Hansard Transcript 1988-Apr-28 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

That, in the opinion of this House, recognizing that the scope and recommendations of the Task Force on Inflation Protection for Employment Pension Plans failed to meet the concerns of workers and most particularly retirees whose pensions have already been eroded by inflation but who will get nothing from these proposals, this Legislature strongly urges the government of Ontario to: introduce legislation to require indexation of all pensions with the same indexing formula applicable to current plan members, current pensioners and those entitled to a deferred pension; place an immediate moratorium on the use of contribution holidays which are, in fact, just another means of surplus withdrawals.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I am sure that after all the goodwill that has been developed in the Legislature in the last couple of weeks, members of the government party will be more than willing to support this resolution. But just in case they have not been fully convinced, I do have some comments that I think will simply be overwhelming. Anyone with good sense will be compelled to vote yes in favour of this resolution when we get around to voting on it at about noon today.

Mr. Black: We will consider it on its merits.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: Considered on its merits; yes, I am sure it will be.

I certainly do not pretend to be an expert at all in the area of pensions. I do not even fully understand our own pension plan here in the Legislature. However, I probably have paid a little more attention to it in recent years -- the longer you are here, the more attention you pay -- than I did when I was first elected.

I think it is fair to say that for most members of the Legislature, pensions are basically taken for granted. We have decent incomes, we have a very good pension plan and, in many cases, as evidenced by the material that was filed in the Legislature under the conflict-of-interest guidelines and now legislation, it is very clear that many members of the Legislature, and in particular members of the executive council whose returns we have seen at this point, have a lot of personal wealth as well.

So in that respect, from a personal point of view, I guess it is understandable that members of the Legislature might take the issue of pensions for granted rather than understanding that there are many people in our province and in our communities who really are suffering because of inadequate incomes and attempting to live on very low fixed incomes.

I remember back in 1958 when my grandfather died. He had worked about 40 years in the auto industry, most of those years at the Ford Motor Co. He died before his retirement but close to his retirement and my grandmother got not one cent from that pension plan. That was back in 1958, and she was forced to survive on $75 a month from the old age pension plan at that time, and that was it. She still had her home; she still had to pay her property taxes; she still had to buy food and all the other necessities of life, but she had to try to survive on $75 a month. None of her medical expenses were covered initially. She had no prescription plan -- certainly none of that. She had $75 a month income and that was it.

I would be the first to agree that things have come a long way since 1958. I know that no members of the Legislature would ever want to go back to those horrible times when our elderly in this province and in Canada lived primarily in a state of very low incomes and inability to enjoy their retiring years.

However, today there are still three million working people in Ontario who have absolutely no pension plan at all at the place they work. Sixty per cent of the workers in this province have no pension plan and the breakout for women is even worse: 70 per cent of working women have no pension plan. Even the lucky ones who work at companies with pension plans can expect a massive erosion of their income. For example, a pension worth $1,000 per month today will be worth about $450 15 years from now.

Promises from this government, from the Liberal government, from the Peterson government that the principle of inflation protection was accepted and that only the details of implementation needed to be worked out were very effective during the election campaign.

I reread in the last few days the debate that took place on Bill 170, the amendments to the Pension Benefits Act. I read the June 24 and June 25 Hansards from last year. In that debate, my former colleague Ross McClellan moved an amendment that would provide for inflation protection at a rate of 100 per cent. The member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Kwinter), the Minister of Financial Institutions at the time, stated, as did the then Progressive Conservative critic, Mr. Ashe, that they both accepted the principle of inflation protection but that we had to wait for the Friedland Task Force on Inflation Protection for Employment Pension Plans to make its report, but that no one should be concerned because the government of the day supported the principle of inflation protection.

We went through an election with the Liberals promising inflation protection. I well remember a debate that took place, sponsored by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, in Windsor during the election. I debated with the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye), and this issue was raised by many of the members of the public who were at the meeting. The member for Windsor-Sandwich said, on behalf of the Liberal Party: “Not to worry. The government is committed to inflation protection. Mr. Cooke has no reason to be concerned. Workers in this province will soon see inflation protection, as soon as the Friedland task force reports. All you have to do is wait for that task force.”

Now the task force has reported and it has suggested a formula that is so weak that no one will experience the full benefits for 30 to 40 years. No one will experience the full benefits of this package until well into the next century. The member for Brant-Haldimand (Mr. R. F. Nixon), the present Minister for Financial Institutions, has not given a formal response, but his comments in the press after the report had been filed were that he basically embraced and endorsed the Friedland recommendations.

Just in case members do not know what the Friedland recommendations are, the recommendations on inflation protection are as follows:

That they would ask for or guarantee 75 per cent of the increases in the consumer price index minus one per cent for future contributions only. Therefore, if inflation were five per cent, the worker would get inflation protection of 75 per cent of that or 3.75 per cent minus one per cent. So an inflation rate of five per cent would produce protection of only 2.75 per cent and that would only be on future contributions.

A further recommendation says that inflation protection could be provided retroactively at a rate of 75 per cent of the increases in the consumer price index minus two per cent. That would produce 1.75 per cent, but it is completely voluntary. There will be no enforcement on retroactivity whatsoever.

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I am going to get back to that a bit when I quote some of the sections of the Friedland report which prove very clearly that, in fact, we cannot rely on companies to do this voluntarily. If we could, we would not have to be looking at legislation. It would already have been done.

Page 258 of the report refers to the effects of inflation:

“A person retiring in 1965 with an initial employment pension of, say, $100 a month would have seen its value decline by 1985 to $26 a month in 1965 terms. Even someone retiring as recently as 1980 with a $100 benefit would have seen the real value decline to $63 by 1985.”

Clearly inflation is hurting very much the people who are already retired, and the Friedland recommendations would do absolutely nothing to correct this situation.

Page 259 of the report says:

“The defined-benefit plan has one major drawback, however. Without some form of inflation protection, there can be an inequitable redistribution of resources away from pensioners to the plan sponsors, who, in many cases, use these funds to upgrade the benefits of the active workers. Pensioners suffer by not having their pensions increase with inflation; yet the fund used to provide these benefits continues to grow at a speed that varies with the rate of inflation. It is not acceptable for pensioners to carry an unfair share of the burden imposed by inflation.”

In other words, they are saying that the people who are currently retired and who contributed to the pension plans see their contributions increasing in that pension plan, but they reap none of the benefits, none of the benefits whatsoever.

Page 260 of the report states:

“In chapter 3 we examined whether plan sponsors have been dealing with this potential inequality by granting increases that go some way to meeting inflationary increases. There has been very little automatic inflation protection in the private sector -- well under 10 per cent of the plans. Indexation in the public sector is much more common. Although many employers grant voluntary, or, as they are called, ‘ad hoc’ increases, the extent of indexation is quite low compared to the rate of inflation. One major survey showed that the increases granted over the past 10 years by the median company were under 30 per cent of the inflation rate. There is great unevenness in granting ad hoc adjustments. Larger companies granted them more often than smaller companies, while Canadian companies granted them more often than Canadian subsidiaries of US-based companies.”

Clearly, the only way that workers are going to experience protection of their pension plans from inflation is if this government and this Legislature have the courage, the conviction and the guts to bring in legislation. It will not be done voluntarily by the private sector.

I have one final quote at this point. It states on page 261 of the report:

“The higher the inflation formula, the greater the cost.” That obviously makes sense. “As we saw in chapter 8, a 100 per cent inflation formula without caps would result in very high potential costs. This would lead in many cases to the discontinuance of plans or the passing on of the cost to employees through lower salaries or reduced benefits in the future.”

I read that because obviously what Friedland is saying in that excerpt is that pension plans are negotiated and, if those pension plans go up in cost through negotiations, then the unions that are negotiating those contracts have to accept lower salaries. We have always said that. We have always said that pensions are deferred wages.

Madam Speaker, if you accept the principle that pensions are deferred wages, then obviously that money belongs not to the company or the plan’s sponsor, that money belongs to the members of the pension plan. That means that a whole bunch of other assumptions has to be accepted and that means that surpluses should be used to protect the members against inflation and not be used in some other way by surplus withdrawals or contribution holidays.

The Friedland report accepts the fact that inflation is a real and significant burden on the retirees. Some people have argued that retirees need less and therefore they do not need 100 per cent inflation protection. But clearly, on page 123 of the Friedland report, it states that there is absolutely no evidence that would show that retirees need less than you or I might. The report points out that the life expectancy is increasing and there are obviously more retirees and will be more retirees. Without protection, these people will be left on fixed incomes, very vulnerable to inflation.

It is worth repeating that someone who retired in 1980 with a monthly pension of $1,000 saw its worth diminished to $634 by 1985. At the same time, property taxes went away up and the property tax grant from this government has only gone up $100 in the last 10 years, so it has hardly kept up with inflation. It is no wonder that many people who are working in our companies and factories across this province do not take early retirement. With all the questions about possible protection and their vulnerability to inflation and being stuck on fixed incomes, they cannot afford to take early retirement or even take retirement when their benefits would be at a maximum.

Retirees in this province and elsewhere in Canada fought hard in world wars to keep this nation free for you and me and it seems rather cruel that governments today are not prepared to protect those same people who fought for us and built this nation and built this province so that they can have a decent retirement. It is not because there has not been a demonstrated need. We know there is a demonstrated need; the Friedland report makes that very clear, and members who have talked to their constituents know there is a need.

Members will remember when the committee of the Legislature was studying Bill 170, which was the amendment to the Pension Benefits Act, it talked about the issue of inflation protection. The auto companies went before that committee and said that if they had to pay inflation protection, they would go broke. It was just not possible and it should not even be considered. It was only a matter of months after that they negotiated at the bargaining table with the Canadian Auto Workers and they have now some inflation protection and they upgraded pensions over a six-year plan for people who were already retired. So the arguments that some of the most profitable companies in our province and in our country and in the world cannot afford inflation protection is absolute nonsense.

I encourage members of the Legislature to look at the Friedland report, and especially the comments on Sweden, Germany, France and the United Kingdom where they have taken a totally different approach to pensions. They understand that inflation protection and income for the retirees of their nations is absolutely essential and well deserved. These countries have accepted the principle of inflation protection. They have a much better public pension plan system as well.

I would like now to turn my attention briefly to the second aspect of my resolution which is obviously very much related to inflation protection, and that is the one of contribution holidays. The basic principle enunciated in the Friedland report through the quotes I have read is that the moneys in the pension plans are, in fact, deferred wages. If they are deferred wages, then that means the contributions as well as the money earned on those contributions, the surpluses, belong to the employees. If a better pension plan can be obtained through negotiations or through the imposition of legislation, then clearly the money is there through the surpluses. If a pension is a deferred wage, then clearly the money belongs to the members of the pension plan. This includes, as I have said, the pension surpluses.

Government seemed to accept this principle when it froze the surplus withdrawals a couple of years ago. However, contribution holidays are still allowed. It is crazy to think that there is a difference between a contribution holiday and a surplus withdrawal. The end effect is exactly the same.

The Treasurer has said that new federal legislation prohibits him from allowing surpluses to grow and that, in fact, the surplus can only be two years’ worth of benefits. I understand that there are new federal regulations coming in, but it is clear also that those surpluses can be diminished in two ways: by contribution holidays where the employer takes the money and does with it what he wants, or by improving the pensions of the retirees. If we accept the principle that those surpluses belong to the employees and the members of the pension plan, then there is no bloody way that money should go back to the employer. That money should be used to improve the pensions of the retirees, the future retirees or both.

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The Treasurer indicated, when we talked about the hospital situation where the Ontario Hospital Association is withdrawing $80 million, that there was absolutely nothing he could do. Let me point out that the average pension for someone who retired in 1986 and worked for the hospitals in this province is $436 a month or $5,232 a year. Surely to God, rather than allowing the Ontario Hospital Association to pull out $80 million, that $80 million should have been used to improve the pensions of those people who are on very low incomes in our province and who were very lowly paid when they were working in the hospital system.

The Ontario Hospital Association justifies the contribution holiday by saying that it is going to use this money for computerized axial tomography scanners and other high-tech equipment. I do not think the members of pension plans in our province should have to pay for that type of equipment. If, in fact, that is needed in our province and our province’s hospitals, then that cost should be shared by all of us. That is what medicare is all about. That is what socialized medicine is all about. We share the cost of our health care system equally. We should not be putting that burden simply on the hospital workers of this province.

I have a very short period of time left. I have a list of companies I had wanted to run through that in the past have just simply withdrawn their surpluses. So that members understand, during the period of time between April 1, 1986, and November 30, 1986, $42,435,000 was withdrawn from pension plans in this province. I ask the members of the Legislature to look at what is happening with contribution holidays and what has happened in the past with surplus withdrawals and understand that if we do not make decisions now to freeze the contribution holidays, there are not going to be surpluses in the pension plans to be able to pay for inflation protection or to improve pensions for our retirees in this province.

We have a long way to go. The government has the data in front of it and I encourage it to move quickly. We, as members of the Legislature, can send a message to the Treasurer and the government that we care about our retirees in this province and that we want protection for those employees now.

Mr. Harris: I am pleased to have the opportunity to add a few comments to the resolution the member has put forward today. I want to say that I share the member’s concern. I share the thrust of the concern he expressed in his comments today. Indeed, there are a number of people in Ontario today who have worked hard, who have paid their dues, who have done all they could do and more to build a foundation for this province, for the prosperity that those of us who have come after have had the opportunity to enjoy, and there are some problems there. But I cannot support the resolution and I want to tell members why I cannot support the resolution.

The principle, we agree with. There are some inequities out there for some people, particularly those the first part of the resolution talks about, those retirees who have been retired for some period of time and who have no indexing of their pension plans. Inflation over that period of time has eroded those private pension plans to the point where they are certainly not doing what they were intended to do when those employees were working.

But this resolution does not address the inequities of those who had no pension plan during those years. In fact, it penalizes those employers, those small companies -- some of them large, but many of them small companies -- which at a time when private pension plans were not the norm, said: “Yes, we want to provide a pension plan for our employees. Yes, we are going to set this up and we are going to assist employees. We are going to make contributions ourselves.”

What this resolution does is say to those companies and those enlightened employers: “Due to unforeseen circumstances that your retired employees really did not have a way of foreseeing, and obviously you did not have a way of foreseeing, we’re going to punish you. We’re going to make you pay.” Those employers who had no pension plans through that period of time and who did not provide for any retirement for their employees will get it double-barrelled. You will say, “Well, they didn’t have it then, they weren’t enlightened then and it doesn’t cost them anything now.”

There is something wrong with that rationale. It is like a lot of principles. You write something down in theory and you take a box and say: “These people have a problem here. We’re all sympathetic to that problem, so here’s a solution. We’ll simply index everybody’s pension back.” Then you have to look at who is going to pay for this.

This resolution says to those enlightened employers, “You’re going to have to pay again. To those of you who did not care about your employees back in that period of time” -- for whatever reason; perhaps the employees did not want a pension plan either; let us be honest about it – “to those employers, nothing.”

If there is a problem and if it is caused by circumstances that those employees of the day who are now retired and have been retired for some period of time could not foresee, and if government is concerned about those individuals, then government should do something about it. We should not go back to those employers who were the most enlightened of their day and say retroactively: “We’re going to penalize you. You’re going to have to fund this.” If there is a problem, and there is with a number of our retirees, then surely government has a role to play.

Whenever I throw it back to government, people say to me: “Well, aren’t you the guy who wants a balanced budget? Aren’t you the guy who didn’t want any tax increases?” Yes, I am.

So how do you take care of retired senior citizens whom, in many cases through no fault of their own, inflation has caught up with? You take care of them by doing away with a lot of the universality we have. You take the pension cheque my father gets. He is now 72 or 73. I hope you are watching today, father. You take the pension cheque he is getting -- not the pension cheque, I am sorry, but the automatic stuff you get by virtue of your age, and you say: “Mr. Harris, you did very well under the system that was in place and you have quite a bit of money. You’re not a rich man, but you have plenty of money, enough to afford your house and your boat and your cars, and you don’t need this extra money.”

Mr. Laughren: That is 100 per cent taxation. That is expropriation.

Mr. Harris: So you take that money away from my father and you give it to those who need it. You look at things like the tax credit and you give it to people who need it. Indeed, those senior citizens who now are having problems -- if you look at how we distribute the funds, we could be giving them far more than what we are giving them if we would quit sending the automatic benefits to the likes of my father, Harold Ballard and indeed many who are retiring these days who have done very well by the system.

I think there is a problem. I compliment the member for his resolution which allows some debate and focuses attention on that problem. The fact that I am not supporting the resolution does not diminish my admiration for the member for bringing it forward.

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Mr. Wildman: You? Admiration?

Mr. Harris: My admiration for the member for bringing it forward. I congratulate him and I share his concern. I guess I differ as to where the solution should lie. As I see it, this resolution goes after the wrong people to correct the problem and I do not think two wrongs necessarily are going to make a right.

I also want to talk briefly on the moratorium on the use of contribution holidays which the member says is another means of surplus withdrawals. Again, what we are talking about here -- the pension plan and the companies I want to defend, if you like, are the most enlightened. They are the ones that have sat down and negotiated a pension plan and how much money is in the pension plan is totally irrelevant. They have negotiated a fixed benefit, such as 75 per cent of the average of your best five years or the average of your three years; I am speaking on behalf of them.

Those are defined pension plans, most of them negotiated -- not all of them, though, but many of them -- by very enlightened companies that have recognized that pensions are important and that life after work, after you have contributed to a company for a number of years, is important. They have provided that benefit to their employees either through individual agreements or through contracts, so the idea of surplus withdrawals is really not relevant there. That company must provide that defined-benefit plan. If there is a shortfall, that company must put the money in.

If we ban surplus withdrawals for those companies, we can be sure they will never, ever put enough in. They will never have enough in. It is like telling an apartment owner he can never convert to a condominium and then you are shocked when he builds a condominium which he can convert to an apartment. What do you expect the guy to do? You say that if he builds an apartment building he can never convert it to a condominium and you are shocked that there are only 400 apartment units built in Toronto. Everybody is building condominiums. Why not? It is because of the stupid legislation that is there.

Governments do not seem to look beyond how they are attacking the problem when they attack symptoms instead of the problem. We have a great deal of sympathy for those who are retired and are having problems and we think government has a role to play, but we do not think this resolution, while it attacks the problem and identifies it, gives the proper solution.

Mr. J. B. Nixon: I too commend the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. D. S. Cooke) for the sensitivity and thoughtfulness he brings to this issue. It is a very difficult debate because it is a very complex matter we are looking at. As evidence of the complexity, I just hold up in front of the members the report of Messrs. Friedland, Jackson and Pilkey, which is four volumes. It brought a lot of work to the issue, a lot of thoughtful commentary and thoughtful recommendations, but if nothing else, the members can see that it is not a simple matter.

One key fact I think all members should keep in mind as we go through this discussion is that only 37 per cent of existing employees are covered by a private pension plan.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: That’s what I said.

Mr. J. B. Nixon: I know the member said this but I want to reaffirm it. Fully 63 per cent are not covered by any form of private pension plan, and indeed on retirement have to rely on the Canada pension plan, old age security, guaranteed annual income system programs and so on.

I also want to give the members some background history on how we got to this debate and where the debate stands in the Ontario Legislature. Bill 170, which was An Act to revise the Pension Benefits Act, was proclaimed in force on January 1, 1988. It was a major reform in the entire area of private pension programs for all of Canada. It was based on a national consensus built up over the period of four years and agreed upon by the 10 provinces and the federal government.

In fact, on second reading, this government deviated from the national consensus in one significant respect. The Liberal government inserted a provision in the new Pension Benefits Act that required a specific section which will require the formula for mandatory indexation to be set out in the act.

In other words, quite clearly this government committed to mandatory indexation. The formula remained to be developed -- or the formulae, plural. Indeed, I can tell the members the government then proceeded to commission Professor Martin Friedland, Sydney Jackson and Cliff Pilkey of the Ontario Federation of Labour to define an affordable and effective formula for pension indexation. Those are the key words, “affordable” and “effective.”

Out of that review, study and public hearings came this report we have before us. Now, the report in many ways produced a Solomon-like solution. The proposal recommended was that prospective indexation be mandatory. In other words, future pensioners shall have indexation at a rate of 75 per cent of the increases in the consumer price index, minus one per cent. The Friedland commission argued that retroactive protection for existing retirees would cost between 200 and 300 per cent more than simple prospective or future pension indexation. Indeed, the cost of payroll for retroactive indexation goes up to as high as 18 per cent of payroll, an exorbitant amount in the view of Mr. Friedland.

