Legislative Assembly of Ontario

L006 - Tue 11 Jun 1985 / Mar 11 jun 1985

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

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The House resumed at 8 p.m.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Resuming the debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

Hon. Mr. Gillies: I am pleased to join this debate on the throne speech. As is traditional in such speeches, I would like to congratulate all new members who were elected on May 2 on both sides of the House. I am sure they will find that while the adjustment to becoming members of the Legislature, becoming comfortable with the House, with committee and with all the other things we do can be difficult, there are more than enough people around here who are willing to be helpful and to lend a hand in a nonpartisan way to try to make everyone feel comfortable here and to do the job as effectively as possible.

I want to congratulate all new members and, of course, I want to make special mention of the nine new members who were elected to our caucus in what proved to be a very difficult election, retaining in some cases seats that had been held by my party before the election and winning new seats in other cases.

We are very pleased at the infusion of new blood, enthusiasm and ideas that comes with these members. I am sure the veteran members of the two other caucuses would agree that a bit of a renewal goes on in this place every four or five years when we go through an election. New people come in who perhaps bring with them a breath of fresh air, people who have in one way or another been closely involved in their communities and in any number of endeavours and who can bring with them a freshness that, in turn, refreshes the rest of us who have been here for a while. Lord knows, at times, in the cut and thrust of debate, that can be sorely needed.

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to congratulate you on your election as the presiding officer of this House. I know from your past experience and from the way you have conducted yourself in all your duties in the four and a half years I have been here that the House will indeed be well served.

I wish I could tell you that on each and every occasion each and every member of this House will serve you well. I guess we can strive towards that, but, as you know from observing the chamber for many years, there will be times when I am sure you will pull your hair out and wonder what the heck you are doing on the throne. Nonetheless, sir, our best wishes and our congratulations go with you.

By the same token, I would like to join with some other members who spoke last week, as a matter of fact, about our former Speaker, the member for Peterborough (Mr. Turner). I guess what I just said really is an experience that the member went through for a number of years. It is not always easy to steer this House and to get us all moving in the direction in which we should be going but perhaps do not feel we should be going.

The point is that I believe he served the Legislature and the people of this province extremely well and, as he returns to his duties as a regular member of caucus, I know that the thoughts, the respect and the gratitude of all of us are with him, for the service he gave this House is immense.

I would also like to thank the electors, the people of Brantford, who saw fit to send me back for a second term here. I am obviously delighted that I will have the opportunity to serve my constituency again.

The last four years were not particularly easy ones in my constituency, in particular when the recession hit in the latter part of 1981 and through 1982. I suspect there are few communities that were as hard hit in the initial stages of that recession as was my riding of Brantford.

Brantford is an older industrial town in the context of the province. We continue to be dependent in large part on the farm equipment manufacturing industry, which you, Mr. Speaker, will know has been through some very difficult times with respect to market and the challenges and problems that have faced our farmers in the last number of years. Two major companies in my riding manufacture harvesters and combines, which in this day and age cost in the neighbourhood of $120,000 to $150,000, and one can well imagine there are few farmers in North America who are in a position readily to lay out that kind of cash for a new piece of equipment. I believe the rule on the farms has been to repair and to maintain and to try to keep the old equipment running. That has had a very serious effect on my riding.

We are fortunate, however, that the recession ended and my community and others across the province started to bounce back. Many industries in my riding are now booming -- the smaller companies, many of which are related to auto parts manufacturing and others in the textile industry. I could go on and on. It is very gratifying to have the smaller companies in my constituency now working two and three shifts. For all the problems we continue to have with Massey Ferguson Industries Ltd. and White Farm Manufacturing Canada Ltd., we in Brantford now have a very strong and recovering economy.

When I think back to the first term I served in this House I think of a couple of achievements that I had the opportunity to be a part of. One is the redevelopment of our downtown core. A phenomenon quite common to the smaller cities across Ontario was the deterioration of our urban centres as the shopping centres proliferated and as people's tastes changed and they wanted the convenience of shopping in enclosed malls. In the city of Brantford, this put a tremendous strain on our downtown area.

Stores were closing. People saw little reason to go into the heart of the city any more. It was much easier to go out to the suburban malls, and this had been going on for about 25 years. But with the co-operation of the former Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing in particular, the member for Ottawa South (Mr. Bennett), and the former Treasurer, currently the government House leader and Minister of Education (Mr. Grossman), we were able with a developer and other interests to put together a project about which, frankly, I am very excited. The construction on a project that will see the core of my city revitalized is now under way with the creation of some 600 nonindustrial jobs for people who can take positions in the hospitality and the retail industries and so on. We in Brant county are all very excited about that development.

We have been through a very difficult election. It is a tribute to every member of my party who has retaken a seat or has taken a new seat on the government benches, that he or she was able to do so in the face of a very difficult tide. I came here in 1981 with 22 new members. We now have nine new members coming in at a time when we lost a number of seats.

Mr. Haggerty: I see you are not an overnight guest.

Mr. Gillies: Sure. It is a truism in politics that the tide goes out and the tide comes in. Clearly we are going to be working as a team to inject the ideas, the energy and the direction that I believe the Progressive Conservative Party can muster in short order. Mr. Speaker, I want to suggest to you that in the coming months, the tide is going to come back in for the Progressive Conservative Party in a big way and we will be working unceasingly in that direction.

8:10 p.m.

We have here a team dedicated to the prospect that the Progressive Conservative Party is an instrument of great good in this province, and has been for many years, and we will be working to ensure that the good this party has brought Ontario can continue in the future. That is something to which we all dedicate ourselves.

The throne speech His Honour brought into the House last Tuesday encompasses a package of reforms and proposals, the continuation of existing policies and the development of new ones that can be of great benefit to Ontario.

Mr. Wildman: Are you kidding?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: You just woke everybody up.

Hon. Mr. Gillies: This amuses a couple of my friends in the third party.

I want to focus particularly on job creation, especially on the youth employment and training initiatives that will flow from this speech from the throne. My first involvement in the area of youth employment was in my first posting as parliamentary assistant to the Provincial Secretary for Social Development.

Mr. Wildman: Ken Dryden may be a good goaltender, but you are not a good stickhandler.

Hon. Mr. Gillies: Ken Dryden is doing an excellent job on behalf of this province and I am sure that in the months to come he will continue to do a very good job for Ontario.

I remember in 1981 when we first moved towards pulling together the various youth employment and training initiatives of this government, the budget for that envelope was about $55 million. With the initiatives announced in the throne speech last week, we will see growth in this area to well over $200 million. Our commitment to youth employment has quadrupled in four years. That is a recognition on the part of our government of what has become one of the prime policy concerns and has to be one of the prime policy initiatives of any government in the industrial west in this day and age.

When the recession hit, the burden of unemployment, the burden of layoffs and job loss was felt disproportionately by our young people. Even as the unemployment rate for our population generally rose to unprecedented heights, it was disproportionately felt by the young. As we recover and enter an era of job creation and rebuilding, in many respects the young will be among the last to benefit from that recovery.

When companies that have laid off veteran workers are in a position economically to rehire -- and I need look no further than my own riding -- they naturally and properly rehire from their seniority list. Among the last to benefit from a recovery of a particular industry are the young people who need to be brought in in the first instance and who are in many cases looking for a first opportunity to participate in the job market.

Through our various programs, both summer programs and those that operate year-round aimed at nonstudents, we are now offering an unprecedented number of jobs and training and counselling opportunities. We are spending more dollars and creating more opportunities than at any time in our history.

The establishment of the Ministry of Skills Development is a very important step in the co-ordination and rationalization of this area. In my statement earlier today, I spoke at some length on this. I would like to --

Mr. Kerrio: Is this the same speech as this afternoon?

Hon. Mr. Gillies: Does the member want to hear it again? I have it here. This is an important step in pulling it together.

I would like to talk briefly about some of the history of this part of the government's policy development and what brought us to the establishment of the new ministry. We had any number of youth employment and training initiatives and the members will be familiar with many of them.

There were training and retraining programs and apprenticeship programs offered through the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. There were youth employment initiatives run through the Provincial Secretariat for Social Development under the youth secretariat. We had other youth employment programs under Ontario Youth Opportunities that were administered by the Treasurer and the youth commission. We had the body of government responsible for labour market forecasting that had overriding responsibility for all job programs of the government, the Ontario Manpower Commission, reporting through the Ministry of Labour.

In short, there were 12 different ministries and agencies of government involved in one way or another in youth employment and training. I believe the will to do good in this area existed. I believe the commitment in dollars, jobs and training opportunities was there, but what was missing was the ability to pull together, rationalize and co-ordinate these programs so we could target a number of groups and a number of initiatives that I believe needed targeting.

There were members -- and I readily admit there were members on both sides of the House -- who said for a number of years that an initiative of this sort should be taken. I remember first taking it to a policy conference called by former Premier Davis in the winter of 1982-83, suggesting to him that what we really needed was a ministry of youth or skills development or some single body that could eliminate all of the red tape and the spaghetti-like congestion of programs, initiatives, funds and so on.

Mr. McClellan: Where did all that spaghetti come from?

Hon. Mr. Gillies: It just developed. From my experience some three years ago at the youth secretariat, I can tell members the process we had to go through in developing a new program and getting all the necessary approvals for a new program was truly staggering.

We also knew the pattern of unemployment among young people was shifting and that new initiatives were going to be needed.

The traditional area of involvement for government in youth employment has been in the summer student programs. We are certainly maintaining and even increasing our involvement in that area. But what became very apparent during the recession was that the highest rate of unemployment among young people was no longer during the summer months and it was no longer among the students and the graduates. The group on whom we had to focus our attention and what resources we could muster was the young people who had left the school system with lower levels of training, lower levels of skills and lower levels of education.

