Legislative Assembly of Ontario

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF REVENUE (CONTINUED)

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The House resumed at 8:01 p.m.

House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF REVENUE (CONTINUED)

On vote 803, guaranteed income and tax grants program:

The Deputy Chairman: It is after eight o'clock; we are into the valuable time of the estimates. We are on vote 803.

An hon. member: Wasn't that carried?

The Deputy Chairman: No. The motion has not been called, and there is an option for members to participate.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: I thought it was pretty well covered last night, Mr. Chairman.

The Deputy Chairman: Well, we will confirm that, Mr. Minister.

Vote 803 agreed to.

On vote 804, property assessment program:

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Chairman, there is one point I want to bring to the minister's attention relating to the property assessment program which is a matter of concern to a number of property owners in Ontario. It is the matter of urea formaldehyde foam insulation, which has caused some difficulties for a number of home owners and property owners who have had this type of insulation installed in their homes.

I was listening to the news at six o'clock or 6:30 tonight, and it was brought to my attention by the newscaster that one bank in particular, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, I believe, will not issue any mortgage assistance to property that has this type of insulation, because it may be causing some serious health problems. Other banks are now considering the same policy.

In a number of cases I am aware of, particularly in the Niagara Peninsula, people have had difficulty getting the government to reimburse them for the retrofitting that is required. In some cases, property owners and their families have had to move out of their homes for three or four months while extensive retrofitting was being done. But they were given no assistance by the federal or provincial governments, although it was not through the property owners' negligence that such an unsafe product, which could cause serious health effects, was permitted to be on the market.

The matter is being looked after now by the Ministry of Health, and the monitoring is being done through the Minister of Labour's occupational health and safety division, which has the special equipment to monitor the gases.

It has been brought to my attention that there have been serious problems where readings have been above the criteria set by government agencies for acceptable levels. I find that people today who want to get rid of these homes face a cost of anywhere from $10,000 or $12,000 to maybe $15,000 for retrofitting, to tear out the inside of a house and put it back to the state it was in before the insulation was put in. But there has been no assistance by either this government or the federal government in the retrofitting.

The problem is that they came along and said, "Well, I am going to unload this place; I am going to sell it." But they cannot even sell it. If someone has to move to another area to relieve the distress and discomfort there and the risk to his health and his family's health, when that person cannot sell his property, when it cannot be put on the market, there is no value.

Surely the minister and this government should then take some initiative and lead in this area so that at least these people do not have to pay municipal taxes for the year they are going into retrofitting. I suggest that this is one way.

If they could be relieved of the municipal taxes, say $800 or $900, this money might at least go towards the cost of retrofitting one or two rooms or it might assist them in overcoming the severe difficulties and heavy expenditure of borrowing money at high interest rates.

I think the Ministry of Revenue has to give some relief in this area. If the property cannot be put up for sale on the open market, then it has no market value. Therefore, there should not be any assessment and there should not be any taxes -- although maybe they should be payable on the land but not on the dwelling. This is an area the minister should be looking at. People need that assistance as it relates to urea formaldehyde foam insulation.

It has been suggested that this insulation is carcinogenic, that it has a certain quality that could be injurious to a person's health; and in view of that I hope the minister will move in this direction and give some of these property owners some relief by allowing them not to pay taxes or by permitting them to sell their homes. At least let them get out of it in some way.

It is a problem, it has to be resolved and I hope this minister will move to give those people some relief.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Chairman, this ministry and this government give every consideration to all ratepayers vis-à-vis the value or the perceived value of their property. If they disagree with the valuation of that property, they all have the same recourse, namely, to file an appeal when they receive their assessment notices and to make representations to the assessment review court. That is the process.

I think the honourable member has tried to make the issue somewhat remote from the magnitude of the problem that is before us. There is no doubt that the marketplace has highlighted the issue more than it should have, perhaps because of the media or because of the representations from various people. As a matter of fact, my colleague the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell) made that exact point to one of the honourable members of the third party just last week, that sometimes we can become a little hysterical and cause a little hysteria by taking a particular issue out of context.

From many of the facts and figures I have seen on this issue to date -- and I think this is the key point -- I frankly think it is very difficult to put oneself in the assessor's shoes. As members undoubtedly are well aware, the honourable member who is my critic in the New Democratic Party has been in those shoes. I am sure he will say in all honesty, and we know he is an honourable member in that regard, that when the assessor is going up and down in his neighbourhood he does not know who has that type of insulation.

Mr. Newman: Why doesn't he ask?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: The honourable member opposite wants to know why he does not ask. Of course, they are not really geared to do a door-to-door survey on any particular issue. We might find it desirable to do surveys from time to time on issues that this government finds appropriate, but I am not sure this is one of them.

8:10 p.m.

The next thing is that the whole basis of assessment is really the question of what is the market value. I know the honourable member mentioned that in his view there is no value. I suggest that this position is a little extreme. I will be very kind and leave it at that.

We all know everything has a price: everything has a buyer and everything has a seller.

Mr. Nixon: Not everything.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Practically everything. We all know this issue is not easy. How do we arrive at this fair market value? There is no doubt that the home owners, whether they have a problem or not, have a view of how much their property has depreciated, but I suggest that, without actual market data, we really do not know this issue. I think it is more than fair to suggest that the actual way to come to some equitable value is to leave it to the third party to adjudicate the matter, in this case the assessment review court.

Do not forget the assessor is there. He is there on behalf of the government of Ontario but, most important, he is also there to maintain an equitable tax base on behalf of the municipalities to which we are in turn delivering a service. We do not benefit, as the member is well aware, from his function. In this context, his assessment does not directly generate any revenue to Ontario.

Mr. Nixon: It means the government can cut back on its grants. How else can the minister explain high local taxes and low grants?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It is for the municipalities that are involved, that is true; but we benefit everybody. It is just a matter of whether we give them a big grant or a bigger grant to help operate the municipalities in this province. That is subsidized to some degree by the property tax, which is based on the assessment placed by the assessor. But it is an extremely difficult issue.

As the honourable member is aware, and there have been discussions in this Legislature in the past relating to the magnitude of the problem, there is no doubt where the responsibility for this issue lies. Once again, my friend knows what my answer is; it is with his federal colleagues in Ottawa. It was the federal government that approved and encouraged the use of this form of insulation.

I might suggest to the honourable member that the Ontario Building Code was never amended to recognize this form of insulation. Immediately, when we started testing, we saw there might be a problem. It was while this testing process was going on that the federal government, lo and behold, became aware there was a problem and put on the ban which we have supported and still support.

Having said all that, knowing where the responsibility lies, I think some of the ratepayers out there know exactly where it lies as well. As the honourable member is probably quite aware, there are three families jointly taking action against Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, an arm of the federal government in Ottawa, the urea formaldehyde foam makers and the suppliers. The amount of their claim is $1.1 million. This joint action was reported fairly recently in a Sunday edition of a newspaper that has different kinds of talents displayed on a daily basis and is known as the Toronto Sun.

Mr. Laughren: Ring the gong. You're out to lunch, George. That has nothing to do with assessment.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It has exactly to do with assessment. The whole point, whether or not my friend recognizes it, and I think his colleague behind will agree to a different degree, is how one arrives at this changed assessment. We are quite prepared to assist, and will be assisting wherever possible, home owners who have a problem in this regard. I have already given instruction vis-à-vis the operation of our open houses this fall. There is no doubt if they can come forward with proof of a change in value --

Mr. Swart: You are supposed to assess at market value.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: What is market value?

Mr. Laughren: It's zero.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It is not zero, and the member knows it.

Mr. Laughren: It's damned close to it.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It is not, and that is exactly the issue: the value is somewhere between here, which is zero, and here, which is the perceived full market value at any given point of time. This is exactly what is happening and why I think the disinterested third party, the assessment review court, is the reasonable and rational adjudicator of this problem.

But again I want to give the honourable members the information that, as we talked about in my opening remarks yesterday, we will have more open houses this fall than ever before. The accessibility to the assessor and the open house process will be greater than ever before. We will assist any ratepayers, any home owners who have this problem, by advising them what the appeal procedure is all about. Of course, if they can come forward with a bona fide indication of a change in their market value, we will be happy to accommodate them.

I know some honourable members will say this is not relevant, but let us not kid ourselves; let us think back to not long ago when a relatively comparable but not exactly comparable issue was aluminum wiring. I think members will agree, and most members who want to have a rational, practical and realistic approach to that problem will recognize, that there were some problems, which ended up being relatively small in relation to the total. If there was a poor installation, if the connectors were not right in their utilization, there was a problem in a home. The problem was resolved. I suggest that there is virtually no change in the market value of those homes now as compared to any other homes.

Mr. Nixon: How about houses built near the Pickering reactor?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Those have been enhanced in value over the years; I can assure the honourable member of that. If he wants to come out with a potful of money, I will even consider an offer on my house, but not for the reason he is thinking; it is because I would want to move once again closer to the reactor, knowing the safety and the cleanliness of that means of generating electricity in this province.

But we are getting a little off the subject, Mr. Chairman. I want to apologize, but I think you will agree that I was led astray by one of the honourable members opposite.

In any event, on this particular issue there is no resolution that I would suggest would be considered fair and equitable. The percentage of the problem, as derived by the testing so far by the Ministry of Health, would indicate it is quite narrow. I am quite sure the federal government at some point in time will recognize its obligation and correct the problem. As I think we have indicated before, we are quite happy to be a party towards correcting those inequities, but we do not accept or think we should be accepting the primary responsibility in this regard.

The Minister of Health recognizes the health potential, and that is why I understand we have done about 10 times the amount of testing the federal government has done; and we are just one jurisdiction, although we are the major jurisdiction within this great country of ours. We are just one jurisdiction, but we have done it to a great degree.