The problems with the retroactivity my friend would like to see, which I think we are all sympathetic to, is threefold. One, the retroactive indexation that would be given to existing retirees requires a subsidization from existing employees. In other words, employees who are now paying into the pension plan would have to pay more and employers would have to pay more to ensure indexation for those people who have already retired. I say we really have to consider what sort of load we want to put on the existing employees and employers at this point.

I suggest another thing we have to consider is that only 37 per cent of the employees in the province are covered by pension plans. Clearly, when we load an additional cost on to the existing plan sponsors, a cost that may go up to as high as 18 per cent of payroll, we have to consider the competitive disadvantage we impose on those companies that are offering pension plans at this time. Those companies that do not offer pension plans clearly become more competitive and do not have the cost disadvantage imposed upon them.

Again, in the same sense, we have to consider the increased cost as a deterrent to the creation of new pension plans. Clearly, plan sponsors or prospective plan sponsors will look at the legislation and say to themselves that the cost of establishing a defined-benefit pension plan with full indexation, prospectively and retroactively for future retirees and existing retirees, is so high that they are not going to go into it. They may follow the model of the group registered retirement savings plan. They may use the defined contribution plan that is not indexed, another form of pension plan I will go into. But the cost will really deter them from establishing pension plans and I think everyone would agree that we want the private sector to establish plans, that we want to encourage it, and cost is clearly a factor when they make that decision.

Just briefly, I want to outline some of the aspects of pension plans for the members’ assistance in considering the debate. The real incentive to establishing a private pension plan is the Income Tax Act of Canada. The Income Tax Act says that an employer can move income into a pension plan on a tax-free basis. It is a means of deferring the payment of tax and you can move it into that plan and keep it out of the taxable income.

None the less, the Department of National Revenue, under the Income Tax Act, sets rules as to what you must do when a surplus arises. It says you can do three things as a plan sponsor: one, you can enrich benefits; two, if the surplus gets to the level of two years’ contributions, then you have to take it out; or, three, you have to take a contribution holiday. When the surplus gets to the level of two years’ maximum contribution, the plan sponsor has to do one of three things, or the plans deregister and the employer has to pay tax on all of the money which was put into the pension plan. There is a decision which the plan sponsor has to make. Clearly, this government has banned surplus withdrawals and temporarily banned plan windups.

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It is important for the members to understand that the employer or plan sponsor is then left with two alternatives. Before examining those alternatives, I would just like to briefly comment as to where surplus arises. Surplus does not arise because there is a fixed number of dollars in the plan, and when it is withdrawn or a contribution holiday is taken, it is not a theft. Surplus arises simply because an actuary says, “In order to meet all your future obligations as a pension plan sponsor, we believe the future interest rate will be seven per cent, and based on that seven per cent, these are the reserves you require.” The money in the pension plan may well exceed those reserves or may well be below those reserves. Change that actuarial assumption by one per cent and a surplus of hundreds of millions of dollars can be turned into a deficit.

The whole point is that if we ban contribution holidays, we are going to discourage conservative actuarial assumptions which lead to adequately funded pension plans, and that may lead to failure of the pension plan or no pension plan.

They are difficult decisions from a regulatory point of view, from a social policy point of view and from a business point of view, but there are a number of reasons why the contribution holiday cannot be banned.

The problem with attempting to ban them is that the surplus cannot be identified and the extent of the contribution holiday cannot be identified. My friend suggests that the surplus is the workers’ money. I suggest to him that he is quite incorrect. The surplus arises because of actuarial assumptions as to future requirements. It is not money that is necessarily in the pension plan; it is money that may have to go into the pension plan at some future date. By and large, that money comes from an employer’s deferral of wage payments to the employee. I will agree with that. However, I would suggest to my friends that they have failed to consider the most important aspect of the surplus, and that is that it is created by rules requiring conservative funding of plans for the safety of the workers.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: Bette Stephenson lives on.

Mr. Mackenzie: My colleague has stolen my line; the Bette Stephenson clone from York Mills has just been giving us a lot of nonsense in this particular debate.

Let me tell you right off the bat that the history of this particular resolution which my colleague has moved in the House goes back way before the legislation this government brought in 1985 and 1988 in terms of the Pension Benefits Act. I might also say that it was the pressure of the accord with the New Democratic Party that made that one of the key and first items this government had to deal with, and it did deal with three specific recommendations that were useful for workers. It did not deal with the indexing or with the surplus funds. That was farmed out to a committee, and as the member well knows, there was no unanimity in terms of that committee.

I might also say that pension plans did not come about because employees were trying to shift money to save taxes. Pension plans came about in this province because a lot of workers realized that without some kind of decent retirement income, they were going to be up against it and, at worst, wards of the state. That was not their intent. It seems to me that the member is trying to say, as I thought the Tory spokesman was on this issue, that we should not deal, because we might penalize all of those who do not have pension plans. I think we should be assisting and giving credit to those who have had the guts to negotiate and work for a pension plan.

When I said workers did not try to escape taxes by establishing pension plans, they tried to protect their standard of living, I am sure all members in this House have done a little bit of research on this particular item and will know that $100 of pension for somebody who retired in 1971 is worth less than $30 today; and there are a lot of pensioners around who have been retired that long. When you take a look at the value of their pension, you understand the concerns they have with meeting the tax bills and so on.

Somebody who retired in 1976 has a pension that is today worth less than $46 for every $100 worth of pension. For somebody who retired in 1981, that $100 worth of pension is worth in the low $70s to him today. This was the problem that was facing workers in the province of Ontario, and most of the private pension plans that we have came about as a result of union contracts and negotiations by the workers. Once again, while I will acknowledge there may be a few benevolent employers, the vast majority of them did not march into private pension plans willingly; they did it because they were forced to through negotiations, and that is the case in almost every major plant that is organized in this particular province.

Those employees are hurting today. I have one letter in front of me sent to me by Lou Henderson, retired steelworker and president of the retirees in the United Steelworkers of America local in Hamilton, who is making the point of what it is costing his members -- the fact that they are not able to meet their bills. He gives four examples which he says are four of the better examples: one employee, 10 years retired now, whose pension income is $405 a month; another one, 18 years -- this is his private plan -- has $343; another, 15 years since retirement, $375; and another, 10 years, at $377. He uses them only as examples. With that, in the arguments they made with us, were what they are paying and how difficult it is to get along today on that kind of income.

We are really talking about whether or not people are going to live at a decent level once they reach retirement age. I think we should also understand that because this was the basis of most of the private plans starting, I do not think the argument that the money is not theirs when there is a surplus in those plans holds water.

If you have sat down and negotiated union contracts, you will know very well that when you look at the cents per hour, that is one part of a package when you are negotiating. When you look at vacations, that is another part, and there is always a price on it -- half a cent, a cent, a cent and a half -- depending on what you are trying to achieve in terms of the vacation package. When you take a look at the benefits, whether it is health, the drug coverage, there is also a price, so many cents per hour on it. When you take a look at pensions there is a price, so many cents per hour on it, depending on just what kind of level you want to achieve.

In the process of negotiations you have to balance out what your membership wants, whether you have a plant with younger workers who may not put quite as high a priority on pensions, whether you have more older workers or whether they have finally understood, young or old, the importance of a pension when they reach retirement age.

The package that you finally negotiate in those contracts takes into account the price of each of these components. If the package says that five cents have to go into the pension program this year to boost the level and do what you want, that is five cents that, if you had not negotiated that pension package, would have gone into the wage package, or if not into the wage package, into better vacations or maybe hearing or better dental coverage or you name it. So it is a matter of deferred wages.

I guess my annoyance with some of the members of this House -- I should not say some of the new members who may not have been through it, but some of the current cabinet ministers in the front bench here sat on that select committee on pensions in 1979-80 and I sat on it. We could not reach agreement on indexing then. We argued for it. We argued for an Ontario plan because there are so many workers who are not covered. It is true only 37 per cent of the Ontario workers are in private plans, but we could not convince members to take that route. Frankly, I think substantial improvements in the Canada pension plan are what we should really be doing, and I think this province should be taking the lead in that, because that covers everybody and there is a hell of a lot more sense to it.

But inasmuch as we could not do that, first we had to take a look at whether we could get this government to go for a private plan. When we could not achieve that, then we asked, can we get improvements at least for those workers who have already done the fighting in terms of the private plans that do exist? In that committee, as I have said in this House before, there was unanimity, not on the indexing -- I think we were the only people who would support that, although I think there was some support from some of the Liberal members of that committee; at that time they were in opposition also -- but there was unanimity, and I do not think I can be challenged on this, that the surpluses in those plans should be used to improve the benefits or have some form of indexing of the private plans that existed. We were all in agreement on that; even the Tories, and the Liberals as well.

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I cannot understand what has happened in the past three, four or five years. All of a sudden, that money is no longer deferred wages, that surplus no longer belongs to the employees and it should belong to the company or the company should have the right to take it out. Even there, the government is obviously uneasy, because it has put a moratorium on it. It knows there is a powerful argument, and maybe one or two of them -- hopefully, their consciences prick them a bit -- understand that they were arguing that money did belong to workers not too long ago.

It seems to me that to allow the companies to take that money out of the plans; or what I think is even more insidious in some ways to allow companies instead, because they have been thwarted or blocked by the freeze that is on that surplus money in private pension plans, to take a contribution holiday: I do not know how anybody in this House can get up and with a straight face say that is not just an under-the-table theft of that kind of money. To me, it is fundamentally dishonest to make the argument that it is OK to take a contribution holiday. It is exactly the same thing.

We are still allowing that, even though we put a freeze on directly taking the money out; and it is the same doggone thing. We are not using the good investment, that I will acknowledge has gone into these plans and has earned the surplus funds -- and there is a lot of surplus money, over $10 billion in plans in Ontario -- to form part of the basic cost of improving those plans, or starting at least on an indexing formula. To me, that does not make any sense whatsoever.

It is one of the things that I think eventually government is going to answer for; either that or it is going to clearly polarize the two points of view in this House. First, that money does belong to workers and should be used for that purpose, and I think that is a better purpose than allowing the companies to take it out; or the government argument or the Tory argument: “No, you cannot. You have a defined benefit plan and it really belongs to the companies.”

I hate to think that is the route we are going, because it means it is going to take an even longer time to win this battle for ordinary people in the province of Ontario.

I think the resolution put before this House by my colleague is a good step. We have done this kind of thing before in a resolution my leader put before this House as well on pensions. I hope the members would reconsider and consider supporting this, and supporting it with more conviction than they have supported some of the positions we have taken in past discussions, all the way back to 1979 or 1980 in committees of this House, and start working towards putting this kind of move into place.

If not, then I challenge every government member in this House to take a look at a public pension plan in Ontario, a provincial pension plan that can deal with and cover all the people in the province of Ontario. That is a final resort, I guess, but this would usually just be a stall. That is why I hate to suggest it, but it is certainly the obvious one: that the province of Ontario take the bit in its teeth and take the lead in saying, “It is time we made major reforms to the Canada pension plan and we are prepared to say that at the next first ministers’ conference.”

The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): Does any other member wish to participate in the debate?

Mr. Sterling: How much is left?

The Acting Speaker: Eight minutes. The member for Carleton.

Mr. Sterling: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: If the member supports it, I will buy him a turkey.

Mr. Sterling: If he buys two or three, I might.

I would like to indicate some support for some of the ideas contained in this resolution. I think when we are talking about pension plans and major overhauls of the philosophy behind pension plans, we have to be somewhat cautious in the approach. In talking about the benefits side we are dealing with one part of the equation or the problem and not dealing with a number of the other parts of the problem. I think that is not something we can support in its entirety.

There are some real problems that are out there with regard to pension plans, surpluses in pension plans and those kinds of things. I guess the whole idea of indexing -- if I may draw some kind of analogy to the situation we have in terms of a benefit plan that we have in this province which has resulted in tremendous problems and I am talking about our workers’ compensation scheme.

In our workers’ compensation scheme, we started back 10 or 20 years ago -- not started, but we continued to pay in premiums based on the assumption that you had a system that was going to pay out benefits under a certain set of circumstances and rules. Then, in our wisdom in this Legislature, what we have done now is we have set forward a different set of rules under which someone who is injured on the job and is entitled to compensation receives compensation. As a result of not marrying the two together, not marrying the contributions which employers pay towards workers’ compensation premiums, not marrying that to the benefits which we are now paying, we have as a result a $6 billion deficit in the workers’ compensation fund. If certain things happened in our economy whereby the economy cooled off substantially, there are some pretty horrendous stories as to how fast that deficit could build to even as much as $20 billion in a very short period of time, like a year.

We have an example of a situation whereby we went in with certain rules. We changed the rules mid-stream and now we have a serious problem with workers’ compensation. We have small businesses, for instance, under our workers’ compensation, which are paying over 100 per cent what they were paying three years ago. In other words, their premiums have doubled in the past two or three years. Those are companies that do not even have a bad worker-accident record. I mean they are totally meeting their obligation with regard to safety in the workplace, yet their premiums have doubled. Even with doubling them, it is not enough to make the workers’ compensation fund actuarially sound.

We have a situation of changing the rules and getting into problems. One of the problems with indexing of course is that you cannot, with a great deal of clarity, find out what is happening in the future. I have some empathy with the theory of indexing in terms of legislation and talking into the future, but in reaching back and indexing plans whereby workers and employers have not paid in adequately to a pension plan in order to have that luxury of indexing, I think invites some problems.

In essence then, if we do that, what we would be doing is really living off the backs of our children in terms of them having to cover for us not paying our fair share of the premiums to cover a benefit which we may receive in the future. I do not think that is good planning. I think what we should do, if we see that there is a deficiency with regard to pension plans, is to look to our governments to solve that problem. We should not look to the private industries who have entered into this particular arrangement to solve the problem. I think that is a government function to solve a problem. If there is a class of workers who are not receiving enough in order to live, then it is our obligation as legislators to see that those people get a fair share in order to be able to properly live in our society.

It has been mentioned by I think virtually every speaker, that only one third of our workers are covered by pension plans. I think that the philosophy of the party that I represent is that, first of all, we are very much concerned with the people who are unable to take care of themselves, who have not had a union to look out for them, who have not had an employer who has looked out for them, who have not had the luxury of being paid a large wage while they were working. Therefore, first of all, our efforts are to see that the government takes care of those people and making sure that there is a minimum standard of living that people in our province can enjoy. While we have some real empathy towards the thrust and the drive that the member has put forward, we do see a significant number of problems in implementing what this resolution says.

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With that, I would like to say to the member that we in our caucus would be quite willing to work towards plans which will deal with the surplus problem. We do not think this is a solution to the surplus problem. We think -- or I feel, I should not speak for my whole caucus with regard to the surplus funds --

Mr. D. S. Cooke: You never have in the past. Why would you now?

Mr. Laughren: You are the leading edge of the wedge.

Mr. Sterling: Being at the leading edge of the wedge, I think that if we are to do something with surplus funds, then perhaps we should be doing something for all workers in the province with those surplus funds and not just those who are involved in a particular plan.

RIDING OF PARRY SOUND

Mr. Eves moved resolution 18:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should designate the entire riding of Parry Sound, specifically the district of Parry Sound, as being part of northern Ontario for the purposes of all government ministries, agencies, boards and commissions.

The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): The honourable member has up to 20 minutes for his presentation and may reserve any portion of that for his windup.

Mr. Eves: Thank you. In all probability, I will reserve at least five minutes at the end.

This is a resolution identical in wording to one in the last parliament which I introduced on June 25, 1987, and which, I might add to members present, especially for new members, was unanimously passed by all members of this Legislature representing all three political parties. In fact, it has been subsequently endorsed by the Liberal candidate in the September 10, 1987, election and by the previous Liberal candidates before that one in the 1985 and 1981 elections. It also has been endorsed by the Premier (Mr. Peterson) on several different occasions. It has been endorsed by the Minister of Northern Development (Mr. Fontaine) and by the Minister of Northern Development and Mines in his previous incarnation.

Mr. Laughren: Why hasn’t it happened then?

Mr. Eves: That is a very good question. Why has it not happened then?

I was here about a year ago, rising on exactly the same resolution and I will reiterate some of the points that I made at that time. Some things have changed a little bit. Instead of spending a budget of some $35 billion, the province’s budget this year, just announced last week as a matter of fact by the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon), is some $38 billion. Yet the government of Ontario still has not seen fit to include the district of Parry Sound in northern Ontario for the purposes of all its ministries.

I might point out, especially to some of the newer members of the Legislature, that there are indeed 10 ministries in the Ontario government that do regard the district of Parry Sound as being part of northern Ontario. This is not just an issue that has arisen in the last few years. Before 1977 or late 1976, it was not an issue at all, because there was no Ministry of Northern Affairs -- or Northern Development as it is now called -- in Ontario.

When that ministry was formed, the first minister, Mr. Bernier, decided to include Parry Sound -- and I mean all of the riding of Parry Sound -- in his ministry. One by one, different ministries, presumably on the strength and commitment of the individual minister involved, have brought various ministries on stream.

We now have the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, the Ministry of Community and Social Services, the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and the Ministry of Housing, as well as the Ministry of Northern Development, all regarding the district of Parry Sound as being part of northern Ontario.

This did not happen all at once. They gradually came on stream one at a time. We have the Ministry of Education in a peculiar situation. I was the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education for a period of time when Bette Stephenson was the minister. She decided she was going to include the district of Parry Sound, which this government has continued in the same light, in northern Ontario for the purposes of six out of nine funding factors for the north.

I guess for the purposes of the Ministry of Education we are two thirds in northern Ontario and one third in southern Ontario, if that has any logic to it at all. I am not quite sure it does. I did not agree with the minister then and I do not agree with the minister now. I guess two thirds of a loaf is better than none, but we would like the rest of the loaf.

The Ministry of Health poses a lot of problems in not recognizing the district as part of northern Ontario. It is a particular hardship to individual constituents as opposed to hospitals or institutions, although they feel the crunch as well.

The northern health travel grant program, which was announced by the predecessor of the current Minister of Health, I believe on December 1, 1985, if my memory serves me correctly, was announced in this House and the district of Parry Sound was not included. At that time, the distance one had to travel to a medical centre to be reimbursed was 300 kilometres.

I raised the issue almost immediately, I believe some 13 days later on December 13, 1985, with the then minister, the present Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet (Mr. Elston). He pointed out that this was a new program and that they would like to try it the way it was instituted for a year and see how things came about.

When I raised that very same issue with the Premier in the estimates of the Ministry of Northern Development, as he was the Minister of Northern Development and Mines at the time as well as being the Premier, he indicated that nothing was sacrosanct and that they would indeed look at including the district of Parry Sound when they refined the program.

About a year later, the program was refined, but much to my displeasure, although they lowered the distance from 300 kilometres to 250 kilometres, they still did not include the district of Parry Sound in the northern health travel grant program. Just about every single part of the district of Parry Sound is more than 250 kilometres from Toronto, for example, I know that quite well because I live in the town of Parry Sound, which is in the southwest corner of the riding, and it is slightly in excess of 250 kilometres for me to go home every week.

We have constituents, mainly cancer patients but other constituents as well with particular health problems, who travel to Princess Margaret and other hospitals and centres in southern Ontario on a regular basis for treatment. A lot of them cannot afford the travel cost out of their own pocket. Currently, they have to rely upon friends, relatives, neighbours, or in a great many cases service clubs, to provide transportation through way of volunteers.

There is a program the government has introduced, and I support that program fully, to help people in these situations, but we really feel that the people in the district of Parry Sound should be entitled to share in that program as well.

We have the odd situation in that Parry Sound riding is primarily the district of Parry Sound plus everything in the district of Nipissing lying east of North Bay, which includes all of Algonquin Park as well. There are many constituents in my riding who, although they are in the district of Parry Sound, particularly those along the south shore of Lake Nipissing, are farther north than many of my constituents in the district of Nipissing. The people who live in the district of Nipissing part of my riding are in northern Ontario for the purposes of all government ministries, but the people who live farther north in the district of Parry Sound part of the riding are not in northern Ontario; they are in southern Ontario. I do not know what sort of logic that makes. It does not make any to me.

When I raised this matter with the Premier in the estimates of the Ministry of Northern Development -- I believe it was February 12, 1987 -- he indicated that the case I made was a rational one, to use his words, and he could not argue with me about it and that he would pursue his cabinet colleagues with renewed vigour, as he put it, after the February 1987 estimates to try to persuade them to develop some rationale for all government ministries.

Also, the Minister of Northern Development, the member for Cochrane North, has spoken at two of the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities meetings -- which Parry Sound hosted I might add; I believe it was in February 1986. The member for Cochrane North was then the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. He was the guest speaker at the final wrapup meeting of FONOM and he committed himself to including the district of Parry Sound in northern Ontario for the purposes of all government ministries.