The unemployment rate among graduates from our community colleges and universities is roughly in line with the unemployment rate for the population overall. But I think it should be of some alarm to every member of this House that the unemployment rate among young people who leave school in grade 9 or grade 10 skirts 30 per cent. It became very apparent, and it was recognized in our budget in 1984, that we had to start focusing our resources and our thoughts on that group, the group that was bearing the brunt of this unemployment.

We saw the former Treasurer bring in the package of year-round programs we are now offering and that are making very significant progress in this area.

I was pleased, as I am sure all members were, to see the other day that the unemployment figures for the month of May over the month of April show a reduction in youth unemployment of 2.1 per cent. In fact, in May 1985, the unemployment rate among young people under the age of 24 was 12.9 per cent. That is down from May 1984, when that same group had an unemployment rate of 16.5 per cent.

I am not satisfied. I do not think any of us should be satisfied or complacent with double-digit unemployment among our young people, but it is most encouraging to see the trend is downwards and that new opportunities and initiatives are being taken up by our young people.

The announcement in the throne speech of a further $100-million commitment is a considerable commitment, a real one and one that should be taken up very quickly.

Mr. Kerrio: Very quickly.

Hon. Mr. Gillies: Before Tuesday, for instance. The youth employment envelope alone -- and I am not talking now about the skills initiatives or the training initiatives that we have, but just the job creation programs for young people -- is now taking about $175 million of our budget. I have not finalized the breakdown of the $100 million announced in the throne speech as between training and apprenticeship initiatives and job creation, but we will be breaking it down fairly, so our commitment to our youth can be considerably increased.

8:20 p.m.

I want to talk for a moment or two about training programs because I believe in the last year we have entered an era of greater co-operation and greater harmonization of our programming at the provincial level with those initiatives offered by the government of Canada.

After my appointment in February as Minister without Portfolio for Youth, one of the first things I did was to call the federal Minister of Employment and Immigration, the Honourable Flora MacDonald, and suggest to her that the time had come when we could finally start co-ordinating and harmonizing our programs for summer employment and year-round employment. The time was also right for us to start looking at the percentage of the training initiatives across Canada that were being run in Ontario and at how we might cut down on some of the duplication and overlap in that area.

I would say that the co-operation thus far has been excellent. In fact, I was in Ottawa last night to meet the federal minister. We are planning several initiatives jointly and co-operatively that will benefit thousands of young people in this province this summer. There is a recognition on the part of the federal government in its labour market strategy that we have to start pulling together in a meaningful way the training and apprenticeship opportunities for our young people right across Canada.

Mr. Wildman: Remember, you said the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) was shopping in Buffalo. He is not. He is here.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Gillies: I was just hoping he might be able to keep the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) quiet, but that might be asking a bit much.

When I talk about co-operation between governments, I do not believe we will necessarily and readily agree on every issue. There have been negotiations throughout the spring of this year in which my predecessors involved in this area and I have spoken out very strongly. I can tell members that the former Minister of Labour, Mr. Ramsay, was heavily involved in this, and my predecessor as Minister of Skills Development, the member for Parry Sound (Mr. Eves), was too.

We are stating the position in Ottawa that the percentage of federal government funds that is allocated to Ontario for training initiatives should be allocated on the basis of our percentage of the population and our percentage of Canada's unemployment. This has not always been the case in the past. I would suggest to honourable members that Ontario has been historically shortchanged in this area by the federal Liberal government, which this country had the good sense to turf out last September.

I believe there is a recognition on the part of the new minister. There is certainly a recognition on the part of the federal minister, Ms. MacDonald, and myself that Ontario has to be treated fairly in the allocation of these funds. Our meeting last night was very fruitful in this area.

I would suggest to the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley), who always agrees with me on everything -- except perhaps on certain nocturnal opportunities at the rowing club in St. Catharines, but we will not get into that -- that we are now engaged in a meaningful dialogue with the federal government.

I have talked to my officials and to other people who have worked in this area, and they have told me the way it used to be. The former federal government's idea of co-operation and harmonization was to consult the provincial governments when it wanted something and to drop what it wanted on the provincial governments when it was not interested in hearing the provincial input.

That has changed in a meaningful and significant way. When the new labour market strategy programs being offered by the government of Canada are unveiled in this province, members will find that our province is a full and willing partner and participant in those programs and that there will be a greater degree of co-operation in and co-ordination of our operations than ever before.

This, I believe, is very important. Surveys have been taken which show that, while the dollars are there at both levels of government and while the programs and opportunities are there, there is confusion among the general public, among the people who use our services and among employers about the proliferation of federal and provincial youth employment and training programs.

To better serve the people of Ontario, I believe we have to bring this together into several broad streams of programs and get away from the multiplicity of individual programs with their varying sets of criteria, their varying sets of eligibility, the differing subsidies and wage levels that are available and so on.

We have started that work in the Ministry of Skills Development. I have directed my officials to start a program of rationalization that I believe will leave the whole area much more understandable and much more accessible to everyone concerned.

Mr. Bradley: The road to Damascus is getting crowded. It is an expressway now.

Hon. Mr. Gillies: As I hear the voices raised in agreement by the honourable members opposite, especially the member for St. Catharines, who, as I said earlier, always agrees with me on everything, I believe it very important that this work continue. I am a realist. We in this House are all aware of the political situation and of some of the possible changes that will occur in the coming weeks, but regardless of whatever party --

Mr. McClellan: What does the minister mean by weeks? Days!

Hon. Mr. Gillies: I am being an optimist. Let the honourable member give me that luxury, please.

I believe it very important, whatever party should form the government of this province, that this work continue. The establishment of one ministry and one co-ordinated approach in this area is vital to the service we are providing. We have pulled together -- the agencies and the people with the expertise -- to provide direction and to provide opportunities for our young people.

We have a network of youth employment counselling centres now operating across this province providing counselling and job opportunities to young people throughout Ontario. We have 45 centres in small and large urban settings and we are now starting to open small, one- and two-person counselling operations in smaller rural communities. The success rate in these youth employment centres is tremendous.

As a government, we made the decision that we should not drop them sort of artificially from Queen's Park, fund them 100 per cent, fill them with bureaucrats and hope they would somehow take root in the community. We have worked in co-operation with local agencies, and our youth employment centres have the support and involvement of social agencies, labour unions, chambers of commerce, community colleges and boards of education right across the province.

As I look across the floor, I see so many members who have these centres operating in their communities. I was recently in London where the centre operating on Dundas Street has a tremendous success rate in placing disadvantaged young people.

I see the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio) is here. That was one of the first centres we opened in the province. Again, the job is being done at a storefront, street level, because in many cases we are dealing with young people who have been turned off by large institutions and have no interest in dealing with large institutions. They want to be able to go into a centre where they are going to get the straight goods. They say: "All right, you have these programs and you have these jobs. I am looking for something. What is in it for me?"

There are many community agencies. The member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) is here. I know that not so very long ago he and I attended the annual meeting of the John Howard Society in Oshawa. That is one of the social agencies that has shown true leadership in this area.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Gillies: Well, of course. I am always fair in this regard. I dare say every minister of this government is fair in this regard. It is a tradition of fairness that we will continue.

The work of these centres and these programs is absolutely vital. The problem we face is that many of the young people whom we are trying to reach have left the education and training system early. The longer a period of unemployment goes for young persons, the more problems they develop. They get frustrated. They start to wonder --

Mr. Haggerty: It has taken you 42 years to come to that conclusion, has it?

8:30 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Gillies: The member for Erie is suggesting that we are born again in this regard. As I said earlier, our commitment in this area has quadrupled in four years. That is not an accident, I would suggest to my honourable friend. That is a clear policy direction and a long-standing policy direction of this government that we are going to increase the opportunities available to our young people.

The longer a period of unemployment goes for young persons, the more problems they can develop. We have social and legal agencies involved because they can lose touch with the requirements of getting into the job market. Some of our youth employment centres are having individual, group and peer counselling sessions to teach them the very basics, things so many of us would take for granted -- how to fill out an application form; how to present oneself properly for a job interview; how to go out and find a job; how to find leads; and how to chase down a lead. All these things are being taught in our centres and the success rate is tremendous.

In most of our youth employment centres the success rate of placements is over 70 per cent. We consider a successful placement to be a young person finding a job, or being placed into a job program under one of the governmental programs or choosing to return to the education or training system. Any one of those options is a success as far as we are concerned because we know that every year young people invest in training or education is going to give them that much more opportunity and that much better chance to break into the job market.

There are many initiatives addressing every area of governmental involvement in the throne speech unveiled by His Honour last week, but I believe that one of the most significant and greatest commitments is the increased funding and opportunity we will be bringing to our youth employment and training programs.

I have seen surveys and public opinion samples that would suggest the people of this province place no other area of government involvement higher on the agenda than providing opportunities, jobs and training for our young people. That is why we have recognized this in the speech from the throne. I hope those and the other initiatives unveiled in that speech will have the support of all members.

In wrapping up, I want to say the new ministry --

Mr. Bradley: The red tie will not get the honourable member a cabinet post.

Hon. Mr. Gillies: I am chaining myself to this desk; I am not leaving.

The new Ministry of Skills Development, whose budget and programming will be enhanced by this speech from the throne, provides a new opportunity for us to co-ordinate and increase our commitment to our young people. I would urge all members to support these initiatives so the new ministry can take on what I believe is one of the prime opportunities we have as a Legislature and as a government to prove our commitment to the next generation.

Mr. Sargent: I welcome this opportunity to speak in the throne debate and to see so many old faces here on this side and a few over there.

Mr. Speaker, you have been a former office-mate of mine. You have climbed the heights and are now wearing the tricorn hat. Your service to the people of Perth and to this Legislature has been great and we are very proud of you.

I would like to pay tribute to past Speakers who have been very kind to me, Fred Cass, Jack Stokes, Russell Rowe and the member for Peterborough. Speaking of the member for Peterborough, he once noticed that one member in the front row on the opposite side of the House stood with his left hand in his pocket and there was a document in his right hand. He said, "Mr. Speaker, I have the most important thing in my hand tonight." Mr. Speaker said, "Which hand?" We have a lot of characters in this House.