Getting back to the honourable member's point, I do not think there is any way it will be satisfactorily dealt with. Keep in mind that it is our responsibility, and I want to stress this, to maintain the integrity of the tax base of a municipality. I suggest to the member that if we followed his suggestion to go around, even if we could identify these homes that have urea formaldehyde foam insulation and reduced their assessment to zero, at least for a limited time period, we would have an awful lot of unhappy ratepayers and municipal councillors on our backs for not taking our responsibility to defend, in a proper and appropriate way, the tax base. That is really our responsibility.

The adjudication system and procedure are already there when there is a difference of opinion as to value. I know it is safe to say, and I will even acknowledge it, that during this period of hysteria, there is surely an imputed change in value on the market place, but what is it? That is the question: What is it?

8:20 p.m.

Mr. Charlton: Mr. Chairman, I suppose I should start out by warning the minister that the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) just went up to his office to get some files. He will be up on this in a minute.

I will start out by saying I agree with the minister that the value quite clearly is not zero. Even if the building has absolutely no value, there is obviously still land value there. That is not the point we are talking about here. But the minister is not exactly right on target either, because we are not looking for some kind of value between zero and market value. We are looking for the market value of a property with urea formaldehyde foam insulation in a particular community.

The effect of the scare, as the minister puts it, will be somewhat different in different areas and to different people. I agree with the minister that in the initial stages there are some problems in finding an accurate estimation of what the market value may be in any given community. Initially, some of the precedents may have to be set in the appeal process.

On the other hand, the ministry and the assessment branch have a responsibility, as my colleague shouted out earlier, in determining the market value for next year and the year after. There will be sales. They may not be fully open market sales because people may not be able to sell their homes easily on the open market for what they feel they should be getting for them. That is an indication of the loss in value. There will be sales, though, because we know that if people are running away from their homes, which some have already -- and I do not have any numbers from the top of my head -- there will be real estate firms and speculators who will buy up those homes.

What the minister has to understand is that in the assessment division, one of the things that normally happens when assessors do analyses of property sales -- and let us just stick for a moment to residential properties -- is that when they see a sale out of whack with the norm in that community, they may investigate the sale and try to find out why it was so far out of the norm. It may have been a divorce and a forced sale, or an estate sale. But ultimately that sale, which is way out of whack with the rest of the community's sales, gets discarded. It does not get used in the analysis, because it does not really represent a true market value.

When we get situations like this with urea formaldehyde, where there is a specific public consciousness, even if it is a hysteria that is exaggerated, it is going to affect the way in which the market reacts to that particular home. The minister understands that and he has admitted that. Assessors will have to start identifying some of those sales that are way out of whack as not really being way out of whack. They are in fact market sales. Instead of reflecting a divorce, where there is a forced sale, or an estate sale or whatever, they may reflect the sale of a home with urea formaldehyde foam insulation.

I understand the problem the ministry will have in identifying the homes that have urea formaldehyde in them. On the other hand, if this issue continues to grow as I think it probably will, they will have people sending in assessment appeal notices with that very fact written on the back. They will have people coming into the office, saying: "Look, I have had my house up for sale. It has urea in it, and I can't sell the damned thing. Don't you think the assessment is a little too high?"

Most of those homes will be identified over the course of the next year or so. This ministry has a responsibility to start looking at some analyses in the marketplace in relation to these homes. I agree that in the initial round it will have to be done through the appeal process. But the ministry will have to look for the data that will begin to emerge. At some point, the appeal process has to end and the ministry has to be prepared to start making adjustments on the regular roll for the next year.

It may not happen this fall for the 1982 tax roll, because there may not be enough data yet, but if this whole thing keeps up -- and I think in part this is what members are getting at -- an analysis will have to be done over the course of the next year so that for the 1983 tax rolls there actually will be adjustments made and people will not be forced to go through the appeal process to accomplish whatever reduction is legitimately of record.

The government chose to go to the market value system. The government wrote it into the act. The government is going to have to make it work, and not just in the case of urea formaldehyde, because we have run into a number of other problems in the appeal process in the assessment division in the last number of years.

Before I get into a little bit of a rant here, I want to pay some credit and some compliment to the minister's assistant deputy minister. In contacts I have had with him during the last year or so, he has been very helpful when I have run into some roadblocks in the appeal process.

But one thing that is not effectively happening -- and this is why I am raising this now -- is that assessment offices across the province are not effectively keeping on top of the changes in the marketplace. We all understand that assessments are based on the 1975 base market value. But the reality is that section 86 of the act, and everything else one works with, says that although one is using a 1975 date, the assessment returned in 1980, 1981 or 1982 has to reflect the current market reality based on a 1975 base.

One thing that is not effectively happening in the assessment branch right now, although it is starting to happen more and more because of pressures in the court system, is that the assessment offices are not keeping on top of changes from the norm.

Those of us who understand the market value system know that because an entire area of the province went down in value after 1975, we are not going to run out and reduce everything in that municipality simply because everything went down. That we are still assessed on the same basis does not make any difference.

But when there is an economic change in a neighbourhood, a community or a portion of a municipality in relation to the rest of that municipality -- because of urea formaldehyde, because a big industrial plant went in belching smoke all over the neighbourhood, or whatever the case happens to be -- it is the ministry's responsibility to do the analysis, to find out the changes that have occurred in relation to the rest of the marketplace and to make those changes in the ensuing year.

We do not expect the minister to run out and change what he has already done for that year. In fact, we know it is not legally upfront to do that. But he has a responsibility to take available data and use it. There is going to be a tendency to try to avoid identifying a new assessment division, because it means a lot of extra work.

But assessors are going to have to look for that information in terms of those out-of-whack sales they would probably normally discard because they are so out of whack. They are going to have to go into the field and find out if such a sale was a forced sale because of a divorce, and that is why it was so low, or whether urea formaldehyde was involved, then take that sale and use it as a part of an analysis of how much those property values have dropped in relation to similar properties that do not have it.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the very valid and very realistic comments made by the member for Hamilton Mountain, somebody who has been there and really knows what he is talking about.

I can assure him and the other honourable members in here that the assessors and the various assessment offices are going to be very much aware of what he calls distress type of sales and build up data from them, as he has quite correctly identified.

Frankly, we are not aware yet of even a small base of sales of urea formaldehyde foam insulation homes. In fact, we have none on which to base any statistical information. But I agree with him in hoping that many of these issues will start to evolve over the coming year. We may very well get some pattern of sales that will give us an indication of a change from the previous norm market value. I hope there may be some resolution of the problem and some indication of the cost of rectifying the problem in its various manifestations throughout the system.

8:30 p.m.

I hope that a year from now we will have a more satisfactory answer than we do now. But, frankly, we do not have any indication of the extent of the problem and its impact on market value. We do not really know; it is all supposition. I would even suggest to members that there are probably many people who have urea formaldehyde foam insulation who do not even know it; they have not had any problem in their homes so they have never taken it upon themselves to find out what kind of insulation they have. In fact, in many cases there is no problem at all.

I think we would be derelict in our duty on behalf of the municipalities to maintain a reasonable, reliable and responsible tax base on which they base their mill rate and, ultimately, their property tax revenues if we were to try to find out where these homes are and automatically change their assessments.

Mr. Haggerty: Would the minister buy a place with urea formaldehyde foam insulation in it? Would he buy a place if he were forewarned that it was in there?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It would be one of the factors that you would consider, just like many others; sure it would. I would not buy a house built on top of a swimming pool that had a two-by-four holding it up either; but if we put that in the context of the other problems, the other amenities and the other pluses and minuses, everything has a value.

The other issue that was raised by the honourable member, and I appreciate that it ties right in, is that of the relative and changing values, particularly in relation to the section 86 reassessment program. As he knows, pretty well all of the assessments are based on either 1975 or 1978 values. Keep in mind that in the year in which this is done, and even this year, for example, when we did section 86s with the 1978 value in 1981, the assessor appreciated and updated that value using the 1978 base to the realities of 1981.

The problem, as we are all aware, and the member opposite more so than anybody else in here, is that if we do not keep that base fairly up to date over a reasonable period of time, then three, four, five, eight or 10 years from now we will not have solved the problem at all; we will be back to exactly where we were before, if not even further behind. That is why this ministry has encouraged municipalities, even those who have gone section 86, to agree to update their assessments. Many have done that in the past, but particularly this year, and we hope that a great number of them will take advantage next year of their new base year of 1980 for 1982 assessments and 1983 taxation.

As I am quite sure the member is already aware, we did announce this past summer that we are going to go on a regular four-year cycle so everybody knows when the new base year will be; the various assessment offices will be able to govern their activities accordingly to update a quarter of their responsibilities each year.

I hope we are making strides. It is not an absolute solution, as the member well knows; it is only part of the overall solution to property tax reform. But I think it is a step in the right direction. It does require the continuing support of the municipalities, and we are getting great support in this regard. For example, it appears that approximately another 100 municipalities, plus or minus a few, will be accepting 1981 reassessment for 1982 taxation based on various base years -- there is still the odd one, I guess, in 1975, but most are in 1978 -- and a great number of municipalities have already made a commitment to reassessment with a 1980 base in 1982 for 1983 taxation.

I definitely agree with the member that, regardless of what other changes may come to pass in the years ahead, the main key to continuing to make our whole property tax system fairer and more equitable is to keep a reasonably up-to-date recognition of market value. I can assure all members this is one of the ongoing goals of this ministry.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Chairman, I confess I did not know at what stage the estimates were when I came into the House to do my duty. I found an item being discussed, about which I have a rather in-depth involvement and very serious concern -- that of the home owners with urea formaldehyde foam insulation in their homes.

