L070B - Tue 15 Dec 1998 / Mar 15 Déc 1998 1
LAW SOCIETY AMENDMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LE BARREAU
SUPPLY ACT, 1998 / LOI DE CRÉDITS DE 1998
The House met at 1831.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
LAW SOCIETY AMENDMENT ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LE BARREAU
Mr Harnick moved third reading of the following bill:
Bill 53, An Act to amend the Law Society Act / Projet de loi 53, Loi modifiant la Loi sur le Barreau.
Hon Charles Harnick (Attorney General, minister responsible for native affairs): Madam Speaker, I believe we have unanimous consent to spend one hour this evening in consideration of Bill 53 and to divide the time available equally among the three recognized parties in the House.
The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Is that agreed? Agreed.
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I don't believe we have a quorum in the House.
The Acting Speaker: Clerk, could you check and see if there's a quorum, please.
Clerk at the Table (Mr Todd Decker): 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: The Attorney General.
Hon Mr Harnick: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Today we proceed with the third reading of Bill 53, the Law Society Amendment Act. This bill amends the Law Society Act, which makes the Law Society of Upper Canada responsible for governing and regulating Ontario's lawyers in the public interest.
The Law Society Act has not substantially changed in more than a quarter of a century. It does not reflect current expectations of a modern, self-regulating legal profession. It is cumbersome legislation that thwarts the law society's ability to thoroughly investigate complaints and move quickly to deal with unethical and incompetent lawyers.
The law society has asked this government to give it new tools to protect the public more effectively. We have listened and have introduced Bill 53. This proposed legislation would strengthen the law society's powers to safeguard consumers of legal services from unethical and incompetent lawyers.
The reforms mean tougher, more exacting standards for lawyers, faster settlement of complaints and a stronger voice for the public in the law society. There would be better protection for each and every Ontarian who buys a home or prepares a will or deals with any other family, civil or criminal matter.
Ontarians today expect the highest quality of legal services. Our proposed reforms would help to satisfy those expectations by requiring lawyers to meet the highest professional competency standards.
The law society would now have real teeth to respond to public complaints more quickly, to ensure that issues are settled as early as possible and to give complainants a stronger voice in the hearing process. In short, these reforms would ensure that the law society evolves to meet changing consumer needs and community standards.
The reforms have been developed in consultation with the public. Input was sought from the major law organizations, other self-regulating professions such as physicians and accountants and consumers' groups, including the Canadian Consumer Council and the Consumers' Association of Canada.
Let me provide a brief summary of the key elements of this reform package.
First, the amendments would double the number of public representatives on the law society's governing board from four to eight. This would give the public a stronger voice in the disciplinary process and governance of the law society. As a result, the law society would be more accountable to the public.
Second, the amendments would improve the public complaints system by providing for the appointment of a new Complaints Resolution Commissioner. To ensure independence, the Complaints Resolution Commissioner would act at arm's length from the law society and would not be a practising lawyer. The commissioner would ensure that complainants are dealt with fairly, that their complaints would receive thorough attention and that minor complaints would be dealt with outside the full formal discipline process. These reforms would greatly improve service for the public.
Third, the reforms would allow the law society to regulate the quality of services provided by lawyers as well as the conduct of lawyers. The results would be tougher enforceable competency standards for lawyers and enhanced protection for the public.
Fourth, the amendments would clarify the definition of incapacity. The law society would be able to order lawyers to seek treatment or counselling for mental illness or substance abuse if they want to continue to practise law. The amendments would ensure that the law society has the same remedial powers as other self-regulating professions to deal with members who are incapacitated.
Fifth, the reforms would give the law society the clear legislative mandate it needs to thoroughly investigate complaints and require the co-operation of lawyers.
Sixth, the amendments would streamline law society hearings and appeals and divert minor administrative infractions from the formal hearing process. This would free up time and resources for more serious matters.
Finally, Bill 53 would enable law firms to form limited liability partnerships. This would permit lawyers to better compete in the increasingly competitive global marketplace for legal services. The public would continue to be protected because lawyers would need to meet more rigorous insurance standards as well as the requirements set out in the Partnerships Act.
These reforms were the topic of public hearings held on December 7 and 8 by the standing committee on administration of justice. Lawyers and non-lawyers alike appeared before the standing committee to outline the need for change and to endorse our proposed reforms.
For example, June Callwood, the noted journalist and social activist, is quoted as saying that our proposed legislation would help end public frustration with the legal profession. She said this bill would give members of the public the power to fight back, to use her words, "against the kinds of complaints driving the public crazy."
"Failure to return phone calls, failure to move a file...rudeness - all these things are highly irritating to the public," Ms Callwood said, but not actionable under current rules.
Harvey Strosberg, treasurer of the law society, said the proposed legislation is needed to deal with the minority of lawyers in Ontario who are dishonest, incapable or incompetent. In particular, Mr Strosberg told the standing committee, this bill provides the tools needed to prevent wrongdoers from "stonewalling" investigators.
Clayton Ruby heads the society's fund for client compensation. He said our proposed reforms would better enable the society to pursue lawyers for breaches of basic honesty, such as overbilling, and breaches of competency, for failing to transfer client files when requested.
Notwithstanding these strong endorsements before the standing committee, several changes were proposed. We have made several amendments that would further strengthen Bill 53.
A number of amendments deal with procedures that would be followed when the law society orders a lawyer to take a medical exam or to seek treatment for mental illness or substance abuse. For example, the amendments would permit a party to appeal interim orders for medical exams. As well, the amendments would further protect the confidentiality of medical records.
Other amendments would clarify the law society's guidelines for investigating lawyers. In particular, the secretary of the law society would need to have a reasonable suspicion before entering the business premises of a lawyer or requiring the production of documents. Further amendments would strengthen safeguards in the legislation to better protect privileged and confidential information obtained by the law society during an investigation. The law society would be prohibited from using privileged documents or information for any purpose except its investigations and any consequential proceedings.
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These safeguards would provide additional assurance that the legislation would strike an appropriate balance between protecting the public from incompetent and unethical lawyers and protecting the privacy of lawyers' clients.
In addition, I might say that there has been an amendment included so that an Attorney General who has not been a lawyer will be able to participate in the proceedings of the law society. I'm very pleased that we were able to get all-party endorsement of that recommendation in that amendment.
In concluding, I would like to emphasize that our proposed reforms would give the law society the powers it needs to govern Ontario's lawyers in the public interest. They are part of the Ministry of the Attorney General's ongoing efforts to improve the justice system for the people of this province. They are needed, they are timely and they are in the best interests of Ontarians. I urge all members of the House to support this legislation so that all Ontarians can benefit sooner from stronger consumer protection and better legal services.
Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview): Let me say at the outset that we have always supported the principle of the legislation which is before us today. We would all agree in this House that it is important, in the public interest, to ensure that there are rules that provide for adequate protection of the public. No one is here to defend sleazy lawyers. No one is here to condone conduct which is unbecoming of the profession of law.
When we started out on this bill, I made certain points in this House, points that were raised by a number of constituencies. The first group was the Canadian Bar Association - Ontario, which had come forward to say, with a brief to the Attorney General, that they had some serious concern around the issues of privilege, of confidentiality, of the test that would be required to conduct investigation into lawyers' conduct; that there were provisions in the act that could, taken to their ultimate conclusion, have the draconian effect of putting some lawyers out of business.
Those particular objections might well be construed as being discountable because they're put forward by a special interest group. I'm sure the members on the other side will say that in fact it's a lawyers' group advocating for lawyers, and of course they would want fewer regulations rather than more.
If they had been the only ones who had voiced that complaint, we would have been able to dismiss them. But I read into the record during our second reading on this bill that we have a greater authority, a more impartial authority, if you wish, the privacy commissioner. I challenged the Attorney General to meet the tests set out by the privacy commissioner.
I'd like for a moment to refer to what the privacy commissioner said in a letter dated October 2, 1998. The privacy commissioner made a number of observations, the first that the bill should contain a provision recognizing that only such material as is necessary for a particular investigation ought to be collected. The reason for that is that when you investigate a particular complaint you want to make sure that it relates only to that particular file. The client who may have complained has the capacity to waive his or her privilege with respect to that particular communication and that particular set of files, but no one else has waived that privilege. It is the client's privilege to waive. It is not the law society's privilege to waive; it is not the Attorney General's privilege to waive; it isn't even a privacy commissioner's privilege to waive. It is an individual's right to waive privilege. If that privilege is not waived, there should be no way that anyone should be able to look into the very private files of a person who has not consented. That's the general gist of the first argument the privacy commissioner makes in the letter that was presented to us. You want to limit the materials obtained, and you want to make sure that, once obtained, any information is maintained securely.
I think those were very reasonable requests made on the part of the privacy commissioner, and I put those to the Attorney General as issues that needed to be resolved before we came to third reading and as we went through the public hearings. The Attorney General is quite correct: We did have hearings, people came forward, and lo and behold, many people who came forward endorsed the very positions which I'm reading, which the privacy commissioner has put forward.
The second issue the privacy commissioner put forward was that there had to be some flexibility as to whether one should investigate or not and the nature of the investigation. Subsection 49.3(1) at the time read, "The secretary shall require an investigation to be conducted." The privacy commissioner pointed out that that might be too inflexible. You do not want an investigation to be held for no apparent reason. You should have some reasonable grounds. I will say this for the Attorney General, that he did listen to those particular concerns. Although the phrase that has been changed does not say that there must be reasonable and probable grounds for an investigation, he has at least listened to the Criminal Lawyers Association in particular and others who suggested that if you're not going to have reasonable and probable, at the very least you ought to have some reasonable suspicion as a grounds.
Why is that important? Because it's not every case that needs to be investigated. We want the serious cases to go forward. We do not want frivolous complaints to be dismissed. The Attorney General rightly quoted June Callwood and Hope Sealy, two lay benchers, or former lay benchers, who spoke so passionately at the hearings. May I say to those particular ladies, if they're listening, they were phenomenal in their characterization of the issues from a lay perspective. But they didn't address the issues we have before us and it's certainly not appropriate to characterize their comments as totally endorsing these particular provisions.
If you recall the letter, Speaker, and I'm sure you do, these were very serious points put forward. The privacy commissioner felt very strongly that those issues needed to be addressed.
During the course of the hearings we had, we were hoping that some of those issues would be dealt with. I asked repeatedly of many witnesses how they interpreted the various sections of the act that dealt with privilege, with confidentiality, with how you begin an investigation and what the rules are, pertinent to the investigation. Interestingly enough, we had many recommendations that these sections ought to be changed.
Finally, the law society came before us, and the law society was asked the very same questions by me with respect to the argument that had been put forward by the privacy commissioner. I must say that the answers were less than satisfactory. I indicated it then on the record, and I will indicate it now for the House. The law society produced a letter that was written by the privacy commissioner, dated December 3, 1998, as an endorsement of the legislation and indicating that perhaps the concerns that had been raised could be dealt with in some other fashion. In fact, if you read the letter it doesn't say that at all. What the letter says is that the office of the privacy commissioner confirms that they propose to the Deputy Attorney General "that the protection of personal information be enshrined in legislation."
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That is hardly condoning or agreeing with what's in this legislation. What it says is that it is important that the Attorney General focus his attention on the fact that there are deficiencies in this legislation, deficiencies that must be corrected in the public interest, because individuals have the right, when they go to a lawyer, to ensure that their particular files are private, that they will not be seized by third parties.
I understand the arguments that have been made and why the law society seeks to have those powers, but there has to be the right balance. There has to be a balance between the public interest and what are individual rights as well. Individual rights are a hallmark of a democratic society. I say to the Attorney General that he truly has not listened to the comments that have been made by the privacy commissioner with respect to this issue.
The privacy commissioner, in an attempt to deal with this issue, goes on to say in the letter of December 3 that she will gladly work with the law society, she understands the deficiencies, she will do what she can to work with them to ensure that there may be some regulation and some practices in place that will limit the public and individual exposure with respect to some of the powers granted in this particular piece of legislation. She goes on to say that she would even be happy to commit the resources of her office to provide whatever assistance may be needed.
The question to ask is, why would we have to have the privacy commissioner commit resources after the fact when it has been obvious all along what some of the issues are, when those issues have been squarely put to the Attorney General, when we've dealt with them in this House, we've raised them in this House, we've raised them in committee? Here we are on third reading, and the advice of the office of a very valuable officer of the Legislative Assembly, the privacy commissioner, has been ignored with respect to this particular issue.
We presented a number of amendments to deal with the concerns of the privacy commissioner, and by and large, with the exception of one that could be characterized as similar - we wanted reasonable probable ground for investigation and the government offered reasonable suspicion - aside from that one, there really has been no accommodation. All of our amendments failed in that regard, which is really too bad, because they were thoughtful and they were intended to bring some balance to this legislation. It's unfortunate that the government did not see fit to deal with them in any serious way.
The second set of concerns that were put before us came from the committee of the major legal publishers in the province. Their concern was of a quite different nature. They were worried that with some of the changes under the act, their business would be diminished, that the legislation has the potential of creating a monopoly for the law society with regard to the publication of legal briefs.
I must say in fairness that there are different views on that. While I understand the position that's been put forward and while we presented amendments to try and deal with that particular issue, I think it's a matter of a interpretation. It may well be that under a generous interpretation that particular issue is not a thorny one. The power to distribute legal briefs does not reside in the law society, it resides in the courts, and presumably that has not changed. As I say, a generous interpretation would indicate that that has not changed under the legislation and it should not cause any difficulty.
I say this not because we are opposing the bill. The bill speaks to a very real need we have in Ontario in 1999. It's obvious that the law society needs some additional powers to deal with law into the new millennium. It's also true that there haven't been any significant changes in legislation dealing with the law society and lawyers for a very long time. It's also true that it's important on the legal profession to look at the changes in our society and to respond to those changes, because the legal profession is a self-regulating profession, and if it wishes to have the public confidence it must have a regulatory body that can do the kind of work that would give people that confidence in the legal profession.
But I raise these issues because they have not been addressed, and as I indicated in committee and as I say here again, I hope they will not be dismissed out of hand. I hope the government will take notice of the concerns. I hope too that the law society will look at what we have said and that they will ensure that by regulation, by practice, by discussing the matter further in great detail with the privacy commissioner, they will be able to allay these very real fears.
I suspect part of the problem here is that we've had to act very quickly. We've had a whole spate of justice bills one after another when it's been relatively quiet in the justice portfolio with respect to legislation. Yet, as the House will know, in the last month we've had three bills. One we debated in third reading yesterday, another one tonight and another one yet to come. We've had committee hearings on all of those three bills. It has been a very rushed effort. It may be that, upon reflection, if the Attorney General had had more time, he would have had the opportunity to deal with these particular issues and make it a stronger bill.
But here we are. We have an imperfect bill. We have some very, very serious concerns by the privacy commissioner and you can't slough those off. They're not like the concerns of any other body or any other individual that comes before this Legislature and its committees. When the privacy commissioner speaks, it's a very serious matter. The privacy commissioner does not necessarily speak to every bill and certainly does not take the opportunity to comment in as much detail as we have here. So it serves as notice to the government that there is still much to be done and it serves as notice to the law society that if they are to maintain the image they have, and it's a well-deserved image that they act in the public interest, they have to meet the test that has been put forward in the privacy commissioner's letter.
I've been very plain about this. I've said there are some issues to be dealt with and I've said those issues must be the test and must be dealt with. To date, we've not been able to meet that test. It's really regrettable, because this could have been a bill that could have gone through even faster than we've fast-tracked it here, and with unanimity, I would say, on every point had they managed to deal with those particular issues.
And it's not such a big request. I can't imagine that the Attorney General wouldn't have at heart the best interests of individuals who deal with lawyers. I can't imagine that the Attorney General would conceive of a situation where he would put some client at risk at the expense of investigating certain other files that a lawyer may carry.
Let me just say one final point which really wasn't - it's alluded to in the letter of the privacy commissioner, but it's been raised by others; that is, that the powers the law society appears to have in the collection of data would also have the effect of putting some lawyers out of business. I alluded to this at the beginning. The way this would occur is that the law society might take a hard drive of a sole practitioner which would contain the nerve centre of the office and could take that hard drive away for a very long time. We had evidence before the committee that said, "It may be weeks before some of these documents are copied and brought back." These are very serious charges, which need to be addressed, and I hope the law society will follow that. The law society, to their credit, attended all the hearings and I know are mindful of the concerns I'm bringing here tonight.
I want to say to the Attorney General that it's a good bill. I think everybody in general agrees that it was time we did something. You have to recognize that the practice of law has changed and, as you go into a new century, that lawyers need to be up to a certain standard. We agree with that. But I want to serve notice that you've not met the tests set out by the privacy commissioner, very serious tests, and if you're not going to do it through this legislation I hope you will do it in some other fashion, as the law society will do, as in fact the treasurer has committed himself to do. Work with the privacy commissioner to ensure that the public interest is balanced with the interests of honest members of the profession who deal in good faith.
Those are my comments for this evening. We will be supporting this legislation, with a caution.
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The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): I'm very pleased to have an opportunity to stand on behalf of our party and indicate that we too will be supporting this bill tonight and to say how pleased we are that, in the process of the hearings, some of the issues that were raised against this bill were indeed dealt with by the Attorney General and by the law society.
The member for Downsview characterizes some of those compromises as still remaining imperfect. I know that the Canadian Bar Association, which is actually having its yearly soiree downstairs from this chamber, shares some of her concerns. I think those of us who respect and know the work of the Canadian Bar Association do not in any way want to suggest that the concerns that have been expressed are not serious concerns, that they are not brought on behalf of the members of the Canadian Bar Association and that they are not worthy of our attention.
But I need to say very clearly that the interests of the Canadian Bar Association - Ontario and the Law Society of Ontario are somewhat different. The law society is there to protect the public interest, and where the public interest is not served by the interest of counsel, by the interest of members of the bar association, the law society always has to come down on the side of the public interest. The bar association, on the other hand, has a very real obligation to represent the profession and to represent the concerns expressed by the profession and to do everything within its capacity to try to further the interests of the profession.
These are complementary bodies, not adversarial bodies, in my view. It is important to know that there has been considerable compromise reached with the amendments that were put into this bill.
The Canadian Bar Association - Ontario would tell you from their perspective it's not perfect and their hope indeed is that over time we might see where the flaws are and there might be some possibility of some change. They're very frank about that. That is what they hope for the future.
The law society, on the other hand, feels that the protections that have been built in through the kinds of amendments that have been made, particularly around privacy issues and privilege issues, particularly around the issue of reasonable suspicion, indeed meet the serious concerns that were expressed by many lawyers when this bill was brought forward.
I think the long history of self-regulated professions tells us that it is a very difficult line to try and find the real balance between the interests of a profession and the interests of the public. I think in very good faith everyone has tried in this bill to find that line. If over time, as my colleague from Downsview suggests, it shows that indeed this isn't the perfect balance, I know that the law society, the Attorney General, whoever it may be at the time, and the Canadian Bar Association will work together again to try and see if there is a better mix.
But this particular bill, particularly with its amendments, has been a long time in the making. It has been discussed in various different ways within the confines of the law society, with successive attorneys general, with the profession itself through both the bar association and in many other fora, such as the Advocates' Society and other places where lawyers talk about their concerns about the regulation of the profession. I am quite convinced that the kind of discussion that's happened, the kind of revision that's happened over time, has indeed been entered into in good faith with the public interest in mind.
I am very pleased to see this bill come forward and to give my assurance that I support it. As a member of this Legislature, as a former Attorney General, I know how concerned the public is about the regulation of the legal profession. We sometimes make jokes that the only profession that is less revered within our society than the legal profession is in fact our profession, the political profession. We may think that's funny, but of course it's not because when we're in difficulties with the law, when we face problems that we need to take to the adjudication of a court, we need the services of a professional who is working within the clear ethical bounds of the profession.
We need to be very clear that we're not being taken advantage of as we go forward in our law case; that in fact the interests of ourselves as clients are uppermost in the mind of the counsel who is defending us in certain instances or who may be representing us as we are the plaintiff in other instances, and who of course in criminal instances has a very real responsibility with respect to our life and our freedom.
It is in our best interests, as those who need to be assured that when we seek legal services the self-regulation of the profession is going to be in the public interest, in our interest, that we have a strong Law Society Act that clearly spells out how we deal with those very few members of the profession who cross the bounds, who do not behave in a way that is in the best public interest or in our private interest if we're the client who believes that he or she has been wronged.
It's in the interests of the profession and the interests of the public to have a very clear process whereby we can be sure that if there are complaints against the actions or, frankly, the inaction of lawyers who are acting on our behalf, there is a process that is clear, that is known, that is effective. What has happened in the past very often, because there has not been the ability of the law society to investigate complaints in a thorough way, is that many people who have attempted to complain about the kind or the level or the ethics of the service they have received do not feel that their interests have been served by the discipline process. It's a real attempt from inside the law society itself to try and come to grips with a very real public perception that the disciplinary processes within this self-regulated body have not been adequate.
I know that the Attorney General talked about this whole issue of the transfer of files. I need to tell you that I have three constituents who have had a long-standing problem with the transfer of files from one lawyer to another that has stopped their action and which the law society appears unable to deal with with the current kind of process. It's my hope that my constituents will find this a more efficacious process. That's my hope. Of course, as the member for Downsview points out, only time will tell whether this process has the effect that is certainly intended by the law society, certainly intended by the Attorney General.
None of us, as members here, and certainly not anyone who holds the office of Attorney General, wants to have a disciplinary process in the law society that doesn't work. We don't like getting those letters from constituents that outline in great detail what they believe to have been wrong with the system in terms of its service to them and know that because of the way the whole process works, they may not be able to get satisfaction out of the system.
I'm not naive enough to believe that this act is going to satisfy all those people, but I am very hopeful that the work that has been done will mean more people believe that their issues have been dealt with appropriately. I believe that when that happens, it is going to make it much more likely that people will begin to improve their whole perception of how concerned the legal profession is with its own appearance to those who are using its services. That is certainly my hope.
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I want to express to the Attorney General and to the members of the committee my appreciation for the changes to section 12 of the act. Certainly I have to confess that when I spoke at second reading on this bill, I did not realize that the effect of the proposed amendments would have meant that I, as a bencher by virtue of having been an Attorney General, because I was a layperson, would no longer be able to be a bencher. So I confess that I had misread the bill, and I am very grateful for the activities of the law society and the acquiescence of the Attorney General, that that was one of the issues that was resolved in the amendments that have been brought forward tonight.
On the issue of the privacy commissioner and the kinds of concerns that were brought forward, I think, because of the great emphasis that was put by the member for Downsview on that issue, it's really important, because I believe I'm the last speaker on this issue on third reading, to say very clearly that I think everyone involved in the amendments to the Law Society Act took very seriously the concerns that the privacy commissioner brought forward. I think all of us here know that when you are trying your best to bring forward legislation that is meant to improve the public interest, the last thing you want to do is to create a situation where the public interest may be jeopardized with respect to the privacy issues that the privacy commissioner brought forward.
It's my belief that there has been a very strong effort made in good faith by all parties to come forward with the kinds of amendments that will ameliorate those concerns. Only time will tell, I think, and that's only fair. Certainly I know the CBAO takes the position that the compromise is not perfect, that they still have concerns, particularly around privacy issues for the attorneys involved but also for their clients, obviously, and around the issue of privilege with respect to legal advice.
My guess is that, especially in recent days, there is no one who takes more seriously than the Attorney General the issue of privilege. My sense is that there has been a real effort to come to a solution that serves both the public interest in terms of the law society and the interests of attorneys themselves, the members of the Canadian Bar Association. It isn't everything that everybody wanted, and I think that's true of most legislation that actually goes through this process and tries to build a consensus that people can live with.
Madam Speaker, we have not seen in this Legislature for some time an effort to reach a consensus that everybody can live with on very many pieces of legislation, but I would say this is one of them. I would say there has been a genuine effort to come up with a piece of legislation that, while it is not perfect in many people's eyes, is something that people can live with, can work with and can co-operate with. That is a triumph in what has been a highly adversarial Legislature, in what has been an atmosphere of win-lose rather than win-win. In that atmosphere, this bill will stand out as one of the few that the government has brought forward where it has worked with the participants involved to have a win-win situation.