An hon. member: The member for Grey-Bruce is the greatest.

Mr. Sargent: Anyway, tonight in the Toronto Sun there is a headline which says, "Ontario Credit Rating Is In Danger."

I think of the story of the bear who went into a bar and ordered a beer. The bartender served him his beer and the bear gave him a $5 bill. The bartender went back to the boss and said: "Boss, you should see what I have got. I have a bear who gave me $5 for a beer. What shall I do?" The boss said: "Give him back a nickel. He will not know the difference."

The bartender went back and gave the bear a nickel. Then he said to the bear, "It is not very damned often we get a bear in here for a beer." The bear said, "No damned wonder at $4.95 a bottle."

It is no damned wonder that Ontario is in trouble with the goings on of Ontario Hydro. The situation in Ontario is totally out of control. Although we have a 40 per cent surplus of nuclear power, we are now committed to another Darlington plant to cost us possibly $20 billion.

It is unbelievable that Hydro is running totally out of control. It has to be brought under control. Those members who were on the standing committee on public accounts and those of us in the opposition know we have the answer for that. Our leader is committed to bring it under control.

Just to go back a bit, how did all those things happen? We had a fellow in here at one time named Bob Macaulay. He was a very brilliant lawyer who was a Tory cabinet minister. He decided he would go the nuclear route. He was a brilliant man; I have no hesitation in commending him for his foresight. But as it went down the line, the whole thing became progressively out of control. When he left the job, he became counsel for Hydro. One year he billed us $157,000 as his fee for Hydro. His brother ran the show for a while, but today Bob Macaulay is chairman of the Ontario Energy Board.

Going along the line, the fact is that these things happen. Bob Macaulay is now in a position where he cannot do anything because Hydro is responsible to no one. That is the scary thing about the whole situation.

8:40 p.m.

We are operating a uranium supply out of Elliot Lake, as everyone knows. We have always had that power. I think one of the best critics we have had of nuclear power shenanigans is the new member for Ottawa Centre (Ms. Gigantes). She was a tower of strength on the select committee on Ontario Hydro affairs. The member for Niagara Falls and the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) and those members who have sat on the standing committee on public accounts know what has been going on, but we have not had any power.

If I can digress for a while, in 1921 a special committee of the Legislature came to an even stronger conclusion, one that bears a striking similarity to many of the more recent complaints about Hydro's position of privilege. It said:

"It is beneath the dignity of the Legislature to occupy a position where it is inferior to a commission which the Legislature itself has created. The act regulating the powers of the commission should be amended to restore to the Legislature the right to approve or reject any recommendations which the commission may make, for without that right responsible government will cease to exist."

What has happened? They suddenly went the nuclear route. We knew there were great deposits of uranium at Elliot Lake. The province owned the land; so Stephen Roman made a deal with the powers that be to supply uranium. He had no money; so those fellows over there lent him $650 million to build a plant on our land, interest-free for 40 years. The interest on that loan is $1 billion over 40 years. He took that $650 million and built the plant. He gave us a deadline to sign an agreement, and the Premier forced it through the Legislature on a given date.

That was a shocking document. In all my years in public life I have never seen anything so shocking as what happened. Roman is paying $7,000 a year in rental to the province for our land to take out the uranium. Then we guaranteed him, no matter what happened, a profit of $2.5 billion or a minimum profit of $5 a pound on the uranium we use. Today we are stockpiling $100 million worth of uranium we will never use. One of the stages of the contract is up in 1984-85. There is a man who has a contract to guarantee him a $2.5-billion profit, no matter what happens, on a piece of land for which he is paying $7,000 in rent.

Is there any doubt in the world why Ontario's credit rating is in danger? There is the 40 per cent nuclear power surplus we have. There is Darlington. Now we owe about $25 billion. It says in this agreement that the province has the power to raise provincial mining taxes to a level that would wipe out any windfall profits. If $2.5 billion is not a windfall profit, then I do not know what is.

The price at the minehead for uranium is $1 a pound. The world price is $39 a pound. Hydro has been paying $50 and $55 a pound all this time for second-grade uranium. Alberta had much superior stuff for $39. In the meantime, we are stockpiling $100 million worth of uranium that we will never use.

I asked a question of the then Premier. In view of all this, the federal government, Denison Mines and the provincial government acted in concert to set up a cartel to purchase uranium for Ontario Hydro. I went on to list the ways out of it: that it was our land, the windfall profits tax, the right to refuse grants, export permits for unrefined uranium, all the safeguards we had. Then I asked him why we would not go the route that Westinghouse went in the United States, where they had the same commitment for uranium. Westinghouse went to the courts, won hands down and got out of the deal.

I repeatedly asked the former Premier why he did not try negotiation. He said not to disturb things. I probably asked 40 or 50 questions in the past three or four years, as has the member for Niagara Falls, but I never got an answer. He was a good stickhandler. I like Bill Davis as a man, but he is a good stickhandler.

Mr. McLean: You are a good skater. I remember playing hockey with you.

Mr. Sargent: My skates are getting kind of dull. Darcy McKeough, a former Treasurer, said Ontario Hydro's needs are bankrupting the province. The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk made a stronger statement than that. The debt Hydro owes other countries is more than $9 billion -- it is double that of the federal government's foreign loans -- with the result that Hydro has to pay its foreign financiers $1 billion a year in interest.

Hydro has spent more than $20 billion since 1973 and it is spending about $2 billion a year to build unnecessary plants. Today I talked about tritium. We are building a plant in the new Darlington deal and a portion is to process tritium for the US market. We are going to spent $300 million of taxpayers' money to sell this highly explosive tritium to the United States because President Reagan is in trouble with his budget. It would cost $4 billion to build a plant comparable to this, which is costing us $300 million, and we are building this plant to send them about four kilograms a year at $15 million a kilogram.

We are faced with the danger of a nuclear war. Many teenagers around the world, in the United States and Canada, feel they will not live out their lives. President Reagan is running around with a big stick, talking about Star Wars and fighting the next nuclear war in the stratosphere. It would be total suicide for the kids of today.

I say it is wrong that Hydro, not responsible to anyone, can make a decision to spend $300 million of our money to send explosives like tritium, which makes warheads 1,000 times more explosive because of its chemical makeup, to the United States to save them $4 billion.

I am not on target, but I want to get across the fact that we are in deep trouble because Hydro is not responsible to any of us here or to the people of Ontario. I could go on, but I am concerned about the fact that our kids may not live out their lives.

We have spent fuel rods. We do not know what to do with our garbage. In the United States there are 71 nuclear plants under construction, and the US government has more money invested in those plants than was spent in the Second World War. They are in total limbo. The government will not let them finish these plants until they can find out what they are going to do with their garbage. God bless them for that; that is intelligent.

8:50 p.m.

We are taking our garbage, our spent fuel rods, and putting it in swimming pools. It has to last for 2,000 years in swimming pools. We have all this going on and nobody does a damned thing about it. I am concerned.

Hon. Mr. Brandt: Are you opposed to nuclear energy? Is that what you are saying?

Mr. Sargent: That is a tough question to answer.

Hon. Mr. Brandt: I thought I just heard you say you were opposed to nuclear energy.

Mr. Sargent: No; within limits. We have to have some control. Does the minister not agree with that?

Mr. Van Horne: He is expressing an honest concern.

Hon. Mr. Brandt: I appreciate that it is an honest concern, but if he is opposed to nuclear energy he should put it on the record.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt) and the member for London North (Mr. Van Horne) will please refrain.

Mr. Sargent: I know the minister is sincere. It is a hell of a good question and I did not answer it properly. I am in favour of nuclear power within limits, but what is going on is preposterous.

There is this cancerous garbage all through my riding and they are going to close down a lot of that plant now. It is going to have a catastrophic effect on our riding. Thousands of jobs will be lost. The whole economy is going to go down the drain but there is no vision on the part of Ontario Hydro.

Hydro is going to close down a plant in Pickering and one in Bruce. It is going to mothball them. To mothball one of those plants for ever costs $1 billion. At Three Mile Island they are talking about reopening the plant again, but they will not be allowed do it. At Pickering they are going to mothball a plant. It will cost them $1 billion to mothball it or leave it there as a cancerous thing for eternity.

The spent fuel rods must be kept at a constant temperature. If they do not keep the temperature constant, there is what is called "a significant event." Many of the veterans here will know the problems they had with significant events. Ontario Hydro has had significant events at Bruce when the cooling system failed and the water became highly radioactive.

I could go on and illustrate this. My colleagues who have been citing these problems could do the same thing. I think Hydro should be brought under the control of the people of Ontario.

In closing, I note that the experts tell us human beings have been around for 800 lifespans. In the first 650 lifespans we lived in caves. There have been some recorded communications only in the past 70 lifespans. We have had the printed page for only the past six. Only in the past two lifespans have we had the electric motor, electric light, the automobile and the radio. During the past lifespan -- that is, in our lifetime -- we have developed television, penicillin, jet planes, satellites, radar, heart pacers and artificial hearts, nuclear power and the computer. That is a short list.

We have come this far yet we have not learned the right way to live together. McLuhan's global village is a reality, at least in the technical sense. We have come as far as we can go. But we cannot get together to live as safe human beings.

I have run over my time. I want to thank members for the chance to speak on this. I welcome the chance, as our leader has promised, to put this under legislative control. It will be a good day for Ontario.

Ms. Gigantes: It is a pleasure to be able to join this debate as the elected representative of the people of the provincial riding of Ottawa Centre. My friend the member for Grey-Bruce (Mr. Sargent) made kind references to the "new" member. I do not consider myself a new member; I am a recycled member. I wish well to the new representative of the riding I formerly represented, Carleton East, which is another fine Ottawa area riding.