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He supported a resolution that was passed by FONOM at that meeting; a resolution not so dissimilar, I might add, to another FONOM resolution passed -- I believe it was April 27, 28 or 29, 1977 -- some 10 years earlier to get Parry Sound into northern Ontario in the first place when the new Ministry of Northern Affairs was first formed.

Parry Sound municipalities have always been members of FONOM, the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities. They have always fully participated in FONOM. I think geographically and demographically there is no doubt that the people who live in the district of Parry Sound regard themselves as northerners, not as residents of central or southern Ontario.

I know the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay (Mr. Black) will remember that at one time, when redistribution hearings were going on, it was suggested that the district of Parry Sound and the regional municipality of Muskoka be combined in one riding, similar to the federal riding, which would be known as Parry Sound-Muskoka. I am sure the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay would prefer Muskoka-Parry Sound.

However, there were over 52 delegations, many of whom were individuals not municipal governments, that appeared at those hearings in Barrie and argued very strenuously that the district of Parry Sound had a different character. It is a territorial district; it is not a county and it is not a regional municipality. Territorial districts, I am sure other northern members will know, are peculiar to northern Ontario.

Mr. Black: As was Muskoka.

Mr. Eves: As was Muskoka, but as Muskoka is not now. I am sure my honourable colleague will be ready to admit that it happened many years ago -- he probably knows better than I -- when Muskoka decided to become a regional municipality. I believe 1970 rings a bell in my mind -- somewhere thereabouts, anyway.

Many of the municipalities -- in fact, I would say a majority of them -- in the riding of Parry Sound are unorganized municipalities, which is certainly not the case in Muskoka or other points farther south. That is not unusual in territorial districts and it is not unusual in northern Ontario. There are some 35 organized municipalities in the riding of Parry Sound and well in excess of 50 unorganized municipalities. These people, for sure, regard themselves as northerners. They qualify for many programs ranging from police services under the Solicitor General, ambulance services, fire services, local service boards; all these entities are peculiar to northern Ontario.

As I said, some 10 ministries of government over the last 10 or 11 years have decided to come on stream and recognize the district of Parry Sound as being part of northern Ontario. I really think it is about time the remaining ministries in the government decide to bite the bullet and include the district of Parry Sound in northern Ontario.

It means dollars and cents; there is no doubt about that. That perhaps is the biggest hangup that each individual minister may have about including the district of Parry Sound in northern Ontario. To the Ministry of Education it is probably the most costly, followed by the Ministry of Health.

For the Ministry of Education alone, if the district of Parry Sound were included in northern Ontario and if all nine weighting factors attributed to other school boards in northern Ontario were attributed to the East Parry Sound Board of Education and the West Parry Sound Board of Education, I believe the figures would be something in the neighbourhood of the following: the East Parry Sound Board of Education would receive from $250,000 to $300,000 a year more from the province than it does now, and the West Parry Sound Board of Education would receive in the neighbourhood of $200,000 to $250,000 more in operating funding each and every year from the province than it does now.

The East Parry Sound Board of Education is probably one of the poorest in the province. It has a very low tax base. It has almost no industrial or commercial assessment. It is all residential assessment, much of that seasonal residential assessment as well, I might add, and it receives over 75 per cent funding from Ontario.

Members can compare that, for example, with some school boards in the Metropolitan Toronto area that receive almost none of their moneys from Ontario. We can readily see how dependent a board of education like the East Parry Sound Board of Education and its local ratepayers, taxpayers and constituents are on provincial government funding and what an impact another $250,000 or $300,000 a year would have on the educational process in the East Parry Sound board area.

West Parry Sound is a little bit more fortunate, although I am sure many residents there would disagree from time to time. They receive approximately 50 per cent of their funding from Ontario. There again, when we are talking about another $250,000 a year to those two boards of education, we are talking about a significant impact on the educational system in the East and West Parry Sound boards.

Another ministry that would have a big impact is the Ministry of Transportation. We currently do not get a chance to share in the transportation and road budgets of the Ministry of Northern Development because MTC regards the district of Parry Sound as being part of southern Ontario.

There are many programs that many constituents of ours would like to see through the Ministry of Natural Resources which would probably not cost the government anything, or would cost it next to nothing to have implemented. but with, for example timber policies, aggregate policies and simple things like hunting and fishing, in all those policies the district of Parry Sound is now treated as part of southern Ontario as opposed to part of northern Ontario.

When my colleague the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) was the Minister of Natural Resources -- unfortunately, for too short a period of time -- he had agreed with me and he had bought the argument, I might add to my colleague the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay, that Parry Sound should be included in northern Ontario and was in the process of doing the same when, unfortunately for him, he ceased to become the minister. His successor since has not honoured that commitment and has failed to deliver on it, despite the fact that I do not really believe it would cost the Ministry of Natural Resources anything.

As a matter of fact, for a while the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) was one and the same person as the Minister of Energy. While he had his Minister of Energy hat on Parry Sound was part of northern Ontario, but when he had his Minister of Natural Resources hat on Parry Sound was part of southern Ontario.

I suppose there is some logic in there somewhere. It seems to escape me. I will try to grapple with that. However, that is the way the situation is today and has been for some period of time. The Parry Sound District Municipal Association has been extremely active in passing resolutions on this subject in 1985, 1986 and 1987. They have submitted briefs to the government. I would be remiss if I did not point out to the House that, just recently, the Ministry of Northern Development has asked the Parry Sound District Municipal Association for yet another brief that it would like to receive by the middle of May, and that the cabinet committee on northern development would be prepared to consider such a brief from representatives of the Parry Sound District Municipal Association some time in July.

I do not really see where another brief is needed, There have been many resolutions, briefs and documents submitted to the government over the last three plus years. I think it is really time that we had some commitment with respect to this particular subject.

I will reserve the rest of my time, Madam Speaker.

Mr. Miclash: I would like to respond to the member for Parry Sound, if I may. I am familiar with the district of Parry Sound, as it is very similar to the Kenora riding which I represent. I feel the member for Parry Sound should be heard in terms of his request. As the member has indicated, this request is not a new one and the member has been asking for this status for quite some time now. As a matter of fact, it actually goes back 11 or 12 years. I must ask the member, why has this initiative not been taken during the eight or nine years that it was presented to the previous Conservative government?

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As the member is well aware, our government is presently giving very serious consideration to the request in correspondence with the member for Parry Sound. This has been indicated to him a number of times. The effects on grant and program structure and demands are being sought. As I mentioned earlier, this issue is not a new one and a solution was never arrived at during the eight or nine years it was before our former Conservative government.

May I indicate that we are now operating on the Liberal time schedule, our time schedule, and will continue to check out the consequences of such a move on that particular schedule. May I point out that it was not until the fall meeting of 1986 that the Parry Sound District Municipal Association passed a resolution urging the provincial government to include the district of Parry Sound in northern Ontario for purposes of all ministries and transfer payments to municipalities reflect this change in 1987. It was in the fall of 1986, not 12 years ago, when the idea was first introduced.

The ministers involved have looked at the requests and continue to take all factors that will affect the decision into account or to arrive at a satisfactory resolution to this issue. May I bring forth some of the ministers’ findings thus far. As indicated by the member, all but the ministries of Health and Education do undertake their program reviews using the criteria of northern allowances for this region of the province.

In the Lawton study recently released, it was indicated that the Minister of Education (Mr. Ward) was doing business in Parry Sound, adequately compensated under the present weighting factor, and that the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) is presently reviewing the findings of the study and will be meeting with the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Eakins), the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton) and the Minister of Education to discuss the inclusion not only of Parry Sound, but in the good Liberal fashion of the townships in the district of Nipissing as well. Those are five townships that are lying in the district of Nipissing.

This meeting is scheduled for May 3, next Tuesday. I am sure the member for Parry Sound will be waiting with anticipation for the results of this meeting. Thus members can see that when we are ready to make sure a move is in all indications a go, we will be talking about a much larger area than just what is requested by the member for Parry Sound.

Again, I go back to my original statement where I suggested that I saw many similarities in the regions of Parry Sound and my riding of Kenora, and the possible need for this area to be a part of the north for programs not already allotted to it. But I cannot support the motion at this time, as the Ministry of Northern Development, along with the others I have indicated earlier, are still in the midst of a study into the proposal. When the results are tabulated, assuming that the recommendations received are favourable for the inclusion of Parry Sound and the five townships I mentioned in the area of Nipissing, I will be in a position to take a more definite stance on this proposal.

Madam Speaker, I thank you for allowing me to participate in this debate.

Mr. Laughren: I rise to my feet to support the resolution from the member for Parry Sound and to commend him for bringing it forward yet again and for making such compelling arguments in his remarks.

If I could speak directly to the people of Parry Sound this morning, I would say to them that they should be in northern Ontario. The entire district should be part of northern Ontario vis-à-vis all government programs. I say to the people in Parry Sound they have had a chance to be there with the previous government. There has been an opportunity for the present government to classify them as part of northern Ontario. Now they have one other option. This party would classify them as in the Parry Sound district immediately. I say that to the people in Parry Sound. The Tories had 42 years to do it. The Liberals have had three years to do it. That shows how sincere they are, despite the fact that the Premier himself agreed with the member for Parry Sound, because the member for Parry Sound makes very compelling arguments, I am sure members would agree.

The Minister of Northern Development agrees with the member for Parry Sound, but it does not happen. Therefore, you have to ask yourself, if the Premier wants to have Parry Sound considered part of northern Ontario and the Minister of Northern Development wants Parry Sound to be part of northern Ontario, who does not want it there? Who is holding it up?

Mr. Epp: You.

Mr. Black: The NDP.

Mr. Laughren: This party supports it 100 per cent. We would put Parry Sound in the northern district and we would do it without delay as well.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Laughren: It must be the bureaucracy here at Queen’s Park that is resisting this designation of Parry Sound. If it is not the Premier and it is not the minister, it must be the bureaucracy here. The Toronto-based bureaucracy is saying to the people in Parry Sound, “We know what’s best and you’re not going to be designated as part of northern Ontario.”

What other reason could there be? You have the minister on side and you have the Premier on side, and yet it does not happen.

Mr. Black: They will probably do it.

Mr. Laughren: The member says they are going to do it, but the only government member to get up and speak, the member for Kenora (Mr. Miclash), a northerner himself -- where is he, by the way? -- gets up and speaks against the designation. I really do not understand that. The Premier agrees, the minister agrees and another northern member disagrees. My goodness, is the Liberal Party in total disarray at the provincial level too?

I do not understand it. As a northern member myself -- and I drive between the constituency of Nickel Belt, which is north and west of Sudbury, to Toronto most weeks rather than fly -- I can tell members that the Parry Sound riding is as much like the constituency I represent as it resembles any riding in the province, I presume.

It consists of small communities, tourism and bad roads, and that is a hallmark of northern Ontario. The maintenance of that highway is terrible. I am not saying that simply designating it as part of northern Ontario will turn that all around, but I want to tell you, Madam Speaker, that is truly a northern riding. Drive through it and try to make the argument that it is not a northern riding. Of course it is. It meets all the criteria for a northern part of this province: small communities, underserviced, poor roads, lack of government attention. That is the story of northern Ontario.

What I say to the member for Parry Sound is, “We want you in northern Ontario.” There is strength in numbers. Perhaps the riding of Renfrew North should also be part of northern Ontario, because the more of us there are the more clout we will have down here. I understand why the member for Parry Sound feels frustrated. His own government did not support him when he wanted his riding to be designated as part of northern Ontario. I understand that, and this government is no different.

That is why I say to the people of Parry Sound: “You’ve tried both the other parties. You’ve had a member on the government side and you’ve had a member in opposition and it hasn’t worked. You’ve had a Liberal government and a Conservative government. It’s time for the people in Parry Sound to make a change.” Not that they are not well represented by the present member for Parry Sound; I am not suggesting that.

I think one of the reasons we feel it is necessary to be designated a northern riding is that there seems to be at least some awareness by government that if you are part of northern Ontario there needs to be more government intervention than there is in southern Ontario. Southern Ontario is a magnet for growth and for development and northern Ontario is not a magnet. Northern Ontario needs a push. It needs incentive for growth and development, and that is one reason I feel so strongly that it should be part of the north.

The health travel grant that the member for Parry Sound referred to is a good example. Why in the world would Parry Sound not be designated as a northern constituency for the purposes of the health travel grant? It meets the requirements for mileage. Yet the government still will not do it.

I thought it would be a matter of months before it happened, until the member for Kenora stood up and gave us the government line. I assume that did not just come from the member for Kenora; I assume that is the government line. I hope that people in Parry Sound are not holding their breath waiting for designation to be part of northern Ontario because I do not think the member for Kenora was freelancing it this morning. That was a very carefully crafted and prepared speech, and well delivered too. What he was saying was: “This is the government line, my friends. Don’t hold your breath in Parry Sound because this government is really no different than the previous government.”

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I look at my own constituency and in some ways Nickel Belt is similar to Parry Sound because of its size and because of small communities, resource extraction and so forth, except that Nickel Belt has some very major resource extraction companies and has some major forestry operations, much bigger I think than Parry Sound has. So there is in some ways a stronger economic base in my riding. But we are happy that we are designated as a northern riding, and I have yet to hear one single good argument from this government or the previous government as to why Parry Sound is not designated as a northern Ontario constituency.

I was at that committee meeting where the member for Parry Sound was pushing the Premier to designate Parry Sound as a northern riding and the Premier could not argue against the member for Parry Sound, could not shoot down one of his arguments, as I recall. Members should ask themselves why in the world this is allowed to continue.

I do not know why the previous government did not do it either. I really do not know that, because it goes back not just, as the member for Parry Sound said, for a couple of months when the member for Nipissing was the minister. That was not a fair argument for the member for Parry Sound to make because many years before that there was agitation to have Parry Sound designated as a northern constituency, the whole, entire district to be designated as a northern riding for government purposes. I think there was ample opportunity for the previous government to designate it.

There have now been three years for this government to designate it as a northern riding. There is not a single reason why Parry Sound should not be designated as a northern riding. If the members think that it is really not the north, I invite them to drive up there, drive through the riding and take a look at it. It is very similar to virtually every other northern Ontario area. It is very much the same and it relies a great deal on tourism.

Interjection.

Mr. Laughren: Of course, it is a very beautiful constituency, but that does not mean it is getting its fair share.

Mr. Epp: I’m convinced, but keep talking. I may become unconvinced.

Mr. Laughren: That is what is so strange. Government members tend to nod their heads, ministers tend to nod their heads and say, “Yes, your arguments make a lot of sense,” but nothing ever happens. Members should simply ask themselves this -- and I hope the people in Parry Sound will ask themselves – “Why has there been no action?” Absolutely none. I say to the people in Parry Sound, “You have a right to be designated as a northern Ontario district, and we will continue our fight down here to make sure that happens.”

Mr. Harris: I am delighted to be able to add a few comments to my colleague the member for Parry Sound’s notice of motion, his resolution.

It is interesting that this resolution is back one more time. The fight for northern status started really with the formation of the Ministry of Northern Affairs. That was a commitment that was made in 1977 by the former government, a commitment for the first time in the history of Ontario to take a ministry and give it regional responsibility.

It has been one of the most successful ventures any government has ever undertaken in Canada as far as moving northern Ontario ahead in trying to rectify some of the regional disparities between northern Ontario and southern Ontario is concerned. It has continued over the last three years, and I am always intrigued when I ask the current minister a question about what he is not doing now. He recites a litany of programs, all of which were put in place by the former government, and we are proud every time he does it.

I want to tell members how proud we are of the Ministry of Northern Affairs, now the Ministry of Northern Development, and what it has meant for our communities in northern Ontario in equalizing to some extent some of the costs we bear, which are much higher than in southern Ontario by reason of geography, by reason of climate, by reason of distance or by reason of our smaller size and our lack of economies of scale in the various ministries, It has gone a long way to help.

That brings us to Parry Sound. The member for Parry Sound has indicated again today that it has been a 10-year fight. Being in northern Ontario or southern Ontario really did not matter before the creation of the Ministry of Northern Affairs. Members must understand that it is not a 42-year problem or a 44-year problem or a 45-year problem; it is a problem that Parry Sound identified quickly. The member at that time was one of the most outstanding members of this Legislature, Lorne Maeck, a very good friend of the people of Parry Sound, indeed a very good friend of the people of Nipissing and of northern Ontario. He was a good member.

Lorne Maeck started the fight. He recognized that it was a ministry-by-ministry fight. It really is. The object was to get various ministries to recognize for their program purposes that Parry Sound should be treated like the rest of northern Ontario. As the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) has pointed out, the riding of Parry Sound is very similar to many of our northern ridings. In fact, he points out, and I am not ashamed to point out on behalf of Nipissing, that in many ways Parry Sound does not enjoy some of the advantages that Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Timmins, Nickel Belt and Nipissing enjoy, the centres that we enjoy.

In Nickel Belt, the member mentioned the mining and the resource companies. In Nipissing, North Bay has become quite a development centre for the resource industries throughout northern Ontario. Even the town of Sturgeon Falls, with the MacMillan Bloedel plant there, has significantly improved life in west Nipissing, as have the other resource companies there. Parry Sound does not enjoy any of those things which many of the ridings in northern Ontario enjoy.

It makes sense, and Mr. Maeck, through his initial fight, was able to convince some of the ministers and some of the ministries that indeed they should consider Parry Sound as part of northern Ontario for grant purposes. It was significant, as he picked them off, I could say, one at a time.

What has been very significant is that the current member for Parry Sound, when he was elected in 1981, picked up that torch with vigour and carried on that fight. It was not a partisan fight; it was a fight on behalf of his constituents in Parry Sound.

As the member for Nickel Belt pointed out, the current Premier, either from lack of debating skills or lack of any base of logical argument -- I would suggest a little of both -- was unable to argue why Parry Sound ought not to be considered a part of northern Ontario for other ministries besides the 10 that are there now.

It has been a fight. The member for Parry Sound, who has now been here for seven years, has picked up, on average, about a ministry a year, I guess, except that it was all done in the first four years he was here, when the current government was there.

I would have preferred, and I am sure the member for Parry Sound would have preferred, if there had just been a blanket order, if you like, from the Premier to all ministers and ministries, “You shall consider Parry Sound as northern Ontario.” But the ministries have to have some time to adapt, they need funds from the Treasurer or they need to look at reallocation of resources. It has been that kind of fight.

I congratulate the current member for Parry Sound. Never has anybody fought more consistently or longer or harder on behalf of his constituents. What has happened in the past three years is that the member has fought just as hard, in fact perhaps harder, because there has been more resistance there. In the last three years, not one single ministry has come on board and joined in the treatment of Parry Sound as a northern Ontario riding.

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Last year he brought forward a resolution that was supported unanimously by all three parties in this chamber. What has changed between last year and this year? Last year I guess everybody thought: “It’s pre-election. If we’re going to knock off old Eves, we’re going to have to support Parry Sound for northern Ontario status. Our Liberal candidate there has to be able to go in the field and argue that indeed we support that.”

Last year, before the election, the government supported the resolution. In the election last year, the Liberal candidate in Parry Sound, I remember very well, said: “Of course, our party supported it last year. That is our party’ s position too.” Now we hear the member for Kenora saying: “Well, the election is over. We have a majority. We don’t care about Parry Sound.”

That is the kind of deceit I talked about in the budget debate. It is the kind of deceit we have seen on free trade. It is the kind of deceit we have seen on Sunday shopping. To bring that into the debate on something that I think all parties should agree on, and did agree on before the election -- that is, the designation of Parry Sound as northern status -- is rather shocking, I find.

I hope that it was just one misguided member’s remarks and that in fact it was not representative of the Liberal caucus. It is not the kind of spirit of generosity and fighting on behalf of northern Ontario that Leo Bernier used to put forth in this House.

I also want to say that I understand there are some problems in the Liberal caucus on this issue. We heard remarks from the member for Kenora. In the last campaign, I was astounded that in the riding of Nipissing the Liberal candidate said, “No, I’m not in favour of the designation of Parry Sound, because that might take away from Nipissing or North Bay.” It is that overparochial attitude that is probably the reason why that candidate is not here today.

I find it shocking that all members of this chamber are not willing to indicate a show of support, to put a hand out to the people of Parry Sound, to reach out and touch someone, other than taking money out of their pockets, which is the only thing that this government is doing, and to reflect for a moment, as we have heard from the member for Nickel Belt, the member for Parry Sound and myself, on the plight of Parry Sound. I urge members to support this resolution.