I congratulate the Attorney General for having brought it forward, and I know that we will support the legislation.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Harnick has moved third reading of Bill 53. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.
Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.
FAIRNESS FOR PROPERTY TAXPAYERS ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LE TRAITEMENT ÉQUITABLE DES CONTRIBUABLES DES IMPÔTS FONCIERS
Mr Baird moved third reading of the following bill:
Bill 79, An Act to amend the Assessment Act, Municipal Act, Assessment Review Board Act and Education Act in respect of property taxes / Projet de loi 79, 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.
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this important piece of legislation with respect to property taxes. I'm pleased that rather than bringing in an omnibus bill on property taxes, we split this bill up into smaller pieces so that each part could be debated and given full consideration. We could have thrown education tax changes in with the reassessment; we could have thrown in the assessment of corporation stuff and just put it in one big bill. But rather than do this, we wanted to split the bill up into smaller parts so it could get ample debate and consideration by the Legislature - another example where the Harris government has gone above and beyond the call to ensure that the bills in this place are debated appropriately and democratically.
I'm pleased to speak to this important bill with respect to property taxes. The government is moving forward with an agenda on property tax reform to try to bring more fairness and equity into the system. It's a very difficult task. If it was an easy task, I suggest that a government would have done it many years ago. There's a reason why successive governments of all political stripes avoided dealing with this issue: because it's a tough issue. This government has had the courage to deal with these important issues.
As we move forward with these changes, we brought in a number of tools for municipalities to ensure that small businesses in the province of Ontario were protected and that they could handle these changes in an orderly fashion. Why were we so concerned about small business? Because small business is the economic engine of Ontario. We've seen small business create 80% of the net new jobs in Ontario. That's 460,000 net new jobs, and small business has led the way in Ontario. We want to ensure their continued health.
The tools the government provided in the review of assessment were designed to ensure that municipalities could meet their local circumstances. I want to congratulate some municipalities. Your own municipality of Toronto, Madam Speaker, used one of the tools, the 2.5% cap, and was able to ensure that it could manage the changes for small business. They did a good job for small business. Other municipalities made a sincere effort; certainly in my home community of Ottawa-Carleton, or Hamilton-Wentworth or Wellington county, the upper-tier municipality used some of the tools to try to ensure that small business could deal with the changes in assessment.
Madam Speaker, you will be shocked, I know, to learn that a majority of municipalities didn't use any of the tools. Not that they used some and not enough, but a majority of municipalities didn't use any tools, and they were prepared to let small business rot on the vine.
I'm going to tell you, in this caucus there is a strong group of men and women who are advocates on behalf of small business. Many of my own caucus colleagues operated a small business or a medium-sized enterprise from time to time. When I look at who's here tonight, I know the member for Etobicoke-Humber was a very successful small business person and then a medium-sized business person, and was able to create a lot of jobs. A lot of families were able to put food on the table as a result of jobs he created in Etobicoke. He is an outspoken advocate for small business, as is the member for York-Mackenzie. The member for Middlesex is always talking about the important role small business plays in his community, as is the member for Sarnia.
We simply weren't prepared to stand by, so what we're doing with this piece of legislation is ensuring that no business, small business particularly, in Ontario has to deal with an increase of more than 10% or 5% or 5%. That's very important.
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Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): This is an admirable effort to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
Mr Baird: The member opposite talks about the purse. Some municipalities want to dig deeper into that purse and allow small business to simply pay more. But in my own community of Ottawa-Carleton, I heard from a lot of small business people, people who operate out of the Richmond mall in the village of Richmond, not far from Bells Corners where I'm from. A lot of these small business people struggle to make ends meet. You often have two or three members of a family working and bringing in as little as $30,000 or $40,000 net income. If they're whacked with a $20,000 or $30,000 property tax increase, they're just going to turn in the keys and are not going to continue to employ people. So we're stepping in to ensure that small business is protected, and that's an important priority.
I'd also indicate at this time that I will be sharing my time with the hard-working member for Etobicoke-Rexdale.
I want to talk a little about our experience in committee. We dealt with this bill clause-by-clause in committee. We even finished before the allotted time expired, so we were able to have a significant amount of debate. I want to congratulate the member for Dovercourt. He brought forward a good number of amendments, two of which were virtually accepted by the government, one word for word to a government amendment, which I know he pushed, for multi-residential property taxpayers.
The member for Dovercourt wanted to make some changes to the hard cap the city of Toronto used. The city of Toronto used a 2.5% cap, so that no business could have their taxes go up by 2.5%. The member for Dovercourt wanted to extend that to residential. But he also wanted to change the 2.5% hard cap into a 2.5% small cap, to say that the city of Toronto should have the right not just to have a small business person's taxes increase by 2.5% but that the city of Toronto should be allowed to increase taxes on commercial-industrial ratepayers. I was a bit surprised to see that, but it's an earnest belief of the member for Dovercourt that the city of Toronto should have the flexibility and the right to raise taxes.
The member for Dovercourt presented five motions on this bill, and I'd like to enumerate them so that everyone knows what we're talking about. He presented amendments 7, 8, 10, 12 and 13, which would have allowed the city of Toronto to raise property taxes. I thought the member for Dovercourt would be the only member to support these. But when there was a suggestion that the city of Toronto be allowed to raise taxes on business people, who stood up and said, "I support that," and voted in favour of the resolution? The Liberal Party. The Liberal Party of Ontario wanted to allow businesses, particularly small businesses in the city of Toronto, to be whacked by a tax increase by their council.
I agree with Mayor Lastman and council. They've said they're going to be able to keep taxes at 0% increase. They've told the business community: "Don't worry. We're going to be able to deliver zero, zero, zero tax increases." But the Liberal Party of Ontario supported the first three amendments to sections 27 and 28 of the bill. On December 7 at 10:45, the Liberal Party voted yes to those three amendments to allow tax increases in the city of Toronto.
Hard-working small business people in the city of Toronto will be amazed to learn that the Liberals have already abandoned the taxpayer protection act pledge and want to allow the city of Toronto to raise taxes on their businesses. I was quite surprised. We voted against those five amendments because we don't think that people in businesses in the commercial-industrial section should have their taxes increased.
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): So righteous.
Mr Baird: I'll tell you who was righteous: The member for Scarborough-Agincourt showed up. He found out that the Liberal Party had been voting for these, and he was not happy. They voted against the fifth amendment on this issue, and they did a flip-flop on the same morning in committee. They were both in favour of it and against it.
I want to talk about the truth. At 10:45 on December 7, the member for Kingston and The Islands voted for amendment 7, for amendment 8 and for amendment 10, to allow tax increases in the city of Toronto. I was there. I even wrote down the specific time. As God is my witness, the member for Dovercourt will be able to back this up. The Liberal Party believes that hard-working small business people in Toronto should get tax increases. They wanted to allow tax increases to go ahead in the city of Toronto. I was very surprised, because just yesterday I saw them vote in favour of the taxpayer protection act, and they have already flip-flopped. But then they had flip-flopped that morning, so that was very interesting.
The other tax cut that is germane to this debate - we're talking about property taxes and particularly commercial-industrial taxpayers. The government announced in the 1998 budget that we would be lowering commercial-industrial education tax rates to the provincial average. That is a significant amount of tax reduction for people who have been overtaxed for many years. In the city of Toronto that will mean a $400-million tax cut. I know that members like the members for Etobicoke-Humber, Etobicoke-Rexdale and York East have been fighting very hard on behalf of their constituents, who have been whacked for years.
I was surprised to learn how long this had gone on. The Liberals and the NDP sat by and did nothing about this problem, but the hard-working Toronto caucus of the Conservative government under Mike Harris took action, and they'll be cutting those over the next eight years. They've already put their money where their mouth is for 1998, and I can tell you we're going to be doing it in 1999.
That didn't benefit just Toronto. It's a tax cut of 1.2% for the industrial ratepayers in Algoma district. Our good friend from Cochrane is here, the soon-to-be member for Timiskaming. Industrial taxes in his constituency will be going down by 8.5%. In the Durham region it's a 21.8% cut to industrial taxpayers. In Elgin county it's a 19.2% tax cut, and I know the member for Middlesex felt that was important for his taxpayers as well. In Ottawa-Carleton, my constituency, industrial ratepayers will be getting a 12.7% cut over the next eight years. That is good news indeed, because successive governments sat by and did absolutely nothing while tax increases went on year after year.
I know that some will say our municipal partners didn't like this bill. In fact, we got a submission from a group of municipalities, and right on their index they said that the changes brought forward in legislation were manageable to small business; they used the word "manageable." I can tell you that they weren't manageable to hard-working small business people in Richmond, in Greely, in Manotick, in Ottawa-Carleton. I talked to one woman who operated a small business in Stittsville. They weren't manageable, and that's why the government stepped in to ensure that there was protection for those small business people.
If they were so manageable, a majority of municipalities didn't even try to manage, didn't even use one of the tools. That was a terrific concern for members of the government. We know that it's a tough time to be in government at any level, and we want to ensure that decisions made by municipalities don't hurt small business.
Some municipalities have done a better job than others. The city of Ottawa, under Mayor Jim Watson and Deputy Mayor Allan Higdon, has held the line on taxes this year, 0%, and it's involved making a lot of tough decisions. This is the first year that the city of Ottawa isn't going into more debt, and I congratulate the mayor, the deputy mayor and indeed the council that they're making some tough choices.
Mayor Watson has been working very constructively with this government. He has been delivering for his ratepayers. He delivered 0%. We've had some very good meetings over the last number of days with the mayor of Ottawa. The mayor has never tried to hush his desire to cut taxes. He would like to cut taxes, and if he's given the opportunity I'm sure he will. He held the line on taxes, as did Deputy Mayor Allan Higdon, and they should both have that credit.
In my constituency, in Nepean, they didn't just freeze taxes, but councillors like Jan Harder and Wayne Phillips actually cut property taxes by 2%. That certainly merits support.
Mr Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott and Russell): Don't say that they're satisfied.
Mr Baird: The member for Prescott and Russell holds up a letter, and I have every confidence that we're going to meet the concerns of the city of Nepean. I have met with the city of Nepean. Minister Ernie Eves and I and senior officials from the ministry have been working very closely with Bob Chiarelli and the city of Ottawa and the city of Nepean, and I'm convinced we're going to be able to work with the federal government and deliver exactly what they are looking for.
I read a great article in the clippings this morning about Bob Chiarelli lauding Mike Harris's actions on another issue, and that was indeed good to see.
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But I'll tell you, in Ottawa-Carleton they held the line on taxes too. It requires leadership from the top, just like it did in Ottawa. I'm very hopeful that the regional council in Ottawa-Carleton will not do what the regional council in Haldimand-Norfolk did, where they downloaded a 17% tax increase on the taxpayer. We're very much against municipalities that try to download on the taxpayer. We should applaud the member for Norfolk's efforts to deliver for his constituents because he's worked very hard on that issue.
We've seen a number of municipalities that have been good actors in these changes, and it's not easy. A lot of the politicians say: "Listen, this is a great opportunity. We'll just blame everything on Mike Harris and raise taxes by 17%." I'll tell you, councillors in Nepean like Jan Harder and Wayne Phillips said, "No way." The mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson, said, "No way." The hard-working deputy mayor of Ottawa, Allan Higdon, said, "No way." Regional chair Bob Chiarelli said, "No way, we're not going to raise taxes." They kept their word because it required leadership from the top. It's indeed very good news that they were able to lead forward; that Ottawa-Carleton was able to ensure there was no downloading on the taxpayer in 1998. I'm convinced that if they work hard on it and take some strong leadership, they'll be able to do it again, and that's indeed very good news.
I'm very pleased at this time to turn over the floor to my colleague the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale who has worked very hard on tax issues and has been a particularly outspoken advocate not just on behalf of businesses in Toronto but a big advocate on behalf of small business and what we can do to help small business. I know he shares my commitment to the 50% cut in corporate income taxes for small business designed to help small business. I know he shares my view on the elimination of the employer health tax for small business with payrolls of less than $400,000 because like me and the rest of my caucus colleagues he understands that small business is the job creator in Ontario, that small business is the economic engine of Canada.
Mr John Hastings (Etobicoke-Rexdale): It's interesting and intriguing to hear the perspective from the member for Nepean and how Bill 79, the Fairness for Property Taxpayers Act, has helped municipalities and small businesses in eastern Ontario and in the capital region of Ottawa. It's interesting to compare what has happened in the Ottawa-Carleton region and throughout some areas of Ontario in terms of the earlier tax techniques that were provided for in several other bills.
I would like to draw to the attention of members in this House when we were going through these dramatic changes in introducing current value assessment and how it applied to the new city of Toronto. After some initial debates between that city council and its effervescent mayor, Mel Lastman, they took hold of the tools that were available, and the one they took hold of particularly and really helped to protect small business was the 2.5% cap placed on commercially and industrially assessed properties for three years: 1998, 1999 and 2000.
It's interesting to go back and look at the historical context of why this occurred, the modus operandi, the rationale for these historic and dramatic changes. Why are they coming in 1998 and 1999? Why weren't they done several years earlier, as they ought to have been? Several governments did make some attempts to bring in some tax equity, some tax fairness to all types of taxpayers in the greater Toronto region. It's only the Harris government that really grappled with the issue. If you go back and look at the history of expenditures by school boards, especially the trend line from 1970, these examples demonstrate dramatically why these changes were absolutely essential; in fact, why they weren't brought in many years before.
If we start with the benchmark year of 1970, we had expenditures for education purposes raised off the local property tax in that year of approximately $450 million. On the student enrolment side at that time, there were nearly 300,000 students in the system. So it worked out, on average, to about $1,050 to $1,076 per student, back 27 years ago.
By the time we arrive at 1997, when school boards in Metro Toronto were amalgamated into one, here was the resultant change in the trend line. Whereas you had $450 million spent on student education in 1970, by 1997 the amount was up to $2.5 billion. That's an amazing amount of expenditure increase. If you average it out in some of those middle years of the 1970s and 1980s, you're looking at well over a 15% annualized budgetary tax increase. No wonder commercial and industrial taxpayers, let alone residential, were at the end of their tether and saying: "Will this ever end? Will this ever come to a successful fruition or are we to endure that kind of tax increase practically every year on into the future?"
What was amazing about that is that while tax expenditures for education purposes through those decades was increasing dramatically, at a 15% annualized rate at least, the number of students in the system was declining. It went from nearly 300,000 to nearly 200,000 students throughout those years. So at the end of 1997 the average cost per student in the greater Toronto region, the city of Toronto boards, was over $7,500.
No wonder small businesses were at the end of their tether. No wonder they were looking for some dramatic tax relief. No wonder the residential taxpayers in certain parts of the old city of Toronto and even in the suburban cities were saying: "Halt. Change, please. Give us some tax relief from this enduring, unending tax regime we've had."
That's why we had discussions whenever you'd go to doors, whether it was in a municipal election or in the provincial election of three and a half years ago, the question being, "When are you people going to remove the education costs off property tax?" We did that. We eliminated 50% of it in terms of the realignment. What had happened over all those years? Not much in terms of tax relief.
In fact, members opposite I'm sure would like to recall with great delight and glee that in 1989 Bob Nixon, the Treasurer in those days, introduced an interesting twist on things which really helped the hotel industry in the greater Toronto area. They slapped the commercial concentration tax on hotel properties. That was a brilliant move. What it did was kill jobs. I had lots of phone calls as a municipal councillor in those days saying to me, "John, I got my walking papers," because at that point as well we had the business cycle coming into parallel with that dreaded commercial concentration tax.
We had room utilization rates in the hotel industry on the hotel strip in Etobicoke down to below 50%. How can you operate a hotel of 400 or 500 rooms when your room utilization rate is 50% or less? As a manager, you obviously have to take the dreaded and unfortunate step of letting some people go. That's what happened out of that massive job-killer tax brought on by Mr Nixon et al.
When these people across the way talk about keeping things pretty well as they are, or, "Don't make much change in the current value assessment system," all we have to do is look at not only those dramatic expenditure increases by the education community over those years but also by municipalities. They were not as dramatic and not every year on a 15% annualized budgetary rate increase but it still had an accumulative impact on the residential, industrial and commercial.
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They finally got to the point where people were leaving, and that was part of the history. We're still living it in the new city of Toronto or the old Metro where people simply moved their businesses lock, stock and barrel across a municipal boundary line into Pickering, Vaughan or Mississauga. All you had to do was look at the economics. If your square footage was approximately $4.50 per square foot in those days within the city of Toronto and they could find a comparable, better, newer location in the adjoining municipalities, you were going to lose those essential taxpayers and you were going to lose the jobs that accompany them.
What happened during the 1980s and the 1990s? Even today we're still suffering from the afterflow of those impacts. We had people move because the square footage was less than $2, $2.50 in some places. I'm sure in 1998, with the economy revived, those numbers have narrowed, but those people made their decision about moving in the 1990s and the late 1980s and they moved.
All you had to do was drive around the greater Toronto area, particularly in Metro, and you would see the industrial-commercial areas decimated, for sale, for lease. We still have those signs because there are other complications that need to be dealt with, but at least we have finally arrested that trend, that insufferable trend that was going on and on, and Bill 79 is one of the techniques of dealing with it.
Much as I have some disagreements with the members of the new city of Toronto council, I will give them their due credit for seizing the initiative of introducing the cap on assessment of industrial and commercial properties at 2.5% for the next three years. That is a significant move by the new city of Toronto council, led by Mayor Lastman. No one can dispute that they took hold of that initiative and they drove it home and made it a success. It relieved the anxiety of many small business people out there that tax increases were going to be 10%, 12% and 15%.
That is one of the fundamental reasons for bringing in these bills. Members opposite, though, would have continued to have the same situation. Perhaps if the Libs had won in 1990, you would have had an extension of the commercial concentration tax to other types of commercial properties throughout Ontario. That would really have helped revive the economy.
In essence, what we have are members opposite who often recite the eight bills because they don't have any real policy solutions of their own. In fact they don't even advocate the locational unit tax any more. I thought they'd at least do that. It has some merit in some parts of the world. In essence, what we have are members opposite who are opposed to practically every one of these bills, particularly Bill 79.
What the member for Nepean cites is not surprising, the number of changes and amendments made by the members opposite, particularly members of the official opposition. It would seem they have more positions than the Kama Sutra advocates. You never know what their position is from moment to moment. They end up, in my estimation, as being simply champions of tax injustice, tax discrimination, tax inequity and the tax status quo, assuming that everything was OK. "Let the people in the suburban municipalities continue to pay what they've been paying since 1953. Everything was just fine," because they don't have any new, specific alternative position. They don't even advocate the locational tax.
What I'm sure we're about to hear is the mantra of: "If you hadn't brought any of these bills in, everything would have been fine. You didn't need to bring any of the bills in because you didn't listen to groups." That's not true. The number of hours involved in consultation one could almost describe as endless.
In essence, what they advocate is keeping everything the way it was, because that was comfortable, that was nice, and it helped certain people continue to have ongoing tax relief on properties that had been assessed back in 1940. I can't imagine why they would champion such a position, but that seems to be the conclusion they come to when you look at their record on all these bills.
Or they cite a particular group who have a certain expertise in this area, because they don't have the expertise themselves. They don't want to recognize the problems that came out of that historical reality of those tax increases, 17% annually, for years. If they were there, they would be going on today. So thank goodness we managed to arrest and change that trend line so that we can now have a healthier, competitive economy, much as they would like to have it the reverse way and leave everything as the traditional status quo.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?
M. Lalonde :C'est presque incroyable d'entendre les députés de Nepean et d'Etobicoke-Rexdale arriver avec ces commentaires. Je ne crois pas qu'ils aient lu le document à fond. Lorsqu'on s'aperçoit qu'on nous dit que les petites entreprises vont bénéficier, qu'est-ce qui attend les petites entreprises en l'an 2001 ?
On nous dit actuellement qu'ils vont avoir une réduction. Ils vont avoir une réduction pourquoi ? Dans les secteurs ruraux seulement dans ma circonscription, j'ai trois conseils de comté. On va partager les augmentations, et ceux qui n'ont pas eu d'augmentation vont maintenant «bénéficier», qu'on pourrait dire, d'une augmentation. Qui aime ça, bénéficier d'une augmentation ?
Dans la ville de Toronto, c'est vrai qu'ils y ont eu seulement 2,5 % d'augmentation, mais est-ce que le gouvernement Harris ne leur a pas donné un prêt d'au-delà de 150 $ millions sans intérêt ? Toutes les municipalités de l'Ontario auraient aimé recevoir un cadeau de la sorte. Je crois qu'il est grandement temps qu'ils disent la vérité aux citoyens et citoyonnes de l'Ontario, en leur disant exactement ce que vont devenir les augmentations de taxe en l'an 2001.
L'augmentation de l'évaluation de cette année, qu'on veut retarder à l'an 2001, parlons à tous les greffiers administrateurs. Ils ne savent pas où se garrocher. Il y a un manque d'argent dans le moment pour en arriver au bout. On prend une peine d'écrire dans le projet de loi que les municipalités vont pouvoir passer un règlement disant que oui ou non, on va accepter qu'il y ait de l'intérêt de chargé sur les montants d'argent non payés. Qu'attendez-vous ce qui va arriver lorsqu'on regarde deux comtés, l'un à côté de l'autre qui vont dire : «Lui, il a eu un règlement qui a été passé dans cette municipalité qui dit que tu n'as pas besoin de payer les intérêts, et l'autre va payer les intérêts»? C'est la guerre.
Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East): It's a pleasure to respond to the comments that have been made by the Conservatives.
With respect to the comments made by the member for Nepean, he talked about how this government had bestowed upon a number of municipalities the tools they needed to get the job done and went on at some length about how Mayor Lastman had used these tools.
I am reminded, Madam Speaker, that it was in fact you and the Chinese business community, the Chinese chamber of commerce, who took to the streets with your placards, who kick-started a number of protests with a number of other businesses here in the city of Toronto. It was only because you and these communities embarassed this government that the government finally responded and put in place through legislation some of the tools that are now going to allow for the cap that's going to help some of those businesses. This wasn't anything the government did on their own, some gracious activity or act that they bestowed upon people. In fact, it took a lot of public protest, a lot of feet, a lot of embarrassment to get them to move. The fact that you were successful, Madam Speaker, clearly was demonstrated by the fact that the finance minister made this announcement right in your own riding of Riverdale. So congratulations on that.
One thing I didn't hear the government members talk about tonight was the gross incompetence of this government in dealing with so-called property tax reform. Beginning in January 1997, this government started down the road to try and allegedly reform property taxes, and we are here, seven bills later, trying to fix the mess this government made when they introduced their first bill. They didn't listen to anyone with respect to how to do this. We are here debating third reading of a bill to fix yet another mistake made by this government when they went down this road.
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Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): My compliments to the member for Nepean and also the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale for two excellent 15-minute presentations.
I also heard the member for Sudbury East and some of her talk about tax cuts. Well, our government stood for tax cuts long before the election. We still stand for tax cuts, and that's where it's going to continue. I think it's rather ironic that the member for Sudbury East would be talking about this kind of thing; a party that stands for tax increases, for tax, spend, and borrow, and she would be coming out with that kind of comment. This was a government that came out with disentanglement and then let it die on the order paper rather than carry it out. We carried it out.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): What about that Harris hush money? What about that $600,000?
The Acting Speaker: Order, member for Cochrane North.
Mr Galt: It was interesting to note also that the member for Nepean talked about how we brought this in one step at a time. We didn't bring in this property tax in one great, big omnibus bill, as maybe some previous governments have done that we're quite familiar with in this House.
This bill is about helping small business. I saw the tears of some of the owners of small business as their taxes went up. There was no reason for that. The options were there, the tools were there that the various municipalities could have adopted. There was no necessity at all for that kind of increase. Certainly this bill is recognizing it with a matter of 10% plus 5% plus 5% over three years. That's understandable. It might even have been slightly higher and it would have been understandable, but 10-5-5 is indeed very workable in my community and for most. I've had a lot of people in small business come up to me - for example, Hoselton Studios, the ones who make those beautiful aluminum geese that sit on a stone. You see them in all the gift shops. They are just south of the Big Apple on Percy Street there, the exit into Colborne. That's where they are made. That man, Mr Hoselton, came up to me pretty appreciative of what we've been doing for him.