The people of Ottawa Centre in their provincial perspective have not had a representative in this House since last July, almost a year ago, when my illustrious friend and the former member for Ottawa Centre provincial, Michael Cassidy, decided to offer his services to the people of Ottawa Centre as their federal member. In a surprise decision in the last federal election in September, they took up his offer. It is a great honour to be here now standing in his place and to pay my respects to the work he did on behalf of the people we both have the pleasure to represent.

Mr. Speaker, if you had Michael Cassidy as a provincial representative for 13 years you have grown used to very active representation. The people of Ottawa Centre have sorely missed representation for almost a year. They have had to go to the polls twice in the past six months to try to get somebody to speak for them here. The list of messages they have built up for their representative to deliver is a very long one. Their attitude has grown a bit impatient and their very clear desire is for action.

As their messenger for this session, I will try like a good messenger to relay their feelings in a clear and direct way. I will try to present their case in a way that will convince 100 other members -- I know I do not have to convince my own colleagues -- and I will try to get the governing party in this province to take action.

I would like to give a brief review of the list of messages. I am going to start with the subject of housing because in Ottawa Centre there is nothing less than a crisis in the housing area, particularly in the area of low- and moderate-rent housing.

We have been losing low- and moderate-rent units in the riding of Ottawa Centre at a rate of hundreds a year and that erosion goes on. They are being eroded by demolitions where they are being replaced by high-rent units or by expensive condominium units. They are being eroded by conversions. Owners of small apartment buildings are still permitted to be convert them to condominiums, and large apartment buildings are being converted to apartment hotels because there are not adequate regulations.

Severances of hundreds of row housing rental units are going on. We do not have an adequate relationship between the committee of adjustment that operates at the municipal level and the official planning powers of the municipality. We are losing hundreds of units a year through renovation of apartment buildings, renovations that are going on outside the existing rent review controls. We need changes in our rent review legislation, we need changes in our landlord-tenant legislation and we need changes in the Planning Act to address these problems.

9 p.m.

I will go into the problem in some detail when it comes to renovations. That is the strongest force operating in Ottawa right now to deprive those in modest rental households of their homes. Landlords are delivering notices to the tenant households saying they require vacant possession for the purpose of major renovations. Under the existing legislation, the landlord can do that only if the renovations are going to be so major that he will require a building permit, which must be accompanied by a plan of the renovations; and these renovations, under the law, should be so major as to create a new unit.

In fact, that is not what is happening. What is happening is that landlords are evicting tenants outside the measure of the law. They are then sanding the floors, patching and painting the walls, putting up a chandelier, fixing the cupboards and jacking up the rents. The provisions that have been proposed in the Thom commission to deal with this problem are not adequate, and I am very hopeful the new government will address this problem in some way that will protect the existing tenant.

The Thom commission has suggested that the new tenant should be paying a rent that is equivalent to the old rent plus the cost of the capital invested in renovations. The problem with this is that the former tenant, whom I like to call the existing tenant, is already gone. He does not have the benefit of his previous home; he does not have a choice about whether he is going to be able to move back into a slightly renovated place. He has had to find a new place because the eviction was illegal. We need to have powers in our rent review legislation that will address this problem and protect the existing tenant.

In Ottawa Centre, we have been losing hundreds of moderately priced rental units per year and at the same time we simply have not been building up a new stock of moderate rentals. It is quite clear that private builders are not prepared to meet the housing needs of low- and moderate-income households, and the excuse we have heard has been that rent review legislation has created the problem we face.

I, among many members of this Legislature, remember very well that back in the mid-1970s rent review was created because the problem was well in place in the early 1970s. The rent review legislation we have, while it is not adequate, has certainly protected the level of rents for hundreds and thousands of households across this province, particularly in the downtown cores of our cities. It has offered some assistance.

The reason it was brought in in the first place was that we already faced a crisis in low- and moderate-rental housing in this province. Let me assure members that the government we had after the election in 1975 would not have brought in rent review legislation had it not felt the force of the electorate's voice in the number of opposition members who were elected to this Legislature and who spoke of the need for action on rent review.

Government inaction has been the major cause of the current level of the housing crisis; it has been the major contributor. We simply have not addressed the problem of how to get new rental housing of a moderate price on the market. In Ottawa, programs such as the Ontario rental construction loan program have not met the need. They have been nothing short of a fiasco. In Ottawa, that program delivered $7 million in interest-free loans to private developers who were supposed to develop up to 20 per cent of the units they were building as rent-geared-to-income units. In fact, for $7 million in interest-free loans we got 216 rent-geared-to-income units, and we do not know how long we will have them.

It has been a constant theme of the Conservatives as a government and as candidates in the election that we should get the private market forces, the private developers, back into housing. They are in housing. They are making a mint and they are not providing the kind of housing we need. It is time we started having some government programs that are actually going to work to get people back into housing.

We have not built a stick of public housing in this province since 1978 -- and I direct that particularly in care of our previous housing minister, the member for Ottawa South, from our area of Ottawa, where he should have been particularly sensitive to the needs that have built up in that community, among others.

We have not had adequate funding for those local groups that are co-op and nonprofit, either private or municipal nonprofit. We have not had funding of the kind that has gone to the private development industry. We have not had that kind of startup funding for those groups and they have proven in Ottawa Centre and in other communities across this province they have a real commitment to providing the kind of housing that people who live in those urban centres need.

A study was undertaken by city council in Ottawa about a year ago. It was done by a private consulting group, Peter Barnard and Associates, and one of the interesting items when I went through it was to look at what happened with the production of rent-geared-to-income housing units in the city of Ottawa over a time frame. There was a nice graph that gave an indication of the curve of production and the addition to the stock of rent-geared-to-income units starting in the mid 1960s and running through until 1983.

If one drew a line through the graph in 1978, when the member for Ottawa South became housing minister in this province the curve became almost flat. Suddenly, a curve that had been adjusting to community needs, had been building up the stock of rent-geared-to-income housing, became almost flat. It has stayed almost flat between 1978 and 1983.

I call it the Claude Bennett curve and it describes very nicely an extremely painful situation for the people in the community of Ottawa Centre. We need rental housing that people can afford.

Some people profess to be amazed at the demand for assisted housing. I think it is important to remember that our population has undergone some pretty dramatic changes over the last 10 to 15 years. Since 1971, for example, the population of the city of Ottawa has remained almost steady, but the number of households has increased dramatically. That is because the demographic nature of our population is changing, not only in Ottawa Centre but one also sees it quite dramatically in the downtown cores of Ontario cities. There are more single people, there are families that have fewer children and there are more single-parent families. Those are the facts of Ontario life in the 1980s.

9:10 p.m.

Our housing policy simply has not adapted. It does not address those facts. We have had no new public housing; no housing program, for example, for the 10,000 non-elderly single people in the Ottawa-Carleton region who have limited incomes. Single-parent families are struggling in the private market, unable to get assisted housing; and the psychiatrically disabled until today -- and I hope it changes as of the moment of our current minister's announcement -- but over the last year they have been arbitrarily declared ineligible for assisted housing by the former Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

I do not know how much that shortened the waiting list for assisted housing in Ontario communities, but in a community like Ottawa, which probably has between 1,000 and 2,000 psychiatrically disabled single people looking for housing at any one time, it meant there were that many people who were no longer on any waiting list for assisted housing and there was absolutely no program to address their needs. That is awful; it has been intolerable and, in my view, it alone is a good enough reason to change the government of Ontario.

I will take a few more moments to address briefly some issues that are related to some of the portfolio responsibilities I have been asked to take on as an opposition member of this Legislature, mainly in the area of the Ministry of the Attorney General and issues that relate to women. I confess to feeling more experienced on the second than on the first, but it may be, as I suspect from the evidence, that it is easier to become an expert at law than it is to effect the changes that women need.

I would like to take this opportunity, too, to mention the person who last played the role of member responsible for the portfolio of the Attorney General in my caucus, and that was the member for Riverdale, Jim Renwick. He was to this caucus a rock, a foundation, and he is deeply missed. I did not weep when I heard he had died, because I knew he had lived almost to the end doing exactly what he wanted to do, which was to represent the people of Riverdale to the best of his ability in this Legislature, and he did it in incredible fashion.

I did read the speeches of tribute that were made in this House after his death and I found myself moved to tears reading them. I would like to thank members on all sides of the House for the expressions of admiration and respect they gave at that time.

I find now, as I try to familiarize myself with an area in which I am not expert and as I read the estimates of the Ministry of the Attorney General in previous years and the words of the then member for Riverdale, that I can hear his voice saying those words. The people of Riverdale riding, the members of this Legislature, the legal profession, the poor, the struggling of this province and in particular the women of this province all received something from him. All were well served by Jim Renwick and all were dignified by his work.

I remember best working with him when the initial round of family law reform was before this Legislature in 1978. We are now into reform of the reform, as he predicted when he pointed out the changes that were going to be required and that are now long overdue. The proposed changes that have been brought to us so recently by the Conservative government are good. They can be better and I hope they will be better in a new government.

We will also be addressing issues related to equal pay for work of equal value, issues that affect women. We will be addressing, I hope, the proration of benefits and security for part-time work. We will be addressing the question of day care -- there seems to be a commitment all around -- and beginning at least minimally to meet the needs of the 50 per cent of the one-, two- and three-year-old kids in this province whose mothers work. We will be addressing, I hope, the enforcement of maintenance orders and those enforceable orders that concern the violence of one family member against other members of the family.

I hope, too, we will be addressing some of the less fashionable issues that have particular power in the lives of women in this province. Those are the issues relating to adequate income; for example, the level of our family benefits allowance and the dignity that can get crushed in Ontario Housing Corp. rules and regulations. We heard the Attorney General (Mr. Pope) say today there are few pieces of legislation in Ontario that discriminate any more against women. He does not understand how many of the rules and regulations that operate under our income security programs discriminate mightily against women.

This is not the whole list of messages from the people of Ottawa Centre, but I think it is a good start. If we can begin to address those issues in the months and perhaps couple of years that will be in this session, we will have begun a good piece of work.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for this opportunity to join in the debate.