The minister likes to put blame for this on the federal government. I am sure he knows I have repeatedly said the prime responsibility for the fact that some homes have urea formaldehyde foam insulation -- 80 per cent of which, installers estimate, was put in illegally -- rests with the federal government because it approved the insulation under the Hazardous Products Act. Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation also approved it and promoted it under the Canadian home insulation program. However, that is not the issue before us here tonight. Even if it were, the minister must admit the provincial government was exceedingly negligent in its responsibilities as well.

We had a very substantial discussion in regard to this matter in the estimates of the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations the other day. In those discussions, the deputy minister quite frankly admitted the Ontario government could have amended its building code to prevent this material from being used within the province. There were all kinds of warnings from the National Research Council and from elsewhere that urea formaldehyde foam was dangerous and was in fact a very poor insulation.

There is no question this government was negligent because it did not put anything in the building code nor in the Municipal Act, whereby the installers would have had to get a building permit or would have had to be licensed. The deputy minister also admitted the ministry had the power to do that. That is the responsibility of the provincial government and it opted out. It is a bit silly to say now that all the responsibility rests with the federal government.

Whose responsibility it is, is not the issue before this House tonight, nor is it the issue before the Minister of Revenue. I am sure he knows that. He is just taking an evasive action here to evade the real issue we have before us, which is, the correct assessment of homes that contain the urea formaldehyde foam insulation.

I was rather pleased to hear the minister make the statement -- I wrote it down -- that my colleague the member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Charlton) knows what he is talking about. If the minister listened to what that member said, he knows he put the responsibility clearly on the assessment branch of the ministry to determine the appropriate assessment for homes that have urea formaldehyde foam insulation.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: You were not listening.

Mr. Swart: I listened very carefully and I suggest the minister read Hansard after it comes out. He will find out that is exactly what the member said to him.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: You read Hansard.

8:40 p.m.

Mr. Swart: It is the Ministry of Revenue through the assessment branch that has the responsibility for setting the proper assessment on real estate in this province. There is no question about that. The court of revision has the responsibility. Incidentally, as a member of the court of revision for a number of years, I am a little familiar with how it works, although it has been changed somewhat. However, the principles behind it have not changed at all.

That court hears the argument from both sides. If somebody thinks he has been improperly assessed, it tries to determine from the argument what a fair assessment is for that property. The act puts the responsibility on the ministry to set the assessment at market value. In practically all other areas, the ministry does it.

If, during the course of a year, someone puts brick veneer on a property to increase the value, your assessors pick that up and add the value to it. On the other hand, if part of the house is torn down, if a section is torn off the back or perhaps a section is burned, the assessors make that adjustment before the roll is closed. There is no getting out from under it: your ministry has the responsibility to set the assessment, as accurately as it can be done, on those properties compared to other properties in the community. When one goes to an assessment court, when a decision is made there, the member of that court hears evidence from the two sides. He hears evidence from the person who has appealed his assessment and then he turns to the assessor and says: "What have you to say about this? What do you recommend?" The assessor has to have made a full investigation to substantiate his case that it should or should not be reduced and by how much it should be reduced. He has the obligation. Your ministry has the obligation to see that is done long before it comes to court. That should be done before the roll is closed.

It is opting out of your responsibilities to say that somehow or other the court should make this determination when the assessors have known well in advance, since last spring, that homes with urea formaldehyde foam insulation have a much lower value than they had before it was put in, and lower than homes with some other form of insulation. There is no question about it. I am sure the minister would not attempt to deny that.

I am appalled by his statement, "We are not reducing the assessment because we do not know how much to reduce it by." In effect, he has told this House: "There are no sales on it so we do not know how much we should reduce it. We are leaving it where it is." What a cop-out it is to take that attitude.

We know why there are no sales on it. The property will not sell at the present time. It might sell at a certain value. I agree with my colleague the member for Hamilton Mountain that there is some residual value to the property. It is generally assumed, and if you checked with Massachusetts you would find this out, the value of the home is worth the original market value less the cost of taking out the urea formaldehyde foam insulation. On a $75,000 home, on average it will cost about $25,000 to take it out.

You should be checking with the real estate people across this province, you should be checking with the independent assessors across this province and you should be checking with their own assessment branch to determine how much the devaluation of the property should be for assessment purposes. Instead of that you say, "We do not know how much it should be reduced, so we are not going to reduce it at all."

These people who have urea formaldehyde foam insulation in their homes are suffering. They are not only suffering health problems, they are suffering a tremendous depreciation in the value of their homes. Now you are adding insult to injury by refusing to reduce the assessment value of their property. I say to you, Mr. Minister, that is a cruel and heartless practice you are indulging in. I say that advisedly. Don't smile; it is. If you owned one of those homes, if you knew what some of those people are suffering, perhaps you would take a little different attitude than you have done with regard to it.

You have not only neglected to reduce the assessed value, but I suggest you have also broken your own act in not attempting to search out the homes that have urea formaldehyde foam. It is now at least six months since you knew of the reduced value, in fact it is about seven months. I ask the minister when he gets up to state whether he has sent a questionnaire to home owners, whether he has taken any steps whatsoever to identify the homes with UFFI, so that if the courts across the province decide, because he is not going to do anything, that there should be a 25 per cent reduction, he will know where to apply it. You have not taken a single, solitary step. You will not know where to apply it and you won't apply it.

The only people who are going to get a reduction are the ones who have actually appealed it. Surely you must know that the home owners will incur substantial costs if they have to appeal their assessment. Many of them, first of all, will have to take a day off work. Second, many of them do not know the procedures of the court of revision. Therefore, they will go and hire a lawyer, or more likely they will say to themselves, "I really do not think it is worth the cost in any event," and they won't appeal it, or if they do appeal it they won't show up at the court of revision hearing. It is delayed to the extent that they won't get the reduction, as they should be getting it now in their assessment.

So, Mr. Minister, I quite frankly accuse you in this House of breaking your own legislation by not reducing the assessment on these properties, and giving cruel and heartless treatment to a group of people, some 30,000 home owners in this province, who are suffering intensely, both in health and in depreciation of their homes. You are sitting heartlessly by and doing nothing.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Chairman, the honourable member made the odd relevant point. I would suggest most of his dissertation was so irrelevant that he scared away his honourable colleague who sits just behind him, the member for Hamilton Mountain, who we both acknowledge is rather knowledgeable on the issue, having been there himself. He scared him away. Even that member got tired of listening to the diatribe that was being carried on.

Let me touch on a few of the issues that were raised. The member indicates the real issue is the correct assessment. As I acknowledged before, we do not disagree with that. If he had been listening to his colleague, as I was, he would know -- and if not, I hope the member will find out by reading Hansard tomorrow -- that we did agree one of the problems right now is what market value is. Until some data base is built up, based on a reasonable number of sales, we do not really know.

There is a full spectrum of perceived values, or reduction of values, until that happens. I did acknowledge, as I think he did, that a year from now we may have some better understanding of the magnitude or otherwise of the problem, the cost of correcting the problem, and any relative market value reduction that has taken place or will take place. To go out, as he suggests, to try to upset the umpteen thousands of people he referred to when it would affect a very small percentage who probably actually have a problem is typical of responses from that member.

8:50 p.m.

He is the type who brings in a bag of foam and tries to create hysteria throughout this province and multiplies the problem tenfold over what it actually is. I realize that is the thrust of this member, and if he thinks he does justice to the people of this province with that kind of a tirade, he does not, Mr. Chairman; he does not at all. He does a disservice to the people we mutually represent.

Mr. Cooke: Typical Tory insensitivity.

Mr. Wildman: You are telling us there is no problem?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It sounds as if we have a chorus in here, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Go on, Mr. Minister.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is true we have a responsibility to maintain an equitable tax base for the municipalities. That is what we have attempted to do. Part of that responsibility is coming up with something reasonable and defensible.

I stated it before and I reiterate it now that on this particular issue, whenever we become aware of this issue for a ratepayer, we are going to assist him and let him know the kinds of questions he will have to bring forward to the assessment review court, the kinds of issues that will be raised and what he should bring forward to make his case. I do not know what more we can do to be helpful and co-operative. We will be doing that. We will instruct our assessors to co-operate and assist at the open house process that will start fairly shortly.

To suggest, of course, that this is a cop-out is utterly ludicrous. That is not the case at all. We have a responsibility. It is fine for those people who do not have a responsibility for the ratepayers, and that includes the ratepayers who presumably do not have a problem. It is all part of our responsibility to maintain the equity in the system. We are going to be, we have been and we will continue to be part of the process of maintaining equity throughout.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, I have a rather lengthy, serious matter that I wish to bring to the minister's attention. As most of us know, the debate of the estimates really does not end up being a debate of the estimates or actual government expenditures, because by the time we get around to debate its expenditures, the money has been long spent. Members find these debates a good opportunity to bring to the attention of the House and to the minister some very glaring problems in the programs the government has put in place for the people of Ontario.

This problem is quite detailed. I will take the opportunity to read some correspondence to the minister and to the members of the House so they actually understand the severity of the problem.

Back in December 1980, I received a letter from the Canard Valley golf club. It read as follows:

"Dear Mr. Mancini: This is further to our meeting and your recent telephone call regarding the excessive property and business taxes that Canard Valley golf course has had to bear for the past 12 years. Enclosed please find a comparison," and this is very important, Mr. Chairman, "of golf property assessments for 1978 for nine golf courses in the county," meaning Essex county. "Also included is a map showing where these golf properties are located," and so on. The gentleman goes on further to ask if I could be of assistance in this problem.

Mr. Piché: Are you a member?

Mr. Mancini: Wait until you hear this. I want to say to the member for Cochrane North, wait until you hear of the injustice that is being perpetrated on this small businessman whom you are supposed to have some affinity with. Just wait and listen for a minute.