The Acting Speaker: Does any other honourable member wish to participate in the debate?

Mr. Miclash: Madam Speaker --

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Kenora has already spoken. You cannot speak again unless on a point of order.

Mr. Miclash: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: Let me clarify my position. What I wanted to say was that I --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Would you please phrase your comments on a point of order. It must be a point of order dealing with the standing orders.

Mr. Laughren: You’re out of luck, Frank.

Mr. Miclash: Thank you.

The Acting Speaker: Does any other honour-able member wish to participate in the debate?

Mr. Kozyra: It is a pleasure to rise and speak in support of the resolution. The member for Parry Sound has made a very good case for inclusion --

Mr. Callahan: Wasn’t that what the member for Kenora was saying? He was in favour of it too, wasn’t he?

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Kozyra: As parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Northern Development, over the past five months I have had the opportunity to work with northern development councils. The Parry Sound region is an important partner in the northern development council network. As one of those nine northern development councils, the Parry Sound region has provided valuable advice not only on regional matters but also on issues of government policy dealing with all of northern Ontario.

Let me reiterate the key points that the honourable members speaking before me have made. The Minister of Northern Development supports the resolution. There is a review of the impact from a redefinition that is presently under way. The member for Parry Sound has indicated the beneficial impact it would have on education and health to a region that is deserving of it. I understand the report is coming soon and that also the minister or the Premier will be making a statement on this, clarifying the position.

In conclusion, the issue has been debated for more than a decade. It is time for a decision. The time is now and I will be voting in support.

Mr. Hampton: I want to say right off the bat without any circumlocution or obfuscation that I and the other members of my party from northern Ontario support this resolution, and we support it fully.

I want to commend the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Kozyra) for also coming out in support of this resolution, because I think as my friend the member for Nickel Belt has said, it is long, long overdue. Having said that, I also want to review very briefly some of the excuses or some of the rationale offered by the member for Kenora and some of the comments offered by some of the other government back-benchers.

The member for Kenora referred to the fact that there was a Conservative government for quite a long while and it did not press this issue. He got some agreement from some of the government back-benchers, specifically the member for Mississauga West (Mr. Mahoney), whom I heard say, “All you need to do to get this through is to elect a Liberal member.”

If that is the attitude of some of the government back-benchers, it is remarkably and strikingly like the attitude of the government in Ottawa. I know how unpopular that government in Ottawa has become, and I know exactly why it has become that unpopular: because that line of reasoning strikes at the central belief of most Ontarians and most Canadians in fairness in the sense that things ought to be judged on their merit and not on the basis of “Do we win a political angle on this, or do we lose a political angle on this?”

I want to say that kind of attitude, particularly displayed towards northern Ontario communities or districts like Parry Sound that have a lot in common with northern Ontario communities, is not a good one. It is not an attitude that is going to go very far in terms of promotion of this government in northern Ontario.

Mr. Epp: Why don’t you reflect a positiveness out there for the people? Think positively.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Hampton: While the member for Kenora was speaking and while the member for Mississauga West was offering his comments, I happened to be reading an interesting article on what is called practical intelligence. The article says that one of the first and primary aspects of practical intelligence is not looking for an excuse: “Oh well, they didn’t do it, so we won’t do it.” One of the first aspects of practical intelligence is not to approach problems in that way but rather to sit down and say: “This is the problem. What am I going to do about it?” Yet I heard the member for Kenora and the member for Mississauga West supporting the idea that “The former regime didn’t do anything about it, so why should we do anything about it?”

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Mr. Mahoney: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I am the member for Mississauga West who is being referred to, and I do not believe that I have spoken on this matter. The member is putting comments into the record, attributing them to me, that are not legitimate.

Mr. Hampton: I accept the member’s point of order, although I do not know what it was. I do not think that he knows what it was either.

To follow up, it seems that if this government were interested in dealing with the problems of northern Ontario, it would quit trying to use an excuse that the previous regime did not act on it, so it will not either. It would get down to looking at the problem on its merits and saying, “Look, something needs to be done.”

I have to commend the member for Parry Sound for putting forward the issues on their merits. The fact of the matter is that large areas of Parry Sound district are not adequately serviced in terms of doctors, in terms of highways and in terms of other government departments. He is simply asking to be treated in a way that is fair and asking for his constituency to be treated in a way that is fair and asking that it be treated like a lot of other northern Ontario ridings that have similar problems and similar circumstances.

Based on the merits of the case, I think we should all support this resolution. It is a good resolution. It is one that will benefit a part of the province that is, as we would all admit, somewhat underdeveloped and that faces a fair number of disparities in terms of its present and future development.

I urge all the government back-benchers to put aside the excuse that, “The previous government didn’t do it, so why should we?” and deal with the issue as practical, intelligent people would deal with it, looking at the problem on its merits and dealing with the problem on its merits. Let us move ahead and quit referring to yesterday’s excuses and yesterday’s reasons for not doing something.

Mr. Eves: It is my pleasure to wind up this debate, and I am pleased to see that members on all sides of the House are once again supporting this resolution. I might just make a few points, and my colleague the member for Nipissing has made similar ones, especially with respect to some of the comments the member for Kenora made.

It is not true that nothing happened under the previous government on this issue, as the member for Nipissing has rightly pointed out. Between 1977 and 1985, 10 2/3 ministries, if we include the Ministry of Education as being two thirds of a ministry with respect to northern status, have included the district of Parry Sound in northern Ontario and given it northern Ontario status.

I want to read to the House a quote from the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Ramsay) on this very same resolution, June 25, 1987. He was then the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Northern Development, and he said:

“It is actually up to the cabinet. I would like to assure the member for Parry Sound that this has the highest priority before cabinet right now, because of the Premier’s interest in the topic.

“As the member will remember, it was the member for Parry Sound who brought this up in estimates. We are giving it active consideration.”

We are here almost one year later -- 10 months -- and I recently sent him a copy of a resolution passed by the town of Parry Sound on February 16, 1988:

“Whereas the Minister of Northern Development, the Honourable René Fontaine, has indicated on two different occasions that the district of Parry Sound should be considered as part of northern Ontario by all ministers of the provincial government, and

“Whereas the provincial Legislature unanimously agreed with the private member’s bill presented by Mr. Ernie Eves on June 25, 1987, that this should be so, therefore be it resolved that we ask the Minister of Northern Development to present this resolution to the provincial government at his earliest convenience.”

On March 9, 1988, I wrote to the minister, and the letter is as follows:

“Recently the town of Parry Sound sent you a copy of their resolution 88-59 regarding the still unresolved issue of full northern status for the district of Parry Sound. I enclose a copy for your information.

“As you are aware, gaining full northern status for the entire riding of Parry Sound has been a top priority, not only for the town of Parry Sound, but for all municipalities in the district. You will have received numerous resolutions to this effect from the District of Parry Sound Municipal Association over the past three years.

“As well, my private member’s resolution of June 25, 1987, calling on the government to designate the district of Parry Sound as part of northern Ontario by all ministries received unanimous consent in the Legislature. I have also brought this issue to the government’s attention in the Legislature many times, as well as the Legislature’s committee looking into the estimates of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines.

“As such, I am puzzled by the lack of any action by the government to take steps to grant uniform northern status to Parry Sound district, especially in view of the commitments made by the Premier and yourself to pursue this matter with your cabinet colleagues.

“Ironically, your ministry considers the district as part of northern Ontario and in fact has a northern affairs office in the town of Parry Sound. That the Ministry of Northern Development recognizes the district of Parry Sound economically, geographically and demographically as part of northern Ontario argues strongly for full northern designation by all ministries.”

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has expired.

Mr. Eves: In light of this, I would urge all members of the House to support this resolution.

Mr. Speaker: Problem?

Mr. Miclash: If I may, I would like to correct the record, Mr. Speaker. Some of the members misunderstood some of my comments made earlier on this morning, and I just wish to indicate my support for the resolution put forth this morning.

Mr. Speaker: The clock will come to 12 in approximately two minutes. The standing orders say that we “shall” place these items at 12 o’clock, I just wonder if the House is agreeable that it is close enough.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry I cannot repeat what some of the members say. If it is agreeable, we will deal with the two matters before the House.

Agreed to.

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PENSION FUNDS

Mr. Speaker: All those in favour of Mr. D. S. Cooke’s resolution will please rise and remain standing until your name is called.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman), we are taking a division.

Interjections.

Mr. Runciman: Your daddy’s got a government job. That’s OK. Daddy’s got a government job. You are sick. You don’t like it, do you? You don’t like the truth. A gutless bunch who gave in and sold out.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: You are mental, absolutely crazy.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Leeds-Grenville --

Interjections.

Mr. Runciman: You’re a gutless bunch.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Leeds-Grenville, will you contain yourself?

Mr. Laughren: Throw him out.

Mr. Speaker: Will you?

Mr. Runciman: If I hear one more remark over there --

Interjections.

Mr. Runciman: I have no reservations whatsoever. You sold out. That is all there is to it.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the member for Leeds-Grenville take his seat?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Will the member for Leeds-Grenville take his seat?

Mr. Runciman: I am prepared to restrain myself, Mr. Speaker, if that gutless bunch over there are prepared to restrain themselves.

Mr. Speaker: Will the member take his seat? I will have to ask that Mr. Runciman leave the chamber for the balance of the day.

Mr. Runciman left the chamber.

The House divided on Mr. D. S. Cooke’s motion of resolution 20, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Allen, Breaugh, Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Faman, Hampton, Laughren, Mackenzie, Martel, Morin-Strom, Philip, E., Pouliot, Swart, Wildman.

Nays

Adams, Ballinger, Black, Callahan, Carrothers, Cooke, D. R., Cunningham, Daigeler, Dietsch, Elliot, Epp, Fawcett, Fleet, Harris, Jackson, Johnson, J. M., Keyes, Kozyra, LeBourdais, Lipsett, MacDonald, Mahoney, Matrundola, McCague, McLean, Miclash, Nicholas, Nixon, J. B., Offer, Owen, Pelissero, Pollock, Reycraft, Roberts, Smith, D. W., Sola, Stoner, Sullivan, Tatham, Villeneuve.

Ayes 15; nays 40.

RIDING OF PARRY SOUND

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Eves has moved resolution 25.

Motion agreed to.

The House recessed at 12:08 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

ESTIMATES

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I have a message from the Lieutenant Governor, signed by his own hand.

Mr. Speaker: The Lieutenant Governor transmits estimates of certain sums required for the services of the province for the year ending March 31, 1989, and recommends them to the Legislative Assembly. Signed by His Honour Lincoln Alexander.

BUDGET DEBATE

Mr. Mackenzie: I would like to rise both to correct the record and to apologize to the Premier (Mr. Peterson), the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) and the House. In the course of my remarks on the budget yesterday, I attributed quotes both to the Treasurer and to the Premier which in fact were quotes of my colleague the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) and not their quotes. It was done inadvertently, but it was totally incorrect. I want to apologize and set the record straight for that inaccurate attribution.

WORKER MEMORIAL DAY / JOUR DES ACCIDENTÉS DU TRAVAIL

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: May I ask for the unanimous consent of the House for a brief observance of Worker Memorial Day?

Agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: Today we are celebrating officially at the provincial level for the first time Worker Memorial Day. Let me begin by saying that the government wholeheartedly supports the initiative of Canada’s labour movement in setting aside April 28 every year, the anniversary of the passage of the Workers’ Compensation Act, as an annual day of mourning and recognition. In keeping with this occasion, flags at this Legislature and at the Ministry of Labour offices are being flown at half-mast throughout the day. I have urged others in the province to do the same.

It is important to put our feelings into words at moments such as this, but words alone are not enough. I suggest that we make this day not only a day of mourning and of recognition for those workers who have suffered fatal injuries, for those workers who have suffered other injuries, including industrial disease in the workplace, to be mourned and to be recognized, but that also we rededicate ourselves.

Let us all here in this House, and in the ranks of labour and management throughout this province, make each April 28 an occasion for renewing our common commitment to the task of making the workplaces of Ontario safer and healthier.

All around the province, workers are joining together in memorial services. They are joining together to remember their brothers and sisters who have suffered from workplace accidents and workplace illnesses. I had an opportunity a few moments ago, just one hour ago, to join workers at Scotia Plaza to remember workers who had been injured and who had died on that site. We remember all too well that only last August 29 two Portuguese workers suffered terrible, shocking deaths as a result of an accident with an elevator. In the name of those two workers and all of the other workers in this province who have suffered industrial accidents and industrial diseases, we make this rededication.

I would like to request the unanimous consent of this House for a moment of silence in recognition of those workers who have died or suffered grievous injury as a result of workplace accidents or illnesses. I do so in the hope that, as we intensify our collective efforts to reduce the toll of occupational accidents and illnesses, each April 28 in coming years will give us less cause to mourn.

Mr. B. Rae: I am very proud as a member of this House to have been able to move the resolution which brought this assembly and Ontario into the family of those who are observing this day as a day of mourning for those who have died and been injured on the job.

I was present at the commemorative ceremony at the Scotia Plaza this afternoon. As I was standing there in the shadow of the greatest towers of financial and economic power in our province, I was reminded of all those who talk about the importance of rewarding people who take risks. It seems to me that the people who take risks most visibly in our society are not those who work inside those towers but the workers who build them.

It is the workers who have built this wonderful province of ours, the loggers, the people who have worked in the bush and whose backs go out when they are 45 or 50. It is the miners who suffer in some cases lifelong disease because of their exposure to substances underground and who take risks because of the catastrophic accidents. It is the men and women who work in our factories, many of which remain unsafe. It is the people who work as policemen. It is the people who work as firemen. It is the people who work in our hospitals, our nursing homes and our psychiatric institutions, who take a very special kind of risk. It is our farmers and fishermen. It is people in all lines of work who are on the unique front line that exists in our society, the front line of those who take risks because of the jobs they do.

I think it is especially fitting that we would take this day as the one day of the year in this province where we attempt to focus our minds and energy on what is nothing short of a provincial scandal, the number of workers who continue to be injured on the job and the number of workers who die. I am very proud, as I say, to have been responsible in a small way for the fact that the House is taking this day as a day on which we will have these speeches and remember those who have died and been injured.

Our hearts go out to those, and all of us in this place have come into contact through the work we do with those who have had to accept an early accident or accept a tragic death as part of their lives. Our hearts go out to those, but in expressing our sense of solidarity and compassion for those who have died and been injured and their families, we must also do more than that. Just as on Remembrance Day we say the words “never again,” so too on this day we should say the words “never again.”

C’est naturellement avec une certaine fierté que je note que la Chambre a accepté une motion de notre parti sur la question de reconnaître aujourd’hui une réalité du travail: la réalité du risque réel que court la grande majorité de la population qui travaille. Non seulement nous nous souvenons, avec compassion et solidarité, de ceux qui sont morts, de ceux qui ont été blessés au travail, mais nous nous souvenons aussi de leur famille.

Mais il y a plus que le souvenir. Nous avons non seulement le devoir de nous souvenir mais le devoir de lutter pour la justice sociale et pour la sécurité du travail, sécurité qui n’existe pas présentement. Moi, ainsi que les membres de mon caucus et de notre parti, nous nous engageons tous à continuer à lutter pour la justice envers les travailleurs et pour la sécurité des travailleurs. Enfin, nous aurons une province dont nous pourrons tous être fiers.

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Mr. Harris: We wish to pause also for a moment today to recognize this day, April 28, as a day of mourning for the Canadian workers who were the unfortunate victims of work-related injury, accident and disease in Ontario. I want to thank the member for York South for bringing forward the concept of this day on a regular, annual basis.

We recognize and honour those dedicated Ontarians, including all those who have emigrated from many other countries to our great province, who have put themselves in danger and at risk in the workplace, whether it be in mining, forestry, factories or the many other industries and occupations, some of which the member for York South mentioned today.

We are mindful that there are some 500,000 people in Ontario who were the victims of work-related accidents in 1987. Some 238 people died as a result of industrial accident or disease flowing from conditions at work last year. We honour and remember these people and all those who have gone before, and their families. As the flags of the province are flown at half-mast today, we mourn with them their losses and their tragedies. We congratulate them on their courage.

Certainly, this day is an opportunity for us to reflect as well on the need for improved occupational health and safety and for greater care in the workplace. It is crucial for the government of Ontario always to be concerned and show initiative in ensuring that the very best, the most advanced health and safety measures are integrated into our industries, our factories and our businesses across Ontario.

We in the Progressive Conservative Party join the other two parties today to show our respect and pay solemn tribute to all those who have sacrificed their health and their lives on the job while providing service to our province and to the people of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: As requested, I ask all members to rise and join with me in a minute’s silence in recognition of the victims of work-related accidents and illnesses.

[The House observed one minute’s silence.]

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

MAYWORKS ’88

Miss Martel: In light of the sombre proceedings, l must say my statement is not as sombre. I apologize to the members that it follows next in the order of business.

However, congratulations and best wishes are in order for the many talented and devoted people who have organized this year’s Mayworks, the third annual spring festival of working people and the arts, which will be held at various venues in Toronto from April 30 to May 6.

One of this year’s predominant themes is, “No to the Mulroney-Reagan trade deal,” but the festival also features photography, visual arts, plays, poetry, prose readings, music, films and, of course, the May Day parade. The Mayworks festival is one of the few in North America, and the first of its kind in Canada, which brings together trade unionists and artists in a collective expression of working-class experience and values. It will feature workers’ art and personal reflections of labour history.

One of the highlights of Mayworks ‘88, which I would like to commend to all members, is called Shift Change. It is a presentation by the Canadian Auto Workers, Local 303, which will occur on Thursday, May 5. Shift Change features a tour of the Scarborough General Motors plant, an exhibition of photos, paintings and cartoons by members of Local 303, entertainment by Ground Zero Productions in The Free Trade Show and Music in the Workplace by the Ruth Budd quintet. The program promises to be an exciting example of works of art by working people.

I commend Mayworks ‘88 to all members and I encourage all Ontarians to support this excellent endeavour. I am sure all members would like to join in wishing Mayworks ‘88 every success.

SCHOOL FUNDING

Mr. Villeneuve: I rise to report that the people of eastern Ontario have once again been seriously deceived by the Liberal government of Ontario. In the budget, the thought of providing for needed economic development in the east was completely forgotten by a government which has lost any concept of proper spending priorities. Our only hope was in the recognition that population growth around Ottawa had created a need for new schools in the area.

In my riding, Kemptville is rapidly becoming a bedroom community for the people working in Ottawa. This has been recognized by the Leeds and Grenville County Board of Education, whose first and second priorities for capital funding were and still are a new elementary school and major renovations to North Grenville District High School. Neither received funding in the minister’s announcement. Following the minister’s recent announcement, I can only add my voice to the disappointment felt by the Leeds and Grenville board and the people in the Kemptville area.

I also want to express disappointment in the case of Ecole Sainte-Thérèse-D’Avila in Marionville. This school rests on the border of three school boards and draws pupils from all three boards. As a result, it is never a top priority and has been ignored again. Surely it should be seen as a special case. When the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) was the Minister of Education, he did his best to ignore this school, and the new minister is no different.

When eastern Ontario receives only 11 per cent of the grants announced and 10 boards receive nothing, we know the government is not meeting its obligations to the people of eastern Ontario.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Mr. Velshi: I would like to bring to the attention of members of this Legislature a matter of grave concern and urgency. I refer members to the plight of those individuals presently being held on death row in South Africa, known to most as the Sharpeville Six.

As members will know, these persons are not simply political prisoners but are also innocent victims of an immoral regime. Not one of these persons was found to have been involved in a killing, but rather they were chosen as examples to those who would dare protest the treatment of blacks in South Africa and were sentenced to death by hanging for no more heinous crime than being there at the time.

Protests to the South African government from around the world were effective in bringing about a temporary stay of execution recently, but time is rapidly running out. I urge each and every member of this House to write to the South African Ambassador in Ottawa and the South African President, P. W. Botha, protesting in the strongest possible manner the treatment of these people at the hands of that government, and I urge members to do it now.

Surely this type of racist tyranny went out with the Middle Ages. I pray it will soon be proved to have no place in this or any other state in our modern world.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Mackenzie: A number of years ago, the labour movement launched a major campaign to publicize the need for safer workplaces. The number of deaths and injuries was and still is inexcusable. The legacy of workplace fatalities is being paid for to this day by the widows and children of those killed in industrial, mining and construction accidents.

Getting action to correct unsafe conditions and to deal with the increasing problem of new and old toxic substances was difficult and always involved a fight when it cost money. The labour movement used tough words to launch that campaign: “Stop the slaughter in the workplace.”