Mr David Caplan (Oriole): It's interesting to listen to the two speeches that we've just heard. We had a bit of a history lesson and a retrospective.
I did some checking on my own, and it seems that in the then borough of East York, our present education minister used to be the mayor there. Over the period that he was mayor, taxes increased 106%. Can you believe it? Dave Johnson raised taxes in a 10-year period 106%.
Mr Baird: He gets the silver medal. David Peterson gets the gold medal; Elinor gets the gold medal.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Nepean, come to order.
Mr Caplan: To be fair, I checked out the board of education, and it was virtually identical. So the record of this government, of these members, when it comes to tax increases - it's public - is different than what they are talking now.
These so-called tools that they are providing - you'd think they would get it right the first time, but they didn't get it right that time, or the second or the third. We're on the seventh attempt at property tax reform.
We've heard groups like the municipal clerks and treasurers. This is not a political group; these are the people, dedicated professionals, who have to implement the decisions made by this Legislature. What did they say? They said: "Stop. You're making a mistake. What you're doing is causing chaos." Sure enough, that's what we've seen: 600% property tax increases for small businesses; homeowners' property taxes going through the roof.
These guys have done that. This is Mike Harris's Ontario. You go from one crisis to another. You see that 106% is the Minister of Education's municipal record; 600% is the record of this government.
M. Baird : Je voudrais remercier mes collègues les députés de Prescott et Russell, Sudbury-Est, Northumberland et Oriole. À mon collègue le député de Prescott et Russell, je suis sûr que les municipalités dans ma région, dans Nepean et Ottawa et Ottawa-Carleton, vont s'assurer que les petites entreprises seront protégées avec les augmentations de taxes.
Le député devrait mettre sa machine pour traduire mon français.
I'm sure the municipalities in our region will be able to ensure that small municipalities are protected.
The member for Sudbury East talked about "seven bills later." The member for Sudbury East would probably have preferred that we put this all in a big omnibus bill rather than bringing forward the legislation in a number of small, bite-sized pieces. We brought forward one piece of legislation dealing with the education tax. She would probably have preferred that we just threw this in with the rest. We brought in another piece of legislation dealing with the property assessment corporation. She would have just thrown that into the omnibus bill. We brought in a new assessment system. She would have thrown that in the omnibus bill. We brought in tools for small business and charities. She would have preferred that we put that in the omnibus bill.
But we disagree. We wanted there to be more debate, which is typical of the Harris government, more debate in committee, more debate in the House on important pieces of legislation. I'll tell you, the hard-working members of our caucus fought hard for small businesses, whether they be in Riverdale or whether they be in Nepean.
To the member for Northumberland, he's a passionate advocate for small business, always speaking up for his constituents, and I want to acknowledge that.
I say to the member for Oriole, I'll put the Dave Johnson record ahead of the Caplan record on spending any day, any time. Dave Johnson is a good protector of taxpayers. The member for Oriole will be surprised to learn that his party in this Legislature on December 7 voted to allow taxes to go up on small business in his riding. He'll have to go and explain that, why he was prepared to allow taxes to increase.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): I'll be sharing my time with some of my colleagues as well.
There are so many places to start this debate, but let's start with some comments that were made by the member for Nepean about flip-flopping. There was a very interesting article by Ian Urquhart this weekend - I don't know how many of you saw this article - about who has been doing the flip-flopping. Let's just see. Some of these flip-flops we even agree with because we didn't want you to implement these policies in the first place, but let's just look at it.
School closings: Remember there were about 600 schools you were going to close around the province?
Mr Baird: Six hundred?
Mr Gerretsen: About 600 schools, that's right. What did you do? You decided to hold D-Day off a little bit longer, as far as your policies are concerned, by putting in another $236 million, allowing the people of Ontario to think that somehow you weren't going to implement the same policies if you got elected the next time around. There's a flip-flop.
How about another one? Remember instructional time in Bill 160? The instructional time was supposed to be 1,250 minutes a week. What happened? You changed it so that nobody really knows what instructional time is any more. Better still, you never should have gotten involved in this issue. You should have just left it to local school boards to decide. They could work it out with the teachers' federations, but it's another flip-flop on your side.
How about the red light cameras? Can you think of a better one? The minister was in the House here on a day-to-day basis when the member for Oakwood and various other people brought up the idea: "How about installing some red light cameras? Isn't that a perfect way to save lives, to stop the people who rush through red lights without stopping, causing all sorts of havoc?" What did you do? You flip-flopped. Mind you, with some of these flip-flops we agree, because you never should have implemented or even brought forward the policies you did in the first place.
Interjection: What other ones?
Mr Gerretsen: Another one? How about the apprenticeship bill? What did you do with the apprenticeship bill, that draconian piece of legislation? You decided to exempt the construction workers, probably the greatest number of workers affected by this legislation.
How about another one? Property taxes. That's the one where you were going to implement market value assessment. Talk to any assessor out there and the first thing they will agree upon is that the system that will be adopted as a result of this bill will not be anything like market value assessment. You've set up so many categories, so many subcategories, that this is not market value assessment, no matter how you try to cut it. You think it is. Your own members campaigned against it, but it's not.
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Let me just tell you a few other things which I find kind of interesting. You talk about the amount of debate we've had on this bill, the amount of debate we've had in committee on this bill. The record should clearly show that there was absolutely no debate in committee. As a matter of fact, you did not even want to hear from the experts who deal with these issues on a day-to-day basis. You didn't want to hear from one expert in this area. I will be referring to the brief they filed with the committee and with us a little later on.
We have heard a lot in this House over the last month and a half to two months about the cost of government advertising that has so far reached somewhere in the neighbourhood of $47 million to $50 million. It's all just Tory propaganda. But I do hope you will put one advertisement in local newspapers over the next little while; today is December 15, so over the next 16 days. That is that you will let the taxpayers of Ontario know as soon as this bill is passed and been given royal assent that they have the right to appeal their assessment until December 31 of this year. It's a section in the act, and I sure hope that's one advertisement you will make.
The reason I say that is that people are so confused out there. At one time they were told, "You can appeal your assessment if you do it by the end of August." Then the Minister of Finance went to the annual meeting of AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, at the Royal York, and in front of over 1,500 local politicians he said, "We are going to call the House back and introduce a bill that will allow people to appeal their assessments by October 31." The House was called back; I think the bill was even presented in the House. There may have been one day of debate - I can't recall it exactly, but I think there was one day of debate. What happened? We never saw that bill again.
People phoned my office and undoubtedly the offices of many of members of the opposition and government members as well, people who wanted to appeal their assessment, and they were told: "I think you can appeal your assessment by October 31. We're not quite sure." People phoned the assessment offices throughout the province and the assessment offices quite rightly said, "We don't know what the law is going to say. We hear all sorts of rumours as well," that you could appeal it to August 31, October 31. In this bill it says December 31. I hope there is one factual ad this government will take out in the local newspapers and other media throughout the province over the next little while so that each and every property taxpayer in Ontario will know that if they don't like what their property has been assessed for, they have the right to appeal by December 31.
Remember, today is December 15. Today this bill is up for third reading. I have no idea when it's going to be given royal assent. It may very well be on December 24. How the heck are people going to find out that they have until December 31 to appeal their assessment?
The reason I'm saying this is that we have it on very good information - I don't think even the government members will argue with this - that the government itself is expecting something like 600,000 property tax assessment appeals. They are expecting one in every 10 properties to be appealed, as far as assessment is concerned. So it's important that the people of Ontario do know, once this bill is passed and given royal assent, that they will have the right to appeal. You are giving third reading to this legislation at probably the worst time of the year, when everybody's attention is focused on something entirely different.
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Was it done on purpose?
Mr Baird: No, it wasn't done on purpose.
Mr Gerretsen: The member for Nepean says it's not done on purpose. Pray tell me, sir, why did you give this bill first reading on November 5, and second reading not until December 3? This was the bill that the finance minister talked about at AMO as being the most important reason the House should be coming back in September. You wasted two and a half months before you called it and then you wasted another month after you finally gave it first reading. So at least do the decent and honourable thing and give people notification of the fact that they can appeal their assessment before December 31.
Let me just deal with the recommendation that was put forward - and it's interesting how the government members never talk about this. We have talked about it a few times because we really feel that this is a very important piece of information. On December 2 of this year, a 20-page document dealing with this bill was delivered to the Honourable Ernie Eves and to the members of the opposition by an organization that represented the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, of which just about every municipality in Ontario is a member, and the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario. Each one of the clerks and treasurers in your own town halls and city halls belongs to this organization. And yes, most clerks and treasurers throughout the province, by a vast majority, are independent, are not partisan politicians. They don't have any partisan, political axe to grind. All they want to do is serve their municipal councils and the municipal taxpayers the best way they know how. Another organization that was involved in this brief was the Association of Municipal Tax Collectors of Ontario.
Mr Bradley: What did they say about it?
Mr Gerretsen: We'll deal with what they said about it in a minute. The fourth organization that put this brief together was the Municipal Finance Officers' Association of Ontario, an organization of the finance officers in the larger municipalities.
Let's just see what they said about Bill 79. The government likes to portray the image that this bill is all about fairness and bringing equity into the system. In actual fact, the professional municipal civil servants who work with this kind of legislation on a day-to-day basis say something else. I will not bore you with reciting the entire 15-page brief; I will just give you what they say on their summary page and then I will refer to some specific cases they refer to, which are of great importance to the people out there and hopefully to the government members. There is still hope that the government will undo the wrongs they've done in the property tax field. This is, after all, the eighth bill.
It was interesting. The member for Nepean said earlier, "The Liberals never supported us on any of these bills." You're darned right we didn't, because all the bills were flawed. We told them they were flawed; other experts told them they were flawed. What did the government do about it? Nothing. It just brought up another bill trying to fix the last bill. They were told over and over again: "You're making the same mistake. With what you're trying to do in this bill, you're not succeeding."
Let's see what they say. They say, "Bill 79...will result in taxpayer confusion and anger, and the perpetuation of inequities in assessment and taxation." Didn't we hear just now that if we pass Bill 79 there will be fairness and equity? Not as far as the tax collectors and the clerks and treasurers are concerned.
They go on to say, "Commercial ratepayers will be disadvantaged, and residential and farm ratepayers will be unprotected from future instability of the property taxation system....
"Collectively, our associations" - those are the associations I just mentioned - "have significant concerns with Bill 79. It is imperative that the municipal tax billing process not be further delayed or complicated, as this has already resulted in tremendous costs to municipalities in 1998." Your ineptitude has cost municipalities money. This is from the independent, non-partisan source. It's not me saying it; it's the clerks and treasurers and AMO and the finance officers of Ontario saying this. "This must not be allowed to spill over into 1999. The legislative timing prevents adequate time to respond to the bill, nor to fully examine the potential impacts of the capping provisions. The government's solution to this problem will almost certainly" - and I'd like the member from Lanark to really listen to this carefully - "result in further complications, and delays, and add more confusion for beleaguered ratepayers."
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I ask you, what do you people have against the property taxpayers in Ontario? Why are you causing these people to suffer by bringing in such inadequate and incompetent legislation?
They go on to say, "We believe that Bill 79 will not achieve the objective of providing fairness to property taxpayers" - I'll just read that again, because I think it's a very significant line. "We believe that Bill 79 will not achieve the objective of providing fairness to property taxpayers" - and don't believe me, believe them; these are the clerks and treasurers you've got in your own town halls, your own city halls - "and will create more problems than it solves.
"Our associations remain committed to working with the government to collectively develop manageable solutions which will achieve the government's goals of fairness in property taxation."
What did you do with these people? You gave them the back of your hand. You wouldn't even meet with them to discuss the kind of solutions that they -
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): That is not true.
Mr Gerretsen: You did not meet with these people. You wouldn't even let them come to committee. You wouldn't allow them half an hour with the committee. The committee was told: "You can meet on two successive days, and you will go directly into clause-by-clause, period. You are not to hear from anybody else out there." I know why you thought that, because undoubtedly not only this organization but many others would have come to you and said, "My gosh, you forgot about this, you forgot about that." I don't know why you think you know everything about the property taxation field when you have really messed it up as much as you have over the last two years.
It's interesting. They have a little chart which contradicts everything you've been saying about this bill. It starts off with, "What Bill 79 doesn't do: Bill 79 doesn't cap tax increases at 10% in 1998." Remember, your bill only does it with respect to assessment-related increases. There are many municipalities out there, as a matter of fact most municipalities - and that was in the words of your own Treasurer here one day when he admitted that over two thirds of the municipalities in Ontario had a 5% tax increase or more, totally unrelated to assessment matters. You have been trying to create this idea that property taxes will be capped at a 10% increase, which is wrong. That's not what this bill is doing. It is only capping it with respect to a 10% increase as far as it relates to assessment, but if there were other increases in a municipality because of downloading, that is not protected in this 10% cap.
At least have the intellectual honesty to be open and frank with the people of Ontario. There is not a 10% cap for commercial property owners out there as a result of this bill. In many municipalities - we heard about Haldimand-Norfolk, for example - there is at least a 17% increase, which has nothing to do with any increase as a result of assessment. So you could have situations, as I have in my municipalities, where the assessment went down on properties and their taxes went up by 20%. It does not cap the tax increases at 10%, as you claim it does.
It also "doesn't provide protection to small business." This is not me talking; this is the clerks and treasurers talking in their brief to you of December 2, which was about the fifth or sixth time they had tried to present you with a brief on this issue, and you wouldn't meet with them at any time.
"Bill 79 doesn't target properties hardest hit. Bill 79 doesn't recognize local efforts and local solutions." Remember how some municipalities came to you? We even had resolutions in this House to work out other solutions, other than what the government thought was best, as far as you're concerned. They were also given the back of the hand. You didn't want to listen to them.
Also, "Bill 79 doesn't address rebates to charities," which is a whole other issue that maybe one of my colleagues will get involved with.
"Bill 79 doesn't provide fairness for property taxpayers." This is not the member for Kingston and The Islands speaking; this is the collective brief from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario, the Municipal Finance Officers' Association of Ontario and the Association of Municipal Tax Collectors of Ontario. That is what they are saying about your Bill 79.
What does Bill 79 do, according to these same organizations? "Bill 79 increases ratepayer confusion. Bill 79 increases the complexity of the tax system and tax calculations." We sure know about that. We now hear of all sorts of municipalities feeling the need to hire experts just to understand your legislation. This is almost too idiotic to talk about, but you were the government that was supposed to get rid of all the red tape.
It was interesting how today the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations tabled a red tape reduction bill. I think he must have brought every book in his library in here. He somehow wants to make the people of Ontario believe that this stuff is going to be passed before Christmas, bringing in a bill for first reading on the second- or third-last day the House may be sitting before we recess. I hope the people of Ontario are not going to be fooled by the notion that that bill may ever see the light of day.
Mr Bradley: I hope we sit next week.
Mr Gerretsen: Maybe if we sit next week or the week after that we can do something about that bill. That is just an out-and-out publicity stunt by the minister, to come in here and make it look as if he's doing something when he's really doing nothing at all.
We have 39 minutes left. I want to leave some time for the other members, but I have a few more minutes left.
I just want to tell you what Bill 79 does, according to this organization. "Bill 79 increases municipal costs... increases the complexity of the tax system and tax calculations" - I've already dealt with that - "erodes gains in federal payments-in-lieu," which is very interesting. You are actually giving the federal government a break by passing Bill 79, which is kind of interesting, because you've been doing nothing but attacking them over the last couple of years. "Bill 79 delays current value assessment."
Finally, and then I'll turn it over to one of my colleagues, these experts say what Bill 79 should be doing. Your bill doesn't do this, but this is what Bill 79 should do. "Bill 79 should provide for specific, targeted relief," which is not happening here, member for Etobicoke-Humber. "Bill 79 should be simple and understandable."
I would like to debate the merits of the individual sections of this bill with anybody, because I don't think there's anybody in here, with all due respect to the collective knowledge in this place, who totally understands this bill.
"Bill 79 should complement local solutions and support local councils." What do you people have against local councils anyway? What makes you think you make any better solutions than the locally elected councils out there, which are just as accountable, or even more so, than you are?
"Bill 79 should arrive at caps by different means," and it "should allow for flexibility."
You have failed on every one of these scores. Don't take my word for it, because I'm a partisan politician who believes in true fairness for the taxpayers of Ontario, but take the word of these organizations, which deal with these kinds of issues on a day-to-day basis.
I would hope that the taxpayer of Ontario is not fooled by this smoke-and-mirrors show this government has put on. We give people a tax cut, but only the people at the top end benefit. The people in the $25,000-to-$50,000-a-year salary range benefit almost nothing. At the same time, we take some of the education costs off the property taxes, but we download a whole bunch of other costs that the province has traditionally paid so the net result is that municipalities are going to have to pay a lot more for different costs than before. Then you blame the local municipal councils when they somehow can't bring in a zero budget. So now we start blaming them.
It's really no different than the Premier in the Al McLean matter blaming everybody else, when he should be blaming the three members right from the Tory cabinet who sit on the Board of Internal Economy, who in effect authorized the $600,000 deal, which is an absolute waste of taxpayers' money.
With that, I will turn it over to the member for Yorkview.
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Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): I'm delighted to join the debate on the seventh or eighth bill, I believe, dealing with tax reform. I think this must be the third time I have made comments on this issue. When we started with the tax reform bill, we were all hoping that finally something really worthwhile would change, which was expected from all sides, really. Unfortunately, we are here two or two and a half years later still dealing with the original issue, to bring fairness to an antiquated, unfair system. Even today, with the presentation of the seventh or eighth bill, we have the government saying, "It is fair; it is good." If it was so good, why are we here? I don't think I'm allowed to say, "What the hell are we doing here?" So I withdraw that, Mr Speaker.
If this was the case, why didn't the government listen originally to the presenters who came to the public hearings, listen to the members of the opposition, listen to those hired by the government to do the various reports? I can still see the Premier, Mr Harris, when he said, "I'm going to hire the former mayor of Scarborough, Joyce Trimmer, to do a report." She's a well-experienced, knowledgeable person. The report was handed over. What happened? Nothing. The Golden report came in - good recommendations, a good report. What happened? The government disappeared. What happened to Mr Harris? What happened to the Minister of Housing? Nothing.
Then, of course, we had Mr David Crombie, the eminence when it came to municipal affairs, tax and stuff like that. You would think the government fully intended to bring some real change to the tax system and reform it. According to the good recommendations that Mr Crombie brought forward, what happened? Nothing, absolutely nothing. You know why? The government has its own agenda, that is why. Because they had their views, they had the backroom boys telling the government as soon as it was elected, telling the Premier, Mr Harris: "You have to do it this way. Don't listen to the people who really mean it," who knew what to recommend, who knew how to make a difference, who knew how to bring about fair changes. No. What did they do? They listened to the consultants, those well-paid, expensively lobbyists. That is why we are here today, and we are still in a mess. The ones to really take the brunt of this are the small business people and the taxpayers of Ontario.
What I can't face from this side of the House is the Premier of our province, the one who is supposed to be saying to our people, "What I'm going to bring about will make a positive difference," telling the seniors that if they can't afford the increases, they can put a mortgage on their house. Could you do that? Would you do that to the seniors in your community? You wouldn't do that to the seniors in your community. I don't think any member of the government - there are really good, reasonable members on the government side, who wouldn't be facing the seniors in their communities and saying, "If you can't really afford the increase, go ahead and put on a reverse mortgage." That is what came immediately after the government approved the first and second and third - I think the mess started with Bill 106.
Then we hear people such as the member for Nepean say: "You know what? We have given the various municipalities the tools to do exactly what they should have done." They gave the municipalities two tools: One was to increase taxes; the other one was to cut services. When you don't have any more money because of the irresponsibility and the incompetence of this government, when they downloaded on to municipalities all kinds of new services and responsibilities that they didn't have before, along with more cuts in transfers, you tell me how the local councils, the local municipalities, will continue to provide the same services at the same rate - impossible.
We were not the only ones telling the minister that, or the Premier or the Minister of Finance. When they came to make a presentation at the committee, they said, "We believe taxes are going to go down." "By how much, Mr Minister?" "I would say at least by 10%." Those were the comments of Minister Leach when he came to make a presentation. I was there; I was attending the committee. People were saying: "What the heck is he saying? No one is saying taxes are going to come down, yet the minister is saying taxes should be coming down." Seven bills later, this proves that the government was wrong. They are still wrong, and the people out there were right. Organizations such as the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario were saying, "For heaven's sake, don't do that, because if you do that this will be unmanageable, impossible to implement, and it's going to create total chaos."
What happened? Why do we have this latest bill here? Because when the roof collapsed, the business people in Metropolitan Toronto - that's where it started - took to the streets and said: "You want to close our doors? You want to kick us out on to the streets? Then we're going to hit the streets and block every artery here in Metro." Then we had the Minister of Finance say with so much pomp, "I'm here to announce that we're going to have a cap on tax increases." I don't remember anyone telling our small business people that they're going to be allowed a 2.5% increase in 1998, 2.5% in 1999 and 2.5% in the year 2000. In effect he has told those small business people, "You have three years to sell your equipment, sell your business and get out of here, because three years from now we're going to clobber you, and you won't have any resources then."
Then it got better. We live in Metro Toronto and we go outside. No wonder the various municipalities' clerks and reeves and mayors were saying to the Premier: "Give us the information. We have to send the tax bill." They had been waiting and waiting and waiting. You know why? Because the government knew that when the tax bill went out, when the information was released, those municipalities would have to issue tax bills showing a 50% to 600% increase. Those figures were recognized, admitted by the Minister of Finance himself. Then, very gallantly he comes along and says: "I'm going to do something about it, because municipalities won't do anything about it. They won't use the tools we gave them, so I am going to say, "Well, you won't have a tax increase of more than 10%." Wow, isn't that nice. I wonder what other businesses or anyone else - employees - have been told by the government, "No more than 10%" for 1998, and then 5% in 1999 and 5% in the year 2000.
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This comes from a government, a Premier, a Minister of Finance, who a year ago were saying, "No tax increases." What if I were a small business person looking at my tax bill and saying, "What the heck is this, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 more than last year"? Some small businesses don't net that much profit in one year. What would you do, Mr Speaker? We heard the mayor of Markham: "Chaos in the streets. People are going to be closing." They had to do something, but still the Premier did not act in a fair way, because if they had brought in a system that would be fairer, they wouldn't be having the problems they are having today.
It is not yet a fair system. When we have members of the government saying, "Look, we did our job; we let them do it," hold it a second. What are you giving them? The tools you are giving them are unmanageable because what you have given the area municipality is a double barrel to shoot themselves with: either to increase taxes or, the other one, to lower services.
Who said that any user fee is a tax? Wasn't that Mr Harris? I think so. For the first time in the history of our province, municipalities, councils, have to charge people for using recreational facilities which were built with their tax dollars. For the first time local councils had to tell seniors, "If you want to use our recreation facilities, you have to pay a user fee."
It used to be, Mr Speaker, and I'm sure you did it many times, that you would go to one of the provincial parks, drive in, behave yourself and enjoy those wonderful recreation facilities. Not now. If you drive through the gates, you have to pay. It used to be that you would use the provincial parks according to whether you were driving a car; they used to charge $1 a car. Now some municipalities are charging $5 per occupant. Can you imagine a family with a couple of kids wanting to go and enjoy a local provincial park and have a picnic or something, and it's going to cost them some $10, $15 or $20? Is that a tax or a user fee? I would say that in the eyes of the Premier, a user fee is a tax. It's another imposition.
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): There's only one taxpayer.
Mr Sergio: Yes. Isn't there only one taxpayer? I think the Premier would remember that himself.
The funny thing is that you hear from the real professional people who day after day direct the mayors and reeves - if there still are reeves in our province - the various councillors and regional councillors. These professional bureaucrats, who on a daily basis are telling those people what to do to manage the books, to manage the finances, are telling the Premier, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing that what they are doing is wrong. Why wouldn't they listen?
The important thing, I believe, for every member of this House, for any government, is to do it right, to get it right. It baffles me especially when I hear the member for Nepean say, "We have amendments from the Liberals." I was there and I have to say that every reasonable, sensible amendment we provided, they turned down. Then they had the gall to come into the House, face the camera, speak to the people and say: "The Liberals want to increase taxes. Look at this, they want to increase taxes."