This small businessman, as I mentioned before, is the proprietor of the Canard Valley golf and country club. Under the charts for the comparison of golf property assessments for 1978, he owns the following: 152 acres, for which the total assessment for land and buildings is $559,000. His total property taxes are $20,894 and his total business tax is $5,519, for total taxes of $26,413.

Let us compare Canard Valley to the other golf courses in Essex county. Let us take, for example, Belleview Golf Club, which is situated in Gosfield North township. Like Canard Valley, it is an 18-hole golf course. They have 155 acres, three acres more than Canard Valley. Their buildings are assessed at only $18,000. Their total property taxes are $4,600 and the business tax is $765, which is $19,000 less than Canard Valley.

Let us take the prestigious Kingsville Golf and Curling Club in the township of Gosfield South. It has 27 holes and 221 acres. It has a huge curling rink and all kinds of facilities for its members. It is first class all the way. Their total assessment for land and buildings is $50,000 which is $500,000 less than Canard Valley. Their total property taxes are $8,800. The total business tax is $2,500. The total taxes are $11,000, less than 40 per cent of what Canard Valley pays.

Anyone who knows the county of Essex at all knows that the township of Anderdon, where Canard Valley is situated, and the Gosfield South township, where the Kingsville Golf and Curling Club is situated, are quite similar and the property taxes for homes of a similar nature are almost identical. Therefore, that would lead one to conclude that golf courses would be treated in the same way. That would lead one to conclude, if they could not be treated equally, that the discrepancy would be minor -- not 60 per cent, not almost $15,000. That is incredible. I could mention the huge differential between Canard Valley and the other golf courses, but I think I have made my point.

Anyway, I met with Mr. Walter Kulyk, a small businessman who owns the Canard Valley golf and country club. He sent me the letter and I sent correspondence to the minister. What did I get from the minister?

Mr. Roy: Was it this minister here?

Mr. Mancini: No, Mr. Maeck was the minister at the time, but the deputy minister was --

Mr. Bradley: Good man. Whatever happened to Lorne?

Mr. Mancini: Yes, I wish we had Lorne Maeck.

Mr. Roy: He was a lot more sympathetic.

Mr. Mancini: He certainly was.

I also corresponded with the deputy minister, Mr. T. M. Russell.

9 p.m.

Mr. Piché: I hope you can prove all this.

Mr. Mancini: It's all right here.

Mr. Roy: Send him photocopies.

Mr. Mancini: I am going to. I am going to send photocopies to the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché).

I did receive a letter from the ministry dated January 22, 1981, nearly a three-page letter outlining all the details as to why this man's property was being taxed so highly, but no solutions to the problem, no answers whatsoever. Not being happy with the letter, I directed a further letter myself dated March 31, 1981, right after I was re-elected.

Mr. Roy: Give us the details. How many votes?

Mr. Mancini: It was about 5,600 votes this time.

On March 31, I directed a letter to Mr. T. M. Russell, the Deputy Minister of Revenue, and I stated as follows:

"In view of the minister's retirement from active politics, I write to you concerning his reply of January 22, 1981, to my letter of December 10, 1980, copies enclosed.

"I wish to inform you that I am not very satisfied with the explanation given in the January 22 letter. There is no explanation given as to why Canard Valley continues to pay significantly higher property taxes than do other golf courses in the vicinity. There is no explanation as to why his assessment is significantly higher than the other golf courses in the area. There is no way that Canard Valley golf and country club" -- which I know and have visited -- "has property and buildings worth more than the Kingsville Golf and Curling Club, yet their assessments differ greatly.

"I would like to propose a meeting between your senior officials, myself and Mr. Kulyk" -- who is the owner of Canard Valley -- "at the earliest opportunity in order to review this matter," et cetera.

I did receive a reply from Mr. Russell stating that his officials were going to initiate a market value study of all the golf courses in Essex county. As soon as the study was complete, we were going to have a meeting and we would try to iron this out. I don't know if the study was ever completed.

I do know that on June 9 I had a meeting in my office with Mr. Earl Winter, who is the director of the special properties branch in the Ministry of Revenue, and Mr. E. V. Moxley, the regional commissioner, Essex regional office. We met and I had an opportunity to talk at length with these two fine gentlemen. They were very agreeable, of course. They were very nice, they represented the ministry in a nice way, and we had a very comfortable meeting, that much I can say. But the crux of the matter, the problem, did not get resolved.

I was told to write to Mr. Kulyk and inform him that under section 63(6)(a) of the Municipal Act there is a provision for any municipality to give property tax relief on a one-year basis. I was further told to inform Mr. Kulyk that under section 86 of the Assessment Act the municipality can ask that the whole municipality be reassessed. I am not sure if that is what we want to do. I did pass that information on to Mr. Kulyk, but he was not satisfied and neither am I.

The people working in the regional assessment office of Windsor should know the county of Essex better than I. They should know the type of property and buildings and they should know in their own minds the comparisons between one municipality and another of a similar nature. We can all understand a small discrepancy of a few hundred dollars or perhaps $1,000 or $2,000, but to suggest that one golf course in Essex county be assessed for a total of $559,000 and that the next highest assessment for a golf course be $50,000, a full $500,000 less -- I tell the member for Cochrane North, that it is completely unreasonable and unsound. I do not care what system he used to work this out.

When the ministry tells Mr. Kulyk he has to pay $26,000 a year in taxes, when the plush golf course and curling club he competes with 15 miles down the road is paying $15,000 a year less, it means that whatever system the ministry has over there to figure out assessments is completely wrong and unjust. I would suggest with deep sincerity that the minister and his senior officials should look into this matter -- not with the idea of sending me a three-page letter to see if they can get Mancini off their backs -- but with the idea of equity and fairness for this small businessman who has to compete and cannot charge a penny more for the use of his golf course than his competitors down the road.

I think the situation is unjust. It has been allowed to go on for too long and I welcome this opportunity to raise it in the Legislature.

Mr. Chairman: Just before the minister replies; I did not want to interrupt the member. We are reminding all our colleagues and for the benefit of the people in the gallery -- I think it is always refreshing to know -- that we are in committee of supply. We are doing the estimates of the Minister of Revenue. Might I also add that the honourable members on my immediate left are just a little bit too loud and the chair is having difficulty listening to those members participating in the debate. With that in mind, I know the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley), the honourable minister, and --

Mr. Nixon: Whatsisname?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: He is not here often enough for us to know.

Mr. Chairman: -- will refrain from being noisy. In seriousness, if you can keep the conversation down a little, we would appreciate it.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Chairman, it is nice to know that all of the business around Ottawa and the two-day-a-week member are being resolved on the one night he is here.

Mr. Chairman: Let us not be provocative.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: I would never be provocative, Mr. Chairman. You would know that.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Chairman, ask the minister not to be provocative.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: I would never be provocative and I think all honourable members would recognize that.

Getting back to golf courses, it sounds like a very nice thing. It would be a little cold tonight. The ball would be hard to see and I am afraid that it would bounce in a rather difficult fashion because of the frozen earth.

Really, the problem brought forth by the member is a legitimate one, but let me put the problem into the perspective of how it can be resolved and maybe even where it started.

Back in the days before the provincial government took over the assessment function, the Canard Valley golf course was located in a municipality that was reassessed prior to 1970. It put that golf course and the whole township on a different footing from an assessment perspective to the other municipalities the member was comparing it to. That is where the problem originated.

How can the problem be resolved? Let me first say, I think it is very important to note that the particular assessment that has been raised has been appealed all the way along. I think you would agree with this. It has been appealed to the assessment review court right through to the Ontario Municipal Board, and the assessment placed on it has been sustained.

So vis-à-vis properties within that municipality -- and I think this is the key item -- the comparisons are justified. His comparison goes awry because he is comparing golf courses, although -- and I cannot debate this; I am sure he knows what he is talking about because it is in his own area -- the other golf courses are in other municipalities with different assessment bases. He is comparing apples to oranges.

9:10 p.m.

There are two answers to the problem. I think he referred to them in a piece of correspondence, and I suggest to him and to the people involved that they take some guidance and advice from that letter because that is where the answer lies. The number one point is to suggest to the municipality -- and we would never do that -- that they might consider a section 86 reassessment, particularly in the county of Essex, so that everybody would be on an equal basis and an equal footing, property for property.

I suggest there would be much more equality among the golf courses as among other types of properties. I acknowledge that this may not be acceptable; various municipalities are involved here, various politicians are involved, and it will involve a lot of deliberations and a lot of soul-searching as to the equities they may want to put into place.

The other possibility, of course, is to approach the municipality, make his case in front of the elected council, and suggest that he is being treated unfairly and is not in fair competition with the surrounding municipalities. They have the power within the Municipal Act, if he feels there is some particular situation which would substantiate his case, to actually change his taxes even in the current tax year. I am not talking about changing them for the next year or the year after. Granted, he will have to do that annually unless some of the other resolutions take place. So that is the second.

Actually, there is even a third solution. Although this particular one does not appeal to me personally, it has appealed to many of the golf courses within the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Toronto, particularly in North York. They approach their town council -- in this case under the authority of the Assessment Act -- and ask for a fixed assessment. In that event, they come to a meeting of minds on what is felt to be a reasonable amount of dollars and cents that the commercial enterprise can pay to the municipality each year for the services that are supplied. The difference between the fair market value and the generated tax rate becomes an obligation, a debt, on that particular property which is accrued by the treasurer of that municipality but which does not become due and payable until the property is sold and, in fact, usually because the land use has changed.

So there are three answers to the problem. I think we have established through the appeal process that within this particular township the assessment is fair, equitable and defensible and that it has gone through the various appeal processes. I am not disagreeing with the inequities that he has put forth in comparing the apples and oranges. I realize this businessman, from his point of view, does not appreciate that it is apples and oranges in a municipality context within the different assessment bases, within the different tax rates. He is thinking as a business man, and quite rightly; that is the way he should think.

