individuals would have the best crack they could have at the employment market, to work the way they want to work.

SAFE COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION

Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): My question is to the Minister of Labour. I understand that the minister was in Ajax-Pickering last week for the launch of Ajax-Pickering as an official safe community. I think it would be helpful if the minister were to explain to this House the role of the Safe Communities Foundation and how it's helping communities in our province.

Hon Jim Flaherty (Minister of Labour): I thank the honourable member for York-Mackenzie for the question. The Safe Communities Foundation is an incentive solution in health and safety that I'm hoping will soon be establishing roots in all Ontario communities.

Last week, the Ajax-Pickering launch of Safe Communities was held. It was the first in Durham region and the first in the GTA, and I hope other members in the GTA will encourage their local municipalities and small business people to get engaged in this important health and safety program, which is successful where it has been initiated in Ontario.

Under the program, firms gain access to expert health and safety consulting teams and new training programs and resources. The program has been honoured. On November 17, the Safe Communities Foundation received the Peter F. Drucker Award for Canadian non-profit innovation, one of only three winners in Canada.

The Safe Communities Foundation was founded by Paul Kells in 1996. His 19-year-old son was killed in an industrial accident.

Mr Klees: I'm sure all members of the House and everyone in Ontario appreciates the work of the foundation. I wonder if you could explain to us how the Safe Communities incentive program is benefiting companies in the province.

Hon Mr Flaherty: The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board has an incentive program with respect to rebates for small businesses that participate in the Safe Communities solution. Many are eligible for rebates: 56 Brockville-area companies have recently received cheques totalling $113,000; in Waterloo, 48 companies received cheques totalling $350,000. This is for improving their health and safety records, reducing lost-time injuries and promoting safety in their communities. In Peterborough, 43 companies received cheques totalling $200,000. The Safe Communities incentive solution is working. The Safe Communities concept is spreading. The Safe Communities Foundation is saving lives. This government supports Safe Communities.

1440

PROPERTY TAXATION

Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): My question is to the Minister of Finance and it has to do with the issue of property taxes. He will know we're dealing now with the seventh of his bills in the last 14 or 15 months.

The people who know this area best, in my opinion, are the municipal civil servants, the Clerks and Treasurers. What they said was that this bill is poorly designed and ill-conceived. They've offered substantially better and more manageable and less costly solutions, but you refuse to even talk to them. You won't even respond to them. So I said to them: "Don't worry, we're having committee hearings on this. Come on down and help improve the bill." But now I see, Minister, you're refusing to even hear from them.

Can I ask a simple question? Why in the world would you refuse to give our senior municipal civil servants who know this area, dare I say, far better than your bureaucrats an opportunity to come here and substantially improve your flawed bill?

Hon Ernie L. Eves (Deputy Premier, Minister of Finance): Nothing could be further from the truth. Representatives of AMO were in my office this morning talking to officials from the Ministry of Finance about the very problem you're talking about. You'd better update your information.

Mr Phillips: I've got all my information right here. This afternoon you're moving a proposal that will refuse to allow anybody to come to our committee. You're gagging them. We want to hear from the public and you're gagging them. In a matter of minutes we're going to be dealing with this motion that will refuse to allow any of the public to come and present their views. That's your motion. That's the one we're going to be debating this afternoon.

Are you withdrawing that motion, Minister, and are you now finally agreeing that you've made another mistake and we will be allowed to hear from the public when we're dealing with your seventh in a long, unorderly process of tax bills? Will you withdraw that motion and allow us to hear from the public on this?

Hon Mr Eves: I could go through the list, as I did one day last week, of tax increases when your government was in power. However, this bill that you want us to withdraw limits property tax increases to business taxpayers in Ontario to 10% in 1998, 5% in 1999 and 5% in 2000. I know you find that hard to believe, coming from a government that had tax increases of 50%, 60% and 73%. If you want to vote against limiting increases to businesses, you'll have the opportunity to do so.

LANDS FOR LIFE

Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East): I have a question for the Minister of Natural Resources. Today you shut the door on any further public input into the recommendations from the Lands for Life process. It was clear from the beginning that you weren't really interested in hearing from the public anyway, because you only allowed 30 days for comment on some 242 recommendations. This is probably why the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, on November 20, asked you to extend the deadline for the consultation for Lands for Life by at least another two weeks, if not another month.

Minister, you have completely ignored that request. You have given it the back of your hand. Can you explain to this House why you refuse to extend the public consultation on Lands for Life when you have been specifically asked to do so by the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario?

Hon John Snobelen (Minister of Natural Resources): I want to thank the member opposite for the question and this opportunity to clarify the record, because factually I believe you're incorrect.

I twice extended the public consultations on the Lands for Life process. On two occasions, when asked by the round table chairs for an extension so they could have more deliberations and more public input into this very important issue, I said yes. If the member checks, she'll realize that the Lands for Life process was scheduled to end last spring. In fact, we have extended it and we have extended it a further 30 days for responses from the public to the reports of those round tables.

Ms Martel: The question specifically was, why have you ignored the recommendation by the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario to extend the 30-day deadline for input on the Lands for Life recommendations? You can choose to ignore that, Minister, as you've chosen to ignore the Environmental Commissioner, but the fact remains that from the beginning there has never been enough time for the round tables to do their work or for the public to have their say. The round table members themselves never even saw this report before it was released publicly. The chairs drafted it and signed it off without the endorsement of the rest of the round table members. The round table members also made it clear that the public had not seen any of the draft recommendations submitted to you, despite a commitment made to do so. Finally, the round table chairs made it clear in this report that they hadn't had enough time to even do their work to complete this report properly.

The question is again, Minister, why are you refusing to accede to a request by the Environmental Commissioner to extend the deadline for public consultation on the Lands for Life recommendations?

Hon Mr Snobelen: This is again a chance to provide some better information to the member opposite, who clearly is misinformed on this issue. I think if the member opposite were to do some more research on this, she might found out that in fact we have been working to extend the time period for public consultation.

She also might find out that the draft recommendations submitted by the round tables are publicly available. The draft recommendations are publicly available and the consolidated report is publicly available on our Web site.

As to the 30 days for public comment on the consolidated report, let me say again what I said earlier. The Leader of the Opposition stood up earlier today and suggested that we hadn't advertised the consolidated report. In fact, we advertised in 72 newspapers about the consolidated report. We've made it available on our Web site.

I have said before, last week, that we will give this public consultation period some weight and some consideration, we'll listen to what people have to say and we'll make a response to it.

GREATER TORONTO SERVICES BOARD

Mr John L. Parker (York East): My question is for my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Interjections.

Mr Parker: If the opposition would just calm down a bit, I might get this question on the record.

Minister, as one or two of the members opposite will be aware, second reading debate began just last week on the Greater Toronto Services Board legislation. As a member from within the greater Toronto area, I certainly know that there's a great deal of interest in making progress on this very important issue. I'm also very aware that the need for better coordination of services in the GTA has been discussed for many years by many governments with absolutely no action until the introduction of the bill recently by this government. Could you please provide to the members of this House an overview of what this legislation is intended to accomplish if it's passed?

Hon Al Leach (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): I thank the member for York East for that very excellent question. I think all members of this House will recognize that there is a tremendous need to coordinate the activities that currently take place within the greater Toronto area. With the formation of the new city of Toronto, which is working very well, and with the services that are delivered from Oshawa in the east to Burlington in the west, there is a need to ensure that the delivery of services such as transportation, GO Transit in particular, strategies for waste disposal, strategies for economic development, all have to be coordinated across the entire GTA area.

The Greater Toronto Services Board is intended to do that and I'm quite confident that it will do that. It will be made up of representatives, one from each member in the greater Toronto area, all working together for the first time in the history of the greater Toronto area, to ensure that services are coordinated.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Can we get some order, please. Thank you. Supplementary.

Mr Parker: Minister, I think we are all aware that the establishment of a Greater Toronto Services Board is indeed a monumental undertaking. We know that the GTA is an area of immense diversity. There are a wide range of stakeholders and interests across the greater Toronto area which need to be taken into consideration in the establishment of a Greater Toronto Services Board. Can you please advise us about the process of study and consultation that your ministry undertook in developing the legislation for a Greater Toronto Services Board?

Hon Mr Leach: Again, I thank the member for York East for that question. I think most members in the House would recognize that there has probably been more study done on this particulate issue than there has been on most other subjects. It began prior to our government, when the previous government engaged Anne Golden to look at the greater Toronto area. We completed that report when we took office. We got her recommendations and had those recommendations again massaged and reviewed by Milt Farrow, who went out and developed more detailed recommendations.

After doing that and then consulting extensively with every municipality in the greater Toronto area, we developed draft legislation which we tabled last spring. We gave the communities affected the opportunity to have all spring and all summer to review that legislation.

We are now in the process of second reading. When finished second reading, we will be going to committee for some amendments, I am sure, and then hopefully back here for implementation.

1450

WASTE DISPOSAL

Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East): My question is to the Minister of the Environment. To follow up on a question last week with regard to the testing in the areas around landfill sites in Ontario, on Friday Greenpeace brought forward some further alarming evidence as to what may be happening around dump sites right across this province. They have asked for extensive testing as well. As we know, we are talking about cancer-causing pollutants, and if this problem is occurring in the Toronto area, we have no reason to believe this may not be occurring right across the province.

Minister, you suggested that municipalities should undertake the testing and that they should be the ones who can give you the information. Let me suggest to you that most municipalities in this province do not have the technology or the resources to undertake the type of extensive air quality testing around dumps and landfill sites to be able to come forward with the evidence that you're looking for.

This is a serious problem, and it is a problem right across Ontario. You, Minister, are responsible for the well-being of the environment in this province, and in my view are responsible for ensuring that proper testing is happening. Will you undertake today to commit the province of Ontario to undertake extensive testing of air quality around all landfill sites in the province?

Hon Norman W. Sterling (Minister of the Environment, Government House Leader): As you know, we are very concerned about air quality problems in this province, not only around landfill sites but all across Ontario. That's why we are implementing a number of significant programs in this province for the first time. The Drive Clean program is perhaps the greatest and most extensive one that we are doing.

With regard to air quality around the landfill sites, perhaps if the member would check Hansard with regard to his question last week, I said to him at that time that because of the concern that had been raised last week, although there is no clear evidence that has been presented to me or my ministry of a problem, I had contacted the mayors of the various municipalities around this greater Toronto area, and if they felt they needed some help with their air quality monitoring, I had offered it to them.

Mr Agostino: Minister, let me ask you about another one of your brainwaves. About two months ago I asked you in the House about the practice of dumping blood down the sewers. You refused to rule that out at that point. You have now received a formal request from the funeral homes and hospitals across Ontario, asking you to formally approve the dumping of blood down the sewer system in this province. As you know, it is now hazardous waste, to be treated as such, and therefore it has to be processed before it can be dumped.

Very clearly, you cannot approve this request. There is no 100% method that will guarantee the safety of blood down the sewer. We are talking about blood from dead bodies here, Minister. We are talking about people who are ill, we're talking about contaminants, we're talking about illnesses. Very clearly, you have a responsibility today to stand up and tell the people of this province -

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Member for Hamilton East, I just want to be clear with you. Supplementaries are supplementary to the original question.

Mr Agostino: It's dumping.

The Speaker: It's dumping, but it's got nothing to do with the original dumping. As far as I am concerned, you can continue. I will caution you: It has to relate to the first question in some way, besides dumping, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, continue. You have 10 seconds to put your question.

Mr Agostino: Minister, let me ask you the question very clearly: Will you today stand up in the House and make it clear that you will not allow and formalize the dumping of blood down the sewers from funeral homes and hospitals across Ontario?

Hon Mr Sterling: Some time ago we put out a draft waste regulation for consultation purposes. This particular consultation took place over the last four or five months, and after reviewing the comments with regard to that waste regulation put forward only as a proposal, I have decided not to move forward with it at this time.

MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): In the absence of the Premier and the Minister of Health, I direct my question to the acting Premier. I want to talk about the so-called expansion of new MRI machines, magnetic resonance imaging machines, across the province. This is something your government trumpeted in budgets, that your Minister of Health talks about all the time as one of the great improvements you've made. You should be aware these machines cost $2.5 million to buy and another $1 million per year to operate, yet your government has given hospitals only $150,000 a year towards the operation of these machines, and there is no focused capital program. Most of the hospitals have to purchase these machines themselves.

Minister, half the hospitals in this province are already operating on deficits, and many others are barely managing to get a balanced bottom line. Would you explain to us how you expect any of these hospitals to take up your government's offer?

Hon Ernie L. Eves (Deputy Premier, Minister of Finance): If the honourable member doesn't think there's need for more MRI machines in the province of Ontario, she should say so. This government has a policy of virtually tripling the number, from 12 to 35, which is more than the entire rest of the country combined. If she has a problem with that, I would say to her, why didn't you do that when you were there, if you were so concerned about these people?

Mrs Boyd: We certainly did believe that we ought to expand the number of MRIs, and our party had been very clear that this is one of the few ways in which long-term medical health costs can be saved. In 1995, our government announced a full new capital program which would fund the purchase of MRIs and full funding for their operation. As soon as you came into government, you cancelled that. You said your goal was to raise the number to 35. Of the 18 so-called new MRIs, 12 were already in operation, and only six other hospitals have been able to take you up on your offer.

The hospitals are strapped for cash. They can't afford the cost of operating the machines, and they know better than to spend their capital costs on these machines when they can't operate them. Minister, will you agree in your budget to provide $1 million in annual operating costs for each MRI in this province, as the OHA has recommended?

Hon Mr Eves: First of all, the honourable member talks about the amount of money we're spending on health care. This year we're spending $19 billion on health care; you spent $17.4 billion in your best year. You thought it was sufficient for the people of Ontario that you profess to be concerned about to have 12 MRI machines in the entire province of Ontario and send patients to the United States of America for treatment.

We think we should have three times as many machines as you thought were sufficient, so where do you - you were there for five years; you did nothing. You did do a few things, though: You cut $60 million from psychiatric hospital funding when you were there and you closed the 181 mental health beds in your very own community while you sat as a member of cabinet. That's your record on health care.

WINE INDUSTRY

Mr Frank Sheehan (Lincoln): My question is to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Last Thursday you were in Niagara bringing good news to the Ontario winemakers. You told the local representatives about your plan to introduce legislation that would strengthen the local wine industry and help pave the way to improve access to the European markets. Minister, would you inform the people of my riding how your VQA legislation will improve the state of Ontario's wineries?

Hon David H. Tsubouchi (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): I'd like to thank the member for Lincoln for the question. As you know, last Thursday we introduced some legislation to bring in the VQA appellation here in Ontario. This will of course bring a standard of quality which will be attached to premium wines in the province.

Why are we doing this? In April 1999, the European Union will bring in some rules which will require mandatory quality certification. This legislation, if passed, will provide the tool for our Ontario wine industry to have access to European markets. It will also give an assurance to people in Ontario that they have a fine and great quality of wine.

I will just quote Len Pennachetti, who is the VQA chair. He said, "The legislation of VQA standards by the Ontario government is one of the most important developments in the evolution of the provincial wine industry to date."

1500

STATUS OF LEGISLATION

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I want to read the decision with respect to the point of order the member for Fort William brought forward on Thursday, November 24.

On Thursday, November 24, the member for Fort William, Mrs McLeod, raised a point of order with respect to the Education Quality Improvement Act. She referred to section 137 of the standing orders which sets out the duties of legislative counsel. She sought advice on whether or not, under this standing order, legislative counsel had a role to play in light of our recent court decisions.

Let me begin by saying that the act to which the member refers has already been passed in this House. It has received royal assent. It is the law. It is therefore beyond any authority of the Speaker.