Unfortunately, the problem still exists today. I think we have won the battle to establish the legitimacy of the workers’ concerns. My colleague the NDP leader’s motion for a day of mourning, passed by this House, has led to the tribute of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) here today. This tribute is important, but it will mean absolutely nothing if we are not moved to complete the job of providing safer workplaces, a job started by the organized labour movement of Canada.

SCHOOL FUNDING

Mr. Wiseman: As this government has shown its complete lack of commitment to eastern Ontario by giving it only 11 per cent of the total money for school boards’ capital spending, I suppose I should not be surprised that vital projects in my riding were ignored.

However, I would like the House to be aware of the plight of the R. Tait McKenzie School in Almonte. This is a school for the trainable retarded that was denied the $94,000 it desperately needed to expand its facilities.

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The irony of this situation is that it was forced upon the Lanark County Board of Education by the Ministry of Community and Social Services. In his wisdom, the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney) had decreed that the residents of Rideau Regional Centre must get out into the community. As a result, the McKenzie school has now three new nonambulatory students, with their wheelchairs, stretcher beds, etc., and nowhere to put them.

It seems the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) and the Minister of Education (Mr. Ward) do not care and feel no responsibility for their colleague’s decision. We have one arm of government making policy and the other refusing to pay for it. Unfortunately, the ones who are suffering are the students.

These young people have equal rights to quality education. Without proper facilities, this right will be denied them. I urge the Treasurer and the Minister of Education to reconsider their decision.

HELP CENTRES

Mr. Carrothers: During the last session of this Legislature, a number of questions were raised about the funding of employment help centres in Ontario. Particular reference was made to the 50-Plus help centre which is located in my riding.

From conversations I had with the directors of 50-Plus, a number of problems emerged. These were problems also experienced by other help centres in Ontario. It was noted that help centres found the Ministry of Skills Development’s funding levels inadequate and that many centres found it difficult to raise matching funds, as required under program criteria.

Responding to these concerns, the Minister of Skills Development (Mr. Curling) has kindly informed me of a number of important changes in the government’s support for help centres. The ministry will continue to support the employment counselling and training referral activities of help centres. These centres will be eligible for up to $90,000 for employment counselling services, a 20 per cent increase in the eligible funding from the previous limit of $75,000.

In addition, the ministry will no longer require that centres show evidence of matching revenues to be eligible for funding. These changes reflect the recommendations of help centres like 50-Plus from Oakville.

I am sure all members of this House will acknowledge that the economic growth we are currently experiencing often requires many employment changes during an individual’s working life. In the case of 50-Plus and Ontario’s help centres, it is evident the ministry is acting responsibly and quickly to help those of us facing these unknown changes in the future.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Mr. McLean: I want to direct this statement to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley). His ministry is exceptionally quick off the mark when it comes to closing down municipal landfill sites, but its record in coming up with alternatives leaves much to be desired.

He was quick in shutting down the Pauzé landfill site, which forced six municipalities into the costly process of taking their garbage to Toronto. Then he warned Rama township and Orillia township. Then he came in and closed down those municipalities. They have to ship their garbage now to the city of Orillia.

If the minister keeps this up, we will soon reach the point where there will be more garbage than automobiles on Ontario’s highways. I have told him many times before, but it bears repeating. The time has come to throw his support behind a province-wide program to recycle glass, plastic, paper and aluminum. The time has come for him to set up alternative landfill sites. It is about time he stuck his nose in the garbage and solved our problem in Ontario.

ORAL QUESTIONS

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. B. Rae: I naturally have some questions today for the Minister of Labour with regard to the question of health and safety and workers’ compensation, for which the minister has responsibility.

The minister has twice today made powerful statements of intent with respect to health and safety, though I note with interest that he did not read that section in his written statement which talked about how health and safety conditions are improving, since in fact more people died this year than last year on the job, there are more accidents this year than last year and the rate of increase is continuing to grow.

The question I specifically have for the minister is, how can he justify making these kinds of pious declarations at the same time his government has failed to bring in legislation reforming our health and safety laws? The last person who tried to do it was the Minister of Labour the last day of the previous Liberal government. It is now nearly a year since that event took place and we still do not have any new legislation. We have no new legislation on workers’ compensation.

The question I have for the minister is, when are we going to get the legislation and the laws that will get the number of accidents down, that will get the accident rate down and will start protecting human life in this province, which is the obligation of all of us in the House?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I think the initial part of the Leader of the Opposition’s question was when would the minister stop making pious statements. Particularly on a day like today, I suggest to the Leader of the Opposition it is not a day for pious statements. We have just had a moment of silence in this Legislature commemorating, remembering and rededicating ourselves to the issues of health and safety.

As to the second part of his question about the timing for legislation, I simply say to him what I have said before in this House. My ministry and I are working on substantive amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Act and substantive amendments to the Workers’ Compensation Act. We will be bringing forth, I expect in the near future, although I cannot tell him when precisely, amendments to both of those bills.

Our initiative in that regard will be to try to bring health and safety squarely to the forefront, not only of one group within the workplace but every single one of the workplace parties, so that it is as important to presidents as it is to apprentices to make sure every workplace in Ontario is a safe workplace.

Mr. B. Rae: The minister has not even produced legislation to cabinet; that is how far back he is in the process. The House leaders have had their meetings, and we know health and safety legislation is not even on the list of must-have legislation. We do not have one significant piece of legislation with respect to health and safety; we have not had one since the minister took office.

I wonder if the minister would comment on a case which I heard about while I was speaking with the minister at the Scotia Plaza. I met with some workers from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers trade union who work at a company called Solar Basic, which has 170 employees. They advised me that the employees, right as we speak now in fact, are having to interrupt work and to sit down on the job. There is a work refusal involving all the employees in that plant, because they are so dissatisfied with the inspections from the Ministry of Labour and so dissatisfied by the enforcement from the Ministry of Labour. This situation is going on right now as we speak, and it is not the first time it has happened. In fact, we have raised other cases.

I would like to ask the minister, when is he going to bring in the legislation? Give us a date. Can he give us the assurance that at the very least it will be prior to our breaking up in the month of June?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I am delighted that the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting that we do recess this House some time early or late in the month of June. Who knows? The way in which the New Democratic Party has been conducting itself in this House would suggest perhaps that would not be the case, but I hope it will be the case and I sincerely hope, and I have said this on other occasions, that when the bill is introduced in this House -- when the bills, in fact, are introduced in this House -- we will have legislative co-operation so that we can analyse those pieces of legislation and ensure that they are the appropriate measures.

In crafting those bills, it seems to me important that we do all the analysis necessary so the measures are right and they are productive. I am not about to simply respond to the timetable of the Leader of the Opposition, rather than do the homework that is necessary to ensure that we are proceeding in the right direction.

Mr. B. Rae: My final supplementary to the minister is simply this: last week I met with the victims of mining exposure, the widows of miners who have died in Timmins and in the Timmins area over the last number of years. The minister will know that the Workers’ Compensation Board has finally produced criteria, allegedly for the compensation of the families of miners who have died.

I would like to ask the minister, what is he going to do? Previous ministers of labour have had to contend with this.

What is he going to do when he finds, as I have, that Mrs. Clarence Pitts, Georges Delorme, Mrs. Lapointe, Mr. Mayrand, Mr. Raymond -- and the cases will go on; I will be glad to give the minister details of these cases -- all have been disqualified by the Workers’ Compensation Board under the criteria which have been established by the board for the simple reason that perhaps they started mining in 1943 or 1944 and worked less than 30 years, or perhaps it was 29; all the technical reasons? We had it in the sintering plant in Nickel Belt. We have had it in mine after mine. When is the minister going to appreciate that people are being denied benefits under the so-called criteria established by his own Workers’ Compensation Board?

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Hon. Mr. Sorbara: The Leader of the Opposition makes a point of it that he has met with widows in Timmins. I just want to say to him that I met with those widows as well on my last visit to Timmins and had extensive conversations with them about the particular predicament they are in. The Leader of the Opposition has met with others and so have I. I have met with the Union of Injured Workers to hear its views on where we should be going on workers’ compensation. I have met on a number of occasions with other community groups and with other organizations that are collectively helping to ensure that as we proceed with amendments, we go in the right direction.

Let me, if I can, make a comment on the criteria for those who have suffered cancer as a result of their work in gold mines prior to 1945. Those criteria have been established after extensive work by a number of different parties and based on a number of reports. As a result of that work, some $35 million in benefits is going to be paid out. But more important than that, I tell the Leader of the Opposition that the process has not been completed and that further studies are being done, in particular studies of those workers who worked in gold mining post-1945. Studies are also being done to establish whether there are links between gold mining and the development of stomach cancer.

It would be unfortunate if the Leader of the Opposition left this House or the public with the impression that this work has come to an end, because it clearly has not.

Mr. Speaker: New question, the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. B. Rae: One of the women I met with last week asked the simple question, “Why should I have to wait while the minister trains on the job?” I think that is precisely how a great many workers feel.

Mr. Speaker: Is this a question to the Minister of Labour?

SCHOOL FUNDING

Mr. B. Rae: I have a question for the Minister of Education. I wonder if the minister can confirm, with respect to the announcements he made earlier this week for capital allocations to the school boards, that these allocations begin in 1989-1990. Can he confirm that?

Hon. Mr. Ward: Yes, the allocations begin in the coming fiscal year.

Mr. B. Rae: I wonder if I might then ask the minister, does he not think it would be wise, in terms of the importance of these allocations for all school boards, if in making these announcements he indicated clearly, publicly, in a serious statement in this House, precisely which boards applied, how much they applied for, what were the purposes of their requests, and precisely what are the criteria, what is the point system, what is the ranking system that is used by the ministry in reaching its decisions?

I am sure the minister will appreciate that boards that were not successful this year will want to know why and will want to know what has to be done in terms of applying next year. I think we would all be better off if it were more of a public process than the one we now have.

Hon. Mr. Ward: Last Monday, I made a statement in the Legislature that gave the overall parameters of the coming fiscal year’s capital allocation for school boards throughout Ontario. The following day, boards throughout the province were notified how they had fared in terms of their individual projects.

I might say to the honourable Leader of the Opposition that boards are well aware how the funds flow. It has been the same process year in, year out, for quite some time. Also, boards are well aware of the criteria used in terms of the methods by which regional offices rate the projects on an individual basis. As I indicated on Monday, the prime focus would be on the provision of new-pupil places and the biggest criterion in making that determination was the amount of enrolment growth.

Mr. B. Rae: I am sure the minister would agree with me that confidence from all the public in this process has got to be the bottom line, and I am sure the minister would agree with me that this public confidence will only be increased if all the information is on the table and if the government is seen as acting in as public and as accountable a way as possible.

In terms of what the Premier (Mr. Peterson) said yesterday about how all this information was going to be made available in estimates, would the minister agree to table whatever information he has with the House today? Would he also agree that it would make sense for the government to state clearly, precisely what are the costs of Bill 30 with regard to the announcements that have been made and also precisely how much money is being set aside for renovation and repair of older schools in established school districts so that some sense of balance can be achieved in terms of the announcements that are being made?

Hon. Mr. Ward: I am happy to make available to all members of the House guidelines for the approval of school accommodation needs and an elaboration of the process that takes place, as well as information relative to what boards have requested.

I point out once again to the Leader of the Opposition that on Monday of this week I indicated clearly that a conscious decision was made to flow most of the funds available this year to the creation of new pupil places. I indicated at that time that some 91 per cent of all funds committed would go for the provision of new pupil places. This was done in response to what I and this government perceived to be a critical need, particularly in growth areas of this province.

Mr. Speaker: New question. The member for Nipissing.

HOSPITAL FUNDING

[Applause]

Mr. Harris: That is not bad; it is more than I had yesterday.

I have a question for the Treasurer. The government has said to hospitals: “You must perform these services. They are open-ended services. You must treat everyone who comes knocking on your door.” While hospitals can estimate how many people will be sick and need help, they have no control over what those numbers will be. Instead of asking them to budget based on established efficiencies, which I understand, why is the Treasurer penalizing all hospitals by saying: “It doesn’t matter if the reason for your deficit is beyond your control. It doesn’t matter if it is because you are fulfilling the mandate we are telling you to fulfil. We will not pay for any deficits, no matter what caused them”?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The process of establishing the budgets is not as simple as the honourable member describes. The budgets themselves are put forward by competent administrators and reviewed by local hospital boards composed of citizens who have given of their time and their talent, often a business talent, to assist in the administration of this essential local enterprise.

These are vetted by the Ministry of Health, with certain formulae associated with the rate of growth and with factors dealing with the increased utilization by residents of Ontario using hospital services. These budgets are established with the very best administrative talent available and they are approved on that basis. We expect the administrators to offer their service within the confines of those approved budgets.

Mr. Harris: I understand how the budgets are established. What I am saying to the Treasurer is that after the year is over -- the budgets are done a year in advance -- the Treasurer and the ministry send in review teams to see if they are operating efficiently. If they are and if the reason for the deficit is that they are meeting the increased usage and the health needs, as the government has mandated and told them they must do, would the Treasurer not agree that these hospital deficits then, when they are operating efficiently, should be covered by the government?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: There is a good deal of flexibility in the budgets that are established. The honourable members know that the transference in general to hospitals this year is something just under seven per cent. As a matter of fact, there are other payments that are associated with hospital services beyond that. This does not mean that all hospitals get the same rate of growth. Many of them are growing this year at 10 per cent, because it is recognized that the community they serve is changing quite dramatically.

The honourable members, in consulting with their own hospitals, may be very well aware that in most cases the hospitals live within their budgets and are sometimes, particularly those that are good administrators, somewhat offended when nearby hospitals serving the same sorts of communities have the deficit picked up, even with an admonition, as has happened in the past.

We feel that the budgetary process is fair and equitable, but it does not provide an open-ended service because our budgetary process for hospitals cannot do that. We have to have a specific number allocated for that purpose and we intend to stick to it.

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Mr. Harris: Yesterday, before the Treasurer stomped away from the media in a snit, he told them that a budget is a budget is a budget and the hospitals must live within it. Is this not a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

The Treasurer sets his own budget and he sets it all by himself. In the last three years, he was $300 million over budget, $1,079,000,000 over budget and $540 million over budget. That has been the Treasurer’s experience when he gets to set his own budget.

I ask the Treasurer again, does he really think it is fair to order hospitals to carry out what is surely his open-ended mandate, unless he is telling them to turn people away when they are sick and that it depends on how many people use their services and, on the other hand, he tells them --

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Harris: -- they must live within a budget that he controls and that he approved one year in advance of having to deliver these open-ended services? Does the Treasurer really think that is fair?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I think it is fair and correct. The honourable member will be aware that he and his colleagues are constantly pressing on me as Treasurer the increase in expenditures for any number of very worthy programs. As a matter of fact, a quick addition would indicate that from opposition members there are strong recommendations to increase our expenditures by $10 billion. At the same time, they are very much against any tax increases, and I am always receiving the kind of gratuitous advice that has just come from the honourable member, that I should be more careful of my own budget.

I think our budgetary procedure is very good here. One of the things upon which it is based is when we make our allocations to colleges and universities, municipalities, hospitals and other transfer recipients, we expect their budgetary process to be businesslike. We have given them full and fair warning, accompanied by increased expenditure and support, that this year we are not going to pick up deficits under the circumstances that they have been picked up in the past.

1987 CONSTITUTIONAL ACCORD

Mr. Eves: I have a question of the Premier. I would like to retune to the issue of the Meech Lake accord. Yesterday, the Premier was quoted as saying to my leader that it was unclear what was going to happen to the accord as a result of the Manitoba election. Today, we read that according to Ms. Carstairs, the leader of the Liberal Party in Manitoba, and I quote, “Meech Lake is dead.” Can the Premier tell us in this House whether he shares that view, or does he believe that the accord can be saved in any way?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I do not accept the view that it is dead. I accept the view that the circumstances have changed very substantially in the last year really, with the situation in New Brunswick as well as in Manitoba.

Ms. Carstairs is not the Premier of Manitoba and in the immediate future it does not appear she will be. The Premier there, I understand, has indicated that he supports Meech Lake. I am not sure of the position of the New Democratic Party there, which holds the balance of power. I do not know the legislative agenda of the Premier of Manitoba in that regard. As the member knows, it requires only a matter of its being passed by the Legislature. I am sorry I cannot help my honourable friend with any certainty about what will happen there.

Mr. Eves: Very early in the debate on Meech Lake, the Premier told us that he would not allow any amendments to the accord. He said the accord would have to be accepted as it is or not at all. Since that time, the Premier of New Brunswick, of course, Ms. Carstairs, the federal Senate and a number of federal MPs have all suggested amendments; and I might suggest not to destroy the accord but to strengthen the accord, in their view.

Amendments to the accord may well be the only method which will save it and still have Quebec able to sign the Constitution. Will the Premier take a leadership role in this matter and propose amendments to the accord that could very well bring it back from the death that Ms. Carstairs is predicting?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: With great respect to my honourable friend, I do not think I agree with his analysis. It is not a question of whether I accept amendments or not. That is not the issue. The issue is whether other premiers will accept amendments. What will Quebec’s reaction be in that regard? What will the western premiers’ reaction be in that regard? Will they accept amendments or will they just say, “No, it is gone”?

That requires the member and others to make a political assessment in that regard. If my honourable friend has evidence that that is doable across the country, then he could proceed with that line, but I think my honourable friend has misjudged my influence or power in this particular regard and the national reaction to any action in any particular province.

Mr. Eves: Yesterday in the House, the Premier indicated that there is a very serious difference between Mr. Bourassa and perhaps some others with respect to the accord. I accept that. We all know that. On this side of the House we are proposing that he, as the Premier of Ontario, act to bridge that difference.

As a member of the select committee, I can tell members that in studying the Meech Lake accord, we have heard from over 140 groups so far in the proceedings. The vast majority have proposed some very meaningful and constructive amendments, which, in their view and the view of many others, would help to strengthen the accord.

I think one view that cannot be ignored is the proposed amendment to section 16 of the accord to protect women’s equality rights and the rights of other Canadians that were granted under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Surely the Premier is aware of the ambiguity that is currently in section 16 and the diverse opinion out there from experts on both sides about it.

Mr. Speaker: Question?

Mr. Eves: Will the Premier of Canada’s largest province take the initiative and approach the Prime Minister of Canada and the other premiers to see if this one very important issue, on which surely none of the 11 first ministers in Canada can disagree -- will he take the initiative to bridge that gap?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I appreciate the honourable member’s advice in this regard and his own views on the accord and certain sections, particularly the one that could be improved upon. I am not standing in front of my honourable friend and saying it could not improved upon but I think if my honourable friend feels strongly about this, he should take it to his federal leader, the Prime Minister, who has said he could not contemplate any change in this regard.

I am the Premier of Ontario. I am not the Prime Minister of Canada. I say to my honourable friend that he may want to make this suggestion to his Prime Minister, to his federal leader, whose party he shares, that he should bridge the gap in that regard between Manitoba and Quebec or between New Brunswick and Quebec. Our Prime Minister has said he does not contemplate any amendments. The member may be able to persuade him. I am sure reasonable people across this country who want to see Quebec part of this Constitution would in fact --

Mr. Eves: You don’t want to take that role.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: No, I am not the Prime Minister and I do not want to be the Prime Minister. But my honourable friend who does --

Hon. R. F. Nixon: But he is the Premier.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: He may very well want to take the member’s advice.

OFFICE OF THE WORKER ADVISER

Mr. Hampton: My question is for the Minister of Labour. The minister will know that the worker adviser offices around the province, those offices that are established to help workers put their cases before the Workers’ Compensation Board, are severely backlogged.

I want to ask the Minister of Labour about just one office, the worker adviser office in Thunder Bay. That office recently lost one of its worker advisers. He was promoted to become the manager, so he can no longer handle cases. A worker who went to the worker adviser in Thunder Bay last month was told: “Sorry. We can’t help you now. We have 287 other files to deal with. We are backlogged to June 1987. Call us again in four or five months and maybe we can help you.” This is a fellow who has no income since he left his work.

Mr. Speaker: And your question?

Mr. Hampton: What is the minister doing to help the people who are in this severe, desperate situation? What is the minister doing about the worker adviser offices?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: The member raises a very important issue. The situation in Thunder Bay is frankly a situation we are confronting in some other offices. I think the office of the worker adviser program is in some respects a victim of its own success. Nevertheless, I can tell my friend that I am considering some steps right now to see how we can alleviate that backlog.