There are avenues for taking care of this differential, and I sincerely hope that with the advice and assistance of the honourable member opposite he will take one or more of these options and solve the problem.

Mr. Chairman: It is my understanding that the member for Essex South has yet to exhaust his inquiries. Is that correct?

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, I just would like to say that --

Mr. Chairman: Before you say anything, I am having difficulty with your colleagues on your immediate right.

Mr. Mancini: I do not object to it, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Do you not object?

Mr. Mancini: No, I do not object.

Mr. Chairman: It would be a little loud for me, and I cannot hear what you are saying.

Mr. Mancini: I will speak a little louder.

Mr. Chairman: Thank you. The minister is looking for free legal advice. I can see what he is doing here. I wish they could go out the back, have a coffee and arrange things back there. Why are you doing this?

Interjections.

Mr. Chairman: Can you show a little bit of respect to the chair? Seriously.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, I had hoped that by bringing this matter to the attention of the minister and his senior officials here in these debates we would get a more positive and useful reaction. I have already gone over the three points the honourable minister has mentioned with his civil servants. I found them not to be the answer to this gentleman's problem. I am sure he concurs with me. I will only say I can recall when the minister first came into the House, he came with a small pro-business bias.

Interjection.

Mr. Mancini: Small pro-business bias, what is wrong with that? There is nothing wrong with that, to be in favour of small business and doing things to help small business. Now, after having sat in the House for a number of years and after having become a minister of the crown, instead of trying to change the laws that have created this type of bureaucratic mess, he gives us a pro-bureaucratic and -- how can I say it?

After a party has been in office for 40 years, they think "Well, we will just go along until after the next election and these problems will be forgotten." He has gone from being a man in favour of small business, who was ready to take the bull by the horns and correct some of the bureaucratic problems that affect small business, and now he is a minister, who is pro-bureaucratic problems, who is pro the bureaucrats, who is not ready to demand of his civil servants that they look into this problem and find out what has to be changed in the act or regulations to solve an outrageous situation.

He has given me three nonanswers, three nonstarters. I completely reject the answer the minister has given me. He knows darned well that was the answer given to me by the civil servants. The answer was not adequate at the time. My poor businessman will have to suffer on an ongoing basis, as he has done for the past 12 years. His property taxes will be at least $15,000 a year higher than any other golf course in the county. That is unfair and unjust.

We have a government that has been in office for 40 years and is not prepared to do anything about it. It is a sign it has been in office too long. When it sees a glaring problem as large as this, one that stands out like a sore thumb the way this one does, and it is not prepared to take the bull by the horns, the government has been in office too long.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Chairman, I just want to take a minute to respond to that attack. It is irresponsible on the part of the member opposite. He should know very well I support small business, as does this government. To suggest we should break our own laws to recognize -- a business is a business, and whether it is owned by a small businessman or a large corporation is irrelevant in the context of our discussion. There is no doubt there is a different problem from a financial capability point of view, but unfortunately the tax system, the assessment system is not designed and never was designed to recognize a social welfare type of program. There are other methods.

I suggest to the honourable member, that if he is not prepared to accept the suggestions given him in all good faith, both before, as he referred to, and tonight, then he really just wants to leave it as an issue to bring up to suit his convenience from time to time, and not to resolve the problem at all. It may very well be that the answer to the problem is to get a member who really wants to solve the problem in a fair and equitable way, and not use it in this kind of diatribe as this member does.

Mr. Chairman: Before I recognize the member for Downsview (Mr. Di Santo), I see other members of the official opposition. Are your inquiries of the same nature, about the golf course? I think we should have rotation here.

Mr. Nixon: I will take my turn.

Mr. Chairman: All right. The member for Downsview.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Chairman, disappointing as it is --

Mr. Mancini: This problem won't go away just because you ignore it.

Mr. Chairman: I know it won't. It is frustrating, but the member for Downsview has the floor.

9:20 p.m.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Chairman, I would like to raise a couple of issues with the minister, although I am not very optimistic he will deal with these problems. The first issue is the situation of the oil companies in North York. I have been raising this issue with the minister, but until now he has not been able to come up with an answer which will solve the problem for the municipality of North York and its citizens.

In North York, there are four oil companies who own 117 acres of land at the corner of Finch and Keele Streets. They use that land for oil deposits. They have their tanks there. For the last 15 years they have been renting the part of their land they do not use for storage of oil for farming purposes.

The city of North York has been not able to assess them commercially for that portion of land. Therefore, the four oil companies are paying $110,000 less than they would pay if they were assessed as a home owner or a commercial or industrial building.

Mike Foster, the alderman for Ward 5 in North York, brought the problem to the attention of the city council. Despite the initial disbelief of that incredible character who is the mayor of North York, and the bunch of Conservative members of the city, in time they had to realize that situation was untenable.

It was an open injustice because it offended all the citizens of North York -- especially those who are asked to pay high property taxes. Finally, the municipal council of North York was forced to take the four oil companies to court. The judge, given the present legislation, did not find it proper to grant an injunction. In fact, the city of North York lost the case in court. Everyone realizes such a situation is scandalous.

I find it difficult to express myself because there are so many conversations going on.

Mr. Chairman: Order, for the third time.

Mr. Di Santo: I find that situation is not only scandalous but offensive and outrageous. We have a situation where thousands of citizens are burdened with property taxes that have increased enormously -- not because of the so-called market value of the houses -- but because of inflation on the cost of living. They are going up artificially for many reasons, and the citizens have no control over them.

We have brought this problem to the attention of the Minister of Revenue repeatedly, not to the present minister but to his predecessor.

I introduced a private member's bill, as a suggestion to the minister that he should take action. I realize that my bill was not the best avenue to solve that problem, and that omnibus legislation is not applicable in this particular case, because there are other situations that are seen from a different point of view, and should be considered differently.

I am not advocating a piece of legislation that applies to every situation in Ontario. But surely, if the minister has some sensitivity, he could understand that if he wanted to solve that situation, he could have found a device by linking the amendment to the Assessment Act, to the population, to the geography, or to another device suggested to the House. Until now the government has refused to take action and is allowing them to procrastinate on the tax scandal situation.

The minister should view this situation very seriously because the citizens in the city of North York are really upset. He must know that more than 500 citizens appealed their assessment last week, claiming they were entitled to the same treatment that the oil companies are receiving from the city of North York. They appealed on the basis that they are growing vegetables in their backyard, and therefore, their sites should be considered rural land. They know they cannot win, but they took the time to appeal because they want to prove to the government that they are not accepting that kind of injustice any longer.

The minister should think twice before procrastinating and denying justice to the residents of North York. This situation is even more outrageous because this government is unwilling to tackle the problem of property taxes. The Minister of Revenue is convinced that they will not reform the property tax system, even though it was promised repeatedly in the past that they would do so.

We remember numerous commissions, royal commissions, and investigations, that took place since the Smith committee on taxation in 1967. The Smith committee recommended a progressive form of taxation based on the value of the property and on the income of the citizen. We have been advocating that kind of reform because it makes sense. Above all, it is acceptable to the majority of citizens.

I introduced a bill in 1977 asking that lacking tax reform based on a progressive system, at least the government should exempt senior citizens from paying education taxes. It was passed unanimously, but I want to point out that, quite ironically, the only person who opposed that resolution in this House was the present Minister of Revenue and I think that --

9:30 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It wasn't unanimous because it was opposed.

Mr. Wildman: You're proud of that.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: That's right; responsible.

Mr. Di Santo: The minister can say he is proud of it but he should have stood up when his Premier, in the so-called Brampton Charter, promised exactly the same thing. He said the portion of education taxes paid by senior citizens would be eliminated. Why did you not stand up at that time and oppose your leader? It was because it was convenient for you. It was sheer opportunism because it was before the election and of course we will not expect tax reform from this government because it has no sensitivity.

They do not know what fiscal justice means, but I want to tell the minister that if he does not look seriously at the situation of the four oil companies in North York, he is perpetuating a situation that will discredit him and his government. I hope he will give me an answer that is acceptable, not only to me, but also to the citizens of North York.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: The issue the honourable member raises is really not a new one or unique in the context of North York or in any other place in this province and therein lies the problem.

Although it seems great to think about those big, affluent oil companies avoiding taxes, to put that thing into perspective, that really is not what the problem is all about. It does highlight it and seems to be the issue, but really it is not the issue. I will try to explain a little of the problem.

I think it is fair to say I could sit on either side of this debate and make a reasonable case one way or the other. I will acknowledge that in advance. One could easily look in isolation at the North York situation and the tank farms but, unfortunately, the whole issue is not really whether the oil companies should be paying an industrial rate of tax or whether they should be getting away with part of their land under an agricultural assessment. It is not that isolated.

Throughout the province, if one looks at zoning to create the tax base, we have -- we do not know precisely and I acknowledge that -- somewhere between five and eight per cent of the agricultural land use in this province that has zoning other than agriculture.

That is a significant amount. We are talking in the order of 16,000 parcels of land and, in many cases, these are legitimate farms being operated by legitimate farmers. If one just changes the policy to say the tax base or the assessment should be on the basis of the zoning rather than the use, one is going to catch many thousands of legitimate farmers. That is unfair to those legitimate farmers and I think all honourable members would agree.

Let us look again at the actual, specific issue involved here. What is the true motivation? Is it really that we are concerned that oil companies are saving, it would appear, something in the area of $100,000 in taxes which, even if we put it into perspective, is a lot of money?

Nobody will deny or belittle that. If we forget about all the other assessment within North York -- and I think we would all agree that is a pretty affluent municipality, probably well above average -- it means a tax impact. If the whole shift is to the residential area, it is a tax impact of an average of maybe 80 cents per month per household. I do not think a dollar a month, give or take a few cents, would really change the standard of living of the average home owner in North York.