With respect to the role of legislative counsel under standing order 137(c), any report that they make to the executive council would be made while a bill is still before the House or earlier. Whether or not that was done in this case is not something that I would want or have knowledge of.

PETITIONS

AIR QUALITY

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): This 130-page, 1,001-signature petition is to the Ontario Legislature.

"Whereas SO₂ emissions from mining and smelting operations remain a serious threat to the health, environment and property of Sudbury citizens;

"Whereas there continues to be ongoing intolerable peaks in levels of SO₂ emissions from mining and smelting operations;

"Whereas the threat of fugitive emissions remains constant to the Sudbury region;

"Whereas existing government regulations and thresholds for SO₂ emissions may be in need of immediate reassessment;

"Whereas the elimination of 26 regional Ministry of Environment jobs by the Harris government has resulted in lowering monitoring effectiveness;

"Therefore, be it resolved that we, the undersigned, petition the Ontario Legislature to demand that the Mike Harris government aid the citizens of this community in having these emissions monitored closely and reduced significantly."

I proudly sign this Sudbury Committee for Clean Air petition as I am in full agreement.

LAND USE PLANNING

Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): I am tabling today 1,860 names on a petition to protect Ontario's wilderness. It reads:

"To Premier Harris and the Parliament of Ontario:

"Whereas crown land belongs to all residents of Ontario; and

"Whereas over 80% of Ontarians support the protection of the remaining wilderness areas in this province; and

"Whereas many in the forestry industry have called for increased logging in parks and protected areas; and

"Whereas over 90% of the trees cut in Ontario are harvested by the unsustainable method of clear-cutting; and

"Whereas employment in the forestry industry has steadily declined due to increased mechanization; and

"Whereas tourism is the world's fastest-growing industry and ecotourism is the fastest-growing sector of tourism; and

"Whereas the land use planning exercise called Lands for Life is dominated by industrial interests; and

"Whereas the Lands for Life structure has purposely excluded Ontarians living outside the planning area; and

"Whereas most Ontarians are unaware that this process is underway; and

"Whereas decisions made now around tenure will be almost impossible to change by future governments;

"We, the undersigned, petition Premier Harris and the Parliament of Ontario to immediately scrap the Lands for Life initiative and undertake a truly inclusive land use planning process that incorporates the views of all Ontarians, who are the owners of this crown land, and commit the province to protecting significant areas of wilderness both for today and into the future.

I'll affix my signature to this petition as I agree with it.

FIREARMS CONTROL

Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): I have a petition to the Parliament of Ontario.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the Liberal government of Canada has passed Bill C-68, An Act respecting firearms and other weapons; and

"Whereas we welcome real gun control and support those provisions of Bill C-68 which provide tougher penalties for the criminal use of firearms, new offences related to firearms smuggling and trafficking and the ban on paramilitary weapons; and

"Whereas Bill C-68, chapter 39, section 8.3 of the federal bill allows 12-year-olds to possess firearms in accordance with licensing provisions and;

"Whereas the Ontario government has simply passed a regulation requiring such applicants to complete the Ontario hunter education program; and

"Whereas existing laws requiring the registration of handguns have done little to reduce the number of crimes committed with handguns or lower the volume of handguns smuggled into Canada; and

"Whereas the national gun registration provisions of Bill C-68 will result in a massive misallocation of the limited resources available to law enforcement agencies, with no practical effect on the traffic of illegal firearms or the use of guns by violent criminals" -

This goes on, but I support the intent, and I'm going to add my name to the signatures.

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): I have a petition addressed to the assembly of Ontario, and it concerns education. It reads as follows:

"Whereas the government of Ontario is cutting the heart out of many communities by closing hundreds of neighbourhood and community schools across Ontario, including one of the most community-oriented schools, Hughes public school; and

"Whereas this massive number of school closings all at once will displace many children and put others on longer bus routes; and

"Whereas Mike Harris promised in 1995 not to cut classroom spending, but has already cut at least $1 billion from our schools and is now closing many classrooms completely; and

"Whereas Mike Harris is pitting parent against parent and community against community in the fight to save local schools; and

"Whereas parents and students in the city of Toronto, and indeed many other communities across Ontario, are calling on the government to stop closing so many of their schools;

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

"We demand that Mike Harris and his government stop closing local schools, especially those that are closely associated with the communities, such as Hughes public school."

I affix my signature.

LAND USE PLANNING

Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly.

"Whereas crown land belongs to all the residents of Ontario; and

"Whereas over 80% of Ontarians support the protection of the remaining wilderness areas in the province; and

"Whereas many in the forestry industry have called for increased logging in parks and protected areas; and

"Whereas over 90% of the trees cut in Ontario are harvested by the unsustainable method of clear-cutting; and

"Whereas employment in the forestry industry has suddenly declined due to increased mechanization; and

"Whereas tourism is the world's fastest-growing industry and ecotourism the fastest-growing sector of tourism; and

"Whereas the land use planning exercise called Lands for Life is dominated by industrial interests; and

"Whereas the Lands for Life structure has purposely excluded Ontarians living outside the planning area; and

"Whereas most Ontarians are now unaware that this process is underway where decisions made now around tenure will be almost impossible to change by future governments;

"We, the undersigned, petition Premier Harris and the Parliament of Ontario to immediately scrap the Lands for Life initiative and undertake a truly inclusive land use planning process that incorporates the views of all Ontarians who are owners of this crown land and commit the province to protecting significant areas of wilderness for both today and into the future."

I proudly affix my signature to this.

ABORTION

Mr Dave Boushy (Sarnia): I have a signed petition from 450 constituents from my riding of Sarnia and it reads as follows:

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am very happy to add my signature to this petition.

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ELECTION CALL

Mr Pat Hoy (Essex-Kent): "To the Legislative Assembly:

"Whereas the current provincial government under Mike Harris has destroyed labour relations, gutted the WCB, caused rampant dependence on gambling, has contributed to mass homelessness and poverty while eroding our health care, educational and municipal institutions, we, the people of Chatham-Kent, are demanding that an election be called now, before the province is destroyed, morally, ethically and financially."

I affix my name to this.

ADOPTION

Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): I have petitions here signed by folks in Ottawa and surrounding areas, including Manotick, in support of Bill 39, the Access to Adoption Information Statute Law Amendment Act. I will simply summarize the petition here.

The petitioners are supporting the proposed legislation to allow access to birth registration and adoption records for adult adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents and other relatives; implement a no-contact notice option; recommend optional counselling; offer access to other information, including medical; and acknowledge other open adoptions.

I affix my signature to it.

PALLIATIVE CARE

Mr Bob Wood (London South): I have a petition which reads as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

CHILD CARE CENTRES

Mr David Caplan (Oriole): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas providing daycare spaces is critical for the families in Toronto that need access to them; and

"Whereas the well-being of children should not be sacrificed for tax cuts; and

"Whereas the provincial government has significantly cut the budgets for Toronto school boards; and

"Whereas under the provincial government's ill-conceived Bill 160 there is no flexibility for boards to make up for the cuts; and

"Whereas daycare spaces in schools are now threatened by these cuts with the prospect of full-cost recovery arrangements with daycares and the threat of school closures;

"Therefore, be it resolved that we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly to repeal Bill 160 immediately, and

"Further be it resolved that the Legislative Assembly of Ontario instruct the Minister of Education and Training to restore meaningful and flexible funding to the Toronto school boards to ensure that they are able to continue to accommodate our community daycares; and

"Further be it resolved that the Honourable Dave Johnson, Minister of Education and Training, takes responsibility for his government's funding cuts rather than passing the buck to school boards who have no control over provincial government spending cuts."

I wholeheartedly agree with this petition and I affix my signature.

ROAD SAFETY

Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): I have a petition regarding red light cameras.

"To the Legislature of Ontario:

"Whereas red light cameras can dramatically assist in reducing the number of injuries and deaths resulting from red light runners; and

"Whereas red light cameras can only take pictures of licence plates, thus reducing privacy concerns; and

"Whereas all revenues from violations can be easily directed to a designated fund to improve safety at high-collision intersections; and

"Whereas there is a growing disregard for traffic laws resulting in serious injury to pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and especially children and seniors; and

"Whereas the provincial government has endorsed the use of a similar camera system to collect tolls on the new Highway 407 tollway;" - and I paid my bill, Mr Speaker - "and

"Whereas mayors and concerned citizens across Ontario have been seeking permission to deploy these cameras due to limited police resources;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislature of Ontario as follows:

"That the province of Ontario support the installation of red light cameras at high-collision intersections to monitor and prosecute motorists who run red lights."

I'm pleased to affix my signature to it.

SCHOOL SAFETY

Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It was sent to me by Joe Hueglin of Niagara region, signed by himself and 30 others.

"Whereas all schools in Ontario should be safe learning and working environments; and

"Whereas all Ontarians should be assured that safe school programs are in place in all Ontario schools; and

"Whereas a private member's bill has been drafted entitled An Act to Promote Safety in Ontario Schools and create positive Learning Environments for Ontario Students, 1998; and

"Whereas this bill will:

"Require all boards in Ontario to design and implement school safety programs, school codes of conduct, and anti-vandalism policies;

"Provide for effective early intervention strategies by requiring boards to design and implement anti-bullying policies and by providing boards with the ability to direct psychological assessments of students that they believe are at risk;

"Provide a provincial violence and weapons-free schools policy and allow boards the ability to exclude violent students from regular classroom settings;

"Give police the tools they need by creating a new provincial offence for trespassing on school property and backing it up with real consequences;

"Direct all boards in Ontario to design and implement alternative education programs for suspended and excluded students;

"Require parents to be liable for any damage done to school property by their children; and

"Protect teachers and staff from civil liability;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislature of Ontario as follows:

"To pass into law the Safe Schools Act as quickly as possible."

I have affixed my signature to this worthwhile petition.

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview): I have a petition signed by many, many residents of Downsview.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas Mike Harris is cutting the heart out of many communities by closing hundreds of neighbourhood and community schools across Ontario; and

"Whereas this massive number of school closings all at once will displace many children and put others on longer bus routes; and

"Whereas Mike Harris promised in 1995 not to cut classroom spending, but has already cut at least $1 billion from our schools and is now closing many classrooms completely; and

"Whereas Mike Harris is pitting parent against parent and community against community in the fight to save local schools; and

"Whereas parents and students in the city of Toronto and many other communities across Ontario are calling on the government to stop closing so many of their schools; and

"Whereas the riding of Downsview needs its schools, such as Ancaster Public School, Calico Public School, Downsview Public School, Elia Middle School, Highview Public School and Pierre Laporte Middle School, which are both academic and vital community institutions;

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

"We demand that Mike Harris stop gutting communities and stop closing our schools."

I agree wholeheartedly with this petition and I'm pleased to affix my signature.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

TIME ALLOCATION / ATTRIBUTION DE TEMPS

Hon David H. Tsubouchi (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): I move that, pursuant to standing order 46 and notwithstanding any other standing order or special order of the House relating to Bill 79, An Act to amend the Assessment Act, Municipal Act, Assessment Review Board Act and Education Act in respect of property taxes, when Bill 79 is next called as a government order, the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill without further debate or amendment, and at such time, the bill shall be ordered referred to the standing committee on finance and economic affairs;

That no deferral of the second reading vote pursuant to standing order 28(h) shall be permitted;

That the standing committee on finance and economic affairs shall be authorized to meet for clause-by-clause consideration of the bill on Monday, December 7, 1998, from 9 am to 12 pm and following routine proceedings until the completion of clause-by-clause consideration;

That at 4:30 pm on Monday, December 7, 1998, those amendments which have not yet been moved shall be deemed to have been moved, and the Chair of the committee shall interrupt the proceedings and shall, without further debate or amendment, put every question necessary to dispose of all remaining sections of the bill and any amendments thereto. Any divisions required shall be deferred until all remaining questions have been put and taken in succession with one 20-minute waiting period allowed pursuant to standing order 127(a);

That the committee shall report the bill to the House not later than the first sessional day that reports from committees may be received following the completion of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. In the event that the committee fails to report the bill on the date provided, the bill shall be deemed to have been passed by the committee and shall be deemed to be reported to and received by the House;

That upon receiving the report of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, the Speaker shall put the question for adoption of the report forthwith and at such time the bill shall be ordered for third reading;

That two hours shall be allotted to the third reading stage of the bill, after which time the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and shall put every question necessary to dispose of this stage of the bill without further debate or amendment;

That the vote for third reading of the bill may, pursuant to standing order 28(h), be deferred until the next sessional day during the routine proceeding "Deferred Votes"; and

That, in the case of any division relating to any proceeding on the bill, the division bell shall be limited to five minutes.

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I will be sharing the time with the member for Nepean, the member for York-Mackenzie and the member for Kitchener. Right now, I'd like to pass the floor to the member for Nepean.

Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): I'm pleased to have the opportunity to rise to speak to this motion to try to deliver on the commitment to 10%, 5% and 5%, which is exceptionally important for small businesses.

The issue of property tax reform is a tough issue. There is a reason why no government wanted to take on this issue. The easy thing is always to put something aside for later. Why delay what you can put off until tomorrow if you can put it off indefinitely? That's been the policy of successive governments in Ontario for many, many years. At some point you have to confront the difficult and tough issues as they present themselves. Certainly that's been the hallmark of this government's. We've tried to make some real changes to government, and no more so than in the way, overall, taxes are collected for the public sector.

Rather than bring in an omnibus property tax bill, this government chose wisely to break it up into pieces. Rather than bring in assessment, we brought in the fair share assessment, which is important.

Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): Oh, give us a break. This was all a plan, like closing hospitals. I love it.

Mr Baird: I know there are some members opposite who would have preferred a big omnibus tax bill, but that's an approach we rejected. They can want us to sit back and watch while small business is whacked by municipal governments, but we said, "No way." We wisely took this issue and cut it up into a few bite-size pieces. We put property assessment into one piece of legislation. We dealt with education taxation issues in another. We set up the Ontario Property Assessment Corp in another bill and we brought forward some tools for municipalities in this bill before us today. That is something I believe is important to do, to allow for full and proper debate of all these important political issues.

Mrs Boyd: That's why this is a time allocation bill.

Mr Baird: Time allocation bills: Of course this government spends more time in first reading, second reading and third reading than did the Liberal government and the NDP government. We spend more time on second reading, the debate in principle. The NDP spent a significant amount of time less than we did. Indeed we supported the NDP when they brought in time allocation when we were in opposition, so no one can accuse us of taking the wrong stand. The Liberals are against anything. I'll give the NDP some credit. They are prepared to stand up and be counted on tough issues. We look forward in this debate to our friends in the Liberal Party doing the same thing.

I want to make reference on one issue to a Liberal who has broken the ranks to come out in support. He's made some general comments. I want to quote this member. The Minister of Labour will be interested in this: "Veteran Liberal Dennis Mills, MP for the downtown Toronto riding of Broadview-Greenwood, said he won't rush out to help his provincial cousins because he likes some of Mr Harris's policies."

Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea): Hear, hear.

Mr Baird: The member for High Park-Swansea says, "Hear, hear."

Mrs Boyd: I always said there's nothing to choose between the two of you.

Mr Baird: I say to the member for London Centre, they can choose the real thing or a pale imitation. I'm going to read the quote from Dennis Mills, a crusader for tax reform with the federal Liberals.

Mr Shea: A thoughtful MP.

Mr Baird: "A thoughtful MP," the member for High Park-Swansea says. I'm going to read it: "I am a passionate believer in comprehensive tax reform. Some of my tax ideas are not inconsistent with the Harris thought process on tax reform."

I've got to compliment Dennis Mills, a crusader for tax reform, who has come forward and said he likes the general direction of comprehensive tax reform.

Mr Shea: A strong supporter of Paul Martin.