I just want to add that the real solution will be to bring forward initiatives, and I have mentioned to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae) that those initiatives are forthcoming, to deal with some of the issues that give rise to the situation that has workers who are injured in the workplace coming for help to offices of the worker adviser around the province.

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Mr. Hampton: The minister says that he has initiatives under way to solve the problem. I want to just tell him how severe the problem is. In the Hamilton office, the backlog, the wait list is eight months. In Windsor, people are backlogged to January 1987. They have over 100 people on the wait list. In Sault Ste. Marie, there are 127 people on the wait list. They are scheduled back to March 1987. In Sudbury, it is four months on the wait list.

All of those situations are there. Many of these people do not have any other income. But we have also learned that people who were hired last year to help deal with this backlog are being told they are done as of August 31. They are gone. We have also been told that the worker adviser office has been told it is not getting any more money. The money it had last year is all it gets.

Are those the initiatives the minister is talking about? What is he doing? These are people who do not have an income and who are injured.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: Sometimes it is the case that members of the New Democratic Party are the victims of their own misinformation. I did not say that there are initiatives in place. I said that we are contemplating some steps to deal with the backlog and I hope in the near future to be making a statement in this House as to how we are going to do that.

Meanwhile, I reiterate that the program, just about two years old, is again the victim of its own success. One of the things that has happened that I find a little bit disconcerting is that members not only of this party but also of the other parties, members of this assembly, have in certain cases in their own constituency offices said: “We are not going to deal with the worker’s compensation cases any more. We are going to simply refer people to the office of the worker adviser.” I hope that is not the case.

I know in the case of my own constituency office, notwithstanding that there is an office of the worker adviser nearby, that we continue to have a substantial case load of worker’s compensation clients, whom we can often help in very short order. So one of the things that can be done for the working people of this province is for me and my colleagues in this House to continue the kind of traditional service that all of us have been delivering for some years.

COMMUNITY SAFETY

Mrs. Cunningham: My question is to the Premier. He will recall that we have asked for a public inquiry into the Lieutenant Governor’s warrant system in the light of the brutal attack, a whole month ago now, on a 14-year-old London girl by two patients of the St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital who were out on unescorted day passes. However, the government refused to initiate a public inquiry and instead told this House that it was doing an internal review. It is very important. We really want to know about the findings of that internal review now. Does the Premier have the answer?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I will refer that to the Solicitor General.

Hon. Mrs. Smith: From the very beginning, this has been a very sad and difficult case and one that, of course, has stirred a great deal of concern in the community of London and also in St. Thomas.

As the member well realizes, the fact is that this committee and this whole group is directly under the criminal law of the federal government and not in any way under the control of the province. However, I did say, and I am happy to have said at the time that this occurred, that I would inquire on behalf of the people of London and I was sure there would be an inquiry into what had been the precise nature of the decision made and the regulations applied in that case. I at no point implied there should be a public inquiry, having no knowledge of the process that would make that even possible on our level.

I stress again that this lies within the federal area. An inquiry is being done. I will be glad to share with the member for London North any material that we are able to get as soon as it becomes available to us.

Mrs. Cunningham: My supplementary question is to the Premier. I listened carefully to the Solicitor General --

Mr. Speaker: I remind the member that if a response comes from a certain minister, the supplementary must flow out of the response. Therefore, you address your supplementary to the minister who responded.

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Mrs. Cunningham: My question then is to the Solicitor General. She mentioned in her response to the question that she was not certain of a process that could take place whereby this House could be better and, more important, informed more quickly of the results of inquiries.

There is another process, and the process is this: the auditor is presently performing an audit of the IDEA Corp. It is the contention of our party that if he can perform an audit in that situation, then surely he can do the same for day passes when young people are at risk on the streets in our very own city of London. I think it is very important that we use the process that is most important to the citizens and to the parents.

Mr. Speaker: Do you have a supplementary?

Mrs. Cunningham: Under section 17 of the Audit Act, any minister, including the Premier, can ask the auditor to perform an investigation. Will the Solicitor General now take action and ask the Provincial Auditor to conduct an audit into the manner in which day passes are awarded to psychiatric patients?

Hon. Mrs. Smith: Indeed, at the meeting of the standing committee on public accounts today, the committee of this Legislature representing all three parties discussed this matter at length and made a contrary decision. Meanwhile, the hospital review is being properly conducted, as promised, and the results are expected on Monday and Tuesday.

I point out to the member that actually, as in every case like this, an inquiry by this Legislature should not include just one case but should look at the whole process. It is my understanding that, by and large, this process has been rather successful, and the whole process of dealing with these people has had many good results, not to minimize the tragedy that occurred in this event.

INTERNATIONAL BANKING CENTRES

Mr. Ferraro: My question is for the Treasurer and Minister of Financial Institutions. It pertains to the recent federal initiative to designate Montreal and Vancouver as international banking centres and the nonsensical decision not to designate Toronto. The Treasurer will know that the designation provides income tax exemptions for profits that financial institutions make on loans and deposits involving non-Canadian residents.

My question pertains to the recent decision by Royal Trust to choose Vancouver as headquarters for its Canadian private bank operations. The vice-president said the fact that the international banking centres legislation was passed and that the province passed similar legislation was the prime reason for locating in Vancouver. More specifically, to the Treasurer, my question is for a reaction from him. What are we doing to restore or even sustain Toronto’s competitive position?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The Toronto financial community is not flagging or decreasing. If anything, it is growing very rapidly. The honourable member may have read in recent press accounts that a number of Japanese and New York firms will be locating here, hiring additional people and renting additional space in the near future.

There is no way that we can control the ill-advised action of the government of Canada, even though its own standing committee, chaired by Mr. Blenkarn, advised strongly against it. Certainly Royal Trust has every right to take advantage of that, particularly in the Vancouver situation. The private banking they refer to is sort of special banking for rich jet-setters, and they may feel that Vancouver, since it is well situated for some of the well-to-do, world-class fortunes in the Pacific Rim, might have some advantage there.

I regret the fact that they made that decision, but they made it, and I wish Vancouver well in this acquisition.

CONSTRUCTION SAFETY

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a question of the Minister of Labour. The last time we asked the Minister of Labour about the role of his ministry in establishing health and safety committees at major construction sites in this province -- and that was just a few weeks ago -- there were only two, the domed stadium and the Scotia Plaza operation. Can the minister tell us what progress he has made on major construction sites in Ontario?

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Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I am glad to have that question from the member for Hamilton East. In fact, at the memorial service I mentioned just a few moments ago in this House, we were at the Scotia Plaza site. It just so happens that I had visited that site on my own about a week and a half ago and talked to some workers who happened to be working around the entrance of the site. I asked them how the health and safety committee had been going on that site and they reported to me that it was working very well. The reports I get from the dome site as well indicate that the procedure, by and large, has been working very effectively.

As far as extending the health and safety joint committee mechanism to other construction sites is concerned, under the act, construction sites are currently exempted, and the only way in which the ministry can require health and safety committees project by project is through ministerial order.

I have not found it appropriate at this time to use ministerial discretion and a ministerial order to require those sorts of committees on other sites, but in our amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Act we are considering the advisability of moving in that direction.

Mr. Mackenzie: The minister has been short on really answering questions, but he may have touched the crux of this one in his final comments. The minister is aware that there is no legislation, as he has pointed out, to require mandatory committees on construction sites. They are not covered under the act, even though the workers, as the minister knows, have been arguing for them to be covered under the act for a good number of years.

I simply want to know from the minister, are we going to see legislation that covers the construction sites under the health and safety act, or do the contractors still have a veto within his government over this issue?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I will tell the member one thing. If the contractors ever had a veto in my ministry before I was around, they certainly do not have one now.

I just want to tell my friend that as we look at this issue, we are trying to come to grips with some of the realities of construction sites. When we take a site like the domed stadium or Scotia Plaza, which are really workplaces for a number of years, it is not really very difficult to superimpose upon that workplace a joint health and safety committee. Indeed, in one of those sites, there is a worker committee that works very effectively to feed information into the joint health and safety committee.

Our dilemma really is smaller construction projects, where there is a situation where one trade is there for a few days, then another trade is there and then another trade is there. In our work we are trying to develop models that will cope with the realities of the construction site, but nevertheless, utilize as effectively as we can the mechanism of joint health and safety committees.

HOUSING APPROVALS

Mr. Cousens: I have a question for the Minister of Housing. Yesterday the Minister of Housing made it clear that she is going to pass the problem of housing on to the municipalities, and we all know how important it is that there be a consultative, co-operative spirit between the province and the municipalities.

None the less, I have a letter here that was written by the mayor of North Bay to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) regarding certificates of approval for sanitary sewer and water supply systems. It has to do with the delay of six months that has taken place in having those approvals. “These delays,” as he says “have seriously affected the timely development and marketing of two new subdivisions, a major condominium development and two much-needed nonprofit rental housing projects in the community.”

Mr. Speaker: Question?

Mr. Cousens: He was talking here about unreasonable delays in receiving certificates of approval.

Mr. Speaker: The question?

Mr. Cousens: Was the Minister of Housing aware of these delays of six months that were going on within another ministry?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Good question.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: I am very delighted to answer this question. Let me say that we know very well that the problem with delays is very important in terms of its effect on the price of housing. The longer it takes to get a project approved, the more expensive the land becomes; the longer it takes to build, the more expensive the house is for people who want to buy.

I recognize and we recognize in this government that some of the problems have come from the way we ourselves in our various ministries have worked through the approval process. That is why we have made a commitment to cut significantly the time that is currently spent by our own government in the whole approvals process. That is the message we gave to the mayors today.

We are going to do that on our side. We are asking them to do exactly the same thing on their side. There are two parts to the approvals process. Part of it is what we do in this government, and we are going to cut those times significantly; part of it is the time they spent, and we hope they will be committed to cut those times significantly.

Mr. Cousens: The minister is delighted to answer with an answer that does not give me any sense of hope that there is going to be any improvement in the Ministry of the Environment.

Mr. Speaker: Does it help you with your supplementary?

Mr. Cousens: It sure does, Mr. Speaker. If I had any confidence that they would clean up their backyard and get on with the job, then the municipalities, I know, would be more co-operative.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Cousens: Would this minister take it upon herself to guarantee that the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Eakins) are not going to get in the way of progress? Can she guarantee that?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: I am very sorry not to be able to do much for the member opposite’s sense of hope, but I think he might look to his own soul for that. I think what is important here is that this government --

Mr. Cousens: Mr. Speaker, I take offence at that. That is a stupid answer and we are talking about a very serious problem. I don’t accept that. I want an apology.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: The message I was trying --

Mr. Cousens: I want an apology first. Come on.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: I am sorry. I thought the member could take a joke.

It seems to me that this government has already indicated -- and let me reiterate it for his benefit so it is as clear as I can make it -- that it is committed to making sure people in this province get the housing they need as quickly as possible for as reasonable a price as possible. We know one of the things that will make that difference is the work that we as a government do, and there is a government-wide commitment to speed up the process of approvals that will make it possible for housing of all sorts to be built all over the province.

The government is committed to doing that and we will be talking with municipalities about their doing exactly the same thing. Both of those things, I think, will happen. I have a great deal of hope that they will happen.

CONTROL OF SMOKING

Mr. Callahan: My question is to the Minister of Labour. When I was chairing the standing committee on regulations and private bills, we had the city of Toronto come before us for special legislation in order to allow it to pass a bylaw that would control smoking in the workplace. Since then, my municipality, the city of Brampton, has passed a bylaw which controls smoking in municipal buildings and buildings other than the workplace.

I would like to ask the Minister of Labour if it is the intention of the ministry to bring in comprehensive legislation that will deal with this issue, as opposed to requiring municipalities to come before that committee individually, paying the cost and going through the procedure in order to obtain that type of jurisdiction.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I think there are good reasons why the member for Brampton South and I should not be discussing this. Notwithstanding that, I simply want to tell the member for Brampton South and you, Mr. Speaker, that the legislation under which the city of Toronto has been granted authority to regulate smoking in the private workplace was, in effect, special legislation, a pilot project to determine the extent and how it would work out in that context.

Any other municipality that determined it wanted to regulate smoking in the private workplace would, in fact, have to come for special legislation. Of course, within the Ministry of Labour we are considering a number of alternatives, including the alternative of expanding that power to all municipalities. Unfortunately, at this point, I cannot identify a specific direction to my friend the member for Brampton South.

Mr. Callahan: I must say l was under the impression that my own municipality had perhaps proceeded without the appropriate legislative jurisdiction. I checked with our solicitor and was satisfied to find out that the prohibition was simply for municipal buildings and for places other than workplaces.

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I am concerned that municipalities may decide to take it upon themselves to pass this type of bylaw or put out this prohibition because they have seen Toronto do it, not recognizing that there is special legislation required, so I would ask the minister certainly to consider that and perhaps to look at it with all due haste to avoid this possibly happening and litigation occurring, which may take considerable time.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: That would be a lucky strike, and I am sure that the member for Brampton South would be a player in that regard.

I do not have the same concern as my friend the member for Brampton South has that municipalities would go beyond the authority they have. I think clearly the municipalities around the province understand the extent of their authority, and that is to regulate smoking in public places and, obviously, in municipal buildings.

But it clearly is an option we have, as we try to encourage a smoke-free Ontario, to grant other municipalities, and indeed all municipalities, the authority through amendments to the appropriate act so that bylaws can be passed in some or all municipalities to regulate smoking in, as I say, the private workplace.

VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION

Miss Martel: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. It concerns the report of the Ontario Task Force on the Vocational Rehabilitation Services of the Workers’ Compensation Board. The minister will know the report by the task force was absolutely damning of the situation that exists at the board in terms of rehab services and stated quite clearly that the Workers’ Compensation Board does not provide anywhere near adequate rehab services for injured workers in the province.

He will also know that the task force presented some 84 recommendations to his ministry on how the system should be cleaned up in order that the WCB provide adequate services to workers. I simply want to ask the minister, when can we expect some substantial legislation in this regard in order to guarantee rehab services to workers in the province?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: The member for Sudbury East raises a very good point. As we are proceeding with revisions to the Workers’ Compensation Act, one of the thrusts, as my friends opposite will see, is towards ensuring return to the workplace as speedily as possible. Of course, one of the ways we are going to be doing that is an enhancement and a clearer definition of the rights and responsibilities as far as vocational rehabilitation services are concerned.

I would take some issue with her suggestions concerning the task force report. I should tell her that many of the recommendations contained in that task force report have already been implemented by the board. A number of others do not apply directly to the board. The task force work was done, obviously, quite some time ago and there has been very substantial progress made. Not all has been done which needs to be done and more will be done, but if she were to take a snapshot look today at what is going on in vocational rehabilitation, including her own community of Sudbury, I think she would be pleasantly surprised.

Miss Martel: I have reviewed the board’s latest statement and the board’s response to the task force report and I say, quite frankly, I was not impressed by anything the board stated. It was a lot of lofty platitudes about changes and commitments they have not made yet.

A big part of the problem, as the minister will know, is that the WCB commits only 3.3 per cent of its 1986 budget to vocational rehab services in this province. I cannot understand how it is going to make any significant changes with that type of budget for rehab services.

Given the fact that only a small number of workers in this province even receive rehab services, and given the fact that of that small number only a quarter receive any retraining whatsoever if they cannot return to their former employment, and that number has been decreasing over the last five years, what is the minister going to do to guarantee that the WCB provide total and adequate rehab services for injured workers in this province who desperately need it?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: Given the nature of the political process, I am not sure there is anything that anyone could ever do to satisfy the member for Sudbury East. What I will tell her simply is that she is quoting old figures and she does not have reliable, up-to-date information.

Miss Martel: Those were the reports of the task force report.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: There is a suggestion from the member for Sudbury East, which she is shouting across the House, that every claimant should indeed have a program of vocational rehabilitation. It is important to point out that the vast majority of claimants at the WCB have no need for vocational rehabilitation. They, unfortunately, suffered an injury in the workplace. They have available to them medical rehabilitation. They recover from their injury, they are paid a temporary pension and then they return to their normal work and continue their lives. That is mostly the history of the vast majority of WCB claims.

Notwithstanding that, the point can be made. and I think it should be made, that there is a lot more to do on vocational rehabilitation. I just want to assure her that in that regard I think she and I are singing from the same hymn book.

WHEEL-TRANS LABOUR DISPUTE

Mrs. Marland: My question is to the Minister of Labour. Earlier this week, I asked the Minister without Portfolio responsible for disabled persons (Mr. Mancini) what he was going to do to ensure that the Metro disabled community was not left without transportation during the current labour upset. That minister offered nothing, only indicated that a lot of monitoring was going on with the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney); they were all monitoring the situation.

Since the minister for the disabled had nothing to offer the disabled citizens of Metro, could the Minister of Labour ensure that these people’s very important means of transportation will not be cut off on Monday when the Wheel-Trans workers go on strike?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: In these sorts of matters where management and labour have come to what even I consider in the Wheel-Trans situation to be a temporary impasse, it is simply not possible to guarantee that the parties will come to an agreement or that there will not be a strike. There have been assurances given from the operators of the facilities for the disabled that essential services will continue to be provided.

The member asked what I can do. I have taken some very substantial steps, I think, including meeting yesterday with the union leadership to probe once again whether or not there is the possibility of a settlement. I have not given up hope. I think that with effective and appropriate mediation services from our ministry, from the Ministry of Labour, there is a settlement possible, but I do not want to put out a false hope. Those are very difficult negotiations. I am encouraging the parties to get together. I think that is my responsibility and I remain somewhat hopeful.

Mrs. Marland: This minister was very quick to commit his full attention to the ongoing labour negotiations with construction workers, and that I assume was in order to avoid a strike, obviously, during the world economic summit, yet the disabled do not seem to get the same priority from his office.

Since it now seems to be common practice to use the government limousines to chauffeur ministers and families to baseball games, I would like to ask the minister if he would commit those government limos to help the disabled to get to work next week while the Wheel-Trans workers go on strike, and is he really willing to step in and resolve this problem as he seemed to be for the construction workers?

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: I think what we have there is a very good example of some of the difficulties questioners have when their supplementary questions are written before they hear the response to the main question.

The member suggested that somehow, as Minister of Labour, I was showing more interest and more concern about contract negotiations going on with the construction industry. I want to tell my friend I have taken the same steps in respect of Wheel-Trans as I did in the construction industry, that is, meeting with the parties and encouraging them under very difficult circumstances to continue the collective bargaining process and to work towards a settlement.

She must understand that there are some 8,000 or 9,000 collective agreements in this province and most of them get resolved without any interference at all or mediation assistance from the ministry. Where we have a situation, as in the construction industry or as in Wheel-Trans, we do our best to help the parties reach a settlement. That is what we are doing in the construction industry and that is what we are doing with the Wheel-Trans situation.

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MANUFACTURING MACHINERY AND EQUIPMENT

Mr. Morin-Strom: I have a question for the Treasurer about one of the few tax breaks that were provided in the recent budget. Of course, I am talking about a tax break to the corporate sector in the form of the manufacturing investment incentive, by which the Treasurer is allowing Ontario firms to deduct 115 per cent of the cost of equipment and machinery for manufacturing.

I would like to ask the Treasurer why he is encouraging the purchase of machinery and equipment, which he knows is an area where we have a tremendous deficit in our economy, and why he is not instead taking action to develop a machinery and equipment industry out of our own capability here in the province of Ontario? Why are we providing a tax break that is going to encourage the spending of money outside of the province instead of developing our own Canadian industry?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I think the honourable member will be aware that the tax reform initiatives introduced by the government of Canada changed the corporate income tax base and we have paralleled that in almost every respect, including the change in the capital cost allowance program, which was changed by the government of Canada.

As I said in the House on two occasions in referring to the tax reform, we are afraid that those federal changes are going to reduce our competitive stance with regard to northern states -- Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York -- and this particular initiative the honourable member refers to is designed to replace that competitive position. When firms, whether they are Canadian or international, are looking for places to expand-believe me, much of the world capital is concentrating on this sort of manufacturing and industrial expansion-we want them to be able to consider Ontario favourably, and this particular program, along with an improvement in research and development payments, is designed to do that.

Mr. Morin-Strom: The Treasurer knows well that the changes in the capital cost allowance formulas in fact only paralleled the changes that occurred in the United States, so the relative tax position of our manufacturing sector has not changed in comparison with that of the manufacturing sector in the United States.

However, the Premier’s Council report, which came out just before the Treasurer’s budget, states right in the beginning of the report that we must direct our emphasis away from “such basic commodities as newsprint or sheet steel, and move toward a range of ‘smarter,’ more specialized products -- products whose value resides in the skill and ingenuity of the people who develop and manufacture them.”