Mr. Jackson: It is a pleasure for me, in my first address to this assembly, to participate in the debate on the speech from the throne in this, the first session of the 33rd Parliament of Ontario.

In taking my seat in this House as the representative of the fine people of Burlington South, I am taking the place of a capable and very committed former member, Mr. George Kerr. We know George well. He spoke and worked for the people of Burlington South and for the Halton West riding since he was first elected to this assembly in 1963.

In his more than 20 years of service to the province, Mr. Kerr served as the Minister of Energy and Resources Management, the Minister of the Environment, the Minister of Colleges and Universities and as Solicitor General of Ontario, to name but a few of the responsible positions he has held during his distinguished political career. In the performance in all of his duties as a member of this House and as a member of the executive council, Mr. Kerr demonstrated the fairness, competence and dedication that won him the admiration and support of the people of Burlington South.

Following Mr. Kerr's great example, it is my hope to build on all that he accomplished in Burlington South and to continue the tradition of effective representation he established and that the people of my riding deserve and expect.

As members know, I am new to this House and I am the first to admit that I have much to learn about the process and the procedures of this Legislature and of this government. Already, I have learned much about the political process simply by sitting in this chamber and listening to the remarks of more experienced members during the course of this debate.

In particular, I found the remarks made on Friday last by the leader of the loyal opposition and by his friend and ally the leader of the third party to be most interesting and informative. While I found the statements made by both gentlemen to be informative and instructive, their remarks did give rise to certain questions and problems which, while perhaps of no concern to a more knowledgeable member, are the source of some perplexity for me as a novice.

In the interests of my own continuing education as a member and in pursuit of a better understanding of the positions of the members opposite, I would like to take some time to address a few of the themes and ideas that have been developed in the course of the throne speech debate.

9:20 p.m.

In his address to this assembly on June 7, the member for York South (Mr. Rae) suggested to the members on this side that the results of the May general election had a message for all of us that we would do well to heed. The message, he said, was to listen to and pay attention to the voice of the people.

We thank him for this concern and for his advice, although I very much doubt he is qualified to give it. The last time I counted the honourable member's party held 25 seats in this assembly and had won 24 per cent of the popular vote. That showing would indicate to me the member should take heed of the advice he is so quick to give to us on this side.

Certainly, the results of the election, which I am told indicate a desire for change in the electorate, would lead me, were I the third party leader, to wonder why so few voters saw the New Democratic Party as an appropriate instrument for effecting that change.

If the leader of the New Democratic Party and his colleagues are so good at listening to people, if they are so in touch with the aspirations of the people of this province, then I am at a loss to explain how the voters consistently relegate them to third place. I can only conclude they have a peculiar form of hearing problem, a peculiar form of political deafness. However, as I said, I am a political novice and perhaps the problem is not that the third party does not listen, but rather it is who they are listening to.

The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson), the leader of the party our New Democratic friends have chosen to support, has in the past suggested that strings are being pulled by the Canadian Labour Congress, the Ontario Federation of Labour and the United Auto Workers. He has been reported as saying the real masters of the NDP are the unions and the reason the NDP will never be trusted to govern is that it is not its own master. Apparently, while the Leader of the Opposition feels the third party cannot be trusted to govern, it can be trusted to support a government in a minority situation, especially if that government happens to be his.

I am not sure what that means. Again, I am new, but does it mean the Liberal Party of Ontario is now pulling the strings of the NDP? Does it mean the real masters of the NDP are now pulling the strings of both the third party and the Liberal Party? Does it mean the members of the Liberal Party will no longer be able to boast they are not the captives of any vested interest now that they have become the captives, not only of the NDP but also of the real masters of the NDP? Time alone will tell who is really wearing the pants in the unique relationship the other two parties in this House have negotiated between themselves.

It has no doubt been noticed that there has been considerable talk of conversions during this debate. For example, this government, our government, which over the past 10 years has put in place the most rigorous environmental laws in North America, is accused of using this throne speech to express its conversion to the cause of environmental protection. There are a few other conversions that have occurred in the past few weeks that deserve mention in this House, if for no other reason than to balance the record.

For instance, the leader of the third party has been converted from a social democrat to a Liberal supporter. In a sense, the member for York South has only returned to his political roots. It is no secret that as a young man the leader of the New Democratic Party campaigned for the Pierre Trudeau Liberals in the campaign of 1968. Now the member is again working in support of the Liberal Party -- the Liberal Party of Ontario. It is our friends in the New Democratic Party who stand ready to make the changes that put Liberals first.

What surprises me about this latest conversion is that it is happening in spite of the fact the third party leader has had direct experience with Liberal administrations during his time in Ottawa. The member for York South said of that Liberal government, "It added new dimensions to the words `arrogance,' `waste' and `mismanagement.'"

Of course, it may well be that our honourable friends in the third party do not subscribe to the view that a Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal. Perhaps they do not subscribe to that view in spite of the fact their leader said the distance between the federal Liberals and the Leader of the Opposition is only as far as he can run since the last Gallup poll.

The views of the third party have certainly changed since the days when its leader said: "I can't believe the people of Ontario really want David Peterson to do for us what Pierre Trudeau has done for Canada." I cannot believe it either. I cannot believe the third party leader would help to do to this province what the federal Liberals did to this country.

But apparently the member has been converted. He will now support a party which he once called reactionary, which he once described as stealing Tory and NDP lines as they crawl away from their party names. What a conversion! It is a conversion which should not be forgotten by the members of this House during this debate. It is a conversion which will not be forgotten by the voters of this province.

Mr. Martel: I hope not.

Mr. Jackson: Of course, the leader and the members of the official opposition have also experienced something of a conversion as well. A real meeting of the minds has taken place over the past few weeks.

The member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson) once described the NDP in a speech to the Toronto Board of Trade as bankrupt socialists. He said they are out of touch with reality and their big government, big spending, big deficit answers would not produce any real, new wealth or any real, lasting jobs.

The leader of the official opposition was saying just a few short months ago of his new allies, "They may be nice people to have around; they make a lot of noise, but you never get the impression they can run the place."

Mr. Martel: Full of misery and hate, that is us.

Mr. Jackson: All is sweetness and light.

An hon. member: You can have a limousine, Elie.

Mr. Jackson: No, no, it is sweetness and light, and formerly bankrupt socialists will indeed have the chance to run the place, to try out some of their big government, big deficit answers. What was formerly out of touch with reality has become a guideline for positive change.

The Liberal conversion extends beyond a mere change of heart towards its social democratic friends to matters of substantive policy. Let me give one example. Before I was elected to this assembly, I was involved in the real estate profession. I made a point of familiarizing myself with the position of all three political parties on the issue of rent review.

I remember reading a Liberal Party policy paper on rent review. I have made a point of reviewing a copy recently in which the Liberal Party clearly stated that it categorically rejected the NDP doctrine that the answer to tenant concerns lies in extending government intervention to every aspect of the housing sector. Today the Liberals, it appears to me, do not categorically reject that doctrine but have adopted it with open arms. That is but one of several cases in which the official opposition has borrowed liberally from the party of bankrupt socialists.

We have reached the point where a Liberal is no longer a Liberal. A Liberal is no longer a Liberal but an understudy for a New Democrat. It used to be said that socialists in this country were simply Liberals in a hurry. It appears that Liberals in Ontario are simply socialists who are slow learners.

What we are left with after all these conversions, the leader of the official opposition was quick to point out, is not a coalition. He was quick to reassure us that they are not trying to persuade New Democrats to become Liberals. He said the New Democrats are not trying to persuade them to become New Democrats. That is what he said.

9:30 p.m.

Of course, they are not trying to persuade each other. They would be simply preaching to converted. While we do not have a formal coalition, we have an alliance between two parties in which one party has described the other as bankrupt socialists incapable of running the place and the other is describing its partner as reactionary.

We are left with an alliance that has moved no confidence in this government and is seeking an opportunity to implement some of its bankrupt and reactionary policies in this province. They are seeking that opportunity through an agreement they say will provide for stable government and will respect the mandate for change given this House by the electorate.

On the first point I would remind the members, and particularly our friends in the third party, what Tommy Douglas used to say about Liberals and stable government. Mr. Douglas observed that while the Liberals always talked about stable government, we all know how the stable is going to smell.

As for the second point, the mandate for change, I would make two observations. First, this government has introduced a throne speech that directly addresses that mandate and outlines an agenda for this assembly that all members could support. Second, there are two types of change, change for the better and change for the worse. The type of change to which the people of this province will be treated by this alliance between the bankrupt and the reactionary will, I fear, be of the latter variety.

Having listened to the members opposite debate this throne speech and call for the defeat of this government, I will be able to report to my constituents that, as one would expect in politics, they do make strange bedfellows, but in this case at least both parties share the same bunk.

As a new member I am also somewhat confused about the precise nature and standing of a signed accord negotiated between the Liberals and the New Democrats. In his address to this assembly Friday last, the leader of the third party said it was a historic precedent, not only for this Legislature but for other Legislatures in the British Commonwealth, to have this kind of document in place.

The honourable member said it was a most democratic document and one he was proud his party had negotiated. This accord is, I take it, the founding document in what the third party leader rather colourfully described as this province's political equivalent of Vatican II.

Be that as it may, there is one thing about this accord that disturbs me as a member of this House. It is my understanding that under the terms of this accord the leader of the Liberal Party will not request a dissolution of the Legislature except on defeat of specifically framed no-confidence motions during the two-year period. During that two-year period the New Democratic Party will neither move nor vote no confidence, nor will bills, including budget bills, be treated or designated as matters of confidence. That strikes me as a very cosy arrangement, one that, the member's assurances aside, seems to do some violence to the spirit of the parliamentary system.

It means that during this two-year period the Liberals, should they form the government, can introduce important legislation, have it opposed by the NDP and lose the confidence of this House but not face an election because the loss of confidence is not really a loss of confidence. The stable is already beginning to smell a bit funny.