Mr Baird: Indeed, a strong supporter of Finance Minister Paul Martin, as the member opposite said.

We know what the overall thinking in terms of the government's comprehensive tax reform is from some leading Liberal thinkers in finance and taxation, and a very well-respected person in not just the city of Toronto but indeed the province of Ontario.

We looked at the issues in property taxation. We gave municipalities the tools to ensure that small business was protected as we move into this reform process. Why would we do that? Because small business is the economic engine of the Ontario economy. In Ontario, if you want to create jobs, you've got to bring small business to the table. For many years Ontario was the economic engine of Canada. We were a magnet for jobs, investment and opportunity. But when the socialists were elected we became known as being a mismanaged debtor, over-governed, over-regulated and overtaxed. Then the NDP followed the Liberals, for another five years of socialist rule, and we dug ourselves deeper into the hole of -

Mrs Boyd: Did you call the Liberals socialists?

Mr Baird: The Liberal socialists and the real socialists, the New Democratic Party.

If you look at the Ontario economy, the real troubles in our economy happened between 1985 and 1990. Despite the popular conception that Bob Rae and the NDP government ratcheted up government spending, it was the Peterson Liberals who were responsible for that.

Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): They were the main culprits.

Mr Baird: "The main culprits," the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay says.

What did the Peterson Liberals do? In five years the Peterson Liberals took spending from $26 billion to some $52 billion. Indeed, we have not seen a 100% increase in the expenditures of the government of Ontario. The government of Ontario's budget certainly hasn't gone up by upwards of 20% a year like it did in those years, and no, we have not cut health care. We saw the real financial mismanagement presented by the Liberal government, so it's interesting to see some of the Liberal complaints on this bill. But I digress.

We stepped in to help small business, because if you want to create jobs, you've got to bring small business to the table. I know this is the case right across the province, whether it's in High Park in Toronto or in Bells Corners in Nepean or in the greater Toronto area or up north. You bring small business to the table and you try to work hard to get the environment right for small business and allow them to create jobs. These small business people are the real job creators. They're the entrepreneurs who put it all on the line, sometimes mortgaging their own homes to be able to open up shop and get the whole family involved and start off maybe creating a job or two, and a few years later they're able to create four or five, and the next thing you know the enterprise is employing 10 or 15 people. That is good news for the Ontario economy.

Some municipalities chose to use the tools the provincial government provided them. I think of the city of Toronto, which chose them. I think of the county of Wellington, so ably represented by my colleague Ted Arnott. Wellington county made a very honest and noble attempt to try to use some of the tools in the bill to help small business in their area. I know that in my home community of Ottawa-Carleton to some extent they used the tools and certainly made a sincere effort in that regard. But alas, that was not the case everywhere.

We were faced with a fundamental choice: Were we going to sit by and watch small business get whacked, or were we going to step in and intervene? The consensus among my colleagues was that we had to step in and intervene to help small business, because the economy is not finished creating jobs. We have work to do. As long as there is one person out there looking for a job, we want to do everything we can to help that person, and the job is not yet done. We need to see more economic growth in Ontario and to follow examples like Toronto, Wellington and Ottawa-Carleton's lead.

But where is the economy going today? I think we've seen some positive economic news. We look at interest rates declining again. Effective just two weeks ago, Canadian chartered banks lowered their prime rate from 7% to 6.75%. Ontario exports were up in September. Ontario auto sales were up in September. Ontario housing starts jumped 11.3% in October. Ontario MLS home resales rose 3.8% in September.

When I look at my own constituency in my own part of the province, we see good economic news. We see substantial numbers of new homes in Longfields and Davidson Heights and in neighbouring communities like Stittsville, Kanata and Orleans, where more homes are being built and more families are moving in. In the city of Toronto we see that new home sales were up in October. The member for High Park-Swansea will know about that.

The Canadian economy is expanding. The real GDP rose at a revised 1.3% annual rate in the second quarter of 1998, following a 3.1% gain recorded in the previous quarter. Consumer and business spending rose strongly, and that is good news.

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Small business is doing well, but big enterprises are doing well as well. Big banks in Fort York, the riding of Mr Marchese, who is here today, are doing very well and in the great riding of Trinity-Spadina. That's good news.

But what the member for Fort York and others have to realize is that there is not an 80-floor bank tower in Nepean. We need small business to help create jobs. We can't count on the big banks to create jobs in my community; we count on small business. That's why we're stepping in to help small business people, whether they be in Bells Corners or Barrhaven. Whether they're in Manotick, Greely, Osgoode, Richmond or Stittsville, we're stepping in to ensure that small business is helped, because we know that small business is the economic engine of Canada.

Ontario had strong economic domestic demand in 1998. In Ontario, domestic spending remains strong, with final domestic spending rising 1.4% in the second quarter.

A strong economy is forecast. Private sector economists are optimistic that the Ontario economy will remain strong. The average private sector estimate for Ontario real GDP growth is 4% for 1998. The forecast range for 1999 growth is a solid 2.2% to 3%. That's positive, and we'll look forward with great anticipation. We want to continue to work to ensure the figures.

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Because of the climate you guys produced.

Mr Baird: The member opposite talks about the climate. You want to get the climate right. Rather than subsidies to big business, rather than throwing money at everyone, we want to get the climate right, particularly for small business, dealing with the motion before us today.

The Toronto CMA has the strongest economy in Canada. It is expected to continue to lead other Canadian cities through the year 2002, according to the Conference Board of Canada.

When we look at where we have seen economic growth in Ontario, what region, what part of the province, it's not Toronto, it's eastern Ontario leading the way in economic growth in 1998, all over eastern Ontario. That's good news. Whether it be in Kingston, Cornwall, Ottawa or Renfrew, we've seen very solid economic growth, and that is indeed good news.

We certainly reject the notion that the provincial economy can't do anything for the economy. Some people in opposition say it's all the Americans, it's all the value of the dollar. But we believe you've got to help the economy, get the fundamentals right, and often that involves getting government out of the way, taking the shackles off the entrepreneurs and the small business people to let them realize their dreams.

Ontario employment was up in October. In October, Ontario employment rose 32,600, following a jump of 63,000 in September. We saw 63,000 new jobs in September and 32,000 new jobs in October, a very impressive rate. But again, we've got more work to do, because as long as there's one person looking for a job, that's one person too many and we've got work to do.

Good news: Youth unemployment was down in October. It fell by 9,000, following three straight monthly job gains. The youth unemployment rate is on the way down.

The Ontario help wanted index was up in October, rising 0.7%.

The good news is that 17,000 welfare dependants were able to break the cycle of dependency and join the 340,000 people who have stopped relying on welfare since June 1995. That's very good news.

Ontario department store sales were up 8.4% in 1998. Ontario retail sales were up in August. Ontario auto sales were up in 1998.

I know particularly in eastern Ontario, and I'd like to share this, we do very well in the federal public sector, being located in Ottawa, but the high technology sector, another big sector of our economy, is booming. But what we need in eastern Ontario is tourism, because tourism is a real job creator. They've had an excellent year this year. I know the member for Niagara Falls has worked very hard on tourism and tourism issues because it's a big job creator for small business people in his community.

We in our caucus get pretty much a weekly priority of the importance of tourism. Whether it's the new casino that the member for Niagara Falls fought so hard for, to try to encourage more benefits over, the new visitors are just streaming across the border with their money. The member for Fort York is right: It's good news, people coming from all over the United States and coming from Asia and Europe, coming to Niagara Falls to spend their money. Thank goodness that they have a casino and the member for Niagara Falls was successful.

The residential building permits were up by 2.6% in September. The business investment plans increased for 1998. Statistics Canada's latest investment intention survey - not the provincial government, but Statistics Canada, the federal agency - shows that Ontario business investment in plant and equipment is slated to increase by 3% in 1998, stronger than the previous 2.5% estimate released last February. That indeed is good news.

I could go on and on: non-residential building permits up in 1998, and you certainly see that in my constituency with the large expansion in Nortel, more than 4,000 new jobs; JDS Fitel, a big expansion going on in Nepean. I look at the new retail establishments, whether it's the Verona warehouse, whether it's a good number of the hospitality restaurants opening up at the corner of Merivale and West Hunt Club. The economy is indeed doing well.

But again, we mustn't be complacent because there are some corners where there is not enough hope and we must rededicate ourselves to working harder to getting those results up even more than they are today. The bill that this motion would send to committee for another day of discussions and debate would cap it at 10, 5 and 5 to ensure that small business is protected.

I know the honourable member for Fort York, M. Marchese, will wonder, why embark on tax reform? Because taxes were too high. They were way too high. The member for Fort York shares our view because he was part of a government that did cut taxes once - the commercial concentration tax. The commercial concentration tax was a Liberal tax, a whack on Toronto, and it was a tax that was so bad -

Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton): You talk about bad.

Mr Baird: "You talk about bad," the member for Lambton said -

Mr Marchese: And we got rid of it.

Mr Baird: - and this tax was so bad Rosario Marchese led the charge to get rid of it. You've got to compliment our socialist friends. It was a tax so bad even they could see how bad it was. When the New Democrats cut Liberal taxes, you know they were bad. The good news is that they got rid of that.

But both opposition parties allowed the huge commercial-industrial taxes that didn't just hurt Ottawa, and particularly Hamilton-Wentworth - the member for Wentworth East is here. He fought very hard to get commercial-industrial education taxes down in Hamilton. The city of Toronto was again whacked by $400 million in extra taxes that those hard-working businesses had to pay. You can go down the street in some parts of this region and see stores on one side of the road but not on the other because the tax burden was so high. This government is stepping in to cut commercial-industrial education taxes in communities, whether it's Ottawa-Carleton, whether it's Hamilton-Wentworth, whether it's the city of Toronto, to ensure that people can benefit.

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): What about the tire tax?

Mr Baird: The New Democrats also got rid of another Liberal tax, the tire tax. A Liberal tax that was rolling along until the NDP stopped the tax. So the NDP certainly is a very junior partner as a tax fighter.

The $400 million in extra taxes just in Toronto and more than $500 million-odd around the province, previous governments sat by as those education taxes went up and up and up on property owners and this government stepped in to ensure that those taxes did not continue to rise, stepped in to ensure that it would be able to deliver some tax relief for small business, and that's something that is exceptionally important.

If we look in my own community of Ottawa-Carleton, small business is where you see the jobs created - not in Carleton. We haven't been traditionally as good over the last 25 years, particularly in Nepean. We haven't been as good at attracting large businesses to Ottawa-Carleton, but we've been very good at growing small business in Ottawa-Carleton. Look at a company like Newbridge Networks. They had revenues of only $1 million just 11 years ago and they're doing exceptionally well, led by a very dedicated workforce of high-tech folks from all over the region of Ottawa-Carleton. We saw Corel, a company that was born in Ottawa, doing very well, an important priority.

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Previous people sat by and watched the taxes go up that crippled this type of development -

Mr Shea: And they didn't care.

Mr Baird: - and they didn't care. It was wrong to sit by and do nothing. I wonder, who were these school trustees who were continuously increasing taxes? Who were these school trustees who sat by and watched these small businesses be whacked? I say to the member for Fort York, does he know who these school trustees were who did this to small business people, and when he finds out, could he tell us? That would be a real priority because I suspect the member for Fort York would know very well who was a party to these huge tax increases that crippled -

Mr Shea: Wasn't he a trustee?

Mr Baird: Wasn't he a trustee? The member for High Park-Swansea would know. Trustees in Ottawa-Carleton didn't make $50,000 a year, plus expenses. They certainly don't make that in Ottawa-Carleton, where I'm from. So the good news is that taxes were cut, but this is only part of an overall package about getting the economy right. The member for High Park-Swansea is a big advocate for small business people in his community. I know he shares my view.

Mr Shea: The Bloor West Village.

Mr Baird: The Bloor West Village, he says. He's a big advocate of getting the environment right for small business. That's why I know he was a big advocate, as was I and so many of our colleagues, of trying to get a 2.5% cap for his business people. He fought very hard to give municipalities the tools. In fact, the member for High Park-Swansea led the charge for a 2.5% cap in Toronto within the government caucus and was able to deliver for small business people in his community. It would be important that I acknowledge that and put that on the record, because he led the charge for that and was able to deliver real results for his community. But where were the Liberals on this issue? The Liberals were nowhere to be seen. They were in hiding when the 2.5% cap came out.

What else have we done to try to help small business? We've announced the intention and then are following through to cut the small business corporate tax by 50% over the next eight years. In fact, that has already begun this year, as you know, Speaker, because there are a lot of good small business people, hard-working folks, in Stratford and St Mary's who are benefiting from that. Over the next eight years the corporate tax for small business will be cut in half, designed to make it as easy as possible for small business to create jobs.

Another important tax cut for small business people was the elimination of the employer health tax. The members opposite will know that's not being phased in over eight years. That's done: a 100% reduction in the employer health tax for small business with a payroll of under $400,000, and that is indeed good news.

We talked to the good folks at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and they gave us a very detailed accounting of how they polled their members. The worst job-killer is, of course, payroll taxes. We listened to Judith Andrew and to Catherine Swift and they report that to us and show us the results from not just our particular ridings but right across the province and indeed the country. That's why the employer health tax elimination for small business people is exceptionally important. I know that has made it a lot easier.

I was talking to a small business person on Greenbank Road in my constituency and that's been a big help to him. He has been able to hire one and a half more people in his small business. That may not sound like an awful lot, but if you have every fourth or every fifth small business person being able to do that right across the province, it all adds up. We've seen more than 400,000 net new jobs: 425,000, 450,000 net new jobs. We've seen 80% of those come from small business, so we know that small business is creating the jobs, and indeed that is good news. While we're thrilled to see the good reports coming out of the auto manufacturers, Nortel and JDS Fitel, we are pleased to see the exceptionally strong numbers come out of small business. That's something that's very important.

If this motion is passed, we can get this bill to committee and have more debate and then come back to the House for third reading and more debate, have an opportunity for clause-by-clause when we can consider and debate amendments to the legislation. Indeed, the government has said they're prepared to move forward on amendments from multiresidential ratepayers. We had some very good meetings with municipalities around the province.

We've certainly listened to mayors like Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, who is fighting hard for his constituents, as is the deputy mayor of Ottawa, Allan Higdon. I met over this weekend with the mayor of Nepean to discuss the issues affecting this bill, as well as this weekend with the mayor of Gloucester to listen to his concerns and to look at what room is available to ensure that the federal government meets its obligations.

All we're asking the federal government to do is to pay their fair share, just to do the same thing they do across the river in Quebec: pay the equivalent of the BOT - not an unreasonable argument. It would be wrong for them to try to pad their $10-billion surplus with even more money than they've already budgeted to spend today, and we're confident they'll stand up and do the right thing.

All of this work to create an environment for job creation, whether it's in Bells Corners or Barrhaven or Manordale or Stittsville or Windsor or the north or Toronto, would be a lot easier if the federal government would step in and cut back the employment insurance account, because for too many the take-home pay of working families is less than it was in 1989. That is something of exceptional concern to us.

In fact the average Ontario worker is being ripped off to the tune of $195 a year, and Canadian workers as a whole are losing $3.5 billion. We just want the federal government, the federal Minister of Finance, to give the money back. You're taxing on the backs of hard-working families and small business people to pay for the employment insurance fund. The officials within the fund are saying that it's oversubscribed and that there's more than enough money there to deal with a severe recession, so give the money back. The hard-working families in Ontario worked hard and paid that money. Just imagine if every worker in Ontario had an extra $200 this month to spend on their Christmas shopping and holiday shopping. What a benefit that would be to retail owners, whether they be at the Bayshore mall or in downtown Kitchener-Waterloo or in any store or small business across the province.