I dare the member for Nepean who spoke to produce those documents, those amendments, which were turned down at the committee level because, Mr Speaker, you know what happens when a government establishes various committees and then establishes the majority of the members on a particular committee stacked with government members. Was there a case lately where the majority of the members voted to pay $600,000 of taxpayers' money? Those were government members.
Mr Len Wood: That's the Harris government.
Mr Sergio: Oh yes, Mr Harris is sweating, and he should be sweating because even he said it was wrong. I have to say on behalf of the people who are listening -
Mr Bradley: Did John Baird vote for that?
Mr Sergio: I believe he did. Yes, the member for Nepean voted for that.
I believe the Premier is very reasonable and sincere. He means what he says, I would say. But if he really means what he said yesterday or this morning on one of the radio shows, then he should tell his cabinet, his minister: "We made an honest mistake. We've got to pay the $600,000 back to the people of Ontario because they are not guilty." The taxpayers of Ontario are not guilty. They want to know why they are paying $600,000. For what? Where's the fairness?
My time is up. I have about another two hours to go, but of course we have other colleagues who want to add to this matter. This bill does not do it. Once again I'm telling the government, I'm telling the minister who isn't here tonight, take your time, do it right for the people of Ontario. I thank you for your time.
Mr Bartolucci: I'm pleased to offer a few comments on Bill 79 at third reading. I'd like to start off by telling the House and the people of Ontario that we've heard the new spin from the government tonight. As the people of Ontario know, this is the seventh attempt at getting a tax fairness component attached to this act, and again it will be a failure, for the government now is spinning the line: "We didn't want to do it in an omnibus bill. What we wanted to do was break it up."
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I think the member for Sudbury has a lot of important things to say. There isn't a quorum here and they should be here to hear him.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Would you check and see if there's a quorum present.
Clerk at the Table (Mr Todd Decker): A quorum is not present, Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker ordered the bells rung.
Clerk at the Table: A quorum is now present, Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker: The Chair recognizes the member for Sudbury.
Mr Bartolucci: The new spin here is, "We wanted to get it right so we broke it up into seven parts." The reality is that they screwed up the first six and this one is no better than the previous six. There are inherent problems with this legislation and they'll manifest themselves very clearly and in a very cruel and hardened way once this act is implemented.
I might suggest, in order to start off my comments, that I review some of the comments the people at the city of Sudbury made with regard to this legislation when it was first introduced by the minister. The people at the city of Sudbury - for example, the city manager, Gary Polano, is I think user-friendly to this government. He tries to work hard with this government, not because he believes everything they say but because he wants to act in the best interests of the residents of the city of Sudbury.
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He said and his director of finance and his assistant city manager said:
"The minister's comment that municipalities did not take adequate action regarding tax policy is inappropriate. Each municipality has issues that require different solutions. The region of Sudbury and the area municipalities studied tax policy for many months with the assistance of Hemson Consulting Ltd and recommended tax policy which we deemed to be the fairest for the Sudbury region."
In other words, what Gary Polano and what Larry LaPlante, the treasurer, were saying is that the one-size-fits-all solution isn't a solution at all.
It further states that, "The provincial announcement on mandatory capping in effect introduces discrimination to the tax system." Can you imagine a government introducing discrimination to a tax system? You know, it is unbelievable and almost unconscionable that this government would stand in the House and berate municipalities for trying to be fair to their local ratepayers and at the same time introduce a system that in effect is discriminatory in tax policy. Somehow it just doesn't jibe with what the government seemed to define as common sense.
Let's leave the city for a second and go over to the region because the regional municipality of Sudbury obviously works very closely with the seven area municipalities. It had some concerns. It said that the proposed legislation does not allow for taxes to be paid on the basis of current value assessment. Well, isn't that telling. Again, these are experts in the field. They're not people elected because of a platform or for of any other reason. These are the people who work with policies every day and that's what they're saying.
We leave the city and move to the region and from the region we go to the four associations that the member for Kingston and The Islands referred to in his opening presentation. That's the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario, the Association of Municipal Tax Collectors of Ontario and the Municipal Finance Officers' Association of Ontario. What do they say about Bill 79? This is what they say Bill 79 doesn't do.
They say, "Bill 79 doesn't cap tax increases at 10% in 1998; Bill 79 doesn't provide protection to small business; Bill 79 doesn't target properties hardest hit; Bill 79 doesn't recognize local efforts and local solutions; Bill 79 doesn't address rebates to charities; Bill 79 doesn't cap business improvement area levies; Bill 79 doesn't provide fairness for property taxpayers." That last point is probably the most telling one because Bill 79 doesn't even do what its title suggests.
That's not Rick Bartolucci, Liberal member for Sudbury, talking. That's not any one of my colleagues or any member in this House. That's the four associations that work to make municipalities in Ontario function properly. Why didn't we listen to them at the very beginning? The answer to that is simple. They wanted to make a presentation but they said, "However, a government motion was passed that does not allow for any public input whatsoever at hearings on Monday, December 7."
What is the government afraid of? Why will the government not listen to the experts in the field? Why won't they listen to the expert panel on property taxes? Why repeatedly over the course of the last three and a half years has the government continually refused the advice of experts on not only this piece of legislation but every piece of legislation? The reality is that the experts have spoken. Bill 79 is not going to work. It is not going to be in the best interests of small business. It is not going to cap taxes at 10% for 1998.
The regional municipality of Sudbury decided to take pretty drastic action. It decided to pass a resolution. At its meeting on November 12 it passed the following resolution:
"Be it resolved that the regional solicitor is hereby authorized and directed to forthwith make application to the Legislature of the province of Ontario for the purpose of obtaining a private bill exempting the regional municipality of Sudbury and the area municipalities within the region of Sudbury from the provisions of Bill 79, the Fairness for Property Taxpayers Act; and
"That this resolution be forwarded to all municipalities within the region, all northern Ontario cities, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities."
What in essence the regional municipality did was pass a resolution saying they wanted to be exempted from Bill 79. I put forward a private member's bill entitled the Lower Property Taxes in Sudbury Act, Bill 87, and I challenged the government, I challenged the Minister of Finance, I challenged the Premier, I challenged the members on the government side to call this bill forward because, I'll tell you something, Bill 87 repairs the problem that Bill 79 causes in Sudbury and in the regional municipality of Sudbury.
My fellow member from Hamilton East, Dominic Agostino, introduced a similar bill the next day because he wanted Hamilton exempted as well. We see and the municipalities see there is light if the government will listen. However, it has been our history with this government that they listen to no one, and because you listen to no one, you end up with the problems you have with Bill 79, the seventh attempt to get it right and it's still very wrong for everyone.
M. Lalonde : C'est avec plaisir que je prends quelques minutes qui me sont allouées pour informer les propriétaires de commerces, pour leur expliquer que sera l'impact de ce projet de loi 79 à court terme et à long terme. Nous savons que nous sommes dans le septième projet de loi, erreur après erreur après erreur sept fois. Tout d'abord le gouvernement conservateur, après avoir reconnu les erreurs qu'ils ont faites, ont apporté ce dernier projet de loi. Il faut dire que c'est le dernier projet de loi parce que dans deux jours nous allons ajourner pour les fêtes et la fin de l'année arrivera et les municipalités doivent procéder le plus tôt possible à faire les ajustements. Dans tout ce projet de loi je peux dire que les petites municipalités ou les grandes municipalités à l'intérieur des comtés unis vont être pénalisées.
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J'ai ici avec moi, et je l'ai fait parvenir à toutes les municipalités de la circonscription de Prescott et Russell, une copie du projet de loi et je leur ai demandé leurs commentaires. J'ai reçu ceux de la municipalité de Cumberland, qui fait partie d'Ottawa-Carleton mais qui fait partie aussi de ma circonscription. Je vais vous lire quelques paragraphes que la ville de Hawkesbury m'a fait parvenir :
«Selon le projet de loi, la ville devra taxer ses industries pour que la différence soit remise au comté et distribuée aux autres municipalités qui, elles, ont eu des augmentations de plus de 10 %. Étant donné que le taux de taxe industriel de notre municipalité est le plus élevé dans Prescott et Russell, nous croyons que cette surtaxe est injuste. Le projet de loi n'est pas une solution qui résoudra les problèmes de toutes les municipalités, car il cible plutôt les grandes municipalités qui ne relèvent pas des autres paliers gouvernementaux.
«Appliquer les modifications demandées par ce nouveau projet de loi sera un cauchemar administratif par lui-même. On nous demande à déterminer les évaluations de 1997, qui serviront de base pour comparer les années à venir. Mais il faut tenir compte que les logiciels comptables que nous utilisons présentement ne pourront effectuer les recherches demandées, et ces recherches engendreront des coûts supplémentaires de programmation et pourraient même aller jusqu'à provoquer la démission de nombreuses compagnies informatiques.»
Lorsque nous regardons le commentaire de cette municipalité et ensuite celui de Cumberland, je vais vous lire celui-là en anglais :
"A significant number of staff resources will be required to process, recalculate and reissue tax bills for the commercial-industrial and possibly multiresidential properties."
This is the last paragraph of a letter sent to me by Mayor Coburn of the municipality of Cumberland:
"Needless to say, some of these additional costs and resources would not have been necessary if the ministry had taken the time to run a model of the proposed tax system to see if it would actually work."
Nous connaissons ce gouvernement dans presque tous les projets de loi dans le domaine de la santé, dans le domaine de l'éducation : «Nous procédons à présenter des projets de loi sans en faire des études, et après ça ce sont les individus, les citoyens et les citoyennes de cette province, qui doivent en payer la note.»
Nous savons que l'association des greffiers et trésoriers de la province ont fait parvenir une lettre au ministre des Finances le 23 mai 1998. On a demandé au ministre des Finances de retarder le processus parce que, actuellement, aucun logiciel n'existait dans la province, même pas au Canada et même pas aux États-Unis. Donc on a fait de la sourd d'oreille et on a été d'avant.
Encore plus loin que ça, dans des discussions qui sont survenues, le ministre des Finances n'avait pas l'air de s'entendre avec le ministre des Affaires municipales. Le ministre des Affaires municipales ou les employés du ministre ont dit aux employés du ministère des Finances : «Vous devriez nous consulter. Nous connaissons les affaires municipales, et vous êtes dans les finances,» donc l'implication que la présentation de ce projet de loi a certainement eu l'effet d'une bombe à l'intérieur des deux ministères. Mais nous savons que cela s'est tenu un peu mort.
Lorsque mon collègue de Nepean dit qu'il n'y pas de problème à Nepean, j'ai deux pleines pages ici du Ottawa Citizen :
"Quantum Changes a Fiasco," and this poor gentleman, David Black, is holding a tax bill. He's facing a 6% increase. He's lucky he's only got a 6% increase. I just hope that this gentleman doesn't own a commercial establishment, because his taxes are going to go up to 10% instead of 6%. In the small municipalities of Ottawa-Carleton they will take the whole increase of all the commercial-industrial sector, they'll put it in the pot and it will be distributed evenly to all the municipalities.
C'est pour ça que la ville de Hawkesbury a dit que ce n'est pas «fair» que la municipalité avec le plus gros niveau d'évaluation commercial-industriel dans les comtés, à 21 % de l'évaluation totale des comtés unis, aujourd'hui va être pénalisée. Je regarde ce que j'ai ici avec moi : plusieurs factures qui démontrent que même avec ce projet de loi on a retardé. Il reste seulement deux journées de débats en Chambre. Je crois que le gouvernement reconnaît qu'encore là, nous n'étions pas prêts.
Je regarde ici Maxville, dans le comté de Glengarry. Plusieurs personnes seront frappées avec 400 % d'augmentation. C'est un petit village d'environ 600 personnes. Lorsque nous avons quelques commerces qui ont des augmentations de 400 %, il faut se rappeler que la loi dit que les augmentations de 1998 seront de 10 % au maximum ; 1999, 5 % ; et l'an 2000, 5 %. Qu'adviendra-t-il en l'an 2001 ? On nous dit, d'après les évaluateurs, que nous allons retomber avec l'évaluation réelle qui a été placée cette année.
Dans la ville de Gloucester, une personne dit qu'elle va s'en aller devant la justice. Maintenant, pour arriver répartir le taux d'augmentation - il avait sa juste valeur d'évaluation. Maintenant, ils vont y monter d'à peu près 118 %. Est-ce que c'est juste ? Ils vont payer les taxes sur une propriété qui est inférieure au montant qu'il est alloué.
J'ai ici une autre personne, M. Laviolette de Maxville, qui nous démontrait 100 % d'augmentation de taxes.
La raison de l'augmentation de taxes - il faut se rappeler que tout ça, la manière de fonctionner, d'ajuster ça pour que ça soit fait, comme on dit souvent, à la mitaine, c'est tout fait manuel, parce qu'il y a des endroits où on a fait des agrandissements, des améliorations, et il n'y a aucun système qui existe dans le moment pour déterminer qui devrait avoir l'augmentation. Mais encore là, ce seront les petites entreprises qui vont payer la note en l'an 2001, et ceux aujourd'hui qui n'avaient pas de facture d'augmentation vont avoir une augmentation. Mais encore là, je crois que même si nous voulons le passer par jeudi, c'est encore trop tôt.
The Deputy Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr Len Wood: I've listened for the last 60 minutes to the official opposition, the four members of the Liberal Party, pointing out a number of flaws in Bill 79. Some of them mentioned the fact that it's going to increase costs to municipalities, because they're going to have to hire extra staff in order to understand the bill.
At the same time, there's even confusion within the government benches on this, because they've had to amend or bring forward at least seven, eight, maybe nine other bills to correct the flaws that have happened as they're out there trying to change the way property taxes are paid in Ontario. The result is that a number of communities are finding out that their property taxes are going to go sky-high - 100%, 200%, some of them as high as 600% - so they've had to make big changes, and some of them are reflected in Bill 79, some of them are reflected in other bills. This caused a lot of confusion out there.
We're debating this bill at 9 o'clock tonight, when we should be debating the hush money that was spent by this government to cover up a sex scandal within the Conservative caucus - $600,000 that went out to hire private detectives to go out and investigate women in this province. It's wrong to do that.
Also, they hired a contractor, Andersen Consulting. They went out and spent $180 million, when they could have had this job done for probably half that money and they found no savings whatsoever. I don't know what the payback is to the Mike Harris government on this particular one, but it's money that is being wasted at the same time as they're talking about balancing budgets and fining cabinet ministers if they make mistakes. They should pay back that $600,000.
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Mr Baird: I listened with great interest to all the speeches of my colleagues. I listened carefully and intently to the speeches of the members. I don't think I ever heard one story about a small business person or the effect this has had on small business people. I think not to have mentioned that misses the point, because this is all about ensuring that small business people are protected, those hard-working men and women who put it all on the line every day, every week and every year, to create jobs for the people of Ontario.
The member for Kingston and The Islands did talk a good deal about flip-flops at the beginning of his speech. He didn't mention mandatory opportunity. He didn't mention their plan to get rid of the Workplace Health and Safety Agency. He didn't mention their plan to allow Toronto to increase taxes on commercial-industrial establishments, and then they flip-flopped the same morning at the same committee hearing. He didn't mention that, a flip-flop that was so bad Gerry Phillips came running in and got John Gerretsen, the member for Kingston and The Islands, to change his vote the fourth and the fifth time it came up. At least the member for Dovercourt was consistent, saying that Toronto city council should have the right to increase taxes. But he didn't mention that, nor do they mention the other flip-flops.
I remember the Liberal Party promising to get rid of the GST, only to block a Tory member's bill to take the GST off reading material. They kept the GST. I remember the Liberal Party fighting against free trade, only to expand free trade with NAFTA. I remember the Liberals saying that the helicopter deal was a bad deal and it would never go forward. I guess the order is in on the new helicopters. I remember the Liberals fighting Brian Mulroney on the public service cuts when actually the number of public servants increased by about 200. Then when Jean Chrétien was elected, they fired 45,000 public servants, a good number in my home community.
When they talk about flips and they talk about flops, the Liberal Party now flips and flops in the same morning of the same committee hearings.
Mr Bradley: I was just delighted to hear the member who is leading the charge for the government on the Board of Internal Economy where he's prepared to pay out some $600,000, starting to lecture others about other expenditures and talking about other jurisdictions. It's phenomenal what this member will do to ingratiate himself with the Premier and that selection of close advisers to the Premier called the whiz kids.
He gives the message. Of course you've got to know what the message is. The message is - and the NDP don't want this so it's no use trying to foist it on the NDP - they're supposed to boost the NDP up and criticize the Liberals and say, "Well, at least we understand where the NDP is," but they recognize that you give them the back of your hand whenever you have to anyway. So you're not going to fool them with these little tricks that you have for the House.
I just find it passing interesting that the member who would have so much to say about the Liberal Party was in fact the ringleader when it came to paying out the $600,000, a part of that to pay the expenses of the former Speaker involved in a private case in Ontario.
I'm pleased that our members wanted but didn't have the chance, I guess, to mention the orgy of spending this government is engaging in on self-serving advertising. I expected that one of them might have the chance - in the limited time I guess they didn't - to mention that now we're up over $50 million in straight self-serving government advertising, nothing else; not information, not straightforward education to people; strictly partisan, self-serving propaganda being perpetrated upon the people of this province using everybody's tax dollars, and this from the party that says they're against tax.
Ms Martel: I had an opportunity to participate in the debate on second reading and the closure motion the government moved on this bill so I suppose it's a pleasure to participate again this evening.
Two points have to be reinforced tonight. It would be interesting for someone to go back and calculate the legislative time that has been spent dealing with the various bills the government has had to bring forward as it has allegedly tried to reform the property tax system in this province. We find ourselves here, a little after 9 o'clock this evening, dealing with the seventh bill in a series of bills that have all been flawed as this government supposedly moves down the road to do something positive with respect to property taxes.
This is a classic example which clearly demonstrates how incompetent this government is. This has been a complete fiasco. The members who are in their place tonight on the government side trying to defend this, particularly the member for Nepean, should be embarrassed that we are here yet again with bill number seven trying to fix all the mistakes you have made because your government, which is the same position it holds on every other issue, knew everything there was to know about this and wouldn't listen to anyone who had any expertise who wanted to offer it and talk to you about how this might be done. Even with this bill the government messed up and the government had to move an amendment to include something that the treasurer left out when he actually introduced it. So here we are yet again spending time, wasting time, dealing with this.
Is this going to bring tax fairness to the region of Sudbury? Absolutely not. It's a scheme of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Those commercial and industrial businesses in Sudbury that would have seen a benefit are now going to get it clawed back. Who does this help? No one. But this is the sad, sordid history of all of this legislation of property tax -
The Deputy Speaker: Your time has expired. The Chair recognizes the member for Sudbury, who has two minutes to respond.
Mr Bartolucci: I'd like to thank the colleagues who offered their points, but let me tell you that this government proposing Bill 79 is the same government that spent $600,000 in hush money to silence the Tory sex scandal. This is the same government that spent $180 million on Andersen Consulting. This is the same government that is wasting $50 million of taxpayers' money.
I don't think anybody believes the member for Nepean any more when he says that he and his government are protecting the money and protecting the interests of the taxpayers of Ontario. Nobody buys that any more. The members in his riding certainly don't believe that he acted in their best interests when he supported the resolution to pay $600,000 in hush money. I don't believe that's in the best interests of Ontario taxpayers, I don't believe that $50 million in self-serving ads is in the best interests of Ontario taxpayers and I don't believe that giving Andersen Consulting $150 million is in the best interests of Ontario taxpayers.
I don't believe that Bill 79 will cap tax increases at 10% in 1998 and I don't believe that Bill 79 will provide protection for small business. Why don't we in the Liberal caucus believe that? Because the Association of Municipalities of Ontario told us, the Association of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario told us that, the Association of Municipal Tax Collectors of Ontario told us that and, finally, the Municipal Finance Officers' Association of Ontario told us that. The reality is that all the experts are saying Bill 79 is wrong, but the member for Nepean is right.
The Deputy Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Wildman: I note that there are approximately eight minutes left in this debate for our caucus to participate in the debate.
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre): Oh, right.
Mr Wildman: The member says, "Oh, right," as if that's fine. This government does not believe in people being able to speak in this House. They don't believe in having true debate, full debate on measures in this House, and that's why they continually bring in time allocation. That's why they limit debate, because they don't want to hear opposition; they don't want to hear opposing voices. It's OK to cut off the opposition. It's fine even when we have this kind of fiasco we have before us in this House when we're dealing with property taxes. This is the seventh bill that this government has imposed on the taxpayers of this province because they can't get it right. They don't know how to do it.
It's ridiculous that in introducing this legislation at the beginning of the debate, the member for Nepean said, "Oh well, this was all planned, this is the way we intended it." They didn't want to bring in an omnibus bill in the beginning. They intended to break it up into small parts so they could deal with it piecemeal. The fact is that every time this government has introduced legislation in this area, every time they've got it wrong, every time they've had to come back because what they intended to do didn't work.
The fact is that here we are the seventh time around and every time they've cut off debate. Every time they forced debate through, every time because they don't want to hear opposing views, and, as a result of that, because they don't want to have full debate, they get it wrong because they don't have the opportunity.
The member for Simcoe East savours the opportunity to cut off debate because he doesn't believe in debate. He doesn't believe in parliamentary democracy. Just ram it through. Get the railroads running on time.
Interjection: I think I've heard that before.
Mr Wildman: That was used I believe in the 1930s by another regime of a similar ilk perhaps.
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Mr Baird: That's really offensive, Bud.
Mr Wildman: I think it's offensive that I only have seven minutes to put forward our position.
Mr Hastings: Mr Speaker, I'd like to raise a point of order regarding the member for Algoma's remarks about getting the railways running on time. We know where that particular phrase comes from. It's a most odious phrase and it suggests a certain racist overtone. I request that the member withdraw that particular phrase. It's most odious in its comparison.
The Deputy Speaker: The reference to railroads running on time may have had some meaning that I didn't take in it, but in the town I grew up in -
Mr Hastings: Mr Speaker, if I could elaborate further -
The Deputy Speaker: No, you may not. I'm sorry. I'm addressing your point of order on the railroads running on time. I grew up in a little place called Moorefield, and the 11:05 was right on time. I don't see any meaning other than that it's just running on time. I would ask the member for Algoma to continue, please.
Mr Wildman: Was the clock cut off for that silly little exchange?
Hon Jim Wilson (Minister of Energy, Science and Technology): Point of order, Mr Speaker: As the minister in this House tonight, I want to speak on behalf of the government. The member for Algoma knows that his remark was highly offensive, and I too would ask him to withdraw that. It reminds me of the brown shirts comment that was made when his -
Mr Len Wood: Sit down, you've got no point of order.
The Deputy Speaker: Member for Cochrane North, that is not acceptable. I'll not warn you again.
I'm sorry, I interrupted the member for Simcoe West. Member for Simcoe West, I did not hear your point of order.
Hon Mr Wilson: Mr Speaker, I believe the honourable member's -
Mr Wildman: Mr Speaker, in light of the time, I withdraw. The reference was not racial, it was ideological, but I withdraw it because it had reference to a Fascist regime and I wouldn't want to compare this government - even this government - to a Fascist regime. It's unfortunate you didn't understand that.
The fact is this government has cut off debate repeatedly. It has cut off debate on 37 out of a total of 100 bills since it came into office; 37% of the time this government cuts off debate. The previous government used time allocation, it's true, 21 times in a total of five years, on a total of 163 bills, far less than this government has yet, and this government isn't finished its mandate.
This is a bill that has been repeatedly introduced because the government can't get it right, seven times over. The bill is unnecessarily complex and confusing. There are even mistakes. The government has had to amend even this bill, the seventh time around. We believe that caps are better than not having caps, but the constant changing of the legislation means there's more uncertainty. Businesses who got tax reductions this year and made plans based on these reductions will now have to write another cheque to the municipality, either now or in the very near future.
The fact is, this government can't get it right. It doesn't know how to introduce legislation and have it debated so they can hear the shortcomings of the legislation and have it amended so it's improved. Instead, we get time allocation after time allocation, bill after bill, while they try to rectify the errors they made because they wouldn't listen, because they didn't want debate. I suspect we're going to be on this another time around because they can't get it right, because they don't like to hear debate, because they don't like to hear presentations from the public. They don't want to have true, real, considered debate on issues, because they want to just get things through quickly, without real, true consideration.