The accord means that for two years the Liberals would not be willing to stand or fall on any specific piece of legislation, no matter how important, and they would not consider any policies worthy of a vote of confidence, no matter how sweeping or controversial.

Perhaps these mysteries are not well known to a new member. I am still learning.

Mr. Martel: You had better learn.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Jackson: Perhaps there is some statute of limitations on the abuse of the concept of confidence by government of which I am unaware.

Frankly, I also have some concerns about this two-year time frame. It seems to have been selected not out of any concern for stable government but out of political convenience. Two years should be just enough time to replenish the war chest while leaving sufficient to put some distance between oneself and one's partner, should this parliament last four or five years.

All this may be very academic, for I do not believe, nor do I know of anyone who seriously believes, that this accord will stand up for two years, should events dictate that it be enacted.

The member for London Centre rightly pointed out that we do not have a coalition. We do not have a marriage. We have a common law relationship of convenience which will likely not stand the test of time or events or the imperatives of partisan political self-interest. This accord may well prove to be the last will and testament of the Ontario New Democratic Party. That will be for the voters to decide. As the leader of the third party said, the voters will have an opportunity to judge all of us.

A few years ago the member for York South said: "I am always concerned when any group of individuals unilaterally hijacks or imposes a pattern of conduct on the Legislature. I do not like it when the government does it and I do not like it when anybody else does it." It is regrettable that the member did not remember those words before he imposed a pattern of conduct on this Legislature which will govern the business of this House and the business of the people of Ontario for two years.

There is clearly an alternative, the alternative this government offered the Legislature in the throne speech. We are prepared to be judged by this House, not on the basis of any negotiated agreement which would artificially limit the ability of the House meaningfully to express confidence or want of confidence in the government of the day, or which would limit the ability of any member fully and effectively to represent his constituency, but on the basis of the merits of the Legislature, of the legislation and programs introduced for debate.

We do not seek nor do we need a two-year, nonaggression pact. We are not afraid to face the judgements of this House on a daily basis. We do not ask for a two-year suspension of the ultimate test of the right to govern this province. We do not say check with us in two years and then we might be ready to accept the responsibility for the legislation we brought in.

In the throne speech this government clearly indicated that it is ready to provide the people of Ontario with the same responsible and effective leadership it has provided in the past, leadership which has helped make this province the economic powerhouse of Canada.

As the representative for Burlington South, I was especially pleased that the government through the throne speech has reaffirmed its commitment to expand commuter rail services to Burlington. Many of my constituents are commuters who travel to work in either Metro Toronto or Hamilton. The extension of commuter rail service to Burlington will be a special benefit to our large commuter population and to the community as a whole.

I was also pleased by the announcement made on June 10 by the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. McCague) that the use of conventional rail and existing rights of way will accelerate the western extension of commuter rail service to Burlington. The commuters in my riding will be delighted to learn they will be getting this rail service sooner than expected. The taxpayers in my riding will be delighted to learn the system is being expanded in a most cost-effective manner.

I join with my constituents who commute to Hamilton in expressing the hope that the government and the city of Hamilton and the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth will be able quickly to identify and implement appropriate services to the Hamilton area.

Having served for nine years as a public school trustee, I applaud this government for its commitment to provide an opportunity to every person who wishes to do so to express his views on the extension of full funding to the separate secondary school component of our public school system.

9:40 p.m.

The policy for full and equal funding for separate secondary schools deservedly has the support of the Liberal and New Democratic parties in our House. This policy should be adopted, but not at the expense of our public schools, which I regard, on the basis of my experience as a trustee, as a most valuable mechanism for achieving social integration, encouraging tolerance and guaranteeing equality of opportunity.

My brief experience with this government has convinced me that it is sensitive to and is listening to those who are concerned that this new policy should not have a negative impact on the resources committed to public schools or on the quality of education provided by our public schools.

While the throne speech outlines many changes and proposes many significant reforms which would affect all areas of public life in Ontario, I am assured that in the midst of all these plans for change one thing will remain constant. I refer to this government's commitment to responsible public sector management. It is this government's record of responsible management which to a great extent permits this administration to propose significant reforms without at the same time having to increase taxes or mortgage the future of this province through heavy debt.

Through the throne speech, the government has reaffirmed its commitment to control the growth of the public sector in Ontario. The government has set a target of achieving, through normal attrition and early retirement, a five per cent reduction in the civil service of the province. This is a realistic target, one that the record of this administration indicates is achievable.

In 1984-85, we were able to reduce our projected deficit by 16.5 per cent. Our 1984-85 deficit, at an interim estimate of $1.7 billion, is nearly $600 million or 25 per cent lower than our actual 1983-84 deficit. This is the type of financial management that has underwritten economic growth in this province. This is the type of management that has helped this province achieve the lowest unemployment rate and the lowest youth unemployment rate in this country. This is the type of management that has stimulated the creation of 455,000 new jobs in this province since the end of the recession -- 54 per cent of all the new jobs created in Canada during that time. This is the type of management this government, if given the opportunity, would provide in the future to ensure the economic and social progress of the province.

What does the New Democratic-Liberal alliance offer? The member for York South has said if he were the leader of this province he would invest to create 100,000 jobs this year. What does this party say? We say that since the end of the recession the province has been creating jobs at a rate of 182,000 a year, and that under this government, in co-operation with the private sector, we could create 200,000 jobs this year in Ontario. The third party, as the member for London Centre well knows, does not know how to create real, lasting jobs, except the one government-subsidized program it is proposing for 48 close friends, which is going to last for only two years.

The leader of the loyal opposition says his party would use the deficit as a creative tool. The only things the only Liberal government that has been in power in this country lately has used the deficit to create are a bigger deficit, higher taxes and a staggering debt. The Canadian taxpayers are just now beginning to pay the price for past Liberal excesses through tax increases introduced in the May federal budget. The Ontario taxpayers may find they simply cannot afford the New Democratic-Liberal alliance, that the price of this ambition is just a bit too steep.

The members opposite have already determined they will vote no confidence in this government, that between them they will take a crack at transforming the economic powerhouse of Canada into the economic poorhouse of Canada. The one thing that redeems the situation is that while they make strange bedfellows now, in a few months they might well be estranged bedfellows. No doubt we will hear some speech about how the spirit of the accord is not being honoured, about how the will of the people is being frustrated, about how the tail is wagging the dog and about the need for the government to seek a real mandate.

All that is in the future. In the interim, we will watch, the people of this province will watch and my constituents in Burlington South will watch as the parties that will vote no confidence in this throne speech and in this government lose all confidence in themselves and lose the confidence of the people of Ontario.

Mr. Henderson: I am very pleased to speak on behalf of my people in Humber to His Honour's remarks outlining the plans of this imperilled government. Perhaps instead of "plans," I should say "wishes," since the word "plans" implies an opportunity for implementation that may well prove very elusive.

My riding of Humber is a microcosm of urban Ontario. My people represent almost every ethnic, cultural and religious background in Ontario and span every income level from the very wealthy to the very disadvantaged. They are an informed and alert constituency and I am proud to represent them.

The community of Humber was in one sense founded by Étienne Brûlé several hundred years ago; so my constituency very literally is one of the cradles of civilization as we know it in Ontario and in Canada.

I wish at the outset to congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, on your ascent to the august office you now occupy and to wish you well in overseeing this very spirited assembly.

I wish also to pay tribute to my predecessor, Morley Kells, former Minister of the Environment in the Miller government. Mr. Kells and I are far apart in our political beliefs, but I pay tribute this evening to his industry and conviction. I know his commitment to community life in Etobicoke will continue.

Many issues are mentioned in this throne speech that are of interest to us in Humber. The people of Humber are proud of our Ontario. We believe Ontario should be "a place to stand and a place to grow" and we treasure the natural heritage that is ours in Ontario.

My people are dismayed when they look out on the Humber River, which is the eastern boundary of my riding, and see the brown chemical broth that flows between the banks of the Humber River. They feel sad and angry because they know the waters of the Humber once upon a time were clear and fresh and teeming with freshwater fish and other wildlife.

The people of Humber are sad and sometimes very angry about the death of our lakes and rivers in northern and central Ontario because of acid rain poisoning. They say: "How come? How come Inco, Falconbridge, Ontario Hydro and plants and factories in Ontario's industrial heartland can be permitted to continue to pour tons of acidic residues into our atmosphere to bring about this wanton and shameless destruction of our natural heritage?"

9:50 p.m.

The people of Humber applaud the 25 initiatives towards renewing our environment and developing our heritage outlined in this throne speech, but they say: "Why now? Where was this government and where were its 25 initiatives when the rivers and lakes of Ontario were dying and the beaches were being polluted and closed, and the smokestacks were pouring sulphur emissions into our atmosphere to rain down acid on Ontario?"

The people of Humber read of this throne speech and say: "No. Too little, too late." They know it was my party, not the Tories, who campaigned on the need for tough action on the environment. They know this government had a mandate to act and failed to take that lead.

The people of Humber believe Ontario should be a land of opportunity. They believe men and women of courage and vision should be rewarded for their industry in Ontario. That is why my party campaigned during the last election on a platform of more help for small business, better availability of equity capital, the easing of tax and regulatory burdens, manpower assistance and help in breaking into export markets.

The people of Humber also applaud the measures in this throne speech that will help small business; measures that will preserve and create jobs, protect Ontario manufacturers, improve trade relations with our major trading partners and offer tax relief to firms that do create jobs.

But the people of Humber are an informed and wise constituency. They know where these ideas came from. They know my party produced a comprehensive small business program and a small business act almost 10 years ago, and they know my party has been championing the needs of small business in this Legislature for more than a dozen years.

They ask this government: "Why now? Where were you when unemployment was rising and interest rates were skyrocketing, when jobs were going unfilled on one side of the street while breadlines were forming on the other? Where were you when small businesses were suffocating under the burden of excess taxation, bureaucratic regulation and red tape? Why were you not fighting then for small business in Ontario?"