I think the federal government should do that right now, this month, to help boost consumer confidence and consumer spending this holiday season. That would be good news. In the words of a letter written to the Prime Minister, "It is time for the federal government to join with provincial governments of all political stripes and complement provincial efforts to improve the take-home pay of working families by reducing EI premiums."

The member for Fort York is here, and I know he and his party were prepared to stand up and fight for workers. Too bad the Liberal Party wasn't.

I'm pleased to be able to turn over the balance of my time to my colleague the member for York-Mackenzie, Frank Klees. Why is Frank going to have the opportunity to speak, followed by the member for Kitchener? Because Frank Klees, the member for York-Mackenzie, worked exceptionally hard on this issue. He brought the concerns of small business people in York region directly to the table when we were debating them, not just directly to the minister but he led the charge in our caucus for these efforts, and he so eloquently told the stories of small business people in his constituency, whether it was the story of Michael Evans from Home Hardware in his constituency of the story of Jim McAlpine from McAlpine Ford, about the huge tax increases they were facing. He came to the table and he argued for them, he fought for them, and the member for York-Mackenzie delivered. I want to hear the member for York-Mackenzie.

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Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): I'd like to thank my colleague for introducing me in such an eloquent way and for leading well and very effectively into my comments.

In a very real sense this has been the summer of discontent in this province. I was intimately involved for many hours over the course of the last number of months as the tax bills began to reach the front doors of businesses and residences in York region. I started to get telephone calls from business owners as well as residential property owners, multiple residential property owners, who shared with me their shock at having received a tax bill that was 50%, 100%, in some cases 200% and 300% and even higher, more than they had paid in the previous year.

The very disturbing aspect of the debate that then ensued over the next number of weeks and months was that unfortunately a great deal of finger pointing started to take place. Taxpayers were told to call my office. I have no objection to constituents calling me. As do any of my colleagues, I welcome calls from constituents. That's what we're there for: to deal with individuals' problems. But very quickly I heard that municipal politicians were suggesting to taxpayers that the reason for the substantial increases in their tax bills was provincial policy regarding reassessment, regarding the fair assessment act, regarding the so-reported prescriptive measures that the province had placed on municipalities. It took me some time to begin to enter into that dialogue and try to communicate to people in my constituency the facts of the issue.

Yes, it's true that in May 1997 this government introduced the Fair Municipal Finance Act. Under that legislation - by the way, all members of this House will acknowledge that there were very few who in any way suggested that it was not appropriate that there should be a fair assessment system province-wide. The truth of the matter is that there have been some properties that have not been reassessed in this province since the 1940s, and in some cases earlier. The story of multi-million dollar residences in downtown Toronto, in Rosedale, paying property taxes no more than homes that are worth $350,000 or $400,000 in York region - no one in this place or anywhere in this province would suggest that is a fair system of taxation or assessment. To get all of the province's properties assessed fairly and on the basis of a current value is something that was broadly welcomed by people across this province - by municipalities, by elected officials at all levels of government in the province. That was the first point.

Unfortunately these significant tax increases were being blamed on that piece of legislation, on that reassessment process. It took some time to set the record straight, that those tax increases did not have to happen at all. In fact our government recognized full well that if you take an assessment system that has been so out of balance for so many years and you bring it all into one level in such a short period of time, there will be significant impacts, particularly on those properties that have been significantly underassessed for that number of years. We knew there would have to be a transition period during which those tax increases would have to be phased in, that it should not happen overnight. So as a government we introduced a number of measures initially, with the Fair Municipal Finance Act in May 1997, that would allow for mitigation of that.

In addition to that, we introduced Bill 16. That was introduced on June 11, 1998. Bill 16 was intended to provide a number of tools which could be utilized by municipalities to bridge and even out that transition period, because if it took some 40 to 50 years to get into this imbalance, surely municipalities would not anticipate that we could rebalance all that overnight in one year. Bill 16 allowed for a number of measures, including a phasing in of any increases, a capping of increases. It allowed for the ability to set up a number of classifications, special property classes. Unfortunately, in York region as in a number of other areas throughout the province, the municipal government chose, for whatever reason, not to implement those mitigating tools.

The result, then, was obvious. As property owners began to receive their tax bills, we saw headlines such as this one from the Aurora Banner: "Tax Blast Hits Aurora Business: 83% Jump in Commercial Property Tax Levies." This particular increase was received by Mike Evans, who owns the Home Hardware in Aurora. He came and appealed to me, "Mr Klees, how am I expected to deal with this increase overnight?" I received faxes from across the province, not only from within my constituency, from property owners who were facing the same significant increase in property taxes. They had businesses that were on the verge of bankruptcy if in fact they were expected to make these payments.

I was contacted by Ab Cox of Ab Cox Pontiac-Buick. He writes in his fax - and this, by the way, is addressed to Ernie Eves; this is a copy that was sent to me - "Our York region has dropped the ball on tax remedies. Would you please help businesses here." Mr Cox was appealing to the province to step in if the municipalities were not prepared to do something.

A letter from Glenway Country Club: They're referring to the fact that they were facing an $82,000 increase in property taxes in one year. How were they to sustain their business under these circumstances? The suggestion in this letter was that a number of jobs in that particular business were at risk.

Yes, it was left up to the province then to step in and take the necessary action to introduce a piece of legislation that would do what, unfortunately, the municipalities were not prepared to do. I can tell you that that was the most disappointing heart of this summer's debate over this issue.

I arranged two specific meetings with our municipalities and Ministry of Finance staff to determine how we could find a way to mitigate the effects of these tax increases. We were told quite clearly in that meeting by the municipal representatives that no, they were not prepared to go back to first base on this, they were not prepared to reassess whether or not they should use the tools. The decision had been made by the municipality not to implement these tools. One reason that was told to me by a number of elected representatives at the municipal level of government was that they did not want to implement any kind of cap because if they did, then those businesses that had received significant tax decreases would have to wait to receive those decreases.

I have to tell you that a response like that is a clear indication that these people simply do not understand the reality of business today. How can we sacrifice businesses into which individuals in our province, in our municipalities, have invested their life's savings? We are prepared to sacrifice their businesses because someone down the road should be getting a tax decrease immediately rather than have to wait for a period of years to receive that?

Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): Explain that to us. I'm the guy that's going to get the tax decrease; you explain it to me.

Mr Klees: The member opposite laughs because, I can tell you, it's clear he has never invested a nickel of his money into any business, or he wouldn't be laughing.

Mr Crozier: Which member are you talking about? Because I own two, Frank.

Mr Klees: I can tell you, you don't understand. Every time that I've had an opportunity to explain that situation to a businessman who was expecting that tax decrease, he or she understands that it is in fact fair for them to defer their decreases, because they understand that they are not an island unto themselves. They understand that the economic well-being of any community depends on the progress of the entire community.

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Members opposite in the Liberal Party have little to say when it comes to the economic stability of this province. They contributed to the significant debt of this province during the highest-growth period, during the period of time when the significant revenue stream to this province was greater than at any other time, and they took this province into the depths of despair. The number of tax increases that the Liberal Party imposed on businesses in this province is unconscionable, which is why they set the stage for the NDP and the member for Fort York to come along and to take this province into the ground. Businesses began to leave this province in unprecedented numbers.

We promised the people of this province that we would introduce a fair taxation system. We introduced the legislation that set the framework for that. Unfortunately, there were those within this province at the municipal level of government who refused to implement those tax tools to make this a fair system. So we had no choice.

I commend the Minister of Finance for introducing Bill 79, which will bring stability to property taxation in the province for the first time in many years. It will let businesses know what their increases are going to be, that they are going to be limited. But more important than that is the fact that the taxation system for properties in the province will be fair, that everyone will be assessed on the current value of their property and that the tax rates that will be applied to that will reflect as well a fair level of taxation.

At the end of the day, we have to work in co-operation with the municipal level of government. This piece of legislation that is being introduced today will allow us to now look forward. Some mistakes were made in the past, quite frankly. That is regrettable. But we believe now that we've set the framework, we have laid the foundation for us now to move forward. This is work in progress.

Interjection.

Mr Klees: The member opposite wouldn't recognize work in progress if he saw it.

We are prepared now to work with municipalities to ensure that the right thing is done for the taxpayers. We will ensure that there is fair taxation, fair assessment across the province, stability that will lead to further economic security in this province.

I thank you and I'm going to pass the floor to my colleague.

Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): I am pleased to stand in support of Bill 79, the Fairness for Property Taxpayers Act, 1998.

Mr Crozier: No, that's not debate. We're talking about stepping on democracy here.

Mr Wettlaufer: It's interesting to listen to the Liberals harp and carp over here. I haven't seen anything that they have done that has been concrete, that has been constructive in three and a half years. In fact, I haven't seen anything that they have done that has been constructive for more than 10 years.

Over the past three and a half years I have had the opportunity to meet with virtually thousands of my constituents, as members all through here and as you, yourself, have. We've had to explain to the constituents the difficult decisions, the reasons we are making them, the difficult changes that we are embarking on in this province and why we believe they are necessary for the well-being of our province.

As you remember, Mr Speaker, this government was faced with the reality that we had to succeed two spendthrift governments. We had a debt of $100 billion, annual interest payments of $9 billion. You remember, don't you? The massive debt load, and $9 billion in annual interest payments, makes this interest payment one of the largest expenditures the government has. That large expenditure threatens the social safety net. Not only does it threaten the social safety net, but an entire generation of young people are faced with a debt which will not be paid off until they are in their senior ages. A 20-year-old student in university today won't have his own portion of that debt paid off until he is 60 years old. That's assuming, of course, that no government would increase the size of the debt, that any future government would continue our fiscally responsible policies. But, Mr Speaker, you and I know that the members of the Liberal Party and the members of the NDP would not continue our fiscally responsible policies.

We had to look at an education system and a property tax system that were outdated. We had an education system that wasn't being funded properly. Yes, there was lots of money being thrown at it, but it was not being funded properly. How could you explain that when we travelled through the north we found they were using textbooks that dated back to 1976? They were using textbooks that were being held together by Scotch tape and elastic. Not nearly enough students had textbooks. We then went to other areas of the province and found that they also suffered some of the same problems. But then we went to the Ottawa-Carleton area, we went to the Toronto area, Peel, York, and they had lots of money for their students. Students elsewhere in Ontario were not enjoying the same equality, were not enjoying the same opportunity as students in these areas.

We found that students in separate school systems weren't being funded to the same opportunities, to the same equal amounts, as the students in the public school system. We found that the students in the rural areas were not receiving the same fair funding as the students in the urban areas. It was necessary to make changes. Part of those changes entailed the property tax. There were some areas of the province that were just hiking property taxes all the time. It was spiralling at a rate that was out of control. We had property taxes that had gone up by 120% in 10 years; enrolment only went up by 16%. That's a 16% increase in enrolment and a 120% increase in property education taxes. Out of control.

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It was necessary then that we examine the property tax system. We did that and we found that there were some areas of the province that were being assessed on a modern basis, on 1990 property values, but then we found that in some other areas of the province they were paying taxes on assessments that dated back to World War II, 50 years out of date. We had to make changes. It was obvious that if we were going to make changes to reshape the economy, we had to make wholesale changes to bring spiralling education taxes under control and a sense of fairness to the entire property tax system in Ontario.

Why was it necessary to do this? We had to attract business. We had to send a message to business that Ontario is open for business. We wanted investment. We wanted investment from foreign countries. We wanted investment from businesses that were already here, so that they wouldn't turn around and invest money in the United States or some other country. We wanted to ensure that they expanded their businesses right here in Ontario. Why was that important? It was important so that we could have an increased number of jobs, jobs for the people who live in this province. Is that so bad? According to the Liberals and the NDP, it most certainly is.

What has happened as a result of our policies? We have an environment in which 440,000 new jobs -

Mr Baird: How many?

Mr Wettlaufer: That is 440,000, I say to my colleague from Nepean, net new jobs that have been created in the province since we were elected.

I want to explain something here. I have this from the Kitchener-Waterloo Record business section, November 7, "Just when economists thought they had it all figured out, along came 57,200 jobs to confound forecasts of an economic slowdown."

In the month of October, usually a month in which things start slowing down, we had an increase in jobs in this country of 57,200, 40,000 of them in Ontario alone. Ontario is the province that is driving the engine of the economy in Canada.

We often hear criticism from the Liberals and the NDP. They're saying, "Oh, these are minimum wage jobs." Well, well. "The change in October's rate involved full-time jobs for adults, the kind of growth that has a sustainable spinoff effect on the economy," that's what it says right here in the business section of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. The headline is "Job Surge Surprises Experts."

In addition, I have a clipping here from the Globe and Mail, November 23. Again, it says, "Economy Expected to Grow Faster than any G7 Nation." The subheadline is "From tax cuts and incentives to developing a more skilled workforce, Ontario is taking action to position the province for economic growth well into the next century. I want to quote from this article as well:

"Ontario's efforts to improve its business climate are paying off in jobs, with the province now leading the nation in job growth.

"And planning is underway to ensure that citizens of Ontario can continue to enjoy the benefits of economic growth well into the next century...put Ontario back on the map as a prime location for world business to invest.

"An attractive investment climate means jobs will be created for years to come, allowing Ontarians to participate fully in the new global economy.

"One of the most important steps the Ontario government has taken to spur economic growth...is to make tax cuts that will create jobs."

"`That's a very strong positive, there's no doubt about that,' said Sherry Cooper, chief economist for the investment giant Nesbitt Burns Inc, of the tax relief.

"`The Ontario economy has rebounded and leads the nation.'"

We have done this, but then we also noticed that if we were going to have business investment, changes were necessary in the property tax area. We introduced the Fair Municipal Finance Act, but as a result of that act, we noticed that some of the municipalities were not equally as responsive to reducing the taxes for small business, and what we heard, as my colleague the member for York-Mackenzie said, was that it was a summer of discontent.

Small businesses came to us and said, "We are noticing a tax increase of 50% to 100% to 200% to 400% - to 600% in some cases." I had a number of small businesses come to me and say, "Isn't there anything you can do?" because the municipality, the city of Kitchener and the region of Waterloo were saying: "Talk to your MPPs. It's their fault. It's the downloading. It's the tax changes they have made." Well, that has been refuted recently as well, because we have noticed in the regional municipality of Waterloo that the tax increases they imposed were not necessary.

I quote from the Kitchener-Waterloo Record from this past Friday, November 27: "The municipality hiked taxes big time this year, 5.3%...$2.2 million of public money burning a hole in its bureaucratic pockets."

Do you know what they found? This $2.2 million was a surplus. They didn't need that 5.3%, so the municipality was trying to figure out ways of spending the money. The Record's lead editorial said: "Do give back most of the money. It's only fair. It's ours."

They go on: "But one of the biggest reasons for the optimistic budgetary forecast is that provincial downloading didn't cost nearly as much as the region feared. Remember the fire-breathing, downloading bogeyman?" That sounds like Liberals and NDP. "Remember how the region warned our taxes had to rise because it was taking over jobs once done by the province? Well, the region set aside a $1-million contingency fund for downloading costs that it didn't have to touch because downloading wasn't such a big, bad monster after all."

This bill is designed to reduce, to avoid the property tax increases of the 50% to 600% that we were noticing. I quote again from the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, from Friday, November 6: "Regional councillors are concerned larger businesses that actually benefited from the changes will now have to share their savings with smaller businesses that did not."

What was wrong with municipal councillors? Did they not do their homework?

Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): No.

Mr Wettlaufer: That's right. They didn't do their homework.

"In Waterloo region, 1,633 of 9,300 business properties received tax increases of greater than 35%, largely as a result of tax and assessment reform brought about by our province."

But the regional municipalities did not do their homework. They did not do equal work to ensure that small businesses, which create 80% of the jobs in this province, would receive the proper maximization or cap on their taxes. They downloaded on small businesses.