But I do not think that is really the issue. We all argue on occasion -- particularly the critics of the Minister of Agriculture and Food and the agricultural policies in this province -- about the disappearance of farm land. One of the great criticisms is the amount of land being converted from farm use. In future we will probably all have to eat asphalt and concrete and bricks and mortar because we are converting all of this land to this kind of use and taking land out of useful production. If one really agrees with that concept -- and I think there is some validity to it -- one can go too far one way or the other. I think if one really puts some validity to it, it is important regardless of who owns that land.

I understand this land referred to as the tank farm situation in North York is being legitimately leased out to farmers who are -- generally speaking -- legitimate market gardeners. That is part of the answer. That is part of our food land guidelines, in the context of food production and using good farmable land in an agricultural way. That is the other side of the argument. I am not suggesting either side is absolutely right or absolutely pure. But those are the two sides of the issue.

I think I acknowledged right at the beginning I could debate either side as being the only way, if that is the side of the debate I happen to be on. That is one of the things about being on one side of an issue or being in opposition and critical of whatever the other side is. But when one is in government one must try to recognize the total problem and the total issue involved, and think of the other implications of any other policy decision.

But it is not useful to try to compare this with similar situations throughout the province. There are something like 16,000 other parcels of land that would have the same kind of argument -- that is to say the zoning and land use are different. To compare that to the people of North York who have a backyard plot in their 50 by 100, or 60 by 100, or 40 by 100 -- that really is irrelevant. They have a 10 by 10, or a 20 by 20 garden, I would presume in most cases, for their own use. That was the same as the urea formaldehyde foam insulation situation that went to the assessment review court. That body ruled the appeals were, to put it kindly, rather frivolous and were really not comparable to the other situation at all.

I have not yet seen the private legislation. I have seen the advertisement in the paper, but I have not seen the bill that is being proposed by North York. There is no doubt we will look at it in the context of the whole issue when the legislation comes forward. As the member knows the item was included in the Treasurer's budget last May, as to the change in the farm tax rebate and managed forest situation. We are hoping to be able to address this in the total context of that issue rather than on an isolated basis.

But I can assure the honourable member opposite when that bill comes forward and when I and my associates see it, we will see if it possibly has some validity and if we can support it. I cannot make a commitment at this time that we will oppose or support it. We will look at it and its possible implications.

It is fine to say, "But this is a private bill and only has to do with North York." But the member well knows, from the realities of how we operate, that once something is done in one place it will be used as a precedent elsewhere. So we have to look at the rippling-type implications of that kind of a decision.

But we will look at it seriously and we are looking at the whole problem seriously in the context of resolving the total farm tax system and similarly the managed forest system.

9:40 p.m.

Mr. Di Santo: I was not very optimistic when I rose to speak on this issue, but I did not think I would be so disappointed by the minister. I would like to point out that the minister fails to understand this is a unique situation. I said at the outset that I do not want legislation that applies to all the situations existing in Ontario. I realize there are cases where there is legitimate farm land used for agricultural purposes that may be developed for other uses. I do understand that.

I said before and want to repeat that this is a unique and scandalous situation. We have oil companies that in order to evade taxes are leasing the land for agricultural purposes. You are telling me this is legitimate agricultural land. I think that is preposterous and ludicrous.

If the minister is telling this House the four oil companies, by leasing the land for agricultural purposes, are helping the preservation of farm lands in Ontario that is utterly laughable. If he wants to preserve the farm lands in Ontario, he should talk to the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Henderson) or to his parliamentary assistant, the member for Elgin (Mr. McNeil). He should ask them what happened to the 3,000 acres of land in Vaughan township, a question the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Smith) has been raising repeatedly. There is wild speculation going on there. Why don't you preserve that land?

This is not an issue I raise simply because I am on the opposition benches. The people on the council in North York are mostly Tory hacks. The mayor of North York ran for your party and was duly defeated. But the council of North York also realizes this is a scandalous situation and that is why it took the companies to court. The councillors are not the opposition and they are talking to your members, trying to convince them. This is not a problem you solve with deals behind the scenes. You must give an example to the people of Ontario by saying, "We are also able to fight the big boys who support us financially during elections, because there is a sense of justice in Ontario."

The minister said quite sarcastically that the cases of the people who appealed their assessments were irrelevant, because they were rather frivolous. I want to repeat what I told the minister, and I hope he understands me. The people who appealed were absolutely conscious of the fact they could not win their cases, but they appealed so they could raise some consciousness on your benches. Of course they failed, as we failed, because you find it hard to understand.

If the minister does not understand this is a unique situation he is doing an injustice to the people of North York. Later on he may pay for that in the same way as when he opposed my resolution on property taxes. You can refuse to reform property taxes but you will be called to account for that by the people of Ontario. It will take time, but you will be called to account for that.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to clarify a couple of issues. I did understand the points the honourable member was making before and I did recognize what he said about that situation -- the numbers and so on. However I think it is possible he did not appreciate the number of parcels of land that were involved. I know he has referred to it as something he generally did not support.

I think many honourable members did not know -- and I will be very honest: I personally did not know -- the magnitude of the number of properties that have a zoning other than the land use vis-à-vis agricultural and nonagricultural zoning. I passed on that number for his information because the amount of it, when I first found out about it some time ago, was much higher than I had expected.

I want to correct one figure I gave in my previous remarks. I think I indicated that even if we presume this full "tax saving" is transferred exclusively to the residential home owners of the city of North York it would have an impact of something like 80 cents a month -- I meant to say "about eight cents a month," because it is about $1 a year. So give or take a penny or so on the year it is about eight cents a month. I do not think that is going to change significantly the standard of living of any home owner in the very affluent city of North York.

Concerning the overall issue of blaming the opposition, I think if the honourable member will look back at Hansard when it comes out tomorrow he will see that is not what I said. I did not say the opposition raised the issue; I said it is very easy for opposition, including the opposition opposite, to come down on one side of an issue because they do not have to worry about the implications on all sides of a question. I think he will read that I did not indicate the honourable members opposite raised this issue or originated it, because I know that is not the case and I acknowledge it.

I will not go into great detail on the other situation he referred to, that of the senior citizens, because it really is not relevant to these estimates, but the vote I took part in some years ago was, I think, reasonable and rational, and recognized the realities of our times. It is just too bad the honourable member opposite has not been made aware in the meantime that the commitments this government did make to recognize the burden of taxation on seniors has been duly recognized with something known as the property tax grant. If he looked at most taxpayers' bills he would find that in most instances -- except in some of the bigger homes, possibly, in North York and elsewhere -- the $500 from this program is generous enough to more than offset the actual educational taxation impact on most senior home owners in this province. The same thing, of course, holds true if they are renters.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Chairman, this will be quite brief, because it is a matter the minister has become quite familiar with. It is the problem experienced by the township of Onondaga in my constituency with the equalization factor established by the minister's staff, which is used for the apportionment of education costs in Brant county and the city of Brantford. I believe the minister is familiar with the details, or he probably should be, because it is a nagging problem affecting a relatively few ratepayers in the township of Onondaga. They feel, properly, that they have been paying more than their share of education costs since about 1976.

The blame for this rests with the improperly established equalization factor. When the equalization factor was established about 1977 the township entered an objection, but since the process was relatively new the appeal was not successful. I believe the minister's predecessor, and even the Treasurer of Ontario (Mr. F. S. Miller) when I appealed to him at that time, indicated the matter would be self-correcting.

In fact, the matter is not self-correcting; it is getting worse as the years go by. The minister's response when I raised this in one of the assessment bills earlier on was that it was a matter for Education. But the grants for education apportioned the local shares for cost on, at least in part, the minister's equalization factor. If any are entered into incorrectly, there is not much even the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) can do, other than write out a cheque and send it to the people in Onondaga, which I doubt she is prepared to do.

9:50 p.m.

Onondaga is a small township. It does not have a platoon of staff members to work out all the statistics and fight for this. After all it was the government's decision that took assessment away from the county 10 or 12 years ago. So the only thing we can do is come to the minister, who is responsible for the error and the fact that it remains uncorrected.

I can see the difficulty he may experience in going back to a factor established in 1977 and retroactively correcting it. The problem is that the local board of education and the ministry approve the establishment of the education apportionment on that very incorrect factor. What are we supposed to do about it? Is it because it is a small municipality with only a handful of ratepayers that neither the Minister of Education nor the Minister of Revenue and his staff can do anything about? To be fair, his staff has been good enough to go and talk to the council members themselves.

If there is a solution to a problem like this -- and there has to be because we in this House are all-powerful, if I may use the phrase, in this area -- it is our job to see that justice and equity are established, even for a relatively few number of ratepayers. It is not a matter of 80 cents per month, it is a substantial amount of money.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: The other was eight cents.

Mr. Nixon: Eight cents per month, all right.

It is a matter of concern if it is unfair and unjust. I hope, as a Liberal, that we can move towards, if not perfection, at least improvement in the system. I hate to bother the minister and the House with this matter but the government decided to centralize the responsibility for assessment. He did this, so he has to take the responsibility for the inequities that persist.

The local council could not possibly be more co-operative and more thankful for the visit of the minister's officials. I am not impressed yet, because I feel there should be a solution that can be worked out. It is not enough to say, "Go to Education; let them do something about it," because it is his factor that is wrong. What is the minister going to do about it?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Chairman, as the honourable member has already acknowledged and recognized, I am advised there have been ongoing discussions with the council of the township of Onondaga -- I have trouble with that one.

Mr. Nixon: It is a famous Indian tribe so be careful.

Mr. Newman: Watch that scalp.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: That is right.