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): Thirty seconds.
Mr Wildman: There's a member who I guess just thinks it's a big joke, thinks this place doesn't matter. It's unfortunate; we now appear to have a government that thinks the Legislative Assembly is a nuisance, that debate on bills is just a waste of time and holds things up. As a result of that, we've got seven pieces of legislation repeatedly introduced by this government because they can't get it right and they won't listen to what the opposition has to say.
I tell you this: In the last week of the session, going into the Christmas break, this government has asked for co-operation to help get a number of bills through that they want to have passed and that they think will be good for the province. If they want to have co-operation, it goes both ways. It doesn't just mean a one-way street. You don't limit debate repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, and expect the opposition to be co-operative. You don't say to one party in the minority in this House, "You only get seven or eight minutes on this bill," and then expect co-operation getting other things through.
The Deputy Speaker: Pursuant to the order of the House dated November 30, 1998, I'm now required to put the question.
Mr Baird has moved third reading of Bill 79. 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.
The motion is carried.
Shall the bill be now passed and entitled as in the motion? Agreed? Agreed.
APPRENTICESHIP AND CERTIFICATION ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR L'APPRENTISSAGE ET LA RECONNAISSANCE PROFESSIONNELLE
Mr Smith moved third reading of the following bill:
Bill 55, An Act to revise the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act / Projet de loi 55, Loi révisant la Loi sur la qualification professionnelle et l'apprentissage des gens de métier.
Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Riverside): Point of order, Mr Speaker: This is another bill that's time-allocated. There's two hours of debate remaining. I'm asking that the time we have be split equally between all three parties so that we at least have an opportunity to participate meaningfully in this debate.
The Deputy Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Is there unanimous consent to split the two hours evenly between the three parties? I heard a no.
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): Point of order, Mr Speaker: The government members have no objection.
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Point of order, Mr Speaker: If the government has no objection, they should take about five minutes on this and give the rest of the time to the third party.
The Deputy Speaker: Neither of those is a point of order.
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex): I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak to third reading of Bill 55 this evening. In that context, I'll be sharing a portion of my time with the member for Bruce. I wish to provide to the Legislature this evening an overview of where we've been.
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): If you want to keep talking, they don't get any time, simple as that.
Interjections.
The Deputy Speaker: The members for Kingston and The Islands and Nepean will come to order.
Mr Smith: I wanted to start this evening to provide some brief comments on Bill 55 and to again revisit the premise by which Bill 55 has been approached, to reacquaint ourselves with the consultation that has taken place to date and perhaps most importantly the amendments that were made to Bill 55 as a result of the public hearings and the input the government received through that process.
It's important for all members of the Legislature to realize that the premise for pursuing Bill 55 and amendments to apprenticeship in this province was to provide a new and contemporary legislative framework for apprenticeship training. Very clearly we have legislation that currently exists that's some 30 years old, that required revisiting in many cases, and certainly in that context the government placed that and viewed that as an important item for review and one that we feel very critical in terms of where we need to take apprenticeship training and training in general into the future.
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We also saw the reforms as an opportunity to attract young people to the very rewarding careers that exist in the skilled trades area, but equally to provide opportunities for people in this province who are, for whatever reason, pursuing retraining opportunities, opportunities to pursue new careers, and in that context have attempted to approach the legislation whereby we're attracting not only those young people who are making decisions about their future, but certainly those individuals who, for whatever reason, may be seeking a new area of concentration with respect to their employment.
Very clearly as well, the objective in part was to increase the number of entrants into apprenticeship. In doing so, we hope by the year 2000 to see that increase from some 11,000 individuals to 22,000.
To frame the premise in a general context, certainly the objective of the legislation was to renew a system of apprenticeship training whereby apprenticeship remains workplace-based in terms of its roots, in terms of the expertise that is generated from workers themselves and industry representatives at large.
A key part of the process has been extensive consultation with respect to this particular issue. Most members will know that a working document has been in place or released to those who are interested in this particular area since December 1996, whereby the Minister of Education and Training solicited input with respect to the future and future direction of apprenticeship in this province. In addition to that consultation paper, the minister surveyed a number of apprentices to get their input and ideas in terms of the status of the current system, what they felt was necessary in terms of reforms for the future, and from that perspective we have attempted to build a legislative framework that meets, in part, their expectations.
That is in addition to the numerous meetings that either myself or the minister has had with representatives of various organizations, whether it's educators, community colleges, industry representatives, employee or employers groups. A considerable amount of time has been devoted in meeting with those individuals, as well as representatives from the ministry themselves, ministry officials meeting with those same representatives to solicit their input.
That's in addition to the four days of public hearings that were held some three or four weeks ago with respect to this bill. We heard a number of deputations, both oral and written deputations, I might add, with respect to the merit of the bill and certainly in the context of securing input with respect to opportunities for improving the legislation as it stands today. Through that process we've heard and received a considerable amount of input, and in that framework the government has placed during clause-by-clause consideration a number of amendments with respect to Bill 55.
I just want to revisit the major amendments because I think they are significant in the context of the discussions we had prior to introduction of legislation and following second reading of the bill and through clause-by-clause consideration.
One of the key considerations we heard from skilled tradespeople was the absence of the term "trade" in the legislation. Very clearly they, as did others, felt the absence of that terminology diminished the value of the skilled trades sector.
In recognition of that point of view, the government moved to reinstate the terminology of "trade," which clearly signals that apprenticeship training includes both trades and occupations.
There was a considerable amount of input and concern expressed with respect to the issue of deskilling the trades and what was constituting a skill set or a full trade. Clearly over the course of the four days of public hearings government members on the committee heard an expression of concern with respect to the definition around "certificate of qualification."
In that context as well the government proposed amendments to the bill that would clarify that definition in the context that the certificate of qualification would apply for a complete trade and occupation and not a skill set.
As well, we heard a considerable amount of concern with respect to the powers of the director of apprenticeship. There seemed to be a degree of discomfort with respect to the relationship that would exist between a provincial advisory committee and the ability of the director of apprenticeship to make decisions on that individual's own initiative without the necessary safeguards in place.
In response to those concerns, the government moved to re-establish a relationship that I think finds the balance between the obligations of the director and the expectations of our provincial advisory committees as well as industry representatives and the relationship that they have requested and want to see with respect to the Minister of Education and Training. Through those changes in the relationship, both administratively and politically at the minister's level, I think there has been a strengthening and renewal of that relationship so that the provincial advisory committees are having greater say with respect to their role and the minister.
One of the very clear issues that was addressed as well was the proposal to eliminate the grade 10 requirement. There was a considerable amount of debate on this issue. Some saw that issue as one of eliminating a standard that was important to all trades.
In recognition of the information the minister received through our consultation and the realities that exist today with respect to educational attainment of our skilled tradespeople, the government moved to establish and proposed an amendment which would increase the minimum requirement from grade 10 to grade 12. I would add, though, for those who are concerned that this is a standard that exceeds their expectation, the amendment did include a provision whereby, at the request of a provincial advisory committee, an exemption could be requested to that minimum grade 12 requirement. Very clearly we heard, and particularly from the electricians in the province, that this was a level of educational requirement they require today and they saw it as a benchmark that we should be establishing to move into the future.
We saw a strengthened role for the provincial advisory committees and their ability in the relationship they have to the minister, as well as establishing transitional measures that would allow particularly the construction sector, which has been essentially exempted from Bill 55 and still remains under the trades qualification act, whereby they have the ability to move into Bill 55 or whereby we would see transitional regulations in place that would eventually lead or could lead through discussion to industry self-regulation.
The construction sector is a very unique sector, a very significant sector to the economy of this province. They had a very significant say, I would suggest, over the course of the public hearings. In that context, the process effectively has led to a conclusion whereby the construction sector will remain in the current legislation, albeit other trades on the industrial side will be affected by the new legislative framework. Very clearly, the construction sector felt strongly that the current legislation provided it with the necessary framework. They felt very strongly that under the current legislative framework the construction sector in this province has flourished.
The government heard that perspective and has essentially set them aside from the provisions of Bill 55. But as I mentioned previously, should they wish to move at some point in the future into the provisions of Bill 55, the transitional measures are there for them to pursue.
Those are the significant amendments that were presented by the government. I think they reflect very clearly some of the key concerns that stakeholders presented during the consultation process.
As part of that process, the question was then asked, what's the next step? I can indicate to the Legislature this evening that the Minister of Education and Training and myself anticipate further dialogue, extensive dialogue, I might add, with respect to the development of any regulations that particularly pertain to this bill. I would anticipate in January and February that the consultation process would be initiated and the specific points of view that the various trades have with respect to the regulatory requirements that they wish to see will certainly be invited.
That's a commitment that the Minister of Education has made to other stakeholder groups and one that I think industry stakeholder representatives will welcome. It is one that, I might add, is being given very serious consideration because obviously the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, and the necessity to ensure that we have an appropriate regulatory framework in place to complement the legislation is critically important to our skilled tradespeople.
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I know my colleague from Bruce wants to make a few comments this evening as well, so in conclusion I would suggest it's important to revisit the premise once again. The premise is not to dismantle or water down the skilled trades sector in this province. As a government, we have no interest in doing that. Quite frankly, the government of Ontario is very proud of the skilled workers of this province. They're an energy and an important support mechanism for the economy of this province and have very rewarding opportunities ahead of them as we continue to see a demand for skilled workers in this province grow.
The legislative framework that we've placed before the Legislature this evening is one whereby we're attempting to modernize the apprenticeship system. At the same time, though, we are recognizing and acknowledging the uniqueness of the construction sector. We've undertaken every measure possible and will continue to pursue every measure possible that places the necessary protections in place to protect consumers, to protect employees and to meet the expectations of employers as well. We've designed a system that I believe will create new opportunities, that's less restrictive and will open up new opportunities for young people and those who are seeking retraining into the future.
Mrs Barbara Fisher (Bruce): I'm pleased to be here this evening as well to participate in the debate on Bill 55, the Apprenticeship and Certification Act, 1998. As we all know, apprenticeship training is vital to the youth and the education system of today. It is important that every young person and every person who wants to work has the opportunity to participate, if that is their choice, in the apprenticeship program that exists and that will be renewed for others today.
For several years, industry has been telling us that there is a shortage of highly skilled workers in Ontario. That's demonstrated by the lack thereof within certain trades within Ontario today. At the same time, unemployment rates were increasing. It's rather ironic that we didn't have in place the skilled workforce that was required to make Ontario better.
The government initiated a number of reforms and tax changes which improved the business climate in Ontario to a point where, since 1995, 460,000 net new jobs have been created. With the expansion of this economy, employers are very eager to hire skilled workers.
The proposed apprenticeship legislation would replace the current act, which has not been overhauled since 1964. There have been many changes in the workplace since that time. Therefore, it is an obvious requirement that we move forward with new legislation to assist us in apprenticeship programming in Ontario.
As we all know, a university or college education is not for everyone. There are many trades and occupations which require on-the-job training as well as classroom training. Apprenticeship training provides a means for different groups to work together to benefit workers, people looking for work, employers and our economy.
Bill 55, if passed by the Legislature, will strengthen Ontario's reputation for possessing a highly skilled workforce. It will give the apprenticeship training system a new framework which will protect the quality of training that now exists. It will encourage more employers to train. It would eliminate unnecessary red tape and be flexible enough to extend apprenticeship training into highly skilled occupations such as high technology. It will put apprentices first. It will give apprentices rigorous training and certification programs, and ensure that the programs and requirements meet industry standards. These standards will be set by employers, representatives of employer groups, workers and representatives of unions.
As the parliamentary assistant to education stated, it is our goal to double the number of apprenticeship programs from 11,000 to 22,000 per year.
In January of this year, the government announced its intentions for the reform of the apprenticeship program. Prior to that announcement, we had done a great deal of listening to participants in the apprenticeship program. In December 1996, a discussion paper was distributed to encourage people to think about what apprenticeship is and what it could be. Copies went to 2,500 participants in apprenticeship training: employers, apprentices, skilled workers, industry associations, unions, colleges, school boards, trainers and others. Copies were made available through the apprenticeship field offices and the government's training hotline.
The government received about 450 responses to that paper from all major industries and all regions of the province. The parliamentary assistant held 16 meetings with 125 representatives of different groups with an interest in apprenticeship change. The ministry conducted a telephone survey of more than 1,200 apprentices, skilled workers and people who had left the program before completing their training. The summary of the consultation was released last September.
Following the January announcement, the government met with representatives of the provincial advisory committees. These committees are made up of the people who set standards for training. They are employers and workers who are skilled. Half represent employers and the other half represent workers, including organized labour. We met with many representatives of the committees four times this past year. During the meetings, we worked together with employers and workers to provide industry with greater responsibility for training. We wanted training to be driven by the people best placed to know about it: employers and workers, unions and representatives of employer groups.
In addition to all the meetings with the provincial advisory committees, others were met with, including union representatives, manufacturers' associations, the Council of Ontario Construction Associations, the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, representatives of the college system, the Ontario Federation of Labour, trainers who are not part of the college system, and the Canadian Auto Workers.
We therefore consulted broadly. We listened and we reflected on what we heard. The government worked with these people. Our goal is to encourage more employers to train and to ensure that there are standards in place for all apprentices in all workplaces. All Ontarians, especially our young people, deserve every opportunity to succeed in the workforce and in life. I support Bill 55 and urge all members of this Legislature to do so.
The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Further debate? Questions and comments.
Mr David Caplan (Oriole): It's interesting to hear the parliamentary assistant and the member for Bruce talk about reducing red tape and having flexibility. We now have two apprenticeship systems. We have two governing pieces of legislation. We have twice the bureaucracy. We have the red tape. In apprenticeship right now, it is a bureaucratically delivered system according to the government's own presenters.
It's amazing that these two members of the government would even suggest that they have created something that anybody supports. What they have done is they have created confusion; they have created chaos. In fact, it's a step backwards, not a step forward. What industry said, what the trades said, what apprentices said is that they were willing to work with this government; they were willing to work to develop a training system which was going to take Ontario into the next millennium, which was going to help us to be competitive. What this government has done instead has turned it on its head, has been to place apprenticeship and training away from where it should be, an industry-driven system, and to put it in the hands of provincial bureaucrats.
The director of apprenticeship is now a policy maker. The director of apprenticeship and the minister now will make all of the decisions. The provision in Bill 55 is that the minister "may" set up the industry committees; he "may" grant certain powers. I wish, and I will be talking about this more at length in my comments, the government had adopted the stance that my caucus did. We think that the minister "shall" make industry committees mandatory, "shall" give certain powers and responsibilities to a balanced management and labour committee structure that is going to work to promote training, to set standards, to enforce those standards and to make sure that Ontario continues to have the best training system in the world.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): I listened to the comments of the presenters from the government party. Frankly, this is really perplexing. The government is now proposing to proceed on Bill 55, another time-allocated bill which has not been properly thought out, hasn't been properly debated. Interestingly enough, in this case the government did react to the adverse comment from the public. Over 90% of the presentations made on this bill, from both labour and management, were opposed. The government said: "Well, gee, particularly in the construction sector there are a lot of people against this, so we'll take them out of it and put them under the old act and the old regulations."
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Now we're going to have two different apprenticeship systems in the province. This is a government that says they're trying to eliminate red tape and make things less complicated. They're doing the opposite in this case. They're taking a system that was in place, revamping part of it against the wishes of everybody involved, and leaving another part in the old system. So we now have two systems. It doesn't make any sense.
For heaven's sake, the government House leader gave us the impression that they were going to just forget about this legislation. Maybe I gave them too much credit. I thought, "He's come to his senses," but no, now they're calling it for third reading debate. They're going to force it through on a time allocation motion. They don't know what the ramifications of this are going to be. All we know is that this is an ill-thought-out scheme. We're going to have two apprenticeship systems operating in the province. It'll be more confusing.
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): It's certainly interesting to hear the debate and listen to the member for Middlesex lead off, and the member for Bruce, giving two excellent presentations on the whole apprenticeship area. There's no question that there has been significant change in the workplace. I was just listening to the member for Algoma and you would have thought that if things were to have happened and they were being very conscious about education and all that, they would have done something during their five-year term from 1990 to 1995, but of course in the last year they only met for some five weeks, some 20 days. They had all kinds of time to do a lot of things to have corrected some of these problems.
I've heard for so long about the lack of tradesmen in this province. Tool and die makers: Since I was a kid they've talked about the shortage of tool and die makers. Where do we get them? We have to go abroad to bring them in. We have to import them. We have to have immigrants come to our country with these skills when they should be trained right here. This program will increase it, as was mentioned, from some 11,000 to 22,000 apprentices; it will absolutely double.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order. Member for Windsor-Riverside, come to order.
Mr Galt: Thank you, Madame Speaker, for calling for order. They were getting a little out of line.
There's no question that it desperately needs to have the proper partnerships as mentioned by the member for Bruce, between the employers, the workers and the unions. This is the kind of thing that's been needed for a long time. Finally, this government has brought in the kind of change that's needed, the kind of change that workers have been asking for for a long time.
Even though the NDP, who claim they work with unions - and unions are trying to decide whether they'll support the Liberals or the NDP in the upcoming election. They may just find out that the unions have bailed out on them and that they're really not as close a friend of the unions as they had thought for some time.
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): As a former educator I certainly have a lot of interest in programs that will take students into further education.
We have a bill here, as has been indicated, that splits the apprenticeship system into two systems within the province. A government that wants to cut back on red tape is doing the opposite in introducing Bill 55, which is going to create much more confusion and much more red tape for those people entering the apprenticeship programs.
As well, we've listened to the government talk about tuition changes in terms of the apprenticeship programs. That is something that, to me, has become very evident under this government, in terms of charges to workers, whether it be for some sort of certification or for some sort of licence. People who are working in the trades are finding that some of these are doubling or quadrupling in terms of charges. It's just another fee. When we hear of tuition, we know this government's record as well as the previous NDP government's record on tuition. Again, some real concern out there.
Madam Speaker, you'll know that I represent a riding that's very close to Manitoba; as a matter of fact, it borders on Manitoba. From our understanding of this bill, it's going to reduce the ability for people to move between Manitoba and Ontario, for folks coming in from out of province to do apprenticeship programs in this province. For a government that wants to cut red tape, we find that in Bill 55 we have a great deal more red tape being put forth to the residents of Ontario.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Middlesex, did you want to wrap up?
Mr Smith: Just to wrap up briefly with respect to the comments from the members for Oriole, Algoma, Northumberland and Kenora, I want to say at the outset with respect to the comments from the member for Kenora that nowhere in Bill 55 is there any provision that allows for the establishment of a tuition fee as it applies to apprentices. I know the opposition members throughout the course of the public hearings continued to emphasize that that provision was contained in the body of the bill. In fact, that is nowhere to be found with respect to the application of tuition fees for apprentices in this province.
Mr Miclash: What about section 17, Bruce?
Mr Smith: I'll just simply say to the member for Kenora, I think you should revisit and perhaps get some clarification on section 17, because the issue of tuition has no relevance to that particular section of the bill. I would respectfully ask him to revisit that particular section.
I think as well the member for Oriole has suggested that we're going to be encumbered with respect to red tape. In fact, the existing legislation is far more cumbersome in terms of the regulatory process that involves the provincial service. In dealing with those particular issues, we've attempted through the new legislative framework to move that away, whereby we have a stronger emphasis with respect to the provincial advisory committees and the role and function that they'll play, not only, as I suspect, with respect to the development of regulations but certainly the role that they'll play in the future in terms of the development of curriculum materials and issues that are important to them as various sectors in making recommendations to the Minister of Education and Training.
This is not about creating confusion within the apprenticeship and training field; it's about providing a legislative framework that provides for the industrial sector in particular to move ahead and at the same time recognizes the uniqueness of the construction sector in this province.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate.
Mr Caplan: I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill. It is a significant piece of legislation. But before I do, I certainly want to recognize many of the people who are here this evening, because Bill 55 has aroused a great deal of interest around this province. I see folks like Jack Cooney - Jack, welcome - and Cosmo Mannella, John Maceroni. I see James Moffat and Irene Harris, Bob Chernecki, John Bettes and many others who are here this evening and were at the public hearings. They have tried to work with this government and have made representation about Bill 55 and about training in Ontario.
I think it's important to review a little bit how we got to this stage, so I'm going to comment on the bill as it was originally drafted and remind the government about what it said at the time when it presented this bill. I'm going to have a chance to talk about the limited public consultations that have taken place. I'm going to talk about the amendments and the vision that my colleagues and myself in the Liberal caucus have in response to the concerns that have been expressed both at and before the public hearings took place, and I'm going to talk about what the government has done in amendment and the bill that's before us today.
Bill 55, when it was originally tabled, was intended, according to the government, to give the apprenticeship system in Ontario a much-needed overhaul. Those were the words of the minister, "a much-needed overhaul." What they proposed doing was to scrap the current Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act, the TQAA, which hadn't been revised since 1964. I think the member for Bruce mentioned this in her comments and how something from 1964 really was very much in need of modernization.
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Minister Dave Johnson, when he came to the committee hearing, said in his opening remarks, and I'm going to quote from Hansard: "The present system is governed by rigid legislation and a regulatory framework. It is not flexible enough to meet current industry training needs...." That's from the minister's opening remarks.
He also said: "We cannot effectively compete in a global marketplace if our training legislation dates from the 1960s. We cannot afford to stand still." I want all the members of this House, and all the members of the public, for that matter, to remember these comments, especially when we get to the part when we see where the government has amended this particular bill after the hearing stage.
As has been said certainly by myself and by many others in the House, there is much opposition to the proposed changes in the bill. I'll go through a few of them: the elimination of journeyperson-to-apprenticeship ratios and the deregulation of mandated wage rates for apprentices.
The journeyperson ratios are certainly important as an education tool for apprentices, but it's also important as a measure of public safety. You need proper supervision, first of all, to learn, but also to get the job right. There is an amount of public protection in there, as well as worker protection. Some 85% to 90% of what apprentices learn is done while they're doing it on the job. If they're not doing things properly, because often they're working with very complex or complicated machinery or in high-risk types of jobs, they can be a threat to themselves or to their fellow workers. There's a worker safety aspect to this, there's a consumer safety aspect to it and there's certainly an educational aspect to it.
The deregulation of mandated wage rates: What this means is that the government is proposing to lower wages. Apprentices now will be making essentially minimum wage. That's the government's vision. That is somehow going to make it more attractive for young people, or for older workers, for that matter, to want to get into the trades. That's absolutely and patently nonsense.
They had proposed removing, and it was in regulation, the minimum educational standards. As was mentioned earlier, that was something that has changed in amendment.
The government has signalled its intention to begin to charge tuition for training for the very first time. Let's think of it: Couple tuition with lowering wages. It's absolutely incredible that the government would have anyone believe that this is going to make it more attractive for anyone to want to get into the skilled trades sector. You're now going to make less and pay more, whereas before there was no requirement for tuition.
They've changed the reference in the legislation - and this is very important - from "employer" to what they now call a "sponsor" of training. That has some very serious consequences because apprenticeship was based upon the notion that you were training for a particular job, that there was something that awaited you after you finished your training period, became a journeyperson and then became a trained, skilled person. Now that doesn't exist. Someone is going to sponsor you but there's no prospect of employment. So what are you being trained for and where are you being trained?
The legislation allows for part-time, contract and self-employed workers to become apprentices. I've asked this many times of the government and even of some of the presenters at committee hearings: How can a self-employed person become an apprentice? It makes no sense, and yet the government has plowed ahead with this concept, which is absolutely farcical and nonsensical.
They've introduced restricted skill sets, which essentially, in the words of some of the presenter, will begin to fragment the trades.
In the process of approval of new trades, they've moved all of the power essentially into the hands of the minister and the director of apprenticeship, a bureaucratic approach to apprenticeship and training. They've taken it away from industry, away from labour-management committees which have worked and served this province so well.
Many of the presenters have said that Bill 55 is going to have a significant impact on mobility and Ontario's participation in national standards programs like the national red seal program. In fact, many of the presenters - employers, employees, contractors - were categorical. They said, and I will be very direct to the government members, that Bill 55 is a job-killer; it will cost Ontario, and it will cost Ontarians jobs.