So now Waterloo region is saying it "needs $12 million of the $18 million in tax savings larger businesses got as a result of the tax reform." Was it so difficult for municipal politicians to look at the numbers and see that larger businesses didn't need the cuts but that smaller businesses, which were creating 80% of the jobs, did? Was that so difficult? Yes, it obviously was, so we again had to go back to the drawing board and bail out small business because municipalities couldn't. Instead, the Liberals and the NDP sit on their hands and complain and say, "Oh, you made a big mistake." If, just if, we had made a mistake, it was a mistake because we thought the municipalities had enough intelligence to do the necessary work. Not only that, I will say -

Mr Marchese: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Will you check for a quorum, please?

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Would you check for a quorum, please.

Clerk at the Table (Ms Lisa Freedman): A quorum is not present, Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker ordered the bells rung.

Clerk at the Table: A quorum is now present, Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for Kitchener.

Mr Wettlaufer: Only a government that does nothing won't make mistakes. If we made a mistake, it was because we believed the municipalities had the intelligence to use the tools we provided them to ensure that small business would get the benefit of the tax cuts.

The Liberals can complain. They didn't do anything all the time that they were in government. The NDP didn't do anything either, except increase the size of the debt. They didn't do anything, so they can complain about making mistakes. They didn't make any mistakes because they didn't do anything. They did nothing to benefit small business; they did nothing to benefit the worker; they did nothing to benefit any business dealings, trade or anything in this province.

I am very pleased to support this bill.

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Mr Crozier: I welcome the opportunity to speak to the resolution that's on the floor. I would like to have consent that my colleagues from Prescott-Russell, Parkdale, Algoma-Manitoulin and St Catharines can share this time.

The Deputy Speaker: Agreed? Agreed.

Mr Crozier: Thank you.

As I said at the outset, it is my intent to speak to the resolution on the floor. I can understand why the government doesn't want to speak to the resolution, because the backbenchers who have spoken today are as frustrated as we are that this government is stepping on our democratic rights and bringing in a time allocation motion. So the government members have all chosen to speak to Bill 79, which actually isn't what's on the floor today.

In any event, before I do that, there were a couple of questions raised that I think I should answer. The member for Kitchener raised two questions. One was textbooks that he talked about, that some school boards didn't have the textbooks they needed. Let me tell you, they've solved it today, because now they have these nice hardcover textbooks that you can rub out the printing from with your thumb. Therefore, I suppose, in the reasoning of the government today, these textbooks can be updated more easily, because all the students have to do is rub out the information in them. What a ridiculous way to spend money.

The member for Kitchener, as well as the member for York-Mackenzie, raised the question of taxes, deficits and debt. The member for Kitchener went on at some length, in fact, to suggest that previous governments have raised the debt and I suppose gave some veiled impression that this government hasn't. Well, to those who may be watching this debate today, I can tell you that for the five years the Liberal government was in power, it increased the debt of the province of Ontario by $5 billion, and when the NDP government was in power they increased the debt - and the budget will show this - by some $40 billion. By the time this government is finished, the debt will be $120 billion. If you take the $5 billion of the Liberals and the $40 billion of the NDP, take that $45 billion from the $120 billion we're going to end up at, lo and behold, Conservative governments throughout the years will have contributed $75 billion to the debt, almost three quarters of the debt. This government, which the member for Kitchener is so proud to say is so frugal, is going to have increased the provincial debt during its term of office by 75%.

That's incredible, that he would stand up there and chastise other parties for having increased the debt, when his own Conservative government and those that preceded it will be responsible for practically 75% of the debt - excuse me, less than 75% - between 70% and 75% of the debt that this province will owe at the end of this government's mandate.

That's all I have to say about answering the questions that the government members have brought up. They talked about increasing taxes. I have a document here, which is "Mike Harris the Taxfighter." I could reel off all the tax increases that Mike Harris supported when he was in the previous Conservative government, pages of tax increases that amounted to about $1.823 billion a year.

But today we're really debating a resolution that's going to allocate the time we can spend dealing with Bill 79. At the end of this debate, and I have no doubt it's going to pass, because obviously the government has the numbers to do it, at the end of this sessional day, at or around 6 pm, this resolution will be passed, which will put every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill. In other words, there will be no further debate at the second reading stage.

I was sent here by the constituents of Essex South to express not only my own opinion on these bills but, more importantly, also the opinion of the constituents of Essex South. I think when they did that they fully expected that I would be given full opportunity to debate on any and all issues. Frankly, I've lost track of the time allocation bills this government has brought in.

Mr David Caplan (Oriole): Thirty.

Mr Crozier: Thirty, my colleague tells me. It tells you two things: One is that they've managed the legislative agenda so poorly that they don't have time to discuss the bills they bring in. We know some of the ramifications of that, because we're now dealing, or will be dealing through this resolution, with about the seventh, some people will argue even the eighth, tax bill. The member from Kitchener says, "If we made a mistake." Well, they've brought in seven bills to try to correct it.

I agree with the member for York-Mackenzie. Way back in 1967, if it had been a fair tax bill, we wouldn't even be here today. We'd be discussing things like health care, education, the important issues of the day.

But not only at the end of today will we dispose of the second reading stage of the bill, but lo and behold, in their benevolence - I think it was the member for Nepean who said, "Well, this will go to committee, and we'll have an opportunity to deal with amendments." In three years here on committee work, I have yet to see an opposition amendment pass. Now, I'm not at every committee meeting, mind you, but I have yet to see one accepted at the committee meetings I'm at. So it's rather a hollow promise that we'll be able to make amendments to this bill and deal with them at committee. Part of the reason is that we're going to have the great sum total of three hours to deal with amendments at committee. If at the end of that three hours we haven't had a chance to move each of the amendments, they will be deemed -

Mr Baird: No, there's more.

Mr Crozier: It says here, "Clause-by-clause from 9 am to 12 pm." If that's four hours in your book -

Mr Baird: And then after routine proceedings.

Mr Crozier: It's following routine proceedings, until completion of the clause-by-clause. Well, you don't know when routine proceedings are going to, you know - give me a break. What you really want is three hours on the bill. Three hours, four hours, it really doesn't matter. What this government is doing is saying, "Look, we've screwed up these tax bills so badly that we're getting near the end of the session, we're getting near the end of the year, and we don't have time to properly discuss it and get input from some of the senior municipal servants in this province."

Then when we get to third reading, by the way, in the benevolence of this government, "upon receiving the report of the standing committee, the Speaker shall put the question for adoption of the report forthwith and at such time the bill shall be ordered for third reading," then we're going to get two hours to debate it. Not much to say for democracy in Ontario.

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That's my main concern here today: the fact that this government has stepped on democracy in this Legislature in this particular way, just in time allocation, let alone some of the other standing orders that have been changed. Democracy doesn't mean anything to this government, only that what they say is right. It doesn't matter that you have any kind of say. Democracy is not important any more.

I may be at risk in saying this, but I feel that the seat I have in this Legislature today is becoming less relevant every day. The Legislature itself is irrelevant. Premier Harris and those few people who surround him are the only people they think are relevant in this province today. I think it's sad that we have to be standing here using a sessional day to debate a resolution that's really taking away our democratic rights when it would be much more productive if we were standing here today debating the issues of health care and education.

M. Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott et Russell) : C'est avec plaisir que je prends la parole pour défendre les intérêts des payeurs de taxes foncières de l'Ontario, spécialement ceux et celles du secteur commercial-industriel ainsi que les propriétaires de logements multiples et édifices à logements.

Cet après-midi je peux écouter nos députés du gouvernement en place. Je peux m'apercevoir que ce sont tous des bons livreurs de messages Harris. Aujourd'hui, nous voulons restreindre les discussions, nous voulons limiter le temps alloué ordinairement pour débattre un projet de loi, surtout le projet de loi 79, qui se lit comme suit : Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'évaluation foncière, la Loi sur les municipalités, la Loi sur la Commission de révision de l'évaluation foncière et la Loi sur l'éducation en ce qui concerne l'impôt foncier.

En limitant ce projet de loi aujourd'hui, je peux dire qu'encore une fois ce gouvernement essaie de cacher les erreurs qu'ils ont faites dans le passé, et aussi camoufler un projet de loi qui va mettre les municipalités en difficultés. Nous n'avons qu'à rappeler le projet de loi 26, l'«omnibus bill» qui était présenté en 1995, quelques mois après l'élection de ce gouvernement.

Je crois qu'en ce moment ce projet de loi est tellement important qu'on doit allouer tout le temps permis pour le débattre ainsi qu'informer la population ontarienne. Je crois que c'est un vrai fiasco. En anglais on dit, «It's chaos.» Nous sommes à débattre le septième projet de loi pour réparer des erreur que ce gouvernement a faites jusqu'à ce point-ci, depuis qu'ils ont présenté le premier projet de loi.

On nous dit que ce gouvernement doit réduire la dette, doit réduire le déficit, mais laissez-moi vous dire que si nous n'avions pas la réduction de l'intérêt que nous connaissons dans le moment, la réduction de notre dollar canadien, avec le surplus de touristes que nous avons eu depuis un an, nous aurions pu avoir une année fiscale 1998 avec un surplus au lieu du déficit que nous avons actuellement. Mais on dit toujours : «Nous avons amélioré l'économie ontarienne. Grâce au gouvernement fédéral, on est toujours porté à nous blâmer lorsque le gouvernement ne peut pas atteindre ses objectifs. Nous avons permis, garanti, promis, lors de l'élection, que nous allions réduire les impôts personnels de 30 %. Nous l'avons fait.»

«Promise made, promise kept.» C'est ça qu'on nous dit toujours. Mais laissez-moi vous dire que cela va coûter aux payeurs de taxes ontariens 5 $ milliards par année, cette promesse, et ensuite on va couper tous les services que nous avons perdus. Nous aurions définitivement fini avec un surplus en 1998 et aussi commencé à réduire notre dette.

Si le gouvernement était à l'écoute - je crois qu'il ne l'a jamais été depuis l'élection - le 25 mai dernier, 1998, l'association des trésoriers et des greffiers a demandé au gouvernement de remettre le projet de loi à plus tard. On devrait faire des études et préparer notre personnel, leur donner la formation nécessaire afin que nous ne connaissions pas les fiascos que nous connaissons dans le moment.

Je peux m'apercevoir, comme j'ai dit tout à l'heure, que la majorité des membres du gouvernement, ce sont des livreurs du message Harris. Mais je serais très surpris de connaître combien de membres connaissent à fond le projet de loi.

À la mi-septembre dernier, je revenais de Collingwood. J'ai entendu à la radio dans la région de Barrie que tous les commerces d'Orillia étaient pour fermer leurs portes pour une journée au complet pour protester contre le gouvernement. Le gouvernement a dit, «Si vous fermez vos portes, ce sont vous autres qui vont en souffrir.» Mais le gouvernement n'était pas pour faire souffrir les revenus des taxes. Encore une fois, c'était un député conservateur qui est dans le bout, donc il a livré le message de M. Harris, «Ne faites pas ça.»

Tout ça pour vous dire que le gouvernement tient à nous dire que les municipalités n'ont pas suivi les politiques déjà établies dans le premier projet de loi. Personne, personne n'a été capable de suivre les directives. Seulement la ville de Toronto a été capable de garder leur maximum à 2,5 % d'augmentation telle que suggérée par le ministre des Affaires municipales à M. Eves. Donc, à ce temps-là on a dit seulement la ville de Toronto, mais il y a encore 586 municipalités en Ontario. Comment se fait-il qu'aucune des autres municipalités n'a été capable de garder leur maximum d'augmentation à 10 %, ou 2,5 % dans ce temps-là ?

Donc, le gouvernement est venu dire : «Là, maintenant il ne sera plus 2,5 %. On va mettre un "cap" à 10 %.» Mais le 10%, c'est ça qui va faire mal à tous les propriétaires de commerces. Ceux et celles qui avaient des évaluations trop hautes dans le passé ont connu des baisses de taxes, mais là on va remonter les autres à 10 % d'augmentation. Cela veut dire que c'est injuste. Je suis convaincu que quelqu'un va amener ça devant la justice, et vous allez voir encore une fois que ça va démontrer que le gouvernement a été devant avec un projet de loi sans faire des études et sans regarder à l'impact.

Lorsqu'on regarde le travail qu'on a demandé aux évaluateurs de faire en cette courte période, après avoir été avisés par l'association des greffiers et des trésoriers de la province, nous avons décidé de procéder pareil. Mais eux, dans des bureaux gouvernementaux, ont toujours dit, «C'est impossible.» Le bureau d'évaluation m'a dit, «Jean-Marc, c'est impossible de faire ce qu'ils nous demandent.» Les factures de taxes devaient être émises le mois de juin, rendues au mois de septembre. Plusieurs municipalités n'ont pas encore fait parvenir leurs factures de taxes.

Encore là, on a procédé à vitesse plein d'erreurs. J'ai justement ici dans mon comté, à Alfred, un édifice qui était vendu à 225,000 $. Le bureau d'évaluation l'a évalué à 568 000 $. Donc, on doit faire appel, donc le processus va être long.

Qui va perdre dans tout ça ? Ce sont les municipalités. Elles vont avoir un manque à gagner. Puis avec ce nouveau projet de loi, on dit aux municipalités, «Vous n'avez que faire parvenir des nouvelles factures de taxes.» Personne dans le moment peut le faire, à moins qu'on le fasse à mi-terme, comme on dit. Le programme qui est dans les ordinateurs ne permet pas d'aller chercher ces informations-là.

Nous regardons à tous les jours dans les journaux de Toronto les gens d'affaires. Ils sont pris jusqu'au cou. On ne sait pas quoi faire. Je regarde ici une lettre adressée par Cathie Best, la présidente de l'association de greffiers et des trésoriers de la province. C'était clair que le projet de loi 16 ne pouvait pas rencontrer - on n'avait pas le personnel. Le gouvernement tient à couper du personnel, et on a voulu implanter un projet de loi ou un service qui aurait demandé le double de personnel que nous avions, puis encore on n'y serait pas arrivé.

Je regarde ici dans mon comté, avec le «downloading» qu'on a dit qu'on été pour faire réduire les taxes, que seulement 46 % de la taxe scolaire sera payée par les résidences. Je regarde les augmentations que nous allons voir.

Je regarde l'évaluation seulement dans mon comté dans le moment, dans ma circonscription de Prescott et Russell. Ça va coûter 784 000 $ de plus pour le faire. On nous dit dans les bureaux d'évaluations : «Jean-Marc, ça ne se fera pas. Ça va coûter beaucoup plus cher, parce on nous demande de le faire à tous les ans.»

Les services d'ambulances qui ont été payés anciennement par le gouvernement : 2,9 $ millions par année. C'est le taux de 1997.

Les services de santé : ça va coûter 2,376,000 $ aux payeurs de taxes.

L'assistance générale : 860 000 $. Les "family benefits," les prestations familiales, vont coûter 5 $ millions de plus. La médication va coûter un demi-milliard de plus. Donc, on continue, on continue.

Le service policier va coûter 10 $ millions de plus dans ma circonscription.

Je regarde la route 17. Aujourd'hui on parle de passer un projet de loi pour vendre la 407, mais dans notre coin, on ne veut pas la vendre. On veut la donner à la municipalité, en détérioration, dans des conditions lamentables. Là, aujourd'hui, pour aller chercher des équités pour la province, on dit, «On va vendre la 407 et puis on va avoir de l'argent de plus pour repayer nos gros salariés qui gagnent 200 000 $, 300 000 $, 500 000 $ par année, pour leur donner leur 30 %.» Je crois que c'est épouvantable.