There have also been recent meetings with the council and with the reeve, Mrs. M. Dougherty, I understand. The factor that became unfrozen, as the honourable member knows -- is the honourable member listening to the answer? Through a letter we have from the reeve, a copy of which she sent to the member opposite, I understand that now that we have gone over the issue, she accepts the factor as being correct and reasonable and she is quite pleased with it. I guess "pleased" is probably a little strong, but she accepts it as being fair.

As far as the issues going back to -- I do not know what the significance of 1977 is, because --

Mr. Nixon: That is the factor the Education people use. They do not use the new factor, which is correct.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: There is no doubt Education does come up with a factor of its own in some municipalities. But in the previous issue of 1977 -- I do not know where 1977 comes up, frankly, because all the factors in the province were frozen at 1970 values and were only unfrozen in 1979. I am not quite sure what the relevance is of 1977. All we can go by right now is the correspondence we have from the reeve that she has accepted the factor is reasonable and equitable. Unless we hear otherwise from her I do not know how we can conclude otherwise.

If there is anything further the honourable member can add to this letter we have from the reeve, I would be pleased to hear from him, whether it is tonight or on another occasion in the next day or so. I invite him to do so. Maybe he can check with the reeve to find out whether that actually is her thinking or whether we coerced her into writing that letter. I would suggest we did not. If there is anything further we can do to convince, not only the council but the member opposite as to the equity of the present factor we would be only too happy to do so.

Mr. Nixon: If I may take another moment, Mr. Chairman, the present factor has been changed over the previously frozen factor. There was an objection to the previously frozen factor and your officials at that time said it was correct and they would not change it on the basis of the appeal, even when it was thawed out.

For reasons that have not been made very apparent, even though your officials said it was the correct factor, it was changed this year, much to the gratification of the reeve and the council who used all of their undoubted persuasive powers to have it changed. But it is the old factor which is still used to apportion education costs, for reasons surely you and your government understand, because this is the most arcane, ridiculous system of factors that was ever dreamed up by any centralizing authority.

Reeve Dougherty is delighted you have finally smartened up and changed the factor so it reflects a truer assessment of the values in her municipality compared with similar ones in the county of Brant. I received a letter in which she indicates she is very glad of the assistance and advice she has received and that the new factor is correct. It might interest you to know that as you delve into the reasons the new factor came into existence after your officials maintained so strongly and for so long that the old one was perfection itself.

I will follow the minister's admonition and refer to the reeve again. If she is satisfied with the situation that is an end to it. But at the meeting I attended with her, attended by your own officials who heard the same discussion I am hearing now, there was anything but satisfaction at the time. The irate ratepayers, who were kept out of an in camera meeting, were actually pounding on the door of the council. If you think they are satisfied that is not the impression I received.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Let me briefly explain the basis of the factor. I think we have acknowledged there was a frozen factor for practically all of the 1970s in all the municipalities. That is something we were stuck with. Whether it ended up being the right decision is quite debatable and another issue. Once the factors were unfrozen, in every municipality they change every year so that --

Mr. Nixon: What was the first year they were unfrozen?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It was 1979.

Mr. Nixon: Then it must be that 1979 year, not 1977.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: In effect, this is the third year. They change every year. The whole process involves the total assessment within a municipality to come up with a value and a factor as it equates to the total market value vis-à-vis the other municipalities, et cetera. It will change every year.

I think part of the problem in some municipalities, and it may still be the issue here, is the use of the previous frozen factor, slightly amended, because they have their own formula within the Ministry of Education for education purposes.

If there is still some problem in the utilization of that factor, which is different from that provided by the Ministry of Revenue, I would suggest that, quite properly, if the municipality is satisfied with our factor now, that representation should be made to my colleague the Minister of Education. I am not sure that still is a problem.

If there is a continuing problem it would appear it is in that area, in the continuing use -- and education does that in municipalities. It still uses the old factor with adjustments, for the sake of a better description. That is where the problem lies. if there is anything along those lines that can be of assistance to the member I would be quite happy to assist.

10 p.m.

Mr. Charlton: I would like to pick up on the issue raised by the member for Downsview (Mr. Di Santo) and the one raised by the member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini), who is now in the chair -- not in terms of the specifics of those issues, but in relation to the effect they have on the overall discussion we are having tonight about assessment.

What I am about to say is not a criticism of the minister's deputy or the assistant deputy minister for assessment, nor anybody in the assessment division. This is a very political question. My criticism is of the minister, not personally but as the Minister of Revenue and a member of the cabinet of this government.

I listened with interest to his comments in response to the member for Essex South and to the member for Downsview. The kinds of solutions the minister is presenting are mealy-mouthed cop-outs. I am putting that to him straight.

This government in 1970, after some years of discussion, took over the sole responsibility for assessment -- for the setting of the property tax base in Ontario. The act is very clear; it is the ministry's responsibility. All that has happened in this House since 1970 makes it clear it is their responsibility. The minister was not the minister at the time, but I am sure he was aware of the debates going on at the time his predecessor first announced the implementation of the section 86 program.

The minister this evening suggested to the member for Essex South there were three possible ways of solving the golf course problem in Essex county. I concur with the minister. The golf course problem in Essex county is not the only problem out there in the assessment field, and neither is the tank farm in North York. There are thousands across the province.

One of the solutions the minister suggested when he was responding to the member for Essex South was if they could convince all three of the municipalities in question -- I am not sure whether there were two or three -- to implement a section 86 equalization program, it would solve the problem of the Canard Valley golf course. But then the minister went on very appropriately to point out that would be a very difficult task. Even if he convinced one of the three, he would be lucky. To get three out of three would be quite a feat, especially for an opposition member.

At the time the minister's predecessor announced the section 86 program, a number of us in this House, including myself, said as strongly as we could to the minister that we understood why he was moving section 86 and we understood there were some improvements to be gained from section 86, and I have said it repeatedly in this House to this minister, even since his very recent installation in the position.

But ever since the inception of this section 86 program, I have taken issue with its voluntary nature. I said that to the minister on the day he announced the program, and I am going to say it again here tonight. The program has some benefits, but it is not an overall total solution.

This government took the responsibility in 1970 for the assessment legislation in this province, for the creation of an assessment policy, for the establishment of a uniform equitable assessment base across the entire province. Now, in the section 86 program, the government is attempting to shift the responsibility, not for the creation of policy but for the implementation of policy, back on to the individual municipalities.

I have said right from the outset that if there are benefits, if there will be more equitable assessments created by the implementation of section 86, then this government should be taking the responsibility to make it mandatory and to do it province-wide.

The minister is suggesting here tonight to the member for Essex South and to the member for Downsview that they are talking to him about isolated problems, and he is suggesting an around-the-corner, around-the-bush solution.

The real solution is for this government to do what it should have done in the first place in 1978 when it announced the section 86 program. The solution is for the government to get off its behind and make the commitment and get on with the job right across this province.

I want to say that I do not fully understand the political context of this whole question now. There was some understanding in that whole situation in 1978 that in some circumstances, when a section 86 is implemented, there is some public backlash and some flak. We had some in Hamilton; there was some in Cambridge. There have been some problems in terms of implementation. I understand that, and the member understands that.

In 1978, I understood that in a minority situation there was some pressure on the government to try to cover its behind. Now the government has its majority; it has four years. Why can we not get on with the job?

We have the kind of problems that were raised by the member for Essex South, and the minister has admitted the complaints he has are valid. I wrote down the figures just for my own reference in the future, because the discrepancies that exist there are tremendous, they are huge. The kind of thing that is going on with the tank farms in North York and elsewhere in this province is not a problem that is going to go away.

Let us talk about some of the specifics. The minister said in his response to the member for Downsview that we do not want to be doing things in the Assessment Act that would encourage the movement of land out of the farming sector. I happen to be one who concurs with the minister in that sentiment. I do not want to see anything in the Assessment Act that is going to discourage the use of land in this province for farming. We have enough problems with farm land going out of production without doing anything in the property tax sector to speed that up.

On the other hand, at some point we have to start dealing with some of the specific realities that are out there to be dealt with. For example, in the case of the specific tank farms we are talking about in North York, the minister knows as well as I do that the oil companies in question bought that land for their use and, when the time suits them, that land will no longer be farmed. Nothing we can do here is going to alter that; that is a different case from land that is being legitimately farmed on a long-term basis. We have to start to deal with some of those problems.

10:10 p.m.

I understand the problems the minister and his staff have. The assessment division has been trying ever since I joined the assessment profession, which was prior to the takeover in 1970, to come up with a reasonable and workable definition of farming in this province. We have not got there yet, and there is going to be some problem getting there.

Surely the minister has a responsibility, and his responsibility is much greater than just saying to the member for Essex South, "Well, you can go to the municipality cap in hand and beg for some kind of deal to create equity." The minister took on the responsibility of creating that equity.

What the minister is telling the member for Essex South is not even totally correct. Even where we have gone to section 86, we are doing it municipality by municipality on a voluntary basis. In Hamilton-Wentworth now, three municipalities have gone the section 86 route, and there may be a couple more next year, I guess. I know they were going through discussions just a few weeks ago about whether to go, and to tell the truth I have not kept on top of the votes and the decisions those councils made. I know Glanbrook was one of the ones that was considering it.

But in each of the cases where we have gone to section 86, we still have not created the kind of equity between municipalities that the minister was talking about to the member for Essex South. Having those three municipalities on section 86 would have solved some of the problems if the golf courses the member was talking about had been in those municipalities, but the section 86 program was done differently in each of those municipalities. They used the local analysis within the municipality, and the factors that are used in those municipalities are different.

I cannot even quote them off the top of my head right now, but in Hamilton the residential assessments are at 10.8, in Flamborough they would probably be about seven and my guess is that in Stoney Creek they would be roughly halfway in between, around nine.