At the hearings - well, first of all, thankfully we did have hearings. It took a slip-up in this House from, I think, the member for Simcoe Centre to force the government into public hearings to begin with. But we were able to get hearings, although they were very brief and very limited. We had only four days of hearings on an issue of critical importance to Ontario and to Ontario's competitiveness and bringing us forward. I submit to you that limited amount of time was not really sufficient to scratch the surface of the concern there was on Bill 55. But we did have those hearings, and participants gave a number of briefs.
As alluded to earlier, about 95% of the presentations were against Bill 55. They pointed out significant flaws and problems with the legislation. The general tone was to withdraw Bill 55. In fact, the government hand-picked groups and individuals to come and make presentations about the legislation to the standing committee, and the government's own supporters were, at best, lukewarm. Many of them were even negative about this bill. The government was greeted by rooms full of apprentices and journeypeople at every stop across the province.
I want to talk a little about what happened afterwards. We had our committee hearings, and my colleagues and I responded to what we heard from the participants. We submitted a series of amendments and changes. I often hear government members saying: "We never hear from the opposition. What are their ideas? What are their proposals?" I must tell you that we offered substantive and significant changes that would have strengthened training and training opportunities in Ontario. I'm going to talk to you a bit about them, because they reflected the representations that industry, labour and apprentices themselves made before the committee.
We proposed the following changes. We added a section to the purpose clause and all the relevant definitions that would ensure that an apprenticeship was defined as being work-based; that is, that an employer-employee relationship had to be there. That was defeated by the government.
We added to the purpose clause that there had to be health and safety provisions, and consumer and environmental protection stated within the purpose clause.
We removed all references to skill sets and inserted references to trades.
We specifically changed the definition of "sponsor" to ensure that an employer was providing training.
We realigned the powers of the act. We gave new and enhanced powers to what we called trade-based provincial apprenticeship committees, and removed them from the bureaucrats and, quite frankly, from the minister. That's incredibly significant.
We heard from participants, and it's a matter of philosophy. This government has said that they think a bureaucratically driven system for training is what's needed in Ontario. We say differently. We say that the people who are working in that sector know best. We say that industry knows best. Working together, between labour and management, we can strengthen an already strong training system that we have in Ontario. But the government has seen fit to say no. They think they know best. They think it should be driven by bureaucrats, by ministers, by the government.
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That's a significant departure from what this government has made claims about all through. They say they're for a lesser role for government, but in Bill 55 they centralize all power and control. They give themselves a greater role; they give industry a much lesser role. The provisions in Bill 55 say that the minister may, at a whim, decide whether he's going to set up any of these advisory committees. There is no prescriptive language within Bill 55. We proposed amendments to the legislation which said that the minister "shall" have these committees - we did not give an option - and that the minister "must." That's a significant departure.
As well, we spelled out the powers of these committees: to develop the curricula and examinations for training in the trade, to determine minimum academic standards, to determine whether a trade should be certified, the promotion of apprenticeship in their particular trade. The powers that were already named in the proposed act would have been removed from the director and given to the provincial apprenticeship committees.
We also provided for the establishment of sectoral advisory committees to advise the minister on such things as enforcement, new trades, linkages to secondary schools, funding, and national and international standards.
We would have a direct role in the four basic sectors: construction, industrial, service and power motive, advising the minister on all those very important things. Industry would have a significant role in setting standards, but they would also have a role in enforcing those standards, where today that doesn't exist.
We provided for mandatory consultation. This is interesting: We have a director of apprenticeship who has policy-making authority but doesn't have to go and talk to industry, does not have to go and talk to labour or management. We said that we think that's wrong; there should be mandatory consultation about any of those aspects of apprenticeship and training.
We also proposed a dispute resolution process between the director of apprenticeship and the provincial apprenticeship committees.
We allowed for full certification of trades, as was allowable under the previous act. We also had a provision that no tuition fees and no registration fees would be charged directly to apprentices.
We know this government's record when it comes to charging tuition fees. In fact, we had a very impassioned presentation from the Queen's alma mater society. Two young men came and spoke to our committee about escalating, skyrocketing tuition, about crushing debt levels. Their message was very clear: "Apprentices of Ontario, young people of Ontario, older workers of Ontario, this is your future; this is what you have to look forward to. Mike Harris's Ontario is to transfer the cost on to you, to give you a mortgage for life instead of helping you with your education."
That was the message from those young people.
We've seen very clearly the priorities of this government and what industry is saying, what apprentices are saying, what journeypeople are saying, what students are saying. This government has turned a deaf ear to all those groups. It's a shameful, shameful act.
These changes I've outlined reflected the concerns of everybody who came and had some very real issue with the way the bill was constructed and the way the government had responded to earlier issues.
There was this so-called consultation process. It was interesting: The government, in fact, had already made up its mind. They leaked a document very early on. It was signed off by nine assistant deputy ministers. It was passing strange, and I know that my very good friends opposite would not be surprised, that the basis of that leaked document was Bill 55, what we saw several months later. So we know that the government came with a preconceived mindset, that they introduced that, that they had no intention of listening to any of the industry participants, no intention of listening to any of the labour groups, no intention of listening to any apprentices, no intention of listening to any educators. They were determined to go ahead with the direction they had set earlier.
Then, of course, we had our hearings. We proposed significant and substantive changes, as I've outlined. The government defeated each and every amendment we proposed, even the one in the purpose clause related to health and safety, related to environmental protection.
I remember listening, I think it was on Bill 82, when members of this government stood up and said: "We're in favour of environmental protection. We think that's really important." They voted against it in committee. They wouldn't put it into a bill. It has no effect in law; it would just say that was the purpose. You wouldn't support it.
You voted against worker health and safety too. What is it with you guys? I can't understand why this government refuses to embrace those kinds of concepts in a piece of legislation as important as Bill 55.
I'm also disappointed, I might add, that the third party did not propose any amendments to this bill, the changes many of the stakeholders proposed. I think it's critical for all those involved in apprenticeship to understand the changes we wanted to make and what our vision is.
We know what the government's vision is: lower wages, cheaper labour, lower standards, high school dropouts, more bureaucracy, more red tape. We know what their vision is. We know what the Liberal vision is. Unfortunately, we don't know what the third party's vision is. Maybe they'll let us know a little bit today.
I want to look at the changes that were made to Bill 55. I think the parliamentary assistant touched on a couple of them. Let's look at what the government did, especially given what we heard at the hearings, given the fact that it would not consider any opposition amendments. Its significant amendment was to exempt the construction trades, all of which were specifically named by trade, from Bill 55 and allow them to remain under the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act. The interesting thing is that we supported that. Bill 55 is a flawed piece of legislation; it's a bad piece of legislation. Any amendment which is going to exempt an entire sector from it can't be all that bad.
We think the government should have done the right thing and exempted every sector from Bill 55. Why couldn't they have that kind of stance? Let's remember what the minister said about the TQAA, the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act. At the beginning of the public hearings, he said, "We cannot effectively compete in the global marketplace if our legislation dates from the 1960s." Those were the minister's own words. Yet that's what the government has done in regard to construction. We now have an apprenticeship system that's still governed by that piece of legislation. That's not to say it hasn't served us well, but what this government has said and what it has done are two different things.
I found it ironic that one week - it only took one week - after the minister made that statement, after the minister said, "We cannot effectively compete...if our legislation dates from the 1960s," in the Toronto Sun the minister is quoted as saying, "The present system, however old, still serves their industry." Well, which is it? Is it in need of an overhaul or does it serve us well? Please tell us. We really want to know. This is the kind of confusion we have now. We have two systems. "The present system, however old, still serves their industry." It's nice to see that the minister has a change of heart even though the building trades and others have been telling them this for two years.
Although this has given some relief to the construction sector, it's important to be clear that there are still significant concerns regarding skill sets and the protection for the trades that will not be exempted from Bill 55. They outlined 19 different trades, but they left out a significant number. For example, the painters are not mentioned. There are others. The drywallers are not mentioned. What about all those trades that are not mentioned in that list of 19 trades? What happens to them? Are they now part of the new system or the old system? Confusion continues to reign. That's the greatest flaw with Bill 55.
Let's be clear. We have a government which is now going to be running two parallel apprentice systems: one for construction and one for the other sectors; one for 40% of workers in the trades, another for 60%. Does that make any sense? I ask the government members, have they run this by their own vaunted Red Tape Commission? Today we had the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations bring us a pile of paper and recommendations from these gentlemen. Have they run this by them, having two systems of apprenticeship, having an absolutely ridiculous way of doing things?
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At the hearings we asked legislative counsel, but unfortunately nobody could answer the question, what this amendment means to those who perform jobs in both the construction sector and the industrial sector, for example, electricians or millwrights, or many of the other trades. They work in both sectors, in construction and in industrial.
The president of CUPE local 79 agrees with me. In a letter to the minister on December 7, Anne Dubas said the following: "We do not believe that citizens are served by having two different apprenticeship systems operating in the province. The result will be chaos and inequities, especially where crossovers between construction and industrial trades occur."
When you have a situation where you have people trained in a particular trade and they cross over between sectors, which piece of legislation governs? Is it the Trades Qualifications and Apprenticeship Act or is it Bill 55? No one can answer that question. The government can't answer that question.
We've been going at this how many years? We've had how many discussions? We've had a lot of questions. Confusion continues to reign. We're running two apprenticeship systems. It's a ridiculous way to govern. It's a ridiculous way to administer the system. Each system operates under different rules. They operate under different regulations, under different authorities, under different powers for the director of apprenticeship, for industry committees, for ministers. It is an absolute nightmare.
The minister is so wound up in red tape it's remarkable. He can't even be here to speak to his own legislation. How much red tape is going to be generated by this system? I really wish that any member of the government could explain to me or to any member of this House or any member of the public what the rationale is behind this.
Running two systems is going to compromise the national red seal program. How are you going to be able to have labour mobility? How are you going to be able to compare if you have two different systems? No other province in Canada has two different systems of apprenticeship. No other jurisdiction in the world has two systems of apprenticeship. Those people who work in developing national standards through the red seal program were clear: Running two systems will compromise the qualifications in the eyes of other provinces.
The term "journeyperson" is a significant term. The nature of a trade is that you gain your skills but the work will move from location to location. While you may be working in Toronto one day, you may be in Kenora the next week and you may be in Manitoba a month later and you may have to go back to Timiskaming two months later. You need to have mobility. Now we have two systems. We have all of this confusion. We have the national red seal program compromised. You are limiting opportunities for people trained in Ontario. You are costing Ontarians jobs, plain and simple.
The legislation is also very interesting in that it provides that the director can assign the powers of the director. By the way, the powers of the director are virtually unlimited. The virtually unlimited powers for this provincial bureaucrat can be assigned to any other person. The government has done something which is unique in legislation: They have defined "person." A person is any individual, any company, any sole proprietorship, any corporation, anybody. The powers of the director can be assigned anywhere, any time, to anybody.
There are fears now this means we're going to be moving towards a privatization of programming. That wouldn't be surprising given the bent of this government for privatizing health care, moving towards the privatization of education. Are we now going to be privatizing training systems in Ontario? Who knows? Andersen Consulting might be running apprenticeship one day in Ontario. They've taken the Minister of Community and Social Services for $180 million. They've taken the Ontario taxpayers to the proverbial cleaners. Maybe they'll be running our apprenticeship. Isn't that a future we all want to contemplate?
There has been no response to the concerns about the deregulation of wages and the affordability aspect that this is going to put on people entering the skilled trades. I want to be very clear: The average age of an apprentice is 26. A 26-year-old person is not going to be able to continue in the system because they're not going to be able to afford the work for what might amount to a minimum age. People who are 26 have families, they have mortgages to pay, they have all kinds of costs. Now they're going to have to pay for their apprenticeship and they're going to earn fewer dollars.
Is that going to be attractive? One of the great things about the whole trades sector is it's an attractive place to work. You make a good wage. There is ample work. You have very good working conditions as a result of collective bargaining that has taken place in the province, or at least in many places, but that's all going to end now. This is what apprentices have to look forward to. The government did not address any of these concerns with their amendments.
There was no response to the concern about removal of journeyperson ratios and the replacement with voluntary guidelines, and there are real concerns, as I mentioned earlier. Are we going to have adequate supervision of apprentices? Is public safety going to be at risk? Is worker safety going to be at risk? Are co-workers? How about environmental protection? We heard from people like the operating engineers and the crane operators about the tragic consequences that we can have unless we have proper supervision and training. In fact, employers and contractors were saying these were significant concerns for them. Workers oftentimes work with multi-million dollar pieces of machinery. The cost to employers for poorly trained and poorly supervised individuals is enormous. Employers and contractors don't want the provisions of Bill 55. Why have you not addressed those concerns?
There are real concerns about watering down the quality of the workforce by hiring cheaper apprentices to fill the roles of journeypeople. If you're an employer, for example, and you have a one-to-one ratio of apprentices to journeypeople - let's say you hire 10 people. You would have five apprentices; you would have five journeypeople. If you change that and you have no ratio, you can now literally have one journeyperson to nine apprentices, with the same 10 people. You're having a cheaper workforce but a less skilled workforce. You're also having the concerns about safety, about worker protection, about environmental protection, and the consumer is very much at risk.
The government did not change its view on imposing tuition fees. This is going to impact the accessibility of programs. The government is not being clear on what level of fees they're going to be charging. They have not answered what kind of student assistance. If we look at their current record on tuition and student assistance, apprentices in Ontario had better be worried. They've said that they're going to be setting up a different plan.
They did not make any clarification regarding the change from employers to "sponsors of training," and this certainly gives us concern. They had this much heralded - actually it was a program set up by a previous Liberal administration called the Ontario youth apprenticeship program. Are school boards now going to become sponsors of training? Are these going to now become like co-op type programs where they are going to farm out students, pass them off as apprentices, pass them off as a labour force? How about municipalities? Are they going to set up as a sponsor of training? Are they now going to take in welfare or social assistance recipients and call them apprentices? Are they going to become a sponsor of training? What exactly does this mean? I don't think the government has truly thought through the implications of this kind of move.
The allowance of part-time, contract and self-employed workers to become apprentices: That's an absolute farce. How can a self-employed person become an apprentice? Who supervises them? Who gives them their training? It makes no sense.
There still is no real role for the provincial advisory councils in terms of enforcement of standards. Again, the legislation is only permissive.
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The changes in dropping the time requirements for programs mean that skill levels will drop. The current two-year contract ensures that time is spent in the workplace acquiring skills that are necessary to develop well-rounded, skilled tradespeople. This is critical. Now we're going to have literally anyone set up shop as some fly-by-night trainer, giving whatever skills they might have. You might see them advertised on the back of matchbook covers offering six- or eight-week courses. Is that the kind of organization which will give you a skilled workforce? I really don't think so.
We have real concerns about the minister being able to make changes through regulation. This is a consistent theme that we've seen from this government for a number of years and in a number of different pieces of legislation. The government says: "We're going to make changes through regulations. Trust me." If there is one thing that has been proven over the last three and a half years, you can't trust Mike Harris. You can't trust him when it comes to training, you can't trust him when it comes to education, you can't trust him when it comes to health care, you can't trust him when it comes to taxes. You can't trust him, period. You just can't trust these guys, and they keep doing it. They keep saying, "Give us regulatory ability and trust us." I don't trust you, the people of Ontario don't trust you, industry doesn't trust you, the trades don't trust you, apprentices don't trust you. Why don't you get it?
They've also given the director the ability to delegate his or her powers. The legislation allows the minister to make regulations regarding industry committees, programs, criteria for certifying skilled workers, for the recognition of qualifications and a whole host of other issues.
As I end my comments - I'm going to pass the floor to some of my colleagues, specifically the members for Ottawa Centre, Prescott and Russell, and St Catharines - I do want to leave you with a couple of different folks who have spoken about the government's Bill 55.
The first is a very interesting group: Mr Munger, vice-president and general director of personnel, General Motors of Canada; Mr McCarter, vice-president, human resources, Chrysler Canada-DaimlerChrysler; D.J. McKenzie, vice-president, employee relations, Ford Motor Co of Canada. Three vice-presidents of the Big Three auto makers, November 24, 1998. I'll read very briefly from their letter.
"As an industry, we have a 50-year relationship with the UAW/CAW in the area of trades development. Joint company/union apprenticeship programs represent one of the first collaborative initiatives in our industry....
"Given this background, we are concerned at the current status of Bill 55 inasmuch as various stakeholders in the province have expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of specifics regarding the changes contemplated. Equally important is the perception that the lack of specificity has made it difficult for both employers and employees to determine the actual implications of the bill in the workplace.
"We urge you to delay passage of Bill 55 until such time as constructive, meaningful consultation can take place with all significant stakeholders."
That's the Big Three auto makers saying, "Don't pass Bill 55."
The Toronto Board of Trade -
Mr Miclash: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I do not believe we have a quorum in the House.
The Acting Speaker: Clerk, could you check and see if there's a quorum, please.
Clerk at the Table (Mr Todd Decker): 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: The member for Oriole.
Mr Caplan: I'll continue. This is a letter from the Metropolitan Toronto Board of Toronto in regard to Bill 55. The letter is dated November 30, 1998, to the minister from Bruce McKelvey and Elyse Allan and it says:
"Bill 55, by placing industry committees as advisory with reporting functions to the director of apprenticeship for approval, could potentially lessen the ability of industry to play a proper role in the management of the new system. This, we believe, is at odds with the original intention of the review to strengthen the role of industry."
The authors go on: "By moving the control more into government, there is the concern that the reformed system will be driven by the bureaucracy and not the trades themselves. This move is inconsistent with a market-driven approach to training and is somewhat unexpected given the tone of the consultations of reforming the present act." Remember, this is the Toronto Board of Trade.
I'll go on: "The unique strength of the apprenticeship system rests on the strong employer-employee relationship. This is the sense of the pride in the journeyperson role and the passing on of skills. There is a real commitment in this relationship and the concept of a sponsor instead of an employer could destroy that fabric."
I hope the government members would listen to the Toronto Board of Trade, people they asked to come and present to the hearings on Bill 55. They said don't have sponsors, have an employer-employee relation, that this is a bureaucratically driven, not an industry-driven, approach.
The last one I would quote to you is the Amalgamated Transit Unit: "There will be two apprenticeship systems operating in the province of Ontario, and the result will be chaos and confusion," especially when there's the crossover between construction and industrial trades. Chaos and confusion will reign.
I'm very sad to say that this government has taken what has been historically a very strong system of training in Ontario and has transformed it into one of chaos and confusion. It will not serve the people of Ontario well. I would urge all members not to support Bill 55 and to instead renew their commitment to an industry-driven approach, not a bureaucratic approach. We will not be supporting Bill 55, and I would like to hear the concerns of my colleagues.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): First I'd like to commend my colleague from Oriole, who obviously has worked very hard and studied the extent and the depth of this particular bill and the issues that the bill raises. I want to congratulate him because I know he has worked very hard on this.
He just said we oppose it. It is obvious that we would oppose this particular bill. While we disagree with lots of pieces of legislation of this government, this one has to just about take the cake. It is fragmented. It is divided now. It is split. The stakeholders are not with you, meaning the government, so who the hell is? Who are you really doing this bill for? I'd like to know. Who really supports it any longer? They don't.
There may have been some people at the beginning hoping you might listen during the hearings and receive some amendments and some recommendations that were made to you, but no amendments by the opposition were considered. In other words, you didn't listen. So you're going to ram through something and it will create problems for you, the government, and not achieve the stated purpose that you said this bill was designed to address.
It has become somewhat of a joke when people are asking, "What the heck are they going to do with this with all the difficulties and problems?" They cannot go ahead with some of this unless they work with the people who are affected in the trades and in the industries.
The overall approach of this government to education and training - which, parenthetically, of course I would disagree with, and I think most of my colleagues would too - is a further reflection of this legislation. When we look at the approach, as my colleague said, whether it's to health or to education, it's top-down. It's heavy-handed. It's moving forward not in conjunction, in a way that's sensitive to the people you're attempting to supposedly help, assist, support, or ameliorate a condition.
This one is going to be worse, especially now - and I'm just reiterating this - with the declared parallel systems that will occur. We will literally be, as a jurisdiction, the laughingstock of the rest of the jurisdictions in this country. They'll say, "What?" Can you imagine trying to explain this to a colleague who comes from another province or from another country even who is attempting to address the whole area of apprenticeship, which is fundamentally important to our future, to any jurisdiction's future in this modern world? It's a sad comment.
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Then the government said this was to be helping out business. It seems to me that if you try to take a shortcut and you try to take away some of the things that were there because it appeared to be perhaps a little slow, but they were there for good reason, and you tried to take shortcuts and get people through as quickly as you possibly can, naturally you're running a risk. You might say yes, there are exceptions, there are geniuses that graduate from university at 15 or 16 years of age, but they are not the typical student.
So we have a condition now where, in an attempt to satisfy business, because the government has no great love for labour - I think we've seen that with the labour legislation. In attempting to do something for business, it's my opinion - and I believe my colleague from Oriole has illustrated with some of the leaders from business their reservations about this bill - this will not help business.
We don't believe it's going to give you better-trained people. As a matter of fact, we're convinced it will not and that you will have hurt the quality of this. You will have hurt the relationship between the whole apprenticeship history and tradition in this province and fragmented it, and now we're not sure where the future is, whether the future is in the government's hope for privatization - I don't know. Nobody can really answer that now. We don't know where the future is, and I'd like to know if anybody does, because this is going to cause chaos.
"We will deal with this in another way," just like in terms of Bill 99, the WCB bill or WSIB bill. "We'll deal with construction in a different manner. We will deal with them because they are a special sector." Of course they're a special sector. We all knew that. That's why it's important to listen very carefully to what these people have to say.
The bill does not sufficiently protect the needs of the apprentice either. People have addressed the issue, and I'll just underline it, of the worry of safety; you might say even health and safety, but the issue of safety. So when you see the intertwining of how many apprentices a journeyperson is going to have, I don't know. They could have two, three, four. Can you imagine somebody working on a very sophisticated electrical circuit and looking around; "Where's John?" "Oh, John's sick today." "All right. Well, I'm going to show you something here. Where's Harry?" "Harry just went to the washroom." "OK. There's three of you left. I'll take you through." Can you imagine? This is ridiculous.
You've taken the guts out of a system that, as the minister has even said, as the parliamentary assistant has said, has served us well. Maybe there are some things that can be ameliorated. Nobody disagrees with that. But you've taken the heart out of this and now there's mass confusion that will not be helpful in the particular community and certainly not serve the businesses very well.
The legislation runs the risk of creating quasi-indentured labourers, an underpaid labour pool for less scrupulous employers - and we always know that there are some of those around - to really take advantage of. This is where we should be providing some degree of protection and some degree of support for workers. Indentured labourers: If people aren't sure what that means, it's one step up from slavery. When slavery was abolished in the 1800s, a way the colonialists got around that was to import people. A lot of people from India, for example, went to the West Indies and worked there for a period of time in the sugar estates. They sold their souls; they had to work there for 10 years or for a certain period of time. When they worked there, they got minimum wage and they had to pay back their room and board. They were literally caught in the bind of trying to free themselves of the poverty from whence they came and found themselves in an indentured labour context.
Mr Martin: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: The member for Ottawa Centre has a lot of important things to say tonight on this apprenticeship act, and I don't think we have quorum.
The Acting Speaker: Clerk, could you check for 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: The member for Ottawa Centre.
Mr Patten: When we look at how knowledge and skills are acquired, we know they are handed down. If you think of the last time you might have done a repair in your home or struggled away trying to do something and then given up and invited in a tradesperson with some skill and marvelled at their ability to quickly do a job that seemed quite challenging when you attempted it yourself, you gain an appreciation for the skills that are required.
We must respect all skills, large and small, that they are learned, they've been tutored, they've been passed on. This is an inalienable fact about how skills are developed. So, when we talk about voluntary ratios with journeymen and apprentices, we believe that this will not work, that it will in fact create hazards. We know experience works in accomplishing this teaching of skill. Why are we fixing something in that area that isn't broken? The same people who complain about the expense of the system now will be complaining about the lack of skilled tradespeople in the future. We should not be as short-sighted as they are now being.
For the same reason, it would be wrong to drop the two-year training period. This requirement helped in the end to produce well-rounded tradespeople. Trying to take shortcuts does not help. We talked about part-time people and things of that nature; quite incredible.