Je regarde dans la comté de Glengarry. Eux autres étaient peut-être en faveur des politiques du gouvernement actuel, mais le comté de Glengarry va leur coûter 2,1 $ millions pour les services policiers.

L'agriculture : nous perdons 1,5 $ million.

L'évaluation : 50 000 $.

Mais il y a une chose qu'il faut se rappeler : l'Hydro-Ontario, par l'an 2001. Attention, citoyens et citoyennes de Prescott et Russell, vous allez avoir des augmentations parce que l'Hydro est 30 $ milliards en déficit.

Je crois que mon temps est terminé, mais j'aurais aimé parler sur ce projet de loi encore pour des heures parce que je crois que c'est une erreur, une erreur de ce gouvernement d'arriver de mettre un maximum après qu'on a fait des erreurs comme on en a fait. On doit remettre à toutes les municipalités un montant d'argent qui va compenser pour les pertes de revenus.

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Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): I'm delighted to join in this debate about the time allocation motion. As was stated earlier, and I think all Ontarians should know this, this government has introduced 30 time allocation motions in this session. That does not speak well of democracy. It indicates a problem in management. So for this government to come out and boast about its management capability in strengthening out its finances certainly does not speak well for democracy and shows a big hole in terms of the ability of this government to structure Parliament.

I was surprised to hear the member for Kitchener say that the regional councillors didn't do their homework and that's why there were tax inequities and they failed to protect small businesses from a great number of increases. The facts are that if the latest rounds of Tory proposals, of Tory tax-fixing schemes, had not been introduced, there would have been a large number of bankruptcies all over Ontario. I am more familiar with Toronto because that's where my riding is and that's where most of my phone calls are coming from, but I can remember that at the time the first tax bill was supposed to be introduced the municipalities said to the government and to the Minister of Finance: "Let's sit down and look at this new tax scheme, current value assessment. We're going to propose some changes and we would hope that as the province has been considered previously to be a friend to the municipalities, there would be some kind of rapport and together we could propose and even develop a new tax scheme that would be much fairer and just and equitable."

In this case, this has simply not been the case. For the members of the government, including the member for Kitchener, to stand up and say, "We provided a toolbox to the municipalities. Let them use the tools. They failed to use the tools," it is really a very strange phenomenon that the tools in the toolbox were simply not present. The toolbox was delivered with great fanfare but where were the tools themselves? As the member for Essex South so rightly indicated, there were no tools. The tools were lacking.

Now the municipalities right across Ontario are in a very strange position. They were counting on a tax flow that would obviously pay all the expenses, that would be a very good tax proposition. But now we know that when the province came down with a big hammer and said, "Businesses, small businesses especially, are not to be charged more than 10%," the municipalities then said, "Where do we get the extra money from?" because the tax bills had already been sent out.

That alone shows that this is really a great fantasy for the province, to come up and say, "We've fixed the tax problem." This is not fixed. This is tax confusion. I dare you to stand up and tell me that this tax proposal of the province has indeed made significant changes and that there are some winners, because it seems that whatever tax bracket you talk to, whether you talk to businesses or homeowners or multiresidential owners or owners of industrial-land-based companies, none of them seem to be coming out as winners, not one.

What we find is that there are a significant number of tax increases and consequently these increases are leading to a number of bankruptcies. Right now we know that there are a great number of businesses right across the province that are unable to even meet the 10% cap. They're not able to pay. In my own city of Toronto, where most of you have already experienced the onslaught and the firestorm of residents and business owners alike against these proposals - you've all experienced these - we know by our own calculations there would have been over 9,000 bankruptcies had we not organized tax demonstrations on the streets.

Just like the province was unable, I should even say unwilling, to listen to the municipalities when the first tax scheme was proposed - they shut the door in their face. They slammed it shut and said, "No, I'm sorry, we do not wish to hear from you." They said the same thing to the city of Toronto. They slammed the door shut. "We don't want to have any discussions here. This is our proposal. We're going to pass it into law and let you demonstrate."

This is the reason why there were thousands of people on the streets, businesses and homeowners alike, demonstrating against this government, very clearly pushing the signs into Premier Harris's face and the Minister of Finance's face and saying: "Stop CVA. Stop this tax madness." Because the doors were shut to democracy even here with time allocation, because these doors were shut, there was no other avenue but to get out there and demonstrate with signs in the middle of winter. I can remember it was February. It was cold. We were out there with the signs because there was so much support from ordinary residents who also faced tax bankruptcies.

Even today the door is still shut. Even today, when you look across Toronto, there are still hundreds of people who will be unable to pay these taxes. Whether you're talking about businesses or homeowners or multi-residential people, it makes no difference; they're simply unable to pay these kinds of taxes. The bankruptcy court is the only one that's going to make some business out of it. We now know that when the doors are shut, there's no other way but to demonstrate.

The reason, I might add, why this government even gave in to the businesses, to the thousands of bankruptcies that would have taken place and to the inadequacies of the system, which I will address myself to in a minute, was because they knew there was a firestorm brewing. They knew when there were thousands of people on the streets with signs in the middle of winter, they had better make a change, because they did not want to lose all the seats in the next election. So they hurriedly scurried around to find another tax proposal to fix the first one. That's why today we have number eight, directly related to the tax mess.

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When the first tax bill did not produce the desired results, when it led to bankruptcies out there, they quickly decided to do the second one. When the second one led to demonstrations, they quickly decided to do the third one. When the third one didn't fix it either, they did the fourth, the fifth, the sixth and the seventh. And after all these changes, all the capping, all these special releases, even today we have a tax mess where no one can understand this government's tax bill. So we have to fix it. The question of course is going to be, how are we going to fix it?

Is there more time? I'm turning around to my colleagues because we're supposed to be sharing some of the time here.

I just wanted to indicate that this has led to a great deal of confusion. When these taxes are now due, when they're due today, are the people in the businesses and in some of the homes owned by seniors going to have enough money to pay for them? No. That's why this province has said: "Let's do a cap. Let's do a phase-in."

Remember, the city of Toronto had put out its tax bills. They said: "Just a minute. We know this can't be straightened out, so we're going to have to introduce another tax bill." Do you know what they had to do? The August 31 deadline, which everyone in Toronto knew had to be maintained, suddenly was being postponed to October. Then October rolled around. I can remember when October 30 rolled around and the Minister of Finance stood up in this House and said: "You know what? We're going to postpone the date until December 31." Do you know why? Because ordinary Ontarians hadn't even digested what was in these tax bills.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Bad management.

Mr Ruprecht: It is just bad management. It is just not a way to fix things.

I heard the member for Kitchener say, "We had the courage to change it, because no one else was going to take it on; not the NDP and not the Liberals, just we good guys, the Conservatives." What happened in the end? The tax mess and the tax chaos is squarely set on the shoulders of the Premier and the Minister of Finance. They said they had the courage, but they didn't have the courage. They were like a bull in a china shop. The bull suddenly got into the glass and the glass door started pricking them. When those pricks of the glass start hitting their rear end, they're going to wake up. They're going to wake up even more, my friends.

Do you know when they're going to wake up? They're going to wake up when the election takes place. That's why I say to you today, I prophesy to you today, this is one of the bills that will be the downfall of this government, because everyone out there is going to be affected by it. That will be one of the major pieces of legislation which will not be accepted by Ontarians, because it has led to chaos. This is not order and good government; this is chaos.

I say to you in closing, we have now seen what the government has proposed and what the government has produced. It doesn't work; it cannot work in the future. We say to them, "Fix it if you've got the courage," but you have not.

Mr Marchese: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: Would you please check for a quorum. I'd appreciate it.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Clerk, could you check for a quorum, please.

Clerk at the Table: 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: Further debate?

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): Wow, another time allocation motion. I think the member for Oriole mentioned it. I think it's the 30th time the government has chosen to gag and suppress democracy in this place. I don't blame them, actually, in this instance. This is so embarrassing. It's like the flounder on the back of George Purvis's fishing boat out in Georgian Bay: flop, flop, in its death throes. This particular piece of legislation is to fix the seven mistakes they've already made. Maybe we should recount where we're at in this sorry mess.

I remember, after about six tries at property tax reform in the province, Mr Eves appearing at the AMO meeting, and he said: "We're going to extend the appeal period" - Mr Danford will remember that - "to October 30. We're going to extend it to then because everything's all in a mess out there. People haven't got their assessments. We're having a real lot of difficulty so we're going to extend that to October 30, but we need those people in the opposition to agree with us to make sure that we can facilitate the quick extension of the property tax assessment to October 30 for appeals."

That's what Mr Eves said, and of course we agreed immediately because we had made that suggestion a year before, so it wasn't really very difficult. We got all prepared to facilitate the extension of the appeal period to October 30. We said, "We'll do that." Guess what? They never called the bill. Why didn't they call the bill? Because we had great-grandson or great-great-great-grandson of the original property tax bill to deal with. These guys can't shoot straight.

I have people in my constituency, in the great constituency of Algoma-Manitoulin, who have not received a tax bill. They don't know what their taxes will be for 1998. I note by the calendar that there are but 31 days left in the great year of 1998. These people don't know whether they should be appealing their assessment because it's not quite as easy as looking at the assessment rolls. As everything changes, it's a question of whether yours changed how in relation to your neighbour's. It's kind of difficult to make a judgment about whether you should appeal your assessment until you see the tax bill. They haven't seen one, they're not likely to see one, and that puts them in a very difficult situation.

It also puts the municipalities in a hugely unfair and difficult situation because those who believe they were unfairly treated have the right to and will appeal. They will do that. But you know who appeals? The people who believe that their assessment is too high. You know who doesn't appeal? Those who believe their assessment is unfair but it's too low. They don't appeal. Never. It doesn't happen. What it means to municipalities is that many of these appeals will be successful and they will lose literally thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars in revenue that they believed in their 1998 budget would be there. That means, of course, that they're going to have to pick it up next year.

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My good friend the treasurer of Espanola, Joel Mackenzie, has pointed out that with this particular bill you will not pay any attention to the clerk-treasurers of the province of Ontario. They have said that this is unworkable. Joel says it's not only unworkable but it's hugely, bureaucratically expensive for the municipality to be put in this position. The cost of redoing the entire segment of commercial assessment that this deals with will be an unfair burden on all the people in Espanola, and frankly every other municipality that has been thrown into this particular situation, and that's most of the municipalities.

The great problem with this is that the government says: "It's not our fault. We didn't do this. Of course, we didn't do this. We gave them the tools. If they were responsible municipal leaders" - those folks, by the way, that the public voted for - "they would have figured all of this out and they would have fixed it long before that." That was somewhere in these six or seven property tax bills we've had so far. "They would have figured it out and they would have fixed it."

Well, I'll tell you, you guys had better start taking some responsibility for the mess you've put this system in. The municipal people I deal with on a regular basis make the best decisions they can make given the information they are given by this government. That information tends to change on a daily if not hourly basis from the government, and they've had tremendous problems making rational business decisions when the rules change almost by the minute.

By the way, if you go out and talk to the clerks across the province, particularly in rural Ontario, you'll find out that when they were looking at making these decisions among the categories and how they would do it, their good friends from municipal affairs, those bureaucrats who work for the government, and again in good faith, said, "This is what we suggest you do." They took the advice of the ministry bureaucrats in virtually every case. Then to come along and be accused by this group of thugs of being incompetent, of being somebody who won't do what's in the interests of their own ratepayers, I just cannot countenance how you could say that.

Interjection.

Mr Michael Brown: It's true.

This is just an example of mistake after mistake after mistake. Especially the people in the rural caucus over there would appreciate the fact that now the government, or at least one of your backbenchers -

The Acting Speaker: Member for Algoma-Manitoulin, I believe you just a minute ago said something unparliamentary.

Mr Michael Brown: What was that, Madam Speaker?

The Acting Speaker: I'm not going to repeat it. You know what you said. I'd like you to withdraw it, please.

Mr Michael Brown: If I said something that offended, I withdraw that.

Mr Crozier: Use the word "bullies." They're just bullies.

Mr Michael Brown: They're a group of bullies.

Volunteer fire departments in this province have a huge problem because of the way, I think it was Bill 99 addressed the old workers' compensation and now the WSIB premiums. It's a big problem for the volunteer firefighters all across Ontario. Stupid. They just didn't think about it.

I'm getting letters from people involved in 4-H clubs that you're trying to withdraw the funding for 4-H clubs - it's incomprehensible - mostly I think because of oversight, at least I hope so.

Anyway, you've got the $47 million out there in the ads, telling us all how great you are -

Mr Bradley: Fifty million now.

Mr Michael Brown: How much now?

Mr Bradley: Fifty million.

Mr Michael Brown: Up to $50 million. I did hear two new commercials on the weekend. They're telling you how wonderful they are, or trying to tell the people, but the problem is that the reality is not the same as the advertising and the people of Ontario have figured all of that out. The member for St Catharines is about to follow.

Mr Bradley: I lament the fact that once again we're dealing with what's called a time allocation motion, a motion which closes off debate on an important piece of legislation before this House. I think the real reason we see this time allocation motion, and this is just my guess at it, is that they want to cut off hearings. There were going to be some public hearings where the clerks and treasurers of Ontario, a neutral, non-partisan group, wanted to make representation. In fact, I know the regional governments wanted to make some representations, the regional chairs around this province.

The government didn't want the embarrassment of public input, because when you have public input from various segments of society, particularly the municipal governments, which are directly affected by this, it can be embarrassing to the government. That's really what this time allocation motion is about.

I suspect this debate would have ended rather quickly. In fact, we were going to go to those public hearings I think Thursday of this week. People were priming for that. They were getting ready. They wanted to put their case forward. The government would have none of that, because of course the news media and others would be aware of the fact that they were being denied this opportunity. They would be pointing out, as they would, that the real winners overall are the bank towers in downtown Toronto.

You see, what happened was that when Mike Harris decided he was going to change the Assessment Act in the province of Ontario, he said, "Let's give more money to the bank towers," the huge bank towers in downtown Toronto. He said: "They're over-assessed and those big-box retail outlets are way over-assessed. It's time we zapped it to the small business people." Of course the small business people are affected by this.

Interjection.

Mr Bradley: That must be what's going on in his mind. I want to say to the member for Oxford that he probably didn't say that, but that's what's going on in his mind. I'm glad he corrected me. I'm always glad to get helped out by my friend from western Ontario, because he wants to make sure I'm saying exactly the right thing.

I think what went on in his mind is: "These bank towers and the big-box businesses are over-assessed. They need help." As a result, the small business people get zapped by the changes to the Assessment Act.

Now, he didn't want this to happen all at once just before the election, because all those small business people out there were saying, "We thought Mike Harris said he was the friend of small business, but he's zapping us, whacking us," as the member for Fort York would say, "with these higher property taxes" - for two reasons, as my friend from Etobicoke-Humber would know.

The first reason is all of the downloading of responsibilities. Mike Harris said: "Let's have an exchange of responsibilities with the municipalities. We will give them some responsibilities and we take some back." A lot of people said, "That would be a fair exchange." That's what a lot of people thought initially, until they found out, as they did in Niagara, that it was a bogus exchange. In fact what happened was that the responsibilities given to the municipalities were far more financially onerous than the responsibilities that were taken by the Mike Harris government to the provincial level. For instance, in Niagara, as my good friend from Niagara-on-the-Lake would know, they're $18 million short; in other words, after the exchange, the Niagara region -

Mr Tom Froese (St Catharines-Brock): Niagara-on-the-Lake knows how to -

Mr Bradley: I'm glad the member mentioned that. I think interjections should be allowed, because it allows me to go into a new field of endeavour.

What happened in our area, because we have a regional government, was that the downloading went to the regional government. It didn't go so much to the local municipalities. What happened was that the regional government got saddled with this.