At any rate, whether or not those factors are correct or even near correct it makes the point to the minister that he has three municipalities that have gone the equalization route, but it still has not accomplished what he was implying to the member for Essex South, that if he got all three municipalities to go it would solve all his problems. Under his present system, each of those municipalities would be done somewhat differently and analysed within itself.

Yes, that would solve part of his problem, but the minister can solve the whole problem by taking hold of the responsibility that this government took on in 1970, implementing section 86 province-wide and using the same factors right across the province in each of the sectors -- in the residential sector, in the commercial sector, in the industrial sector, in the multi-residential sector and in the farm sector.

If he does that, all the situations such as the one referred to by the member for Essex South, where we have two municipalities within the same county and competing businesses within just a few miles of each other, will then all be assessed on the same basis at the same percentage of market value.

But even if the member for Essex South accomplished what the minister suggested he might try, which is to convince those three municipalities to go the section 86 route, that would not be accomplished. There are no solutions except the solutions he can provide across there in a uniform and universal way, which is what he proposed to do in the first place.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Chairman, again I want to touch briefly on a couple of points raised by the member for Hamilton Mountain: section 86 and the responsibility of this ministry and of this government. I do not think that responsibility is denied. I do not think anybody ever tried to suggest that was the overnight solution.

As we all know, we attempted to come up with some kind of overnight solutions to the whole property tax reform system. It failed for various reasons, some of which were our own and some of which, I think the member will agree, were a lack of consensus in many cases from various municipalities. In any event, it did not wash.

The section 86 solution was felt to be something we could handle. At least we were making progress and still looking at the overall issue of property tax reform in its broadest sense -- beyond just the issue of assessment per se.

I acknowledge that I do not disagree with the member that at some point either I or a successor of mine will have to make the ultimate decision to say that a big majority of municipalities in this province have opted to go section 86, it has been generally solving most of the problems that could be solved with section 86 and the rest are going to have to go. I think that is going to happen.

In this time of constraint and restraint, the problem is to suggest all of a sudden that within our own fiscal capabilities, let alone our manpower capabilities, we could convert to a complete section 86 all in one year. Whether it would have been last year or the year before or even this year, I suggest to the member we just could not physically do it, and that is one of the reasons we have been going along on the basis of request by local government.

It has been well received, as the honourable member knows. There have been 247 municipalities that went section 86 in the first three years and, while the final figures are being resolved, it will be within a couple of 100 this year. That will be 347 municipalities that have gone section 86, as well as another 138 proclaimed on one form of market value within the past number of years. For 1982 taxation, approximately 485 of the 837 municipalities out there will have gone on to one form of market value or another.

Over the next couple of years, if that kind of activity still carries on -- within a given county, within a given region and ultimately within Ontario -- I think section 86 will have to be implemented.

Where the issue is now, as I am sure the honourable member knows, is that we have been working with the various municipal associations, which are now under the aegis of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. We have been doing simulations of county-wide and/or region-wide section 86 implementation. I can see that happening. Personally, I hope it will happen next year for taxation in 1983, but time will tell.

Regardless of the ultimate responsibility, and I do not deny the ultimate responsibility of that kind of implementation, one of the problems we took on before was trying to reach some kind of unanimity, in some cases working with municipalities and in other cases working against municipalities.

But when there is support from the local elected officials, then the implementation of any kind of change has a better chance of success. At least then we have the local politicians for the most part -- and it is not always unanimous, as the member well knows, even within a municipal council -- defending that position. I think on that basis it has a better chance of being sold to the ratepayers and a better chance of success.

We both know there are some municipalities in this province which will never make that kind of a step. They will not make that kind of a commitment, and ultimately the decision will have to be made for them. When the appropriate time is there, I personally will not be reluctant to make that kind of a decision on their behalf, knowing it is fair and equitable.

10:20 p.m.

I want to touch briefly on the many other issues out there, and there is no denying that they are there. To touch upon the tank farm issue for a moment, one thing that is forgotten, if one looks at that one again as it has been raised by the member's colleague, is that not all the blame can be put at the feet of the oil companies in this instance.

The member shared his support for trying to keep as much land as possible in agricultural use, but if we look back at the origin of the tank farm issue and the tank farm acquisitions per se, we will find that the tanks themselves were developed in an area of North York when it was very agricultural and rural in nature. It was the planning process and the municipal council in its wisdom which allowed development to come up around it that has now made it appear that the tank farms are the ones out of place. I suppose they are, but it is not something they chose to happen. It happened around them.

If and when the time is right economically, if for no other reason, I am sure those oil companies will make the ultimate decision to say it might be more appropriate to move their tanks 10 or 15 miles farther north and turn those lands to other uses, whether commercial, industrial or even, in some cases, residential. That decision may very well be made.

I suggest to the honourable member that exactly the same decision will be made at the appropriate time even by legitimate farmers who own lands that will be developed at some time. When it is right economically and in terms of the climate and atmosphere around them, they will make the same kind of decision. So I do not think we can be critical of just the oil companies because they are oil companies. It is an economic reality that those decisions have to be made at a given point in time.

I am glad the member understands and appreciates the complexity of some of these issues, and the implications of trying to resolve those issues in isolation in the broad context of the implication of any change on other similar issues throughout the province. When we are considering those factors and issues, we try to think ahead; in some cases we may be solving what is perceived to be a problem on a restricted or isolated issue and at the same time causing more problems elsewhere. That is always part of the consideration. It is easy to look at something in isolation, but it is not quite that simple when we have to look at the whole province and the broad issues that relate to it.

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Mancini): I draw to the attention of the member for Hamilton Mountain that the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) has been here all evening --

Mr. Nixon: Waiting patiently.

The Acting Chairman: -- waiting patiently to get on the record. We are now almost to the end of the evening. I just bring that to your attention.

Mr. Charlton: I will be very brief, Mr. Chairman, but I want to respond to the comments the minister just made.

I am very unhappy to hear that the minister, and probably his predecessor as well, do not have as much faith in the staff in the assessment division as I do. I am just going from memory now, but it seems to me that it was in June 1978 that the minister's predecessor made the announcement about the section 86 program. If his announcement had been that section 86 was going to be implemented province-wide, nobody on this side of the House would have expected the ministry to be ready to do it by December 1978.

My sense, from what I know of the staff capabilities in the assessment division -- and this is something the minister should think about -- is that by December 1979 the division could have been ready to implement right across the province. If I am wrong, at the very worst -- as the Premier (Mr. Davis) would say, "the worst-case scenario" -- the ministry would have been ready by December 1980 to implement section 86 right across Ontario and we would have it in place today to deal with exactly the kinds of problems that are being raised here tonight. I just wanted to throw out that comment in terms of the capabilities.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Chairman, on a slightly different topic, but one that is on this vote, I just want to add some comments because I think many of us have faced the same circumstances in regard to the problem of the urea formaldehyde foam insulation which was brought to the attention of the minister earlier this evening by both the member for the Erie (Mr. Haggerty) and the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart).

There are those of us who have had complaints from constituents who are in unfortunate circumstances, because of the encouragement from the federal government to have their homes insulated with UFFI, and are now in a situation where they are finding no real solution to their problems.

As other members have indicated to the minister, and I recognize his problem in looking at it in the total perspective of the assessment circumstances, I hope he will look at it. I know he has given some undertaking at least to look at this in a future year in terms of changes, but I think we recognize the value of the home is significantly diminished when we find it has been insulated with urea formaldehyde foam insulation.

We have already had it pointed out this evening that if there is substantial damage to a home in terms of a fire or something of that nature where there is a disastrous effect on a home, there is provision made within the Assessment Act for a lower assessment. I think we recognize the value of that.

With the movement towards market value assessment that we have, and we certainly do not have full market value now, we recognize that it would be fair to have the assessment department look in general at those homes that have been affected by the installation of UFFI.

The minister has suggested appealing, and it is certainly one option that is open. Unfortunately, the ultimate costs of appealing could be rather heavy. We know the first step is not a costly process, but if one goes to the county court appeal and to the OMB after that -- I do not know whether you can go to the Supreme Court, but if you could, it would be a substantial cost. If the first avenue of appeal is unsuccessful, it then becomes costly even if merely in terms of the lost work time.

The cost of retrofitting is a tremendous cost. We have had many people who have been driven out of their homes. While we have appealed to the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell), the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Walker) and the federal government to provide assistance to these people, to this point we really do not have a satisfactory solution.

That is why we tend, maybe in desperation almost, to come to the Minister of Revenue and say, "Is there any possibility that on a general basis you can give at least some significant relief to those people in terms of assessment?" I have certainly been recommending to them what the minister has stated, that they should be appealing. I am hopeful that can be successful to a certain extent, but I think we are looking for something in a little more of a general sense.

The federal government has provided nothing that I think is useful, except for the testing program. They have certainly provided nothing in terms of compensation. I understand the Quebec government has provided certain assistance in terms of relocation and so on, but assessment appears to be the only avenue at this time for assisting those people. That is why we are urging that the minister take that kind of action if at all possible.

I am slightly encouraged by the minister's comments about next year, but what we are looking for is some kind of immediate assistance, even if it is through the Assessment Act, which is not perhaps the most preferable way, but it is one avenue of being able to assist those people.

As the seconds tick away, Mr. Chairman, I wish I had the opportunity that was presented last night to talk about the tax grants for seniors program which is jamming the telephones of our constituency offices. I have some suggestions that I will give to the minister in an open letter later this week, but I wish I had that opportunity last night.

The Acting Chairman: Before the committee rises and reports, I draw to the attention of members that there are more than three hours of estimates time left. I believe the debates will continue on Friday, unless it is the wish of the committee to carry vote 804.

Mr. Charlton: I have a number of other matters I want to raise under this vote.

The Acting Chairman: I just wanted to make sure members were aware of that.

On motion by Hon. Mr. Ashe, the committee of supply reported certain resolutions.

The House adjourned at 10:31 p.m.