We will be keeping good candidates for apprenticeship away by deregulating wage rates and by imposing tuition fees. Who is going to set them, the individual companies or training institutes or whatever? We'll be making it far too expensive to enter into a trade at the apprenticeship level for some people.
I could go on and on, but I want to share some time with my colleagues. I want to say that it will end up being quite an embarrassment for the government once they pass this legislation they may not proclaim good portions of, because they'll end up trying to rectify situations over the next year or so to try to pull back some of the mistakes they made by ramming through this piece of legislation without listening to the stakeholders or other members in this Legislature.
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The Acting Speaker: Further debate.
Mr Lalonde: It is with great interest that I am joining my colleague in debating Bill 55, the Apprenticeship and Certification Act.
What is surprising me at the present time is that we are debating Bill 55 in third reading tonight. When I look at what the Premier has done over the weekend and also the Minister of Labour -
Mr Bradley: Big show.
Mr Lalonde: We had a big show, all right, as the member for St Catharines is saying, in Ottawa over the weekend. The Premier says, "If the Quebec construction workers don't abide by our rules, we will close the border." Then he went a little further.
I see my friend the member for Nepean clapping, but I think he doesn't know what the implications of this are going to be.
Mr Baird: I agree with Bob Chiarelli.
Mr Lalonde: I fully agree.
I've been working on this for three and a half years, and you just kept your ears closed all the way through.
I'm looking at the comment the Premier made on May 26, 1996. It completely differs from what he was saying over the weekend. This bill will permit all outsiders in the construction industry to come and work in Ontario, because at the present time there are very few construction workers who have certification in Ontario, very few in the Ottawa-Hull area going right down to the Hawkesbury area. Not even 10% of our construction workers have a certification of trade.
In the beginning, I was telling my friend Mr Caplan that I would probably support this bill. But then when I started to study this bill in depth, I noticed that we are really getting - I'm not going to say the word, because the first letter is "s." In this case, the Premier said over the weekend, "We will make sure that our Ontario construction workers do get priority to work in Ontario." But again, when we look at the content of this bill, we don't have the certified tradesmen in Ontario to meet the construction demand that we have, especially in the Ottawa area and also in the Windsor area, and right up to Hearst, Kapuskasing, North Bay and the Nipissing riding. As the Premier said on the 26th, we have to make sure we don't forget the Nipissing area.
I issued a pamphlet on Monday, yesterday, at 11 o'clock, but the Premier and the Minister of Labour were aware I was coming out with this. They turned around and published a number in le journal Le Droit this morning. Try that number, the 1-800 number. The person who answers that number is in Florida. Grab the Ottawa Le Droit paper and you will see that the people who are answering the number the minister gave to the media yesterday are in Florida. The other number the minister gave to declare those from outside the province who are working in Ontario is the Ministry of Labour. They'll take the information. They'll say: "We'll prepare a fax, and we'll send it out to the concerned people and we'll call you back. When, we don't know."
If you call this number to see if the tradespeople are registered in Ontario, you get the answer within 15 seconds. That is very easy.
But with this bill, we are definitely opening the door wide to construction workers from outside the province.
I'm looking at the agreement that was signed by both the Minister of Labour for Ontario at the time, the Honourable Minister Witmer, and Minister Rioux from Quebec. It's funny, at that time we had 22 trades that were recognized. Today we're coming back with 19 trades, and out of those 19 trades that are mentioned in the bill, in section 1.1, only seven of them at the present time need certification, only seven of them. What's going to happen to the other 19 trades? Are we going to let go all those construction workers who are not meeting the requirements of Bill 55? If not, are we going to have a grandfather clause in there?
It's too late to come up with amendments. It's known in Ontario and all over Canada that Italian people are good in the masonry sector. French Canadians are very good at carpentry. In this case, are we trying to eliminate the majority of French Canadian people working in the construction industry? I'm sure this is not what this government wants. I'm definitely positive of this. It's just to say that at the present time in Ontario we don't have the facilities in place to give the proper training to the people working on construction sites. We could do like la Beauce in Quebec. I organized a bus and we went down and looked at the training they have there. Unemployment is zero in la Beauce in Quebec, because they have proper training. They have a college called CIMIC. Everybody who comes out of there has a job, and 70% of them are coming to Ontario to work because the salaries are better.
I don't think this bill will give the advantage to the Ontario construction workers, and it will defeat what the Premier said over the weekend, what the Minister of Labour said over the weekend. They're going all out. They said they would spend how many thousand dollars? I believe it's $300,000 in advertising, $50,000 to take the phone calls. But besides the $50 million they are spending in advertising, that's on top of that, and also probably $600,000 they spent on sexual harassment. Add all those things up and it looks good. But why would the Premier say in the last four days, "Yes, we will stop the people from outside," but this bill will open up the door to all the others from outside of our province?
I'm going to give a chance to my friend from St Catharines.
Mr Bradley: I'm interested to hear from the member for Prescott and Russell that the number you're supposed to call is a Florida number. I don't know whether Jeb Bush, the new Republican Governor from Florida, is at the other end of the line, or maybe Mike Murphy, the Republican strategist who advises Jesse Helms and Ollie North, is at the other end of this line. But it's interesting to hear that they have a line you call and you have to call Florida. It's obviously a call centre somewhere.
I can understand why there's so much opposition to this. "The CAW is opposed to it. What do we care?" said the Mike Harris government. Then they found out - Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal leader, got up in the House and said, "We have letters not only from the CAW but from the vice-presidents of the following auto companies." So you've succeeded in doing one thing with this bill: You've united the CAW and the management of the automotive companies, the Big Three, in this province with this silly bill which is going nowhere, which you've had to amend virtually into oblivion, which you've had to cut in half and take away the construction trades from it. The trades in construction division are separate, which is absolutely ridiculous.
What you've got is a situation where you would have maybe one or two people working with a journeyman; instead, now you're going to have three, four or five. There are safety concerns. You wonder how effective that training is going to be. The minimum education standards are going to be gone, so you're dumbing it down. That's what you do with so much of your stuff over there. You have a wage base which is not negotiable; it looks like it's going to be the minimum wage for these individuals. And you're going to end up sticking them with tuition, and everybody knows what you've done with tuition in this province, particularly for those in the post-secondary era, where you've made huge hikes in tuition for community colleges and universities and the sky is the limit for professional programs.
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The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments? Further debate? The member for Windsor-Walkerville.
Mrs Fisher: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I am just wondering if it's appropriate that there's a shirt in the House displaying different signs.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Windsor, I can't quite see what's on your shirt, but I believe it's out of order. The Speaker ruled that you cannot wear any kind of emblem or symbol. Member for Windsor, you'll have to remove this T-shirt.
Mr Lessard: This is going to be a full Monty, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker: OK, where were we? Further debate?
Mr Lessard: This is just another one of those unfortunate opportunities we have to speak on a very important bill late at night that is time-allocated by this government that's only going to leave us with less than 20 minutes to respond. Once again the government is trying to shut down debate on an important piece of legislation that is going to affect a great many people in Ontario and affect the future economy of the province as well.
Unlike the Liberals, we have said from the outset that Bill 55, dealing with apprenticeship training in this -
Mrs Fisher: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I do remember you recalling that it should be removed, but I don't know that it still should be on display.
The Acting Speaker: No, it shouldn't be. I'm not aware that the T-shirt is still on display. If it is, it shouldn't be. I don't see it. Go ahead, member for Windsor-Riverside.
Mr Lessard: It's unfortunate that the government members wish to abuse their majority position by trying to take away from the time we have to debate important pieces of legislation in this House. What we're doing here this evening is trying to express the frustration we feel in dealing with this piece of legislation that we have said right from the outset is bad legislation. It's bad for apprentices and it's bad for the economy of the province of Ontario.
We've been joined by a great many people in making that submission, and some of those people are here with us tonight. We have Irene Harris from the Ontario Federation of Labour; Bob Chernecki from the Canadian Auto Workers; Ron Jones from the CAW as well; John Bettes from the CAW; and James Moffat from the Sheet Metal Workers. I want to thank them for being here this evening. They have been consistent in their criticism of this legislation from the outset as well.
It's interesting that after all the debate we had in this House and the submissions we had from the public that said Bill 55 is going in the wrong direction, the government telling us, "We need to get rid of the current apprenticeship system here in Ontario because it's 30 years old and it doesn't work," we saying to this government, "That's wrong; it's the wrong direction," we had four days of hearings, and the government finally agrees with us. They said: "Maybe you're right. Maybe Bill 55 isn't any good, but it's not any good only for those people who are in the construction sector."
We can't figure out why, after two years of consultation and, as the members have said, 2,500 discussion documents that went out to the people who are going to be affected by this legislation, why, after all this bogus consultation takes place, the government ends up after public hearings having to basically gut their own bill. It doesn't make any sense to me.
The government says their goal is to double the number of apprentices in Ontario. That's a lofty goal. It's great. I heard it repeated here tonight by the member for Bruce. But repeating a mantra over and over and over again and closing your eyes and clicking your heels together three times is not going to make this happen. You're not going to make this happen by reducing the wages for apprentices. You're not going to have that happen by imposing tuition fees on apprentices. You're not going to have that happen by eliminating standards. You're not going to have that happen by eliminating the ratios of journeypersons to apprentices. You're not going to have that happen by eliminating the two-year contracts for apprentices. You're not going to have that happen by undermining the red seal program in the province of Ontario.
I asked this question over and over and over again during the public hearings: "How is it that by making the changes that are in Bill 55 you are going to double the number of apprentices in the province of Ontario?" I have yet to get an answer to that very simple and direct question, and still we don't have an answer to that question this evening.
All they're saying is "Trust us." I think that there would at least be a slight bit of trust that this government may have been able to garner if they were to introduce the regulations that are going to fall under this legislation. We asked, once again, time and again, "Where are the regulations?" All this bill is is just a basic framework, a mere skeleton of the new regime of apprenticeship training in Ontario. We have no idea of what's going to be included in the regulations. They still have not been made public.
We felt that maybe the government was convinced by over 90% of the submissions that were made to the committee that Bill 55 is not moving in the right direction and that maybe they would just decide to forget about this bill, they wouldn't recall it before Christmas. Quite frankly, I'm a bit surprised that they've recalled it this evening for third reading debate because we don't think, based on the submissions that we have, that the government really wants to implement the changes that appear in Bill 55.
We had four days of committee hearings in the standing committee on general government. We went to Windsor, we had hearings here in Toronto, we went to Sudbury and we went to Ottawa. You would think that if there was anybody anywhere who agreed with what the government was doing with respect to Bill 55, they would have made a point of coming before our committee and saying to us, "We think that Bill 55 is a great idea." But you know what? They didn't show up, they didn't come. Whoever it is that supports Bill 55 didn't show up to our hearings to say, "This is what we've been waiting for." Where were they? I don't know why they didn't come.
I don't know who this government is making these changes for. They keep telling us and reminding us about the shortage of tool and die makers and mould makers in the Windsor area, and we acknowledge that there's a shortage of those types of skilled trades in that area. I've asked, "What in Bill 55 is going to encourage more young people to become mould makers or tool and die makers in the city of Windsor?" and there is absolutely nothing in Bill 55 that's going to change that.
Employers can try to encourage more people to get involved in those trades now, but the fact is that they don't. There's no shortage of young people who want to get into those trades because we know that once you've acquired your certificate you can make decent wages. But as long as we can import people from outside the province or employers can poach upon other employers and bring people to come to work for them, then they're not going to have more people enter the skilled trades.
There needs to be an investment made in apprenticeship training by employers in Ontario, but this bill is not going to do that. In fact, the minister in his statements at the introduction of this bill and at other times has said, "There needs to be increased industry responsibility." What he doesn't say is that there needs to be increased industry investment in apprenticeship training. We in the NDP don't think that there are going to be more people who are going to want to become skilled tradespeople in those areas where there are severe shortages unless employers take on that responsibility seriously and agree to pay apprentices a decent wage.
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What Bill 55 says is that you can pay apprentices lower wages. This is an attempt by the government to drive wages down. It's removing the minimum wage protection that traditionally had been available for skilled trades apprentices so that the only protection they are going to have available now is through the Employment Standards Act or through their ability to collectively bargain decent wage protections, and we know that the only people who are going to be able to do that are people who are represented by strong unions.
A number of those people came out to our hearings, a lot of representatives from the CAW and other building trades who said: "We are going to negotiate those protections for our own workers. We don't really have anything to lose in Bill 55. We're going to ensure that we have those protections in existence. Our people are going to continue to make decent wages, and we're going to make sure that we continue to maintain the high-quality standards we've always had in existence."
One has to wonder why it is that people like the CAW were so strongly opposed to Bill 55. I think there's a very good reason for that. They see that if they don't have a well-skilled, well-motivated, well-paid workforce, the jobs that we have always been able to do so well here in Ontario are going to go someplace else. They're not going to stay in the province unless we make that investment in training and we make sure that we have a well-qualified and well-skilled workforce.
The fact is that most of the skilled tradespeople in the Big Three auto plants in Windsor are over 55 years of age. If we don't start making sure that we have young people enter into those skilled trades, we're not going to have a future where we have anybody to replace those workers when they finally become old enough to retire. That's something that concerns me, and it concerns the CAW members I represent as well.
As I said, we had a number of days of public hearings and we heard from about 95% of the people who made submissions to our committee hearings that they were opposed to what this government was doing. Presenter after presenter called on the government to shelve this bill, and we supported that request as well.
One of those groups was the Ontario Sheet Metal Workers' and Roofers' Conference. They made it quite clear in a letter they sent to the Minister of Education just this past week, and I want to quote from their letter: "This was an ill-thought-out scheme and it was clear in the clause-by-clause debate that all of the implications of this move had not been examined."
We heard that from presenter after presenter, not only from the construction workers but from the CAW local 444, Ken Lewenza, as well. He said that in Windsor there were only two presentations made that remotely supported this bill. He says, "We urge you to shelve this bill and facilitate a full dialogue with representatives from labour, management and any other sectors who have apprentices." That opinion was shared by Gary Parent from the Windsor and District Labour Council. It was also shared by Rick Meloche from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association and Bernie Dupuis from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association.
I know this government has made it very clear that one of their targets, one of their enemies, in the upcoming provincial election is going to be unionized labour. They are making them out to be the enemy, the bad guys that they are going to campaign against in the next election. You would think that if they really wanted to do that, Bill 55 would have set them up to put organized labour on one side as the bad guys and the government as the good guys wanting to present some changes to improve apprenticeship training. That's all well and good, but that argument fell apart during the course of these hearings, because we also heard from representatives of the Big Three.
I have a letter dated November 24 from the vice-president and general director of personnel of General Motors of Canada; the vice-president, employee relations of Ford Co of Canada; and the vice-president, human resources of Chrysler Canada, also known as DaimlerChrysler now. I quote there as well:
"As an industry, we have a 50-year relationship with the UAW/CAW in the area of trades development. Joint company/union apprentice programs represent one of the first collaborative initiatives in our industry....
"The Windsor experiment is just one example of progressive action in the area of apprenticeship training....
"We are concerned at the current status of Bill 55 inasmuch as various stakeholders in the province have expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of specifics regarding the changes contemplated....
"We urge you to delay passage of Bill 55...."
The Windsor experiment they're talking about is a program that is currently underway at St Clair College, an electronic technician/ electrical engineering program, an initiative that was undertaken by Chrysler and the CAW in conjunction with St Clair College. I think that is a success story. That is the way that changes to training should be taking place, but that's not the direction in which this government is going in Bill 55.
I've also got a letter dated November 25 from Bombardier Aerospace, another large corporation here in Ontario, and I quote:
"I think it is fair to say that we all came away more concerned that the bill seems to be on a fast track. We also feel that we, being some of the major industrial employers in the province, have not been properly consulted...."
That is something we heard over and over again during the public hearings that we conducted, that this government is on a fast track to implement this legislation, legislation that is going in the wrong direction completely. They've finally agreed with our arguments that it's going in the wrong direction with approximately 40% of the tradespeople who are involved in the construction sector and have decided that they are going to exempt those people from the provisions of Bill 55.
We say, don't stop there. Why don't you just exempt everyone from the provisions of Bill 55? Why don't you scrap this bill, go back to the drawing board, have meaningful consultation with apprentices, with employers and with people who are going to be directly affected by this legislation and come up with some comprehensive apprenticeship training programs that will be effective. Get rid of Bill 55; it isn't going to work.
It's going to be bad for consumers as well. Here in Ontario we've had very high standards with respect to health and safety and with respect to the construction of buildings, the construction of our workplaces and the construction of our homes. I don't believe that consumers in Ontario want to see a deskilling of the workforce. They don't want to see people who aren't well qualified working on their homes and in their businesses, who don't have the high level of qualifications that people have now, because they are going to put people at risk. They're going to put other apprentices, other workers, at risk as well, and that is needless.
Instead of being an expert in one trade, people who are trained under Bill 55 are going to be jacks of all trades and masters of none. That isn't the direction in which I want to see us going in Ontario, and I'd like to know who wants us to go down that road. I ask once again, who are the people who are asking for this legislation? Just produce them. Name some of the people who are asking for the changes that you're putting forward in Bill 55 and why they think they're a good idea and how it is that you're going to double the number of people who are involved in apprenticeship training in Ontario. I just wish you would explain that to me and to other people in Ontario.
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You've exempted construction workers from Bill 55. I don't think that was something that was really all that well thought out because it was an amendment to the legislation that came in at the last minute. It came in the evening before we had clause-by-clause debate with respect to the bill. What that did was exempt a number of people who were in the construction trades. It lists 19 of them. One of them is "electrician." Another one is "such other trades in the construction industry as are prescribed by the regulations." Do you know what that means? We have no idea who they're exempting from the provisions of this legislation because we have no idea what's going to be in the regulations.
Getting back to "electrician," one of the questions I raised during the clause-by-clause debate was: What is the difference between an electrician working in an industrial plant who may be a CAW member and an electrician working for a construction company who comes and works in an industrial setting, perhaps a Big Three plant, working alongside that electrician, who happens to be an industrial electrician who's a member of the CAW? I couldn't get an answer to that.
The electrician who is in the industrial sector could come under Bill 55, could be trained using the new skill-set-based training - we have no idea what that means; we know it's going to be a lowering of the standards, a lowering of the time it takes to train that person - and now the electrician who comes in the construction sector will be under the old program, the old rules, and they're going to perhaps end up working side by side, doing the same job. How does that make any sense? It doesn't make any sense to me that there are going to be two sets of rules that are going to cover two people who are doing the same job and both call themselves electricians.
I asked one presenter in the city of Windsor who happened to be a lawyer, who was advocating this skill-set-based training, "Do you think people really want to have a lawyer who only is trained in providing services in no-fault divorces or wills?" I don't think we want to have people calling themselves lawyers who only know how to do one or two things. One of the advantages of being trained as a lawyer is that you have a broad base of skills. Generally, you have to have an undergraduate degree, then you have three years of training at law school, then you have to work for a lawyer for another year and then you have to do the bar admissions course. So you have a wide range of skills.
That is similar to what a number of skilled tradespeople do in becoming skilled tradespeople. They have skills that are recognizable and transferable, and because of those skills, they're mobile, they're journeypersons. That's why they're called journeypersons. They can travel to wherever it is that the jobs may be, whether they be in another city or in another province and, to a great extent, in another country. People who are construction workers in Ontario are recognized throughout the world. Construction workers from Ontario are recognized for the quality of the work they do in many other countries in the world and because of that are in great demand.
Right now in the southern United States, where they've gone down this road - the lowering standards road, the de-skilling road, the privatization of training road - we see that they have a critical shortage of skilled construction workers. Through deregulation, they left it to the private sector construction industries to train their own workers. So what happened? All the work went to those non-unionized workplaces that could offer a lower price for the work they did. Because they offered a lower price, they didn't have the income to provide the training, but they were able to get the skilled workers because they took them from the unionized side and got them to come to work for them. What happened is that the unionized sector lost all the work. They couldn't provide the training any longer. Nobody was providing the training and now they have a shortage of people to do construction in the southern United States.
That comes from a study that was provided to us during the hearings from the business round table: Confronting the Skilled Construction Workforce Shortage: A Blueprint for the Future. One of the things this document does is to suggest that there should be more mandatory skills training programs for apprentices. What we're doing here with Bill 55 is moving in the absolute different direction. We're saying: "We don't think anything should be mandated any longer. It should all be voluntary. Leave it to the private sector. They'll determine the best way of providing more skilled workers in Ontario."
But it isn't going to work. I don't want to live in an Ontario where 10 years down the road we find we have a shortage of people who are skilled in providing those services that we need to have a healthy economy. I don't want to see an Ontario where public safety is put at risk because those who call themselves skilled tradespersons don't have appropriate training.
I don't want to see our environment threatened because those who are doing work in our homes, in our nuclear plants, in water filtration plants, don't have the proper training to ensure that there aren't spills that take place into the air, into the land and into the water as well.
I don't want to see young people encouraged to leave high school at an early age because they think they're going to end up with some sort of skill that will enable them to move from one employer to another, because that isn't what's going to happen. What will happen is that employers will have people trained in one specific skill, one small aspect of a job that they just happen to have a need for at some particular point in time. But what happens when that job is no longer required? Those people are no longer needed. They don't have a skill that they can go to another employer down the street and say, "Look, I have this skill; will you please give me a job?" because that isn't a skill that's going to be recognized by another employer. That is the problem with having an apprenticeship system that is based on skill sets.
As I indicated, there is an acknowledged shortage of skilled people in various areas, for example, tool and die makers, mould makers, but this legislation, Bill 55, isn't going to address that shortage.
What the bill says is that for the first time apprentices are going to have to pay tuition. I know my friend the parliamentary assistant said during the hearings, and he said it again this evening, that Bill 55 doesn't say anything in it about imposing tuition fees on apprentices. That may be true, but it doesn't say anything to prohibit the imposition of tuition on apprentices as well. Once again, the government is saying, "Trust us."
The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): At exactly 11:17 pm, pursuant to the order of the House dated October 14, I'm now required to put the question.
Mr Smith has moved third reading of Bill 55. 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.
Call in the members. It will be a five-minute bell.
Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber): Mr Speaker -
The Speaker: OK, give it to me, Doug.
Pursuant to standing order 28(h), there is a request that Bill 55 be deferred until December 16, 1998.
Mr Bradley: Is that legal?
The Speaker: Yes.
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SUPPLY ACT, 1998 / LOI DE CRÉDITS DE 1998
Mr Baird, on behalf of Mr Eves, moved second reading of the following bill:
Bill 96, An Act to authorize the payment of certain amounts for the Public Service for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 1999 / Projet de loi 96, Loi autorisant le paiement de certaines sommes destinées à la fonction publique pour l'exercice se terminant le 31 mars 1999.
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): I would like to speak in favour of Bill 96, the Supply Act, 1998. Bill 96 provides the final legislative authority for the spending set out in the estimates and supplementary estimates for the 1998-99 fiscal year. It gives final legislative confirmation to the provisions of the interim supply motions for this fiscal year, which members will remember we passed some time ago, extending interim supply through the end of March of this year and indeed the end of the fiscal year. These motions gave the government interim authority "to pay the salaries of civil servants and other necessary payments pending the voting of supply."
Supply bills are a normal part of the government spending process. However, the expenditures approved in Bill 96 reflect this government's commitment to preserve Ontario's quality of life.
We know we are spending taxpayers' money, not ours, and we are accountable for every dollar the government spends. We are investing to strengthen health care and in educating our children. We are investing in jobs for the future and to help working families with young children. We're investing to help welfare recipients continue to find routes to jobs and independence.
I'm very pleased to say that since June 1995 more than 357,000 people have stopped relying on welfare in Ontario. Indeed, that is very good news for the taxpayers of Ontario and good news for those people who are able to provide for themselves and their families. It marks a very different scene in Ontario than we saw in the past. In the 1980s when economic times got good, as more people worked and as the labour market heated up, what we saw in this province was a very unusual trend. We saw more people go on welfare when unemployment fell, which was a rather shocking instance that happened when the Liberal government increased welfare expenditures at such a rate. I think the Treasurer of the day, Robert Nixon, later would say that they just threw money at the problem, and I surely would share that characterization of Mr Nixon.