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Mr Froese: The downloading went to the taxpayer.

Mr Bradley: My good friend the former Conservative member for St Catharines-Brock, Peter Partington - he's a former Conservative member in this House, a good friend of Norm Sterling and a good fellow. I hope he's not running for the Tory nomination, because I've said he's a good fellow. But what he said was that it's the provincial government's fault. He tried his best. He was the chair of the finance committee. There was Peter working very hard to pare down the budget as much as possible without totally annihilating all the services provided by the region. Peter worked really hard and brought in that budget and he had shots being fired at him from the operatives for the Conservative Party in the area, who said -

Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): He didn't reduce the services.

Mr Bradley: They did. The question was, were services reduced? In fact they were, unfortunately, so we got the worst of all worlds. Not only did they have to raise the property tax to make up for Mike Harris's dumping on them, but they also had to cut services, the worst combination of all, or impose user fees.

My friend from Oxford knows that for the rich and powerful, user fees are fine; they can afford them. But for people of modest income, user fees are extremely onerous. I happen to know this government has raised taxes - you know how they say they haven't raised taxes? They've raised taxes - what was the last figure I had? - 489 times. You know how that is? People will ask: "What taxes are those? Is that the health tax they put on that they don't talk about?" "No," I say, "It's not the health tax. It's all these user fees."

I remember that Mike Harris said: "You know something? A user fee is a tax." Well, if a user fee is a tax, you know then that 489 new taxes or tax increases have taken place since this government has been in power.

Even the so-called red tape bill that we voted on this afternoon contained new or increased user fees for people in this province. That's one of the reasons we opposed it, outside of the fact that it also put the fox in charge of the henhouse in many areas of the government where that shouldn't be the case. That's why we opposed it.

I see the purpose of this time allocation motion. I don't agree with it, but I see the purpose. The purpose is to not allow people to make public representations. The Minister of Finance, Mr Eves, said today in the House in answer to a question from Gerry Phillips, the Liberal finance critic, "We're meeting with AMO." What you have to know, of course, is that that meeting was behind closed doors. Reporters couldn't go to that, the free press out there couldn't go to that, the public couldn't have access to it by having it in a committee, and it wouldn't be in Hansard so we could send out the Hansard and show what the government responded to it, even though I should tell you, Madam Speaker - you probably know this - that this government has essentially ended written Hansard. Now you have to own a computer - as though everybody in the province has a computer - to get the Hansard. I know lots of people who don't have a computer at their house and they used to take Hansard on a subscription basis. They can't get that any more, and that's lamentable, to say the least.

How many bills is this? Who in the House is going to help me out?

Mr Crozier: Seven or eight.

Mr Bradley: Seven or eight. Some people say eight. I'm going to be nice to the government. I'll say it's only seven bills, seven different bills to try to deal with this. This is the bunch that says they're competent managers, yet they've had seven different bills presented in this House dealing with the issue of property taxes. Each bill is there to correct that bungling found in the previous bill. I've had people say to me: "Whether I agreed or disagreed with the Conservative government, I always thought they were competent. But now I look, and it has taken them seven or eight bills to try to fix this particular problem." And then the last bill they got, they want to rush it through. I can remember in committee when opposition members moved motions that said we should extend the deadline for the purpose of appealing property taxes considerably. "Oh," the government members said, "we can't do that." Well, one of the provisions in this bill is that that extension now is to the end of this year because they have bungled so badly.

Municipalities don't know what to do with this now. They didn't know whether to send out early bills or late bills. They have to keep sending these bills out several times. They know what's going to happen. They know the bank towers are the winners. They know that the big-box companies that compete with small businesses in our communities, and put them out of business sometimes, are the winners.

So Mike Harris says: "Well, we'd better make sure this doesn't all come before the election. Let's phase it in." Instead of giving them their arsenic all at once, they give them their arsenic a little bit at a time. Ultimately it's going to have a pretty devastating effect on small business.

I can remember my colleague from Parkdale marching with the people in his end of Metropolitan Toronto, his end of the city, where there was a riot taking place, almost - that's too strong a word, but at least a very strong protest taking place against the Mike Harris government for the property tax imposition that was taking place.

What they want to do now is phase it in, and most small businesses are saying, "Gee whiz, if we have to get it phased in, I guess that's better than getting it all at once, but what we'd rather have is that you leave it on the bank towers and the big box commercial operations and not hit us with it, Mike." That's what they're saying. That's not going to happen, unfortunately, because this government is bound and determined it's going to move ahead.

The whole strategy surrounding this, by the way, in case members of the House don't know this, was to blame the local government, blame municipal government for the downloading. The other day the member for Haldimand-Norfolk had a bill in the House. I thought, "Is this bill really to do with the structure of government?" Then I found out the battle is over who caused the increase in property taxes, particularly where there's a large agricultural base. That's what it's all about: Blame the region, the municipal government, when in fact Mike Harris is to blame.

If I had the jar of - what is it he has? - toonies or loonies or whatever he has; he brings them out as a prop because Mike Murphy, the American consultant on political strategy, said this is a good -

Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber): Don't pick on the cousins. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Mr Bradley: My friend from Etobicoke-Humber will know that Mike Murphy was the guy who ran the campaign for Ollie North for the Senate in Virginia, and Senator Jesse Helms, two great friends of Canada, I might add, ha, ha.

He probably said to Mike, "You know, the good thing is, just blame the local people." That's what happened in New Jersey. You remember that the Republican Governor of New Jersey cut the state income tax by 30% and dumped it all on to the municipalities and the property taxes went way up.

Mr Baird: She got re-elected, though, Jim.

Mr Bradley: She came very close to being defeated. In fact, it was alleged that had the Democratic Party run a strong candidate for Governor of New Jersey, they would have been elected. But here it is, we have a situation, here the people are voting strategically -

Mr Baird: They may allege that here too, Jim. They may say the same thing.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please, member for Nepean.

Mr Bradley: They're voting strategically. I was listening to Buzz Hargrove, head of the CAW, on the radio the other day. He said: "We're going to vote strategically. We've got to get rid of the Harris government." I won't get into that too much. But I just want to say that the same thing happened, my friend from Fort York will know, in New Jersey and they tried to blame the local level of government.

The local Tory members wanted to take on the regional chairs everywhere. They had a couple of allies on regional council, but my friend and the former Progressive Conservative member of provincial Parliament for St Catharines-Brock, the chair of the finance committee, Peter Partington, and a good friend of Norm Sterling, said it right. He said the blame lies with the Mike Harris government. People like Peter Partington probably would not recognize -

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: Member for Scarborough East, come to order.

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Mr Bradley: People like Peter Partington probably would not recognize the present Conservative government, because back when he was with the Conservatives they were a moderate party, an all-encompassing party, one which understood all aspects of Ontario.

Mr Froese: That's not what you said when they were in power.

Mr Bradley: Naturally, I drew to the attention of the public in those days what I felt were the shortcomings of the government, but I never thought they were ideologically driven. I hear Conservatives, day after day, say to me: "This isn't the Conservative Party we knew. This isn't the Conservative Party which recognizes the importance of the local level of government. This isn't the Conservative Party that was a middle-of-the-road, genuinely Progressive Conservative Party. This is the Reform Party." That's what they say to me, and these are moderate Conservatives. These are former members of the Legislature who tell me this from time to time. They don't recognize the party any more.

We know what this is all about. This motion is once again slamming the door shut on debate in this Legislature, and I think the people of this province will not forget that about Mike Harris.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr Marchese: I'm happy -

Mr Baird: Hey, Rosie, is there a quorum?

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Marchese: Call for a quorum any time you like. I think it's important for people to be here to listen to this speech, because I've got a lot to say and this is a live show. People should tune in to the things we've got to say.

This is a time allocation motion. It's a motion intended to throttle - picture that - debate on important issues that are before this place. It's like they continually have their hands on our throats, on the throat of debate in this House, strangling it like a bottle, getting thinner and thinner each and every time.

Mr Gilles Pouliot (Lake Nipigon): Stop it, stop it.

Mr Marchese: But it's true, member for Lake Nipigon.

Speaker, I want to say I'll be sharing my time with the members for Lake Nipigon, Sudbury East and Dovercourt, should they desire. They will indicate to me when that appropriate moment will come and I will yield the floor to them, obviously, because they have a lot to say too.

That's the problem when they throttle debate. It only permits one or two speakers, and the other speakers, who have so much to say, will have to limit themselves to a few short comments.

Mr Gilchrist: Did you see this number, your time allocations? There were 32 of them.

Mr Marchese: The member from Scarborough, my good buddy from Scarborough, is one who will never miss a fight anywhere to defend this government. I've got to tell you, you're a good defender of this government, one of the few fine soldiers this government has. While others skulk away, there you are in the front, sword in hand, ready to do battle with the opposition. You're a firm fundamentalist of the Conservative religion.

Mr Gilchrist: You do what you can.

Mr Marchese: I know, and I praise you, because as I say, I see you often in those debates, where others would, in a most reptilian way, just skulk away, but not you.

I've got a lot to say, and I want to try to get into this discussion. First of all, I want to speak briefly - because there is so much to say - to the number of bills this government has introduced to deal with the whole matter of the Ontario property tax system and the download, by and large. Is that a fair thing to say? Seven or eight, give or take, but about eight bills, more or less, to deal with this issue.

I happen to be one who believes that this is a matter of incompetence. Others who are a little more generous would say it is a matter of complexity, that there are complex issues so we need to be generous and give this government as much time as they need to get it right. I don't want to be that generous, because I recall when we were in government we took some blows early on. You remember, member for Lake Nipigon? Almost immediately, as we got into power, we were accused of incompetence over little things.

Mr Ford: You were. You're telling the truth.

Laughter.

Mr Marchese: I want to be fair. I accept the laughter on the other side is genuine and meaning something. I accept that. But, Speaker, you have been here in this place over the last four years, more or less, and you have witnessed and spoken against so many incompetencies of this government that we gasp in disbelief, and they continue to give us more and more incompetence as we go on.

That's why, I've got to tell you, they're going to call an early election, because they can't continue mismanaging their policy affairs. They can't. The more they introduce bills, the more they get into trouble. Bless them, they haven't been accused of incompetence, as some others, but I think this is a matter of true incompetence - not a matter of complexity whatsoever, although I admit the issue of property tax reform is something you've got to do carefully, and not something you'll want to rush through.

You'll recall, they reassessed 3.5 million properties in more or less a year and a half. What does it mean? That they didn't assess them properly. That's why we have a whole whack of buildings and a whole lot of people out there complaining about the assessment of their property: because they didn't do it right. They didn't have the human resources to do it right. They bungled it right from the very beginning in their haste and, I would argue, incompetence, to do this job.

How many bills have they introduced? Bill 106, introduced January 16, 1997; that's when they started with their incompetence. They continue, of course, to this very day, and it will continue again, because there are new additions, new amendments, because as they go along they realize: "Oops, there are more mistakes. We didn't think of it." That's why a government needs to be a little, somewhat intelligent in terms of how they do things, to respect themselves and the public that has to suffer these problems.

It began 23 months ago with the Fair Municipal Finance Act, and the saga continues. We have, following Bill 106, the Fair Municipal Finance Act (No 2). That was Bill 149 that followed. Then there was Bill 160, which we all remember, centralized education financing. It set this province-wide levy for education. They continued because there were mistakes there. They didn't take education off the commercial-industrial assessment whatsoever. The province took all of it. That was followed by Bill 164, the Tax Credits to Create Jobs Act, where they set down the rules for the Assessment Review Board. Then there's Bill 179 - oh yes, that corrects some of the rules of the Assessment Review Board.

Do you get a feeling of what I'm saying? The terms of the bills, the introduction of a new one to correct the old problem. Then it continues with Bill 15, the Tax Cuts for People and for Small Business Act, followed right on the heels by Bill 16, the Small Business and Charities Protection Act, continuing with Bill 61, to extend the property tax appeal deadline to at least give property taxpayers the time to file an appeal; and then of course we've got Bill 79.

I just wanted to go through that for the benefit of those who always enjoy a big laugh on the other side. But this is not for them, I always argue; it's for the people listening to the debate. They don't need to get into the minutiae of details. They don't really need that. They need the larger picture, to get a sense of what this government is all about. We could spend hours on each bill, but what the public needs is the larger picture of incompetence. Within that framework, they will understand what we're dealing with. Had they done this thing right, we would have had one bill, with the time it takes to consult properly and make all the necessary corrections and/or additions or adjustments that need to be made. But they didn't do that.

This is a government that is omnipotent in its style of operation. They claim to be omniscient, but you can see the failure of omniscience, because we have a succession of bill after bill to correct the previous ones, giving you, dear public, the clue that these guys don't know what they are doing.

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We have the tales from my good friend from Nepean talking about - quite apart from this bill - how he and his friends have set this climate. Where I picked up his conversation, he was talking about how the housing starts are growing, how there are a whole lot of housing starts, to indicate that the economy's booming. On the whole matter of housing starts, those people who can afford a house are few and far between. They have the money to be able to take advantage of low interest rates to buy a home. But many of the people, Speaker, who you and I deal with in our downtown ridings don't have the money for a home. Many of them are homeless and 100,000 across Ontario are on waiting lists for subsidies because they can't afford the prices that are there to get into the rental market that's available.

The Minister of Housing answered the questions today, and all the folks out there were able to see the competent manner in which he was able to handle them. Many who were watching will realize that he doesn't answer the questions very well, or at all. I said to him, you boys don't want to build housing. The Common Sense Revolution told us that and you delivered on that promise.

But there was another promise, I believe on page 13, that spoke about shelter allowances so as to permit people to be able to find homes. I said to the Minister of Housing today: "Will you deliver on that promise? You have kept other promises, you argue, and this was an important promise to deal with the issue of homelessness and to deal with people who are on waiting lists because they need subsidies?" We said, "Will you deliver on your promise to give shelters to these people?" I'm not one to advocate for shelter allowances. I believe it's fundamentally wrong, but they say that is the answer to the issue of home and shelter problems that people are facing in this province. They haven't delivered on that.

The member for Nepean can talk about housing starts and the member for Nepean can gloat about all these people who are buying them up, but it's the upper middle classes that are able to afford these kinds of homes. The rest of the folks are wallowing in their dismal conditions as they wait for better times to come. If these are not the better times, when will we have a better time?

We've had the healthiest of economies in the last three and a half years, not created by the federal Liberals, not created by these fine Tories here, but lucky enough to find a healthy economy and yet we have a disparity between the rich and the poor that we have never seen before. We used to have good values, an ethic of sharing in our communities, across the province and across Canada. Those values and the ethics of what binds each other is being slowly unglued by people like them.

We have Mr Ford, the member from Etobicoke, who keeps on smirking and laughing and I'm happy that he will have the opportunity, now that he lost the nomination to the Speaker, to have the time to go in his riding and meet the real people of Etobicoke.

Mr Wettlaufer: That's inappropriate. Come on.

Mr Marchese: Member from Kitchener, it's very appropriate. He will have the time to go and talk to the real good people of Etobicoke.

Let me tell you a bit about the rich and the poor -

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr Marchese: - and the disparity between them.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr Marchese: In 1973 the richest 10% of Canadian families earned 21 times more than the poorest 10%. Not bad. What it means is that people at the bottom were able to share in the prosperity of the country in a way that the middle class flourished in between. But that number, the middle class, is slowly disappearing, as I read to you another statistic, which says that in 1996 the income gap had widened so much that the richest 10% of families made an incredible 314 times more than the poorest 10%. Do you see the enormous gap? We're talking about a gap between the rich and the poor at a time when the economy is, as they say, the healthiest we have seen in a long time, under their tutelage, yet the divide is pretty large. It's egregious, something that I think we need to worry about.