The people of Humber believe Ontario should be a caring and compassionate community. They believe the humanity of a community can be measured in how well it cares for its senior citizens, and they ask whether we in Ontario have been doing enough for the men and women who built Ontario and made it strong and great.

That is why my party promised during this past campaign to increase community and home support services for senior citizens, to improve health and social services for senior citizens and to encourage the further development of facilities like the Islington Centre in Humber to provide a focal point in the community for senior citizens and to encourage their industry and creativity.

We believe it makes a lot more sense that senior citizens should be able to live in their home communities if they want to, where people, friends and surroundings are familiar and near and where family and loved ones may be close at hand.

The people of Humber applaud the measures in this throne speech that will benefit the senior citizens of Ontario, but they ask: "Why now? What were you doing about affordable housing, health care, community centres and income supplements for seniors when you had the mandate, the majority and the opportunity to act on behalf of senior citizens in Ontario? Why should we believe you now?"

The people of Humber want Ontario to be a wise and just society. They know the value of first-rate primary, secondary and post-secondary education. They know the importance of ensuring that our young people are trained in fields that will be marketable so they can expect jobs when they have completed their studies.

That is why my party has promised to restore the provincial share of education costs to 60 per cent, to teach skills in our community colleges that are relevant to the work place and to improve career counselling in our high schools and colleges. That is why my party has promised fair and equal access to university education and has promised to ignore the Bovey commission recommendations for a 50 per cent hike in university tuition fees and an approximately 11,000-place reduction in university enrolment.

That is why we said the extended funding of Roman Catholic separate schools is a matter for sober, sensitive and reflective discussion and problem solving. That is why we were critical of a government that chose to take action on this subject as a pre-election, vote-getting manoeuvre and paved the way for partisan rhetoric and discord on a sensitive and delicate issue.

The people of Humber applaud the initiatives such as the $100-million quality education fund announced in this throne speech. They applaud the government's intent to restore the province's share of education costs. They applaud the government's hesitation about the Bovey commission. We applaud all that, but we are nervous about the lack of direction and purpose in these education initiatives. They seem designed to curry favour in designated areas of the electorate instead of providing a plan and a purpose for improvements in Ontario's two fine education systems.

The people of Humber say, "Too little, too late." They ask: "Why did you allow Ontario's share of education costs to fall from 61 per cent to 49 per cent? Why have you allowed a shortage of some 62,000 workers with proper vocational training to develop?" The people of Humber say that is just not good enough from a government that had a majority and a mandate to act.

The people of Humber believe that if Ontario is to be a place to stand and a place to grow, Ontarians need decent and affordable housing. That is why my party promised support for co-operative housing initiatives and led the way in the fight for tenants' rights. That is why we have been consistent and vigorous in our support of rent controls, because we insist that decent, affordable housing can be available to low- and middle-income Ontarians. We worry a lot about the continuing conversion of low-cost, affordable housing to high-priced apartment, hotel and condominium units.

The people of Humber applaud the new found Tory love affair with rent control and co-op housing and help for first-home purchasers, but they say: "Why now? Where was this government when they had the majority they recently sought to renew? Where were they during the recent campaign on these issues?"

Now the people have spoken and the government says: "There go the people. We must follow, for we are their leaders." That is not the kind of leadership the people of Humber want. We want vanguard, not rearguard, leadership.

The people of Humber want a just and equitable society. We believe in equal opportunity and affirmative action for women and groups that often do not have access to the best jobs in society. That is why my party has taken a stand on affirmative action and equal pay for work of equal value. That is why my party has promised to create at least 10,000 new subsidized child care spaces and encouraged the development of work place child care facilities.

The people of Humber applaud the government's new interest in employment equity and in equal pay for work of equal value and in the creation of new child care spaces, and I join in their applause because I know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. However, the people of Humber ask, "Where was this government when the women of Ontario were asking for sensitivity and wisdom and action on issues affecting their rights?"

The people of Humber applaud the words of this throne speech, but they were not born yesterday. They recognize a Liberal throne speech when they hear it, and they know it is the Ontario Liberal Party and its candidates and its leader who campaigned on these issues. They know this government, when it had the opportunity to act, failed to do so.

They ask whether we should believe this apparent conversion, this deathbed repentance. They say: "No; because we do not believe the Tories, after 42 years of power in Ontario, have made an 11th-hour discovery of sensitive, compassionate government. We do not believe a government that governs one way, campaigns the same way and then suffers a massive defeat and promises something else should be trusted to govern in Ontario."

10 p.m.

The people of Humber know the difference between an 11th-hour conversion and opportunistic plagiarism. The people of Humber made a 13,000-vote turnaround in my constituency on May 2.

More people in Ontario voted for my party on May 2 than for either of our two major rivals. The margin may be slim but the mandate is very clear. The people of Ontario want a province of opportunity and compassion and a government of sensitivity and leadership. The people of Ontario want a compassionate society where the strong are just and the weak are secure. They have given my party a mandate to offer that kind of government and leadership and we do not propose to fail them.

Mr. Charlton: Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by extending through you to the Speaker we elected last week my congratulations on his new post. To you, sir, I would say that I enjoyed working with you on the procedural affairs committee over the last four years. I look forward to seeing you back in the committee in another role, perhaps looking at things from a slightly different perspective than you had in the last four years.

In listening to the debate on the throne speech during the last two days, I have been quite surprised. I know what we are hearing from the other side is what we often call a swan song, but I had always thought of a swan song as being, although sad, something very graceful, not angry, clumsy and uninformed, which in reality is what we have been getting over the course of the last few days.

It is unfortunate the member for Burlington South (Mr. Jackson) has left the House. Like him, I am very glad to be able to represent my constituents in the riding of Hamilton Mountain in this debate on the throne speech. I should point out that I can walk to the edge of my riding, at the top of the escarpment, and I can look out over the riding of Burlington South.

Mr. Wildman: The member looks down on Burlington South.

Mr. Charlton: That is right. I look down on Burlington South. I can watch the industrial pollution from Stelco, Dofasco and a lot of other, smaller industries, and from Swaru, the incinerator in Hamilton. I can watch as the southwesterly winds pick up that pollution and blow it across the riding of Burlington South.

I recall the comments the member made about this province and this administration and about having the toughest environmental legislation of any jurisdiction in North America. He is correct. The problem is one of enforcement, and I point this out to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the government party, but specifically to the member for Burlington South because he represents people in his riding who are affected by this problem. We have the best and toughest environmental legislation of any jurisdiction in North America, that is true. We have the worst enforcement record of any jurisdiction in North America save one, the state of Louisiana.

As the member said, he is a new member who has a lot to learn. He has to learn awfully fast if he wants to survive around here. He spent a fair bit of time during his comments talking about the negotiated deal, the agenda this party and the Liberal Party negotiated, and how his party did not need a two-year pact, how his party did not need this and did not need that.

I see the Minister of Education, one of the government negotiators, entering the House. I rather fondly recall the second time our negotiating committee reported back to the New Democratic Party caucus after the second session with the Liberals and the second session with the government negotiators. Essentially, what our negotiators told us about their second round of negotiations with the government party was that they came in and said: "What do you want? Ask and you have got it. Do you want to write our throne speech?" That is what the party over there offered in the negotiations; everything that the Liberals discussed with us and more. There was only one major difference. We had a great --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: You were not there and I was. That was the only difference. I was there and you were not.

Mr. Martel: Shall I turn the tape recorder on?

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister of Education and the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) will please let the member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Charlton) continue.

Mr. Martel: Did you call the House leader to order as well?

The Deputy Speaker: I did.

Mr. Martel: I did not hear you.

The Deputy Speaker: Both of you.

Mr. Charlton: It would seem to me that again tonight the Minister of Education and chief negotiator for the government party is protesting a little too much. He is sounding more and more like he is in opposition.

At any rate, I would like to take a moment to point out one last thing to the member for Burlington South. No strings will be pulled in this parliament with the changes that will be occurring. The only strings that have any consequence in this circumstance are those that will be cut next Tuesday.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Hamilton Mountain has the floor and he is trying to speak.

Mr. Charlton: I will repeat the last comment. The only strings that have any consequence in the present circumstance are the strings across there which are being cut. I think most people in this province will gasp a long sigh of relief next Tuesday, some time around six o'clock.

I would like to deal with a number of the issues in the throne speech from the perspective not only of the issues that they deal with but also of their history as issues and the reasons we find the throne speech very difficult to deal with. We had the member for Burlington South mention in his speech yesterday's announcement about the cancellation of GO-ALRT into Hamilton and the commitment by the government that the commuter rail service into Hamilton would be a heavy rail service.

10:10 p.m.

We applaud that announcement, but I want the members to think about it in real terms. We have had a government that a year and a half ago said -- the member for Wentworth North (Mr. Ward) who was on the regional council in Hamilton-Wentworth at the time can bear this out -- "You take GO-ALRT and you take York Street or you get nothing." That was the kind of consensus, understanding and consultative government we got from the Tories on the opposite side of the House when they had a majority: "GO-ALRT technology, York Street, elevated rail or nothing. Take it or leave it." They have spent millions of dollars studying and planning for that proposal.

Now, in a minority situation, we have a repentance. Cancel GO-ALRT, back to heavy rail, which is what that party and this party said in the first place, several millions of dollars ago.

Interjection.

Mr. Charlton: You may have, too, but you did not speak up. If you spoke up, then obviously you do not have very much influence.

Several millions of dollars later, we are back where we should have been in the first place. I do not call that good, responsive, understanding or even intelligent government.

We now have a number of proposals from the Tories in their throne speech which deal with a number of issues that are very dear to my heart because of the work I have been involved in during the last four years. One of them is an item on right-to-know legislation. I recall a resolution that I introduced last year. My colleague the member for Algoma has done a lot of work both here and in committees on right-to-know legislation.