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Morin-Strom: Certainly, instead of the exporting of raw materials and commodity goods, we should be producing here in Ontario the machinery and equipment we need for our manufacturing industry.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Morin-Strom: Will the Treasurer change his plans and see that the incentives are made greater, if necessary, but apply only to purchases which occur here --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Morin-Strom: -- in Ontario or here in Canada?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I can assure the honourable member and the other members of the House that this program is designed to increase the availability of jobs and to improve our competitive stance. It falls directly in line with the recommendations from the Premier’s Council, which are designed to open up that competitive position that Ontario has so successfully utilized in the past.

There are certain basic weaknesses in our competitive position associated with our productivity, and in order to improve that, we have to encourage the kinds of investment that are associated with this program. We hope and expect that much of the new machinery will be purchased and manufactured in this jurisdiction, but we are not so short-sighted as to think that everything they may need is manufactured and developed here. We want to encourage it and we believe it is in the best interests of the province.

PETITIONS

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Wiseman: I have a petition here from Renfrew to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly, and it says:

“We, the undersigned, urge the Ontario Legislature not to pass legislation that would pass responsibility for regulating Sunday and holiday retail store hours to municipalities or the regional governments in Ontario. Rather, the Ontario government should revise its current legislation in order to uphold more strongly a common pause day across the province. We believe that a common day for family and worship activities is essential to the well-being of Ontario.”

It is signed by some 100 residents of Lanark and Renfrew.

Mr. Ferraro: I have a petition signed by 43 constituents of mine in Guelph to the Lieutenant Governor of the province of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, urge the Ontario Legislature not to pass legislation that would pass responsibility for regulating Sunday and holiday retail hours to the municipalities in Ontario.

“Rather, the Ontario government should revise its current legislation in order to uphold more strongly a common pause day across the province. We believe that a common day for family and worship activities is essential to the well-being of Ontario.”

MUNICIPAL ZONING BYLAWS

Mr. Jackson: I am very pleased the Premier (Mr. Peterson) is in the House for this petition. It reads:

“To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of the province of Ontario as follows:

“Whereas during the 1987 election campaign all three political parties expressed their disfavour of municipal bylaws which have the effect of limiting the number of unrelated persons who can legally occupy the same dwelling;

“We therefore call upon the government to act on the petitions of 370 students from McMaster University in Hamilton who have written to the Premier and whose petition reads, in part:

“‘I...strongly urge you to keep your promise to support Bill 94 or implement government legislation that will eliminate discriminatory and exclusionary housing bylaws.”

That is signed by 370 students at McMaster 1500 University.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Offer: I have a petition from the Meadowvale West Church Campus, addressed to the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario:

“We, the undersigned members of the above congregation, petition the Lieutenant Governor and the Premier of Ontario against the proposed legislation allowing Sunday shopping in the province of Ontario.”

It is signed by a number of members.

INSTITUTIONAL CARE WORKERS

Mr. McLean: I have a petition signed by 91 people, addressed to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor, the Minister of Community and Social Services and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, indicating the discontent of institutional care workers with an inadequate wage offer:

“Whereas these workers -- represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) -- find this offer to be ridiculous when they are told the government is considering an increase of 2.07 per cent in the pension indexing;

“Whereas the annual cost-of-living increases are at a four per cent to five per cent level and the government has increased the retail sales tax rate by one percentage point;

“Whereas an offer of four per cent is inadequate to meet with the annual percentage increase of over eight per cent;

“We, the undersigned, believe a more substantial wage offer must be presented in order to close the gap between labour and management during ongoing wage negotiations.”

MOTIONS

COMMITTEE SITTING

Hon. Mr. Conway moved that the select committee on constitutional reform be authorized to meet on the morning of and following routine proceedings on Wednesday, May 4, 1988.

Motion agreed to.

NOTICE OF COMMITTEE HEARINGS

Hon. Mr. Conway moved that the requirement for notice of committee hearings be suspended for the consideration of bills Pr24, Pr25, Pr30, Pr34, Pr38 and Pr49 by the standing committee on regulations and private bills on Wednesday, May 4, 1988.

Motion agreed to.

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ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS IN ORDERS AND NOTICES

Hon. Mr. Conway: I might just tell members that I am tabling answers to questions 98 and 100 that have been placed in Orders and Notices [see Hansard for Monday, May 2].

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading on motion:

Bill 115, An Act to provide for Construction Work in connection with the Toronto Economic Summit.

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.

Mr. Harris: I am going to try a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, at six of the clock, the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve) adjourned the debate on behalf of our party. At that point, he was doing so under the understanding that somebody on behalf of our party, because it was our turn, should move a routine adjournment. He did not at that point start his remarks and I think the Hansard will show that he did not in any way start into the debate.

I am not 100 per cent sure of the technicalities of that, but I hope that when the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry comes today or next week, in view of the fact he thought he was doing what he was supposed to do on behalf of our party, that would not count as his turn for speaking. Maybe the government House leader could proffer an opinion on that. If we could have some concurrence that is the understanding, it would be very helpful.

Hon. Mr. Conway: I just want to take the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to review the point the member for Nipissing has made because he is quite right in remembering that yesterday afternoon when the debate concluded, it was in the normal course of events left to the speaker who was going to begin today to move the adjournment of the debate. Our good friend the member from Stormont, Dundas, Glengarry and East Grenville was kind enough to do that. In fact, as he moved the adjournment, a number of very interesting comments were being batted back and forth between the member and the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon). I certainly want to provide the member with every opportunity to continue his remarks and I see the member for Nipissing is nodding approval.

Mr. Speaker: On that point of order, I believe that is correct. The member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry adjourned debate. I think there have been other occasions in this House in the past when that has taken place, and I am quite sure the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry will have more to say. However, we can go on and recognize any other member who wishes to speak.

Mrs. Marland: I rise today, April 28, 1988, to take part in the budget debate. I contemplated whether to make some new notes and perhaps deliver a somewhat new speech or whether just to pull out my previous three responses to the Liberal government budgets in the three years l have been here. Many of the items I addressed originally are still unaddressed by this government.

Today, however, I will start by discussing education. I think at the outset I should also explain that I was afforded by the Ministry of Education a very discourteous piece of treatment. When the announcements for funding in my region were made the day before yesterday, a press conference was held in the Peel Board of Education headquarters offices. Apparently, six members of the provincial parliament who represent the region of Peel and any numbers of members of the media were invited to this press conference. However, as the seventh member of the provincial parliament for the region of Peel, I was not invited and I felt that was very much intentional. The media certainly recognized that my absence was very obvious. They also felt that my not being invited was intentional.

I think it is unfortunate because the six members who were present do not represent the people who live in my riding. In fact, I had spent a great deal of time, which I was more than happy to do, to represent the interests of the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board and the Peel Board of Education in attempting to procure a meeting for the members of those boards and the administration for those boards with the Minister of Education (Mr. Ward). That, I may add, was done prior to the majority of those members of the provincial parliament even being in this Legislature, prior to last September 1987.

Having acknowledged that the Minister of Education’s office or the minister himself did not see fit to invite me to the announcements about what exactly was going to go on in school funding in Peel, I would now like to tell the members that after learning from the media that the press conference had taken place and the announcements had been made, I now understand why they perhaps were not terribly proud of those announcements.

School funding in Peel is in a totally irresponsible situation by this Liberal government. The announcement of capital grants to the school boards was nothing more than what the education director, John Fraser, correctly labelled as a media circus. I am extremely disappointed with the Minister of Education for not inviting any members of the opposition parties to the press conferences that were held across the province on Tuesday.

I should mention, because I think it would be interesting to those present in the House, that there were, however, a number of members of opposition parties who were invited to some of these media announcements by the local Liberal government members. It seems that the local Liberal government members in my region did not wish to extend that courtesy to me. Some of our members were lucky enough to have Liberals in the neighbouring tidings inform them of the press events. As I have already said, I was not so fortunate.

It is interesting to note that the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board requested $126 million this year. They received $80 million. On the surface that sounds wonderful, but although they were asking for $126 million this year, they in fact received $31 million this year. They requested 16 projects and they got eight.

We need, now, a new Lakeshore Secondary School, which happens to be in my riding, but because of the funding it will have to be phased in over three years. In 1988, we receive no money for the new Lakeshore Secondary School. In 1989, we receive no money for that school. In 1990, we finally do receive $9 million, and in 1991, we receive another $4 million, so in fact in 1990 and 1991, we get $13 million. However, we need $20 million for that one school. This means that the boards will have to borrow money at great cost because they cannot wait for the money to flow over the three-year period.

Almost half of the 53,000 students are in temporary accommodation; 14,000 are in portables. There are currently about 150,000 students in portables in Ontario. In the Dufferin-Peel separate school board alone we are busing children from Orangeville to Brampton. The public board requested $50 million; it was allocated the measly sum of $15 million. I think it is pretty serious when the largest public school board in Canada requests $50 million and receives $15 million.

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The average construction cost of a new elementary school runs between $2 million and $5 million and secondary schools cost between $10 million and $15 million. In fact, the Peel Board of Education had 14 priorities on its list and received money to build only three of those. In order to be --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. As the member who has the floor so well indicated, there are problems with trying to understand on all sides of the House. The Speaker recognizes the member for Mississauga South and only the member for Mississauga South.

Mrs. Marland: When the Peel Board of Education has 14 priorities and received funding for only three, that tells you how great the underfunding has been. I should emphasize that, to be listed as a priority, those children have to be there. It is not a matter of planning for the future. It is not planning for the future population moving into a community. It is dealing with the children who are living in that community today.

This year’s funding for public schools was the smallest the Peel board had received in three years. It actually has problems with the child care space program. The fact is that the Peel board made a submission to the Treasurer on March 21, 1988, wherein it said: “The provision of child care spaces on all new schools is another government initiative compounding our problem. The $250,000 addition required on each new junior school will only serve some 25 students, a mere fraction of the potential demand. In fact, this entire issue has more questions than answers at the moment.”

The school board is also very concerned about the impact of the grades 1 and 2 class-size reduction. The school board has said to us that it would like to have the allocations for the projects it has identified as emergency needs. They recognize that, provincially, there are other boards of education where class sizes perhaps do not compare with the Peel board’s. The Peel board’s class-size average today is 25.2. In fact, the reduction of class size to 20 in grades 1 and 2 is not the priority of the Peel Board of Education at the moment.

While we are talking about that reduction of class size, I may add that I have been told by educators around this province that there is no substantial evidence to support that children learn better in a class of 20 than they do in a class of 30. There is no argument that children learn better in a small class, which is 10, 12 or 15; but the difference between 20 and 30 is not so appreciable that, in fact, there is academic evidence supporting the value of it.

Frankly, I think it is very interesting that the government members were willing to make a campaign promise on some fleeting white horse as they galloped around the province last August, and then they plucked out of the air the idea, “Well, we will reduce class size,” before, in fact, they found out what the average class size already is in the largest public school board in the province, namely, the Peel Board of Education.

If this were a perfect world and if we did have a money tree in Queen’s Park, then of course why not reduce class size? Why not reduce all class sizes, not only grades 1 and 2? But what we are doing here is trying to fulfil a campaign promise that simply is not affordable. I think if this government were to decide what was fair and equitable and affordable by the taxpayers of this province, it would not have the reduction of class size as a high priority while it is gouging the people’s wallets in their hip pockets.

In the post-secondary situation, the operating grants have been increased by only 4.5 per cent this year. This means that 10 per cent of all qualified applicants to Ontario universities will not find a place this fall. Last year five per cent were turned away, so this year we are 100 per cent worse off with our post-secondary educational institutions.

I noticed with concern that in transportation we have no mention of the Eglinton or Sheppard subway lines. Mr. Speaker, you would only have to live in a community like Mississauga, which happens to be a city of 400,000 people -- it is also the ninth-largest city -- to recognize that the solution to transportation does not depend on pouring more people into more cars on the already congested highways. Our roadway system is simply inadequate for the number of people within our community who are trying to commute.

In the three years that I have been commuting to Queen’s Park, I have gone from needing half an hour to get downtown to an hour now, and that is at any time of the day; it is no longer a matter of whether you travel in the rush hour or outside of the rush hour.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The member for Mississauga South.

Mrs. Marland: It is very interesting that the interjections are coming from one of the representatives of Mississauga. I would really like to take note of the fact that I would have thought the member for Mississauga West (Mr. Mahoney) and the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Offer) would have shared with me my concern about the traffic problems in Mississauga, especially for those people who have to commute eastbound to Toronto. Instead, they are playing the partisan role of interrupting my speech. However, with your assistance, Mr. Speaker, I will continue.

The point is that we need those subway lines. We need the Sheppard line in Metro Toronto, and we need the Eglinton line for Mississauga, Etobicoke and Brampton. There is no question that the solution to the traffic congestion is to get people out of their cars, but we have to give them an altemative. The alternative, of course, is a subway extension.

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I also notice that under transportation in this budget, there are no funds committed to expansion of the Queen Elizabeth Way or Highway 401 for commuters travelling in and out of Toronto. If we do not soon make a commitment for planning the expansion, there will be no land on which to place any expansion to those existing systems.

There was an announcement of tendering the freeway traffic management system on the Queen Elizabeth Way from Cawthra Road to Highway 427, which is a distance of 4.5 kilometres. I understand that this system “informs drivers of traffic congestion on this high-volume freeway.” I do not know how much money that system is going to cost, but I can tell them in advance it is a mess. As I speak, later tonight or early tomorrow –- surprise -- maybe I am going to give a news release.

With no commitment for better public transit and no plans to accommodate cars, we have a serious transportation crisis in Mississauga. Mississauga is a growing business community, and transportation links to other major centres are crucial. It is no longer simply a question of those commuters trying to get into Toronto; it has now become an east-west problem.

Some spending to allow further progress on the Highway 403 extension from Mississauga to the Queen Elizabeth Way will be going ahead.

At one time you could avoid this terrible congestion by getting on the highway before 7:30 in the morning. I now find that you have to be on the highway before 6:45 or forget it, and that continues all day, until after 7 p.m.

I would like now to address the subject of sound barriers. During the last election, the ministry promised funds for additional sound barriers on the Queen Elizabeth Way in Mississauga. It is particularly significant that when we were in about the last week of the campaign, towards the end of August or the beginning of September, suddenly, lo and behold, out came this marvellous press release from the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton). In fact, the minister’s news release was dated August 31.

It said that plans were to proceed immediately to the planning and design phase for these locations within my riding on the south side of the Queen Elizabeth Way. Those locations I will identify as being between Southdown Road and Mississauga Road on the south side and Highway 10 west to Mississauga Road, also on the south side.

This news release was somewhat misleading. It was indicating that construction work on these barriers would begin soon. However, it appears that the additional $2 million for sound barriers simply puts the Mississauga projects higher up on the priority list.

In fact, I have dealt with the subject of the sound barriers through the process of questions in Orders and Notices. In answer to one of my Orders and Notices questions about the timing of the sound barrier on the south side of the Queen Elizabeth Way from Erin Mills Parkway to Hurontario Street-actually, on the south side of the highway it is called Southdown Road at that point -- it says:

“Ministry staff are at present carrying out design and other precontract engineering activities.... The additional funds allowed more projects to be brought forward from the long list of candidate sites already evaluated and prioritized on the ministry’s multi-year construction program. The two QEW sites referred to above were among the relatively high priorities on the candidate list and the additional funds accordingly accelerated their programming and precontract engineering work. Hence, there was no specific instruction issued with regard to these projects and the regional staff initiated engineering work as soon as these sites were placed on the three-year noise-barrier program.”

It is tremendously significant to read in an answer in Orders and Notices, which I guess was the beginning of January -- unfortunately, this copy is not dated, but the order paper question was placed December 30, 1987, and we will assume that the answer came back during January -- that “the two QEW sites referred to above were among the relatively high priorities on the candidate list.” Is that not beautiful?

The minister announced at the end of August in a press release during the campaign that they would be built. The press release in August 1987 did not say that they were relatively high priorities or that they were on a candidate list. The minister said they would be built. I leave it to you, Mr. Speaker, to draw your own conclusions about the honesty of the press release. I am not challenging the honesty of a minister in this House, but I am challenging the honesty of a press release from the minister’s office dated August 31, 1987.

Just to speak for a few moments about the business reaction to this “biggest-tax-grab-in-Ontario-history budget,” in the business community in the area I represent, and many other sectors with whom I have had discussion in this past week, it is generally felt that this budget, although it was announced to be designed to eliminate the deficit, or our debt, whichever word you want to use, in fact does not go far enough and is not going to achieve that.

Elimination of the corporate tax break for new business will hurt. Obviously, new businesses need all the help they can get, and obviously, the retail sales tax increase will have a negative effect on consumer spending habits. You end up with a cycle of businesses not being successful and productivity being down because goods are not being sold because nobody can afford to buy them. It is indeed an inflationary budget, and there is no question that Ontario will lose its current credit rating.

When we talk about survival needs, we have to talk about health care. The Ontario Hospital Association says that provincial underfunding is the main reason behind hospital deficits. I noticed last night in one of the media interviews that the president of the Ontario Hospital Association was asked what he expected hospitals were going to do about the fact that because of their underfunding they are now faced with bigger deficits than ever, because apparently the Treasurer simply says to the hospitals around this province: “You manage your books. You do your bookkeeping. You make sure that you don’t budget where you end up having a deficit. It’s up to you to do that” -- very simple, offhand direction to the hospitals in this province that are the only institutions on which we would ultimately depend for our lives, I venture to say.

It is not being overly dramatic to challenge the Treasurer, or indeed any member of this Liberal government who supports the drastic moves made in this budget, or the lack of moves, by saying that if they are ill and they need hospital treatment or they need an operating-room procedure immediately, where would their priorities be? Of course, it is very simple to know that the priorities are indeed for those hospitals to perform the services and render the procedures that are needed.

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I was very proud to hear the president of the Ontario Hospital Association saying quite simply, in reply to this question about what they are going to do, “We are going to continue to provide the best health care that we can, as hospital institutions around this province, and if we have a deficit, then that is going to have to be part of the operation.” They are simply not in a position where they are going to say, irresponsibly, as the Treasurer suggested, that they just cut back until they have affordable service and affordable programs, no matter whether it serves the needs in terms of health for their patients. When we are talking about hospitals, we are not talking about minor health needs, I respectfully suggest.

The provincial government has announced that it will not be funding hospital deficits this year, which makes you wonder about what its announcement will be next year. With its tremendous increase in revenue from the sales tax increase and the increased taxation in the other areas, perhaps next year we may hope that it will come to its senses and decide, yes, it will help fund the hospital deficits.

In 1987-88, the Ontario Hospital Association asked for an inflationary increase in operating grants of 5.1 per cent, yet it received only 4.4 per cent. For this coming year, the Treasurer estimates inflation will run at 4.7 per cent, yet hospitals receive only 4.4 per cent. This gap in funding will result in the creation of higher deficits than already exist. It is estimated that by next year, about 80 per cent Ontario’s hospitals will run deficits. At this time, in fact, the hospitals are refusing to reveal exactly what their deficits are.

There is something terribly wrong if 80 per cent of Ontario’s hospitals are running deficits. Are we saying that 80 per cent of the hospital boards around this province are irresponsible? I served on the Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital board for a number of years, and I know how difficult it is for these hospital boards to operate within the financial restrictions they are now placed under. They are trying to be responsible for the service of health care to those people who need it.

Today, the Treasurer presented the Ontario taxpayer with the bill for the September election of the Liberal majority government. When I say “today,” of course I mean the day that he gave us this wonderful budget. The tab turned out to be $1.3 billion in new tax increases, or about $13.4 million for every Liberal in this House.

The government has continued its tax-tax-tax, spend-spend-spend approach to fiscal management with a vengeance. To the taxpayer, it made little difference if the Treasurer read his budget in the House or at the corner of King and Bay. The pain is the same, and their pockets will be a lot lighter as a result of the Peterson government’s “Elect us now; pay us later” style. The Liberal government, which managed to get through an entire election campaign without once mentioning the term “tax increase,” has raised nearly every one of its major taxes, without so much as batting an eye.

Taken together, the increases to the personal income tax, the retail sales tax, the gasoline tax, the alcohol levies, the tobacco tax and the changes to the corporate tax represent the single largest tax grab in Ontario history.

With the budget, the Treasurer has said, “Thanks a billion,” to the taxpayers who voted his party into power in September. I emphasize that “Thanks a billion” is spelled with a “b.” The notable budget lowlights include the fact that even without his tax increases, the Treasurer’s revenues would have increased by 8.2 per cent, or $2.8 billion over last year.