The economist, the author of this report, Armine Yalnizyan, obviously has given us the tools to be able to talk to people, as we talk to you today, but we need to deal with these problems. This same economist points out, for example, that at a time when worker wages are still lagging behind the cost of living, the 100 top CEOs in Canada collected an average pay increase last year of 56%. People are working harder, longer, for less. The middle class is disappearing. CEOs' average pay increase last year was 56%.

What do these fine Tories have to offer? Oh, an income tax cut worth $6 billion. I'm not talking $6.

Mr Wettlaufer: Over 440,000 jobs.

The Acting Speaker: Order. Member for Kitchener, come to order.

Mr Marchese: I'm talking about $6 billion worth of income tax cuts. Speaker, I'll remind you and the listeners that 6% of this entire Ontario working population -

Mr Wettlaufer: That's right, you'd rather have grants -

The Acting Speaker: Member for Kitchener, come to order.

Mr Marchese: - is earning 25% of that tax cut. It's almost $2 billion. I know you will agree with me that is obscene. It is obscene, $2 billion out of $6 billion. Remember, this isn't money that the government has in this pocket to give out to people generously, as they do. When they give this money out of this pocket, they've got to get it out of another pocket. That pocket is the health care pocket, the housing pocket, the social service pocket, the education pocket. That's where they're getting it.

You know something else? Most obscene of all is that many of these affluent individuals, the ones getting the big bucks from the tax cut these guys are giving, are leading the charge for the tax cuts, they're leading the bandwagon where the public sees public services as luxuries, not as something that binds us together, that we need as part of who we are, as part of our humanity. They argue we can't afford them. They also argue that the poor must make a greater effort to do more for themselves. These are the affluent.

These are the buddies of these guys here, who sit around and oftentimes smile at the comments we make, and sometimes take offence at the things we say, but if we don't speak about these things, who will? If we don't speak about the fact that the affluent, who are the ones who are saying that the cuts to welfare, and maybe employment insurance, because I'm not sure they like that, but I don't know - the 21% cut to welfare in their view is a good thing. In the view of Tories, it's a good thing. To listen to my good buddy here on my left, the member for Kitchener, all he does, every other word, is about business, the member for Nepean too and the member for York-Mackenzie. All they speak about is business.

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All I hear from the little guy in my riding is, "What about me?" These guys say, "We want to help business because there will be a trickle-down effect so that the poor and those who don't have jobs will get jobs." The people at the bottom are saying: "I don't have a job. I am working harder and longer for less." The people at the bottom are saying, "It's all very nice for you people to talk about small business, but where do I fit in that picture? What about me?"

I agree with that, because if we don't worry about these things, my sense is that nobody else is going to worry about them.

Apart from this mess that these people have created in attempting to fix, through their tax reform, this property tax system, they have massacred municipal politicians, municipal services and massacred the homeowner and the tenants, who pay a whole heap of taxes as well. This so-called download that was supposed to have been an equal swap wasn't so equal at all.

Toronto council received 50 million bucks - the generosity of this government - as a grant, they received $100 million as a loan and another $100 million as a loan, and the municipality of Toronto says, "We've got a $150-million debt." This, from a government that said it was an even swap. It was not an even swap. They have serious economic problems because they can't meet their social commitments with the money they've got and with the money they're getting from this province. It was never an even swap, but these guys want their money repaid, they say.

What it means to the municipality is that they had to fire 1,200 last year and they're firing 1,200 this year and Mel Lastman says we had savings of $175 million as a result. He calls the firings savings. People are gone from permanent positions and he calls them savings. I don't think they're savings when you fire people, because these poor folks are going to have to go out there and find a job in a market that's getting uglier and uglier.

The member for Nepean quotes somebody or other as saying the economy will continue to boom. I'm worried about this economy, because it will go down, and I'm worried about the health care system. Talking about Riverdale, Speaker, you know the kinds of problems we face there. "What Riverdale also demonstrates is that those nearing a certain age and needing what age often requires - chronic care, home care, long-term care, nursing home care - should mind their pennies and credit cards," says the Toronto Star in one of its editorials. If they don't have the money, under what's happening with this government, they are in a whole heap of trouble.

They go on:

"That is because long-term care is not just hospital care by another name. Patients who move out of institutions like Riverdale are likely to end up in private facilities" - not a public facility but a private facility.

"That means moving from medicare to partially insured care."

This is big stuff. The implications of these changes on the public good are enormous.

"It means moving from public hospitals, which are subject to the standards of accessibility and universality in the health act, to institutions that are for the most part outside of medicare."

Speaker, I know you're very concerned, because we talk about it. You've got Riverdale right in your backyard, and I know how concerned those people are. You've told me about that. You've tried to tell the Tories about your concerns, and the public, and they need to worry. I'm worried.

"It means going from Ontario's hospital insurance act, which pays for prescribed drugs, to a system where medication may have to come out of a patient's pension cheque."

Do you see how all these changes are eating at the poor, all our public services that we value, ethics and values that were important to us, that these people are slowly eroding, taking the planks out one by one? This tax system here is a matter of sheer, gross, indecent, egregious incompetence. And it's getting worse.

We'll see more bills to deal with previous bills that have caused all these problems. It will not be corrected. More and more people are going to have to bear the burden of these tax increases. Businesses were protected here, and quite rightfully, I would argue, but homeowners are going to be stuck with a bill of higher taxes or the loss of a lot of services.

My friends do want to speak to this, so I would yield the floor the member for Lake Nipigon.

Mr Pouliot: It's like music to my ears when I listen to my distinguished colleague, one of the best orators in this town when it comes time to convey to the people of Ontario and to try to impress on the government of the day what's wrong with the issues they are presenting with their bills. Rosario Marchese, I wish to thank you on behalf of the people of northern Ontario. We get phone calls in our office; we get mail from people saying: "You know, the fellow - I think he lives in Toronto, a long-time sitting member. He is passionate, he is committed. Through him I see the human dimension."

We listen to him, my spouse and I. When Rosario Marchese is on his feet defending our rights, we raise the volume. There are others with whom we change channels quickly, because they are responsible for the situation that we find ourselves or are about to find ourselves in.

I want to share a secret with you, a belief that I held for some years. If you promise not to tell anyone, Speaker, we can do this together. Many years ago, when I was little, when I was beginning to learn about politics, although I didn't agree with the philosophy, with the policies of governments of the right, I believed that at least I could rely on their competence, that those people were in the know. They could count. They all went to the same "privileged" school, a school for good young men and good young women. They came up with the savoir-faire; they knew better than anyone. They were very competent in leading us.

After 14 years in this assembly - and Mr Kormos, who is exchanging the same philosophy at present, as I speak, with our great House leader, would attest to that - nothing could be further from the truth. In 14 years, I've never faced such gross incompetence. These people screw up, they mess up, and then they do it again and again and again. You would think that after the first, second, third or fourth time, one would begin to get it right, to get the transmission back. They worked seven times on the bill on property taxation, each and every time to correct the mistakes made in the previous bill. But those soldiers are never wrong.

I work with a certain component, a certain element of the brigade who would never admit they're wrong; they never make any mistakes. When you see some old films of revolutions and the train is about to leave the station and they're all massed there, they are members of the first brigade. They have quite a few of them. They're not Conservatives, mind you; they're conscripts. They come from the Reform, to swell the ranks, so the few generals can ride the limo. Those Reform members are never wrong. They profess such a zeal. If Mike Harris told them, "You go deliver this message. Members of the brigade, line up, get off the platform. You're going over that hill," they would all go over the hill, no questions asked. They wouldn't even remove the blinkers. Historically, they speak very highly of members of the first brigade, for they're all dead, dead, dead.

I was wrong when I believed many years ago that if you were a Conservative, you brought forward some competence. They have messed things up big time. If only it were not consequential, if it didn't matter too much.

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Have you noticed in your neighbourhood in the past few years that the middle class, the people who carry the freight, who pay for all that, are not as happy as they were, that they're more anxious, more concerned?

Mr Wildman: They've been abandoned by this government.

Mr Pouliot: My friend from Algoma, my neighbour and our House leader, says they've been abandoned, and eroded. There are fewer of them because we have a winner-take-all economy. The referees have left the marketplace. They've been taken out because they slow things down, they check things.

They rake it in. The president of a corporation who used to make 20 or 25 times more than the floor sweeper who provides just as essential a service now makes 250 or 300 times more. Those people only wear one set of clothes at a time. They can only consume and digest one meal at a time, watch one television set, drive one set of wheels, except that the brigade has put those people on a pedestal. They have become the role models, something we can all aspire to.

In the meantime there is less money for the middle class and, alas, for those marginalized, those less fortunate, the homeless you will see tonight on your way home, people without shelter, people without hope. The food banks are going empty before Christmas. Oh, sure, they'll get an injection. They will clean their conscience. They'll drop a few cans of tuna in the bin at those high-rise apartments and they will say, "You see, who says I don't have a heart?"

In the meantime, with the stroke of a pen, if you're on welfare, temporarily unable to join the mainstream, if Alma, a welfare recipient with two children, gets overpaid by $5 after having been cut by 21.6%, well, the crime commissioner will come calling. He will lead the parade and be there full-time, because Alma has to give the $5 back. In the meantime, while Alma is under a state of siege, the people in the SkyDome have just blown half a billion dollars. But they're not welfare recipients. They wear Guccis. Alma has Gucci feet but she cannot afford the shoes. She's the salt of the earth. Other people have no Gucci feet but they have Gucci shoes. There's an imbalance here: 21.6%, while the Peter Pocklingtons of this world located in Ontario are picking the pockets of consumers.

I see that the minister responsible for social assistance is here. She knows about the homeless. She can see through the privacy glass of the limousine. It's inescapable; there are so many. In fact tonight there are more than double what there were previously.

The shelters, the cheap motels are full, people are in sleeping bags, yet three steps away, three blocks away, three miles away, you see some mansions that are 5,000, 8,000, 10,000 square feet, occupied by one or two people. I'm not saying it's unfair, but if it goes unchecked, you're not giving people a chance. There is only so much money in the system.

Every time we want to talk about that, because it doesn't sound too good - we feel uncomfortable; we pretend we're busy shuffling paper - they invoke closure. They say: "We've heard enough. You have two hours to debate. We'll talk about selling the 407. That's mortar. We can talk for three days about that. But don't bring the case of Alma and the two children; it's embarrassing. It doesn't sell very well: "Why doesn't she get off the streets and on to her own two feet?" because maybe I did it. But the circumstances are different. She needs not the back of a hand but a hand.

This is civilization. This is a very rich territory. We're reminded every day of how well we've done, that this has been a recovery of unprecedented proportions. Yet when I go to not only the boulevards and the streets with a prominent address and the name of some people where the name is the address, but I look and I listen to the greater population, there is a malaise there. The malaise is not the lack of money at any given time. The malaise is that they cannot look to the future with the same confidence as before; hence the despair, hence the lack of hope. That's much more dangerous, because if this kind of climate is allowed, is encouraged, in this kind of "casino winner take all," you will do so at your own peril. There is nothing worse, after all the mergers and the takeovers, than to have a young educated male and female workforce on the dole. The library abounds with examples. History repeats itself. We should know better, but we can only know better if we listen.

Have the courage. It's not a big departure from form. It is only good economics; it is only commonsensical. Seventy per cent of our economy is not based on riches but is based on consumer products. It's the economy; it's the cash flow. You don't need to emanate from any renowned school of economics to understand that. You read, you listen, you go to the marketplace. Mr Ford, you know that. You study consumer products. You fly to quality, something which is durable, and you can't go wrong.

Madam, one more time. My colleague before me talked about the need for a member to express the feelings, the aspirations of the people. I've said it before: We're being shackled. We are being strangled. The opposition is being silenced. The press has stopped printing so that the train can go to one more station in their ill-fated evolution of "The winner takes all," where ordinary people and where the marginalized will not have the same opportunity. That's the anxiety, and anxiety leads to fear.

The opposition, certainly the New Democratic Party, wants to put these on the record, to say, "Beware." If not catastrophic, if not irreversible at this time, it is coming. Their plan as they move up the food chain includes you and leaves you. This is not by accident. This is the design of the plan. So we're speaking up. Madam, I want to thank you.

Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East): I'd like to thank my colleague from Lake Nipigon for the time that he has left me and to say in the two minutes that you will recall, Madam Speaker, that if it's Monday, it must be closure motion day. You've been here on the last number of Mondays when the government has used its majority to shut down debate on important bills. We saw on October 26, a Monday, the government moving time allocation for Bill 68. We saw on November 2 the government moving time allocation on privatization of Highway 407. Here we are again today, Monday, the government moving time allocation on Bill 79.

I can understand why the government wants to do that, because it must be oh, so embarrassing for this government to be dealing with bill number seven to try and fix the mess that it's created since the beginning of January 1997 with respect to property tax reform. Imagine, we are dealing with the seventh bill to try and fix all of the mess that this government has created in trying to, so-called, allegedly, reform property taxes.

Do you know what's even more interesting? The government has to move this into committee because the government forgot, even in this, the seventh bill, another piece, that is, the cap on multiresidential units. So the government has to go to committee again on this bill to fix yet another mess.

This is a fiasco. You are totally incompetent. You must be completely embarrassed by the pathetic way you have dealt with all these bills - seven bills, and now this going to committee again to fix yet another mistake. No wonder the government is here today trying to shut this down, trying to use their jackboot tactics once again to close debate, because they are so incompetent, and this bill is proof of that.

The Acting Speaker: Mr Tsubouchi has moved government notice of motion number 42. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour of the motion will please say "aye."

Those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members. There will be a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1801 to 1806.

The Acting Speaker: Members take their seats, please.

All those in favour of the motion will please rise one at a time until recognized by the Clerk.

Ayes

Arnott, Ted

Baird, John R.

Barrett, Toby

Bassett, Isabel

Beaubien, Marcel

Boushy, Dave

Chudleigh, Ted

Clement, Tony

Cunningham, Dianne

Danford, Harry

DeFaria, Carl

Doyle, Ed

Ecker, Janet

Elliott, Brenda

Eves, Ernie L.

Flaherty, Jim

Ford, Douglas B.

Fox, Gary

Froese, Tom

Gilchrist, Steve

Grimmett, Bill

Hardeman, Ernie

Harnick, Charles

Harris, Michael D.

Jackson, Cameron

Johns, Helen

Johnson, David

Jordan, W. Leo

Kells, Morley

Leach, Al

Maves, Bart

McLean, Allan K.

Munro, Julia

Murdoch, Bill

Mushinski, Marilyn

Newman, Dan

O'Toole, John

Parker, John L.

Pettit, Trevor

Rollins, E.J. Douglas

Shea, Derwyn

Skarica, Toni

Smith, Bruce

Snobelen, John

Tilson, David

Tsubouchi, David H.

Turnbull, David

Vankoughnet, Bill

Wettlaufer, Wayne

Wood, Bob

Young, Terence H.

The Acting Speaker: All those opposed to the motion will please stand one at a time.

Nays

Boyd, Marion

Bradley, James J.

Brown, Michael A.

Christopherson, David

Crozier, Bruce

Hoy, Pat

Kormos, Peter

Lalonde, Jean-Marc

Lessard, Wayne

Marchese, Rosario

Martel, Shelley

McLeod, Lyn

Morin, Gilles E.

Phillips, Gerry

Pouliot, Gilles

Pupatello, Sandra

Ruprecht, Tony

Silipo, Tony

Wildman, Bud

Clerk of the House (Mr Claude L. DesRosiers): The ayes are 51; the nays are 19.

The Acting Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

It being after 6 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 6:30 of the clock this evening.

The House adjourned at 1809.

Evening meeting reported in volume B.

30 novembre 1998