We have made government do business like a business and focused on results and putting the customer first. Over the last three years, Ontarians have worked together to get this province back on track. This government cut taxes 66 times. We cut personal income taxes. Ontario had one of the highest income tax rates in Canada when we were elected just three and a half years ago.
Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber): The highest.
Mr Baird: The highest, the member for Etobicoke-Humber says, and we now have the lowest in Canada. That is indeed a positive signal to send to the world, that people in Ontario keep more of their hard-earned tax dollars, as they can in other provinces. That as well gave people, hard-working taxpayers, the first real increase they'd had in many years. Far too many taxpayers I spoke to, whether they be in Bells Corners, Barrhaven, Manordale or Nepean, were working harder and harder and getting to take less and less money home, and there was a real concern about that. I talked to one parent with two kids in Barrhaven in November 1994, and when his kids needed a new winter coat and new winter boots, that put a real strain on the family's finances. We wanted to try to improve that family's bottom line to ensure that they had more money to meet their family's needs. There are a lot of hard-working families out there, two-income families, they both work hard and they simply don't have enough money. Once they pay the family's mortgage and make the car payments, they're lucky to have enough money to pay the rest of their bills and put food on the table.
The tax cut was one of the first opportunities since 1989 where people were able to get a real increase in their take-home pay. But as much work as we've done, work remains. People's take-home pay is still less in real terms than it was in 1989, which points to the need that we've got to work harder to deliver for hard-working families in Ontario.
We've also reduced the deficit. When you look at the burden of debt that the taxpayers of Ontario were facing, $11.6 billion, and that went up very quickly -
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): Why don't you say how much you've added?
Mr Baird: The member for Kingston and The Islands says, see how much has been added to the debt. I can recall the 1990 election campaign when Liberal candidates scoured around the province of Ontario and proclaimed that for 1990-91 there was a balanced budget. I'd like to ask the member for Cochrane North if there was a balanced budget when he and his colleagues showed up in government.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): The cupboard was bare and there was a $4-billion debt.
Mr Baird: The cupboard was bare and there was a $4-billion debt. The $4-billion debt is a funny thing. It developed and arose in three short weeks. To Floyd Laughren's credit, he didn't point fingers. He just said that he would have to deal with it. But it's important to remember that that $4-billion deficit was so different from the story we had heard just a month previously during the election campaign when the Liberal Party boasted that the province had a balanced budget. The member for Cochrane North laughs, but it's not a funny story; it's a sad story. Then when the recession started, and the NDP government couldn't hope to keep spending at the level that David Peterson's Liberals had racked it up to.
The deficit has been reduced from $11.3 billion. This Minister of Finance, Ernie Eves, and this Premier, Mike Harris, have been able to make every single deficit reduction target that they've set. They've also exceeded it. The good news is that the forecast is that the debt is going down, that we'll be able to balance the budget at some time over the next fiscal year. That'll be good news for taxpayers, whether they be in Rainy River or whether they be in Bells Corners. This government also restored sound fiscal management practices.
Going back to the debt, that debt is also good news for young people in Windsor; good news for a birthday boy named Brett down in Windsor.
We refocused core spending and reinvented the way government works. With the Amethyst Awards that were presented this past season, we saw the extraordinary contribution of a good number of public servants in Ontario. We looked at the story of Indira Singh, who had worked with the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations up at the office in Thunder Bay and who really deserves a terrific amount of credit for the extraordinary efforts of employees at the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations offices over in Thunder Bay in delivering good-quality services for the people of Ontario at less of a cost. Indeed, that is good news, and we congratulate those hard-working public servants who have been able to focus their efforts on core issues and have reinvented the way government works. That, of course, is good news for the taxpayers of Ontario.
This bill that we're dealing with, Bill 96, deals with the ability of the government to make certain payments, including the payment of the civil service here in Ontario. Some people like to focus on the problems that they have with government, but the good news is, if you look at the results that many departments have been able to achieve, they really are commendable. I would like to join my colleagues on this side of the House in congratulating those successful public servants who were honoured with Amethyst Awards this past year. They deserve a terrific amount of credit.
The changes the government needed to make since 1995 have not always been easy. The actions we took have positioned Ontario to continue to grow and to create jobs. The results have been remarkable. Over the past three years, economic growth in Ontario has become both stronger and more broadly based. That is good news particularly for my part of the province in eastern Ontario. Eastern Ontario has led Ontario in job creation over the last number of months, and that is indeed good news.
In my home community of Ottawa-Carleton we've seen unemployment go down to 6.9%. When I was first elected in 1995, at one point the unemployment rate had gone to 10.9%, but the Ottawa-Carleton economy has responded. They've had to deal with some difficult challenges. The federal Liberal government, while they promised not to, cut the size of the public service in the federal domain by some 45,000; and in Ottawa-Carleton we saw about a third of that, 15,000. That was a tremendous blow to the local economy, but the community responded.
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We've seen some particularly spectacular growth in the west end of the region with the high-tech sector, where companies like JetForm, under the able leadership of president and CEO John Kelly, have done extraordinarily well. Of course, Nortel in Nepean, particularly in Bells Corners, with their quarter-of-a-billion-dollar expansion has done quite well. Pfizer pharmaceuticals in Arnprior is expanding to create jobs and will be producing a lot of Viagra in Arnprior, Ontario. So there are new signs of growth in the Ontario economy out in the great riding of Lanark-Renfrew, which my colleague Leo Jordan represents. We've looked at the expansion going on at JDS Fitel in Nepean at the South Merivale Industrial Park. Thank goodness the city council in Nepean had the foresight to look at some of these issues, to plan for economic growth into the future, and that has gone forward.
There has been a good amount of success with local small enterprises that have been able to hire a few more jobs. In Nepean, certainly, small business is the economic engine of our economy, and it's indeed good news with a lot of small businesses expanding, particularly in the retail sector, and right across the province. We've seen 80% of the net new jobs created in Ontario created in small business. We've got to do more to help small business. Capping their taxes and any assessment-related increases is one way. Cutting corporate income taxes for small businesses is important as well. We're doing that by cutting them by 50%, as announced in this budget, and that will help those hard-working entrepreneurs who put it all on the line.
I spoke to a restaurant owner in my constituency, Mr Speaker, you'll be interested to know. Three people went into business and formed a restaurant in 1990 at the height of the recession, and they were able to put all of their talents and energy and enthusiasm into making this work. You might be surprised to learn that they had to put mortgages on their homes to get the financing to make that dream reality. Today they're employing more than 60 people in that restaurant, and that's indeed good news. That's a result of the hard-working entrepreneurial spirit of the small business people in my community.
That's why we're eliminating the employer health tax for small businesses with a payroll of under $400,000. One of the concerns that restaurant raised with me during the election campaign was the Workplace Health and Safety Agency, which I know both the Liberal and the Conservative parties promised to dismantle after the election. Of course, repealing Bill 40, the NDP's job-killing labour legislation, was another important part of really creating jobs. There was an issue that a lot of folks out there just didn't believe would happen. They said, "Killing Bill 40, they'll never do it."
I can recall back in 1992 the leader of the Conservative Party, Mike Harris, took out an ad in the Globe and Mail and said simply "We will repeal Bill 40." The good news is they were able to repeal that. That was, of course, then an important signal around the world that Ontario was open for jobs, we were open for investment. That was indeed very positive. Since we've taken these actions the economy has responded with jobs, with growth, and I think with a renewed sense of optimism and confidence, and that is indeed good news.
Since the 1995 speech from the throne, the Ontario economy has added 461,000 net new private sector jobs. This is 49.7% of the jobs created in Canada, one out of two jobs created in Canada during this period. That's quite amazing, even though Ontario accounts for about 38% of the nation's population. Something is going on in Ontario that we just frankly aren't seeing in other parts of the country. That's good news, because Ontario was particularly hard hit by the recession. The economic rebound that we saw starting in September 1995 when this government put forward its legislative agenda - the economy has certainly responded well.
Some people say, "The American economy is responsible for this," or, "Low interest rates are responsible for this." Some people argue that there's nothing the provincial government can do with the economy. That's something we reject. We believe we can set a climate for economic growth and for investment and job creation. We reject the notion that all the decisions are simply taken in Washington or taken by the governor of the Bank of Canada in terms of what interest rates are going to be. While interest rates are important, Gordon Thiessen, who is a resident of my constituency in Nepean, doesn't deserve all the credit. There are a number of other factors which go into setting the climate for job creation.
A recent Statistics Canada study notes that since 1995, Ontario's job gains have outpaced job growth in the United States. Total Ontario employment has risen 8.4%, almost one full percentage point ahead of the US job gain of 7.5%. That is indeed good news. It's good news for people who had lacked hope.
One of the things I discovered when I was a candidate in the last general election was that economic growth and job creation weren't necessarily the number one issue. What was even worse for those people who were looking for a job was the lack of hope and opportunity that people had for the future. I talked to a mother who was worried about her son, who was attending community college, whether he would ever be able to get a job at the end of his studies. Indeed, that was a concern for her. I talked to a gentleman who was 55 years old and worried about whether he would have a job in six months or a year. It was far greater than those people who were specifically unemployed, because I think there's a tale, a human cost that doesn't necessarily appear in the unemployment rate.
I think what we've seen over the last three years is indeed putting some hope and optimism in the future, that the future is brighter, and that's been seen most evidently in the consumer confidence numbers, which have been very positive indeed for the economy. Over the past 20 months Ontario's employment gains have accelerated. Total employment in Ontario rose 6.8%, well ahead of the US growth, which was only 4.1% in that same period. Ontario's unemployment rate is now 6.9%, down from 8.9% when this government took office and well below the national unemployment rate of 8%, which has been stubbornly high. It's funny that between 1993 and 1995 there wasn't any substantial progress in job creation in the province, even some two years into the reign of the incumbent Liberal government.
Over the past three years the economy has performed well in the province. As I referred to earlier, consumer spending has increased by some 3.6% per year. This is triple the rate of growth in the first half of the decade. We see something happening in Ontario in the latter part of this decade that didn't happen before, and that's good news. Consumer spending is an important symbol, because we can talk about a whole host of specifics put out by an alphabet soup of organizations, whether it's the OECD or the World Bank or Statistics Canada, but consumer confidence, consumer spending is an important number. What that says is what the average consumer is feeling, and that's good news because that talks about wider growth in the economy.
Business investment has increased by 7.3% per year, and that's indeed a sign of confidence. Housing starts have increased by 27%, and that's indeed good news. I look at my constituency and I see the solid job growth gain in the construction sector. Whether it's in Barrhaven, Longfields, Davidson Heights or Centrepointe, we've seen a lot of new construction.
There has been one problem for workers in my community of Ottawa-Carleton who haven't been able to get jobs in the construction industry, and it's the whole issue of labour mobility. That's a real concern for us. In the throne speech recently there was a commitment by the government of Ontario to examine what the results were of the agreement signed in 1996 between Ontario and Quebec.
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Shortly following the Quebec election campaign, the Premier of Ontario was in Navan, Ontario, just on Friday in fact, to announce that the government of Ontario had set a deadline of April 1. Premier Harris has written his colleague and counterpart Lucien Bouchard to indicate that he would like to see these issues resolved by April 1, and that if it's not resolved by April 1, the government of Ontario and this Legislature would be presented with a bill or regulations in some form to mirror the type of regulations that workers from Ontario have to face in Quebec. What we want out of that is just an honest, level playing field. That's something that's exceptionally important, that our workers would have the fair crack at the jobs in Quebec that the Quebec workers have in Ontario. That's something we believe strongly in.
It goes far beyond just Ontario workers having access to Quebec, though, because we find that a lot of Quebec contractors and Quebec companies, when making bids in Ontario, often have a differential if they're not party to the health and safety laws of the province of Ontario. The Occupational Health and Safety Act, a very important piece of legislation, really sets the minimum standards for occupational health and safety in Ontario. We expect a firm, whether it's based in Brockville or Nepean or Navan or Russell, to obey the rules and laws that the companies in Ontario have to abide by.
As well, we have Workers' Compensation Board premiums. In Ontario we have a system where if you're a worker injured on the job, you're entitled to compensation. The employer makes those contributions and the employee, of course, gives up the right to sue and the long-standing obligation. Too often we hear reports that while companies in Ontario have to pay, sometimes contractors who come from Quebec are not making their payments. That is a real concern.
The final one, of course, is the provincial sales tax. I hear anecdotal stories from contractors, whether they be roofing or sheet metal, whether they be carpentry or electrician, that sometimes their materials are shipped to Quebec and then brought back to Ontario. That gives a cost differential.
Whether it's the provincial sales tax, whether it's Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act, whether it's the Workers' Compensation Board, we've made a commitment to a number of areas. That a firm from outside the province of Ontario could come and do business in Ontario and somehow not play on the same level playing field as an Ontario firm is simply unconscionable.
This is certainly the case for me in my constituency in Nepean, where the best example is two high schools, one just completed construction and a second one, John McCrae secondary school, underway in Barrhaven. We want to ensure that those Quebec contractors live up to the same obligations. It may cost a little bit more; health and safety is important and it may cost a little bit more to do it safely, but in the long run we believe that it will cost less and it's important that the benefits be achieved. So that's one level that the government is dealing with.
The economy continued to perform well in 1998. In the first six months, real GDP grew at 4.8% over the same period last year.
While a great deal has been accomplished to date, the job is not yet done. The deficit for 1998-99 will decline to $3.6 billion from the $4.2 billion projected in the 1998 budget. We exceeded our deficit reduction target three years in a row, and this year will make it a fourth year in a row. That is important. The deficit will be balanced at some point over the next fiscal year. That is indeed good news for the hard-working taxpayers of the province of Ontario.
The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Questions and comments?
Mr Gerretsen: I find it rather interesting that this member should be presenting the supply bill, which deals with the finances of the province of Ontario, and he talks about the hard-working taxpayers of the province of Ontario. Maybe he could explain to the members in this House why he championed the settlement that was reached in the Al Mclean case of $600,000. The hard-earning taxpayers of the province would want an explanation as to why he felt it was necessary to in effect spend $600,000 of their hard-earned money for a settlement that was recommended against by the solicitors for the Legislative Assembly.
I find it rather curious that the exact same offer that Al Mclean's lawyer made to the lawyers for the Legislative Assembly, which the lawyers for the Legislative Assembly turned down because they realized it was such a ridiculous offer, he, together with two of his colleagues, would present in the Board of Internal Economy as being something that was totally rational as far as they were concerned. It's not rational. If he's so concerned about the taxpayers of Ontario, then maybe he should explain to those same taxpayers why, against the best advice that's out there from a variety of different sources, including three different law firms in Toronto that have been retained on this matter by the Legislative Assembly - they all felt there was no liability at all on the Legislative Assembly - it was necessary for him and the members of government to pay out -
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): For the private detective.
Mr Gerretsen: Including the private detective who was hired by Al McLean. If he's really that concerned about the taxpayers of Ontario, why doesn't he say something publicly in this House? He's had an awful lot to say to the various news media that have been out there. We've been watching the various clips and he's been very talkative about it but he hasn't said a darn word about that settlement in this House.
I challenge the member in this House to make a complete and open statement as to why he supported and indeed championed the payment of $600,000 in a case where no money should have been paid whatsoever. No money should have been paid out of the hard-earned money of the taxpayers of Ontario.
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): I certainly enjoyed the speech presented by the member for Nepean. It was very complete and covered a lot of areas, a lot of things that are happening in Ontario. He brought things to mind about the hard-working Ontarians and how they deserve a tax break, and certainly we've been talking about that for some time.
He talked about the Liberal government back in the 1990s bragging about having a balanced budget when in fact we all know what happened when the NDP took over and found out it had something like a $4-billion deficit that particular year. We really didn't improve too much because then the NDP came along and ran two sets of books. It was awfully difficult to really know what was happening.
It's interesting to note that the member was commenting about the deficit. We took over an $11.3-billion deficit, which is well over $1,000 for every man, woman and child in this province that we were spending, that we were not taking in each year. We all know that in our own families, with our own income at home we just can't keep adding to the mortgage. You might compare the debt to a mortgage, and a deficit is what we're adding to it each year. Most people try to pay off their mortgage rather than add to a mortgage, and that's really what's been happening in this province for way too long.
I was thrilled the other day, as a matter of fact yesterday, that the Premier brought in balanced budget legislation. It's certainly way overdue. It should have been brought in a long time ago, back in the 1980s. It should have been here actually with the Constitution, if you want to get right down to it. The municipalities and school boards have had this forever. They're not allowed to run a significant deficit or to run a significant surplus. They're supposed to operate with a balanced budget from year to year. It's unfortunate that both the federal and provincial governments could not do the same thing.
Mr Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott and Russell): I was sitting in I my office and I was listening to the member for Nepean. I think he will have to familiarize himself with this project that the Premier has at hand at the present time.
I just want to tell him that his own ministry has said to every school board and also every agency in Ontario that tendering for schools or government buildings has to be open to a Quebec-based contractor. If you're talking of losing money, you are losing money because we cannot go on the other side, but you're inviting them to come on this side.
He also mentioned that the people in Quebec are buying the materials in Ontario and shipping them back to Quebec and back to Ontario. They don't have to do that any more, member for Nepean. They just send the invoice to Quebec and deliver the materials directly to the job site.
I'd just like to tell you that the member for Nepean is like the Premier and also the Minister of Labour. They're talking about this project, trying to stop construction workers from Quebec from coming into Ontario, but I think they will have to sit down and study the whole project. I've been studying it for the last three and a half years and they've been doing it for three days; they've been studying it for only three days.
It's like any other thing in this government here: They're trying to push ahead everything as soon as they put their hands on something and all of a sudden they have to start all over again. Everything is done to try and recoup the 30% tax cut that they have given to their friends in Ontario.
I think once again the member for Nepean will have to do his own homework first and also clean up his own department of the ministry he's working for.
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Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): I should confess that, unlike the member for Prescott and Russell, I was here and I wasn't listening to the member, but I did catch a few phrases here and there. What concerns me about the member's presentation, as I heard it, was that he was indicating that the fiscal policy of this government was so beneficial for the province, yet he didn't include in his comments the fact that he, as a member of the Board of Internal Economy that runs this place, along with his colleagues in the majority on that committee, apparently authorized the expenditure of $600,000 for a settlement, including $130,000 or so in legal expenses for a member of the Legislature, to settle a civil suit.
We now know that the Board of Internal Economy did not ask for those legal fees to be taxed. There was no attempt to determine specifically what the lawyers were charging for. We further now know that apparently those legal fees for the member for Simcoe East included the cost of a number of gumshoes who went around and spied on the complainant in the case to try to find some sort of evidence that might hurt her credibility. I find it strange that a government that purports to protect the taxpayer would have members on the Board of Internal Economy who would authorize the expenditure of these funds to settle a private suit and not even care about ensuring that these funds were spent in a way that was fair to the complainant.
The Speaker: Response.
Mr Baird: I want to thank my colleagues from Kingston and The Islands, Northumberland, Prescott and Russell, and Algoma for their comments on the bill, particularly the member for Northumberland who talked about my comments and about the hard-working taxpayers of Ontario and how we can't forget them.
I want to deal very specifically with the comments made by my friend from eastern Ontario with respect to one of the things in my speech. We just want fair trade, to the member for Prescott and Russell. We want to be ensured that there's a level playing field. The interprovincial agreement on public sector procurement is a very important agreement. We want fair trade. It's not about putting up barriers to Quebec companies being able to do business in Ontario. We support free trade, but we support fair trade.
What the Premier of Ontario said very clearly and specifically was that what he's going to say is that Quebec workers and Quebec contractors and the government of Quebec have got to give equal access to our contractors and our workers that they get in Ontario. If they don't, we're going to put up a myriad of regulations and barriers so that they would face similar constraints here in Ontario, and then and only then, I believe the government of Quebec would concede that they've got to provide a level playing field. We support free trade. We think it will lead to a higher standard of living on both sides of the Ottawa River.
The Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I rise to address some comments to Bill 96, the effect of which is to finalize the payment of $52,386,596,000 for the public expenses of Her Majesty's Ontario government for the period April 1, 1998, through March 31, 1999, for those expenditures provided for in the estimates and set out in the schedule appended to the aforementioned bill. It is an interesting schedule. I suggest members might, if they haven't done so, look at the supply schedule on the back page of Bill 96 because it very neatly sets out the monies that we will formally approve with the passage of this particular supply bill.
There is an old adage in our British parliamentary system that goes something like this: "No supply without a redress of grievance." I think it is a useful maxim to recall on occasions like this because we have fewer occasions than we used to have to debate issues that are contained in a bill as comprehensive as the supply bill.
I just draw to members' attention that in the schedule of Bill 96 is an appropriation of $103,996,200, representing the amount of money provided for in the estimates of the Office of the Assembly; more about that later.
This is an opportunity for Parliament, as an institution, to put on the floor of the chamber concerns, individual and collective, that we have as members or as representatives of people who can't be here but who pay all of this freight, and let me repeat, it's $52,386,596,000, a lot of money, ranging from a total in the Ministry of Health of $20.177 billion down to the chief elections office, $907,000, for 1998-99. Why do I think that next year we'll be dealing with a supply bill that will have a considerably larger estimate and appropriation for the office of the chief electoral officer?
Mr Lalonde: It's going to be easy when we form the government.
Mr Conway: Well, whoever forms the government is simply going to have to pay the bills for having run the election. I simply make the point that the supply bill covers the entire waterfront of expenditures.
I was also noting in the schedule that we're finalizing the approval, for the budget year in which we now find ourselves, of supplementary estimates that on the operating side are $1.051 billion and on the capital side are $11.8 million.
As the auditor has observed, it's getting very difficult to follow the money. The current Minister of Finance has been criticized for appropriating monies and then parking them. Presumably in a year or two or three there will be some mechanism for the Legislature to see precisely how those monies were spent. I suspect at the present time we are looking at numbers that hide as much as they reveal. I didn't bring the auditor's report in with me tonight but I will certainly talk a little more about this when we return to this item later in the week.
We know we are in the final months of the current mandate. The expectation is that there will be an election sometime within the next six to 12 months. This government is certainly doing what all governments have done, and that is, like a good groundhog or some kind of wintering animal, trying to stock up as much in reserve as possible and spend feverishly through the course of the pre-election period and then announce a drought and a famine the morning after the election so that there can be some balancing of the accounts.
I think there is a very real concern for anyone who cares about the traditional role of Parliament in the voting of supply. I say that quite cynically, because I don't think there's much of an interest left in this institution in the old supply function. It used to be the most central role that parliaments had. There was a time, probably before I got here but even when I got here in the mid 1970s, that this was a debate that used to activate quite a lot of interest. It just doesn't any more, for a variety of reasons. It's a trend that's been ongoing for some years now.
I often think what you could actually put in one of these supply bills and get away with. It reminds me of a professor friend of mine who sometimes tells me about what some of his students will put on page 6 of a 10- or 12-page essay, thinking that the preceptor, the marker, just won't bother to read the middle part of the text. On more than one occasion I hear that some rather remarkable things have been inserted in the middle of a term paper, essay or whatever, and have successfully eluded the attention of a very busy invigilator or marker.
The member for Nepean I thought might have had something to say about municipal reorganization in the national capital region. He doesn't want to talk about a matter that my friend from Kingston raised, understandably. The member for Nepean is such a wonderful representative of the new religion of modern politics. He is like one of these little Mattel dolls: You insert the program and wind it up and away it goes. It is quite wonderful.
He's probably one of the very best. He brings a lifetime of varied experience in a variety of workplaces as he opines on all of these matters of public and private expenditure. He was, as my friend from Kingston will tell you, famous for a very arduous destiny in Kingston years ago where he toiled in a variety of very - I'm sure the member from Belleville has walked the walk in the private sector with the member from Nepean. These new acolytes of this new religion, this received wisdom from the Fraser Institute - it's quite remarkable. It makes politics a lot easier. You just go out one morning, look into the sky and wait for the burning bush to reveal all wisdom. You don't have to think a great deal. You've got the received wisdom. It's clear. It's seared into the front lobe and the back recess of your brain, and on cue, morning, afternoon and eventide, you can simply, on the mark, offer up the goods, whether it's on fiscal probity, on transportation policy, on partnerships in health care, you name it.
Mr Speaker, I now adjourn this debate.
The Speaker: It being 12 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 0003.