When our resolution was introduced here last fall, the response we got from the then Minister of Labour, Mr. Ramsay, was that he was not prepared to move independently; he was not prepared to deal with the question of the right to know until the federal government took a position. What we had, as members well know, was stonewalling here until the feds took action, stonewalling in Ottawa and hence no action.

Mr. Wildman: They were worried about the question of giving away trade secrets.

Mr. Charlton: Now, all of a sudden, all the government's objections to proceeding on its own, without regard for trade secrets, as my colleague has pointed out, seem to have vanished. The government asks us to believe it is really prepared to proceed and that, even if it is prepared to proceed, this is the right way to go about running a province: oppose it for three years straight -- no, no and no, three years in a row -- and then proceed because there has been an election and we have a minority government.

But on every issue where this government proceeds in that fashion, somebody out there in the public gets robbed. If it is taxes, it is a taxpayer who gets robbed. If it is environmental legislation, it could be any number of people who are affected. If it is right to know in occupational health and safety and in chemical use in the work place, the three years of delays may have cost a life or two, or five or 10 because this government stalled. Now, all of a sudden, the government is prepared to proceed and it is asking us to support this kind of government.

I refer to the member for Burlington South and the comments in his speech. He used some quotes from the member for York South, who said something to the effect that he did not want to support the member for London Centre in the light of what the Liberal government in Ottawa had done to this country.

This party, the New Democratic Party, had a very difficult choice to make during the course of the last six weeks. We had to choose between the member for London Centre in the light of what the Liberals had done in Ottawa during the last couple of decades and the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller) in the light of what Mr. Mulroney is doing to Canada in 1985, and we all know what direction that is taking us.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: You made the choice on that basis, did you? You certainly forget a lot. You certainly have a very selective memory.

Mr. Charlton: We had a lot of other bases, and I will be going through some of them here tonight. I have an excellent memory. I will be raising a couple of them in the House over the course of the next week.

We have proposals in the throne speech about amending control orders on Ontario Hydro and Inco. Members on that side of the House wondered why some of us had the gall to laugh and snicker when the Lieutenant Governor was reading the throne speech. The laughter had nothing to do with the Lieutenant Governor, let me assure the members over there. It had to do with the travesty that has gone on in this province over the last 15 years around issues such as Ontario Hydro and Inco emissions and control orders that have been extended, that were set in 1970 and have still never been met, and still will not be by 1990.

In the throne speech we finally have a proposal for an environmental protection fund. When we proposed that fund two short years ago, this government laughed. The Treasurer said, "We cannot afford it." The Minister of the Environment said, "We cannot afford it." He went even further and said, "We do not need it."

I recall last fall when the then Minister of the Environment, the member for Sarnia, and the member for Wentworth (Mr. Dean) stood on the side of the hill at the Upper Ottawa Street landfill site. The Minister of the Environment said: "There is no problem with this site. We do not need a flaring system to burn the gases that are coming out of it. The fact it is leaking is not a problem. It is leaking too slowly to be a serious problem to anybody. We do not need to clean up the site. We do not need to spend any money here." He said no to the requests of the regional council.

Now they are proposing to create an environmental protection fund to start cleaning up the very sites that last fall the Minister of the Environment said were not a problem. Now they are proposing to take action on things which this party and the other opposition party have been raising as issues for a number of years. Now I am asked why the Conservative Party's conversion in this throne speech is not acceptable to the New Democratic Party.

I will tell the members why. There is another landfill site in Whitchurch-Stouffville which we have been raising as an issue in this House for some five years now. Some of the members opposite are probably sick of hearing about the Stouffville dump. In 1981, when we first started raising the issue of this site, the Ministry of the Environment and this government said: "There is no problem with the Stouffville landfill site. It does not leak. It is not contaminating anybody's well. There are no health effects. There are no dangers to the community from it."

10:20 p.m.

Just a few short months ago, in February 1985, we finally had the Hydro geological study on that site. Do the members know what it said? It said the site has been leaking for years. It said there is likely no longer any need to clean it up. I do not even totally agree with the Hydro geological study, but what it said is that most of the stuff that has leaked out of the site is too far gone to retrieve now anyway.

Yet the Progressive Conservative Party wants us to support a government which stonewalls through no action after no action and then finally tells us the truth, that it is too late anyway. Is that what we are asked to support? Is that what we are asked to have faith in? I am sorry, my friends, those of us on this side cannot continue to support that kind of government. We may not get everything we want out of this deal we have worked out with the Liberals, but we certainly cannot do any worse than we have with the Tories and we will likely do somewhat better.

One of the other items that drew a fair bit of laughter during the presentation of the speech from the throne -- and I guess this is a reflection of what we see as commitment and belief in what they are telling us -- was the part that says they will reinstate the select committee on Ontario Hydro. This will be another favourite of some of my colleagues to my right in the Liberal Party. We had a select committee on Ontario Hydro in the last minority government.

Mr. Kerrio: The realities of March 19.

Mr. Charlton: The realities of March 19, 1981.

The government across the way cancelled that committee without consultation and without comment; it just went. That shows the commitment of the government to real public scrutiny of Ontario Hydro. Now they are going to give us back the committee. Well, we do not need them and we are going to get it anyway. We will get it from a party that at least in the short term has a commitment to look seriously at Ontario Hydro, not just set up a commission to placate the opposition parties.

I would like to raise a couple of other local issues. These are not specifically from the throne speech, although I would assume since they were campaign promises they are included

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Send them over.

Mr. Charlton: You had your chance. That is exactly what I said the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman) said in there. A minute ago he was denying it; now he is making the offer again.

Anyway, we have a couple of items here that I would like to deal with. Not only are they a reflection of how the party across the way operates as a government, but they are a reflection of the total inadequacy, the stupidity of political games in the process of public policy.

During the course of the campaign, we in Hamilton were promised $3.75 million for the refurbishing of Macassa Lodge and Wentworth Lodge. Unfortunately, although we had the promise from the party across the way, some weeks later we learned that we would not be able to take advantage of that announced promise. The region was not in a position to participate this year because it had already set its budgets and had not budgeted for its share of refurbishing those facilities. Obviously, nobody over there had bothered to tell anybody at the other end that the money would be forthcoming.

Those people have been in government for 42 years and are supposed to know how municipalities and regions budget and when they need the information so they can include it in their planning, but nobody told anybody at the region that this money was forthcoming. The people over there did not want that fact leaked because they wanted to get a full, first announcement out during the campaign.

We had another very similar situation just before the campaign as well. There was the Premier's announcement of the new funding for 7,500 subsidized day care spaces. We had the same situation, the damned announcement was too late for this year.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Well before the campaign; 72 hours.

Mr. Charlton: Yes, 72 hours, but it was already too late for this year. Budgets were already set and nobody had the money to take advantage of it.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Another epoch.

Mr. Charlton: Yes. Efficient government, planned government; really great stuff.

Mr. Mackenzie: When are you announcing, Larry?

Mr. Charlton: Any time now.

There are a number of other items that have been mentioned in the throne speech, but I would like to deal with the Ontario health insurance plan specifically. For the first time in my eight years in the Legislature, this speech admitted that OHIP premiums are not the best way to go. OHIP premiums might even, in fact, be regressive.

To quote from the throne speech: "First, as part of tax reform" -- my God, Tories admitting that OHIP premiums are taxes.

Mr. Wildman: They are.

Mr. Charlton: Of course they are, but five years ago when we fought them on that issue, they said OHIP premiums were not taxes, they were fee charges.

Mr. Martel: In 1968 when we voted against the bill, they said it was not a tax.

Mr. Charlton: That is right. It says, "First, as part of tax reform, to ensure more equitable health care financing, my government will freeze Ontario health insurance plan premiums and steadily raise premium assistance. My government will progressively employ tax sources less onerous to low-income families in order to finance this essential service."

I see the member for Burlington South is back in his seat. He can have a look at Hansard because I made some comments that were directed to him.

I say to all the members across the way that we cannot stomach those kinds of comments coming from this administration on OHIP premiums after listening to those members when we fought them on 35 per cent increases and 28 per cent increases, all in one shot, year after year. All of a sudden OHIP premiums are an onerous tax on low-income families in Ontario, and they expect us to buy this throne speech.

I say to the member for Burlington South he had better sit down and read about six years of Hansard to understand the reactions that are coming from over here.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Which six would you recommend?

Mr. McClellan: He will have lots of time to do it.

Mr. Charlton: Yes, he will have lots of time to do it.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the member would direct his remarks through the chair.

Mr. Charlton: I will be wrapping up. The throne speech says, "Indeed, my government will gradually increase...the province's share of public school financing."

Mr. Speaker, you were here over the course of the last decade, and then quite a few years more, if I recall correctly. I think you are a class-of-1967 man, are you? Along with those of us in both parties here, you have watched over the course of the last decade as this government took educational financing, public school financing from 60 per cent to 48 or 47 per cent, and now it is talking about gradually increasing the provincial share of the cost of education. It is asking us to help solve a problem it created intentionally and with the full understanding of what the impact would be.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: No doubt your friends will raise it to 69 per cent in their first budget.

Mr. Charlton: No doubt.

The throne speech which was presented to us here in this House last week has very carefully set out a number of very important issues for this province, but it has also set out very clearly all the reasons the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario is no longer fit to govern. It has set out all the issues which this party and the other opposition party have been railing about over the last decade and it has taken a full decade.

The member for Burlington South mentioned earlier that Liberals were understudies to New Democrats. The member had better study his history because this party has been setting the political agenda in Ontario for the past 50 years.

Mr. Martel: We wrote the throne speech.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Charlton: The party to my right may be understudies, but members opposite are still sitting at home.

Mr. Speaker: Has the honourable member completed his remarks?

Mr. Charlton: I am finished.

Mr. Speaker: Could I ask who the next speaker is?

Mr. Pierce: I am, Mr. Speaker. If it is your wish, I will hold my remarks until the next session of the House.

On motion by Mr. Pierce, the debate was adjourned.

The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.