Last year, for the third consecutive year, the government overspent its budget plan. Government spending in 1988-89 will increase by 8.6 per cent, a rate more than double the current rate of inflation. The Treasurer justified his tax increases by saying the money was needed for more schools, more roads, more hospitals, more capital for universities. However, the capital spending increase for 1988-89 is about $120 million, after deducting for projected in-year savings, only 12.6 per cent of the new tax grab.

The government has taken credit for $350 million in in-year savings last year, which simply means that if the government had been more efficient, it would have spent even more than it has. In the current fiscal year, the government had credited $500 million in in-year savings and constraints to its expenditure account, meaning that the $473-million deficit is really a $973-million deficit.

Before closing, I just want to comment on the environment. The environmental protection measures were also, unfortunately, just another tax grab. The Liberal budget’s three-cent gas tax increase on leaded gasoline is a pure and simple tax grab. The Treasurer had erroneously labelled his three-cent increase in taxes on leaded gasoline as a measure which reinforces the government’s commitment to the environment. This is far from a positive environmental action. What it does is send out the misleading message that we have to pay through the nose for environmental cleanup. If applied in a revenue-neutral manner, where the price advantage of leaded gasoline is eliminated by splitting the change in taxes between the two grades of leaded and unleaded gas, this then could have been viewed as a more positive measure

Instead, the Liberals are increasing the tax burden on low-income families. Studies have shown that these families drive older cars, which need leaded gasoline. It has also been shown that they usually drive farther to work, because they cannot afford to live in the urban centres. These families will therefore be using a larger part of their affordable and available income to fuel their cars instead of feeding their children. These gas tax measures show no concern for the environment. All they show is that this Liberal government is turning into a road hazard.

There is no guarantee that the three-cent levy on leaded gas will equalize the prices of leaded and unleaded gas. Gas stations throughout the province have increased the price of leaded gas but have not equalized prices. There is still anywhere from a 0.1-cent to a full-cent difference. Although this is a relatively small differential between the two grades, it still leaves both an economic and a psychological incentive for drivers of cars using unleaded fuel to misfuel with the cheaper leaded gasoline.

Other environmental announcements in the budget were virtually nonexistent, and I have to say that, as the critic for the Environment for the Progressive Conservative caucus, that gave me very grave concern. There was mention of the government’s ongoing programs to improve water quality through the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement, LifeLines and funding for beach cleanups. However, nothing new was announced, and no money.

The overall budget of the ministry was increased by $58 million, to $426 million. This is actually a reduction in the Ministry of the Environment’s share of the total provincial budget from 1.2 per cent, which it had been for the last three years, to 1.1 per cent.

I would finish by telling members that the reactions of Pollution Probe have been quite significant. Colin Isaacs of Pollution Probe commented that this budget had very little impact on the environment. He was happy that at least the environment was mentioned. He was not happy, however, with the manner in which the three-cent levy on leaded gasoline was presented.

The fact is that this government campaigned with a lot of promises in very many areas, not the least of which is the environment. Unfortunately, some of the areas they campaigned on they have not responded to at all, and I guess the most critical area that they did not campaign on was reducing the money we would have in our pockets after May 2, 1988. They did not campaign honestly, because they did not say, “In order to fulfil our campaign promises we will have to increase taxation as it has never been increased before in the province of Ontario.”

For that reason, I find this budget totally unacceptable and I find it unfair. The budget itself is dishonest because of the fact that it does not address the needs of the people of this province.

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Mr. Ballinger: Shame.

Mrs. Marland: Mr. Speaker, you will note that I am not addressing anything but the budget itself as being dishonest. I think a government that produces a budget with the amount of staff this government has -- and I did not mention that, but I will. The fact is that this government in two years increased the staff by 5,000 people. This budget adds another 3,000. That means that the civil service in Ontario goes from 80,000 to 88,000 people in three years.

Building a bureaucracy and taxing the people to pay for it and then not giving them the much-needed programs -- as basic as health care, the funding of hospitals and the funding of education for children -- when that does not happen, then this is not an honest budget. It is a budget that says, “We are going to take your money, but we are not going to fulfil the promises that we made.” If they were being honest, they would know that so many of the promises they made simply are not affordable for the very fact that they cannot fund the basic needs of education and hospital and health care.

It is with regret that we heard this budget presented as it was last week, and it is with even greater regret, on behalf of the people in Mississauga South who share the same kinds of needs as many of the other people around this province, that I have to say in a time of economic growth such as this province has never known that the people of Ontario are so badly hurt in their own financial situation because of the mismanagement financially by the Ontario Liberal government.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Mahoney: I am a little bit concerned about some of the statements made by the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland). Perhaps she would have an opportunity to clarify them.

First of all, she refers to the budget as being dishonest. I have always found the member to be honest in her allegations and her suggestions, but she has talked about the $80 million that the separate school board received as being only $31 million. I would suggest that is terribly misleading and unfair to all the taxpayers in the region of Peel.

The member knows full well that the October documents I submitted to the Ministry of Education are funded on the basis of allocation and that the money does not come out in one cheque. She knows full well that in fact the money is advanced in the same way construction draws are advanced on a construction site.

She also knows full well that the high schools in the $80 million total four high schools -- three new ones and one major addition in Brampton -- and she knows that will alleviate the very serious problem that school board has been facing, with an increase in enrolment in excess of 2,000 students in the secondary section of the separate school board in Peel in one year alone; while the public school, I would point out, went down by 300 students in that same period of time.

Should this government ignore the facts, ignore the realities, and simply write a cheque to the public school board, when in fact the secondary school enrolment went down by 300 pupils while the separate school board went up by 2,000-plus?

I would ask the member if she would address those comments and at the same time recognize that we have given $381 million to education this year versus $80 million in total by her government the last time it was on this side of the House.

Mr. Offer: I had a couple of notes on education, but my colleague the member for Mississauga West has very eloquently brought out the situation that has transpired in the Peel region since 1985.

It is absolutely incredible that the member for Mississauga South -- she might wish to comment on the increase in education allocation in the Peel region which has transpired since 1985, from being flatlined at under $80 million to now over $300 million. The schoolchildren in the Peel region now see the end of the tunnel; now they see that there will be schools built, that the Treasurer and this government have attached priorities to education in the Peel region, and not only the Peel region but indeed throughout Ontario, particularly the growth areas. We are fortunate we have a Minister of Education, a Treasurer, a Premier (Mr. Peterson) and indeed this government and cabinet, which is able to finally address the very important needs in the Peel region and, in particular, the city of Mississauga.

I would also like the member for Mississauga South to address how we in the Peel region are being so hard done by when we have received unqualified amounts of money with respect to transportation, health care and social services, never before received in the Peel region to help maintain a quality of life which is so necessary and deserving in the Peel region. I am very happy to listen to how the member for Mississauga South will be able to address the priorities attached by this government.

Mr. Black: I was shocked and surprised to hear the member for Mississauga South make the comment that there was no evidence to support the belief that smaller class sizes lead to better learning environments for children. With all due respect, I would suggest to her that there is ample evidence to prove now that smaller class sizes have a positive impact on both the intellectual development and the social development of young children. That is particularly true in the early years of learning.

I would suggest, with all due respect, that the member for Mississauga South might well want to ask her research staff in the Progressive Conservative Party to investigate that for her. If they have time from making anonymous phone calls, they might have the opportunity.

An hon. member: And checking garbage pails.

Mr. Black: They might check in garbage pails and whatever other activities keep them busy. If they are unable to find the proper documentation, I will be happy to find some for her and provide proof of that fact.

I was also disappointed in the member’s comments regarding capital funding. I think she knows very well that the improvement in capital funding provided by this Ministry of Education and this government is a significant one after many years of Tory underfunding in this province. As a friend of education, I am surprised the member for Mississauga South did not acknowledge that fact.

Mr. Polsinelli: I was also surprised listening to the member for Mississauga South’s statement. As her party’s critic for the environment, she was actually saying she is unhappy that this government is trying to dissuade motorists from using leaded fuel. We do not expect this three-cents-a-litre increase in leaded gas to be a money-making proposition, but if it is a money-making proposition, then the $39 million or so we may collect will go towards environmental purposes. That is clearly set out in the budget. It can only help.

With the whole issue of road taxes, the whole issue of gasoline taxes, I am sure the member for Mississauga South knows that this government spends in excess of $2 billion towards our roads and transportation system and collects less than $1 billion from our road taxes and gasoline taxes. If that is not the type of issue or the type of service the user should pay for, then perhaps the member should tell us who should pay for it.

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One more issue: Everybody in that opposition party seems to be calling this the largest tax grab in history. I do not quite understand that either, because if they are calling it the largest tax grab in history, let us look also at their federal counterparts, the third party’s cousins in Ottawa.

Is the member for Mississauga South aware that the federal Minister of Finance, Michael Wilson, has taken more taxes from Ontario since they have taken office than this budget does? If they are going to talk about tax grabs, they should point to their friends in Ottawa too, because first they take the money and then they call it tax reform.

Mr. Harris: I want to congratulate the member for Mississauga South on representing the people of Mississauga, of Peel region. It is good to know there is one member there who really cares about those constituents in Mississauga, and I want to congratulate her.

Mrs. Marland: It must be singularly significant that five members of the Liberal caucus could not stomach what I said, because obviously the truth hurts. Is it not interesting?

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mrs. Marland: I would be surprised if the member for Mississauga West would talk about money for the Peel Board of Education. I would like to see the members from Mississauga go to the people on the Peel board and ask them if they are happy with $15 million instead of $50 million. I would like them to talk about transfer grants which, when this government took over, were 50 per cent funded. Now in Peel they are down to 28 per cent. They may not know this, but in Peel it is only 28 per cent of educational funding that comes from the province.

The member asked me where the dishonesty is in this budget and I will tell him. As far as how much money for how many high schools is concerned, there was the big announcement of $80 million for funding for the Dufferin-Peel board when, in fact, it is $31 million in 1988. We will have the same big tax grab, I am sure, next year.

When the member for Mississauga North asked me if I would like to comment on the funding, yes, I would. I would like to ask him if he is happy with children in one board in 500 portables and another board in Peel with 400 portables? When he says they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, what he really means is that they can see the light at the end of the tunnel that connects those portables between the yard and the school building.

As far as what I think about smaller class size is concerned, I say to the member for Muskoka-Georgian Bay (Mr. Black) that if the question is purely what we can afford -- which if it was an honest budget is what we would be saying -- ask the homeless, ask the people on the waiting lists for hospitals what they think about the reduction of class size.

I really think it is very significant that all of them comment with their blinkers on.

Mr. Furlong: It is indeed a privilege to stand today, as the first elected member for the new riding of Durham Centre, to participate in this budget debate.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the residents of Durham Centre for allowing me to represent them in this Legislature. I pledge to represent them to the very best of my ability and I will always be guided by their concerns.

The new riding of Durham Centre was carved out of the former ridings of Durham East, Durham West and Oshawa. The riding comprises the town of Whitby and one third of the city of Oshawa. It is a very inviting riding. It is, I believe, the only riding in this province that can boast that it has a constituency office for each of the three parties represented in this House. Both the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) and the member for Durham East (Mr. Cureatz) can vouch for the hospitality of my riding. The riding is so popular that some of my constituents receive householders from all three parties -- our own brand of comparison shopping, I suppose.

The region of Durham, which lies to the east of Metropolitan Toronto, is one of the fastest growing areas of the province. This hypergrowth has created skyrocketing demands on all levels of government, not only in operating costs but also in the need for capital expenditures. Our resources are spread to the limit. Our school boards have had to cope with overcrowding; the number of portables emerging on our sites over the past five years has been embarrassing. Our hospitals have been bursting at the seams. Vacancy rates for housing stand at 0.15 per cent. Transportation services to and from the region have not kept pace. It is an all-too-familiar story across this province.

Since our government took office in 198S, many of these problems have been addressed. Capital spending on elementary and secondary education has quadrupled the 1984 expenditure levels. Funding of $381 million in the first year of a three-year, $900-million announcement not only addresses the most urgent need for additional pupil placements, it allows for a more comprehensive long-range planning process by the local boards.

Nous respectons aussi notre engagement de réduire le nombre d’élèves dans les classes de première et de deuxième année ainsi que de pourvoir à l’acquisition de livres et d’autre matériel d’apprentissage. Nous tenons aussi notre promesse d’accroître le nombre d’ordinateurs et d’améliorer l’enseignement de l’informatique.

Support for affordable housing will exceed $1.4 billion in this budget year, an increase of 77 per cent over the 1984 levels. Perhaps the member for Mississauga South should stay and hear these statistics.

Mrs. Marland: I am going to hear you on the television.

Mr. Furlong: The budget measures providing help to first-time home buyers to save for a down payment is most welcome. The Ontario home ownership savings plan is a sound program for delivering tax support where it is needed most. Tax support is geared to income, and that is fair. Upgrading and the development of our transportation network continue to be a high priority for this government. They have been allocated an additional $100 million in this budget year.

Mrs. Marland: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I wish to advise the member for Durham Centre that I am leaving this chamber for personal reasons and I will enjoy his speech on the monitor.

The Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order; that is a point of information.

An hon. member: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker --

The Deputy Speaker: The member is not in his seat. He cannot make a point of order.

Mr. Epp: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: When the member left there were no Conservatives left in the chamber.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you for the point of information.

Mr. Furlong: There is a provision in the budget for an additional $33 million earmarked for GO Transit improvement and expansion. The budget has also provided $426 million in funds directed towards the environment, an increase of 51 per cent over the 1985 levels.

L’expansion économique que connaît actuellement l’Ontario devrait se poursuivre au cours de 1988. Ces trois dernières années, l’économie ontarienne a enregistré un taux de croissance supérieur à seize pour cent et a créé 436 000 emplois. Notre économie en est maintenant à sa sixième année consécutive d’expansion et, ces dernières années, elle a dépassé la performance des pays industrialisés membres du groupe des Sept.

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Il ne faut pas tenir pour acquis que nous allons demeurer prospères sans rien faire pour le mériter. II est important de continuer d’investir en vue de raffermir notre position concurrentielle sur les marchés mondiaux. Les gouvernements ont un rôle de leader à jouer dans le domaine. Il n’y a pas d’expansion économique possible sans que les gouvernements fassent les investissements nécessaires pour alimenter les moteurs du développement économique.

This government has made a commitment to continue to invest in our future. The Treasurer has said, “If we are to ensure the long-term strength of our economy, we must invest in our competitive position.” He responded to the recommendation of the Premier’s Council on technology by providing a stimulus to investment in research and development.

The research and development superallowance will provide an extra 25 per cent deduction for large firms and 35 per cent for small business for R and D expenditures; 538 million from the technology fund will be directed to a five-year technology personnel program which will help smaller firms hire up to 1,000 new engineering and technical staff.

If members want to see the effects of high technology, I invite them to visit the Autoplex at General Motors. It is in my riding.

Mr. Breaugh: No, it is not. At least the member should know where his riding is.

Mr. Furlong: I can assure the member for Oshawa that part of GM is in my riding.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Please continue. Ignore the interjections.

Mr. Furlong: In addition, tax assistance programs are available to those in need. The Ontario tax assistance programs will, in part, deliver $494 million in tax credit benefits to over 1.8 million low-income Ontarians. It will provide sales tax credits set at $100 per adult and $50 per child, doubling the total benefits for low-income households. It will remove some 350,000 low-income taxpayers from the provincial tax roll.

In addition, in 1989, an additional 30,000 individuals and families will no longer pay OHIP premiums. Since 1986, 105,000 individuals and families have been exempt from OHIP premiums by government action. There continues to be a freeze on OHIP premiums since 1985.

To implement Ontario’s new directions for child care, $289 million has been designated. Each of the new schools constructed in the province will contain day care facilities. These facilities receive 100 per cent funding in the amounts of $258,000 per elementary school site and $495,000 per secondary school site. We are taking the first step in ensuring that our schools have a community-based focus.

I would like to echo the sentiments my colleague the member for Halton Centre (Mrs. Sullivan) made yesterday, applauding the initiatives of the lifting of the restrictions on Ontario Lottery fund revenues to provide for extra hospital funding.

Our government, and specifically our Treasurer, has tackled the problem inherited after 42 years of Tory conservatism with great courage and admirable fiscal responsibility. He has recognized the need to invest in those areas that will keep Ontario competitive in the global markets.

The strength of our economy allows us to address the backlog and begin to deal with the demands of the higher-growth areas, of which my riding of Durham Centre is one.

I was interested to read an article in the April 25 edition of the Financial Times of Canada by John MacFarlane. I quote from the article:

“Would anyone argue that Ontario has not reached significant economic benefits from the quality of its government services. Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that in health care, education and social services, which account for 67 cents of every dollar spent by the Ontario government, cutbacks are out of the question.

“As Nixon points out, the people in Ontario have come to expect and rely upon a high standard in health care, education and social services. They would be outraged at any government that proposed to withdraw them. A triple bypass is one of 100 expensive medical procedures to which they now feel entitled. They take it for granted that anyone with the talent and the ambition should be given the opportunity, no matter what the cost, to become a lawyer or a nuclear physicist, and they insist on the provision of legal aid for those who could not otherwise afford the protection of our courts.

“We have created a remarkably civilized and prosperous society, but we seldom stop to think about the cost of the government services upon which it rests. Assuming that there is a limit to what we can afford, how are we to know when we have reached it? Should the government attempt to ration transplants and CAT scans? Should it increase the pupil-teacher ratio in our elementary schools? Should it reduce grants to public transit or to public housing? The Treasurer has produced a budget that reminds us that prosperity has a price.”

I would also like to refer to an editorial in the Toronto Star on April 21. It asked a question. The question was, “Are the tax increases justified?’’ The answer was:

“Yes. To a large extent the reason lies in the rapid rate of growth itself. Last year, for example, 110,000 people migrated to Ontario. In the past three years, the four regions surrounding Metro accounted for a full 25 per cent of Canada’s total population growth.

“These forces have put powerful pressures on health care, education, housing and social services. To meet these rising needs, Nixon has allocated $2. 5 billion, or more than 80 per cent of all new spending into those four areas....

“Nixon could have paid for most of these spending increases with the revenues which he expects from growth. But that would have left him with a higher budgetary deficit than last year’s $2.4-billion figure. Instead he took the opportunity to raise taxes to reduce the deficit to $1.5 billion while economic growth is high. That will ensure that the government is able to continue providing essential services when the economic news is not so bright.”

Finally, I would like to look at another editorial, this one in the Globe and Mail:

“Ontario did what it had to do yesterday to address social needs and strengthen its financial position, too. This was the Peterson government’s first post-election budget, and it met the immediate challenge.

“There would have been no need for any tax increases if Treasurer Robert Nixon had been content to leave the budgetary deficit where it was -- $2.38 billion last year. In a booming economy, growth in government revenues on the existing tax base would have generated enough to cover the $3 billion more for programs that Mr. Nixon is spending this year.

“But Mr. Nixon also launched the first real attack on the deficit in four years, reducing it by $839 million to a planned $1.54 billion. Economic growth paid for the new program spending; tax increases reduced the deficit. (Mr. Nixon introduced some personal tax breaks to soften the blow for lower-income people.)

“Yes, Mr. Nixon had another alternative, a much smaller increase in program spending -- $2 billion, say, instead of the $3 billion planned for 1988-89. Many people would have preferred this, but even the $3-billion increase means that spending is growing slightly more slowly than the Ontario economy. And even the $3 billion (which includes $308 million for higher debt charges) will be stretched to meet pressing demands for health care, education, social services and public infrastructure.

“Net migration to Ontario last year alone was 110,000 people. Subdivisions are expanding, businesses are growing and employment is high. Public spending should not grow faster than the economy, but it is difficult to argue that it should lag behind in these circumstances. Ontario is not Detroit.

“Mr. Nixon made a fair point in saying: ‘We must continue to invest in our competitive position. Governments have a primary role in maintaining and improving the social infrastructure.’ Finally tackling the deficit gives that statement a newly credible ring. And Ontario’s per capita spending is still lower than that of six other provinces.”

As members can see, we on the government side are not alone in believing that we have presented to this House a budget that is both fiscally responsible and in keeping with our promise to ensure that Ontario is competitive in the global market.

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I have listened with some interest to the addresses of members of the official opposition and the third party. I found little substance in the comments of the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Pouliot). This is not surprising, since I am sure he and I have basic philosophical differences on how government operations should be financed. Through this budget, however, the government has demonstrated sound fiscal management in reducing our budgetary deficit, while being sensitive to and providing for the needs of our education, health, housing, environmental and social service systems.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, rant and rave about the spending of this government. The member for Nipissing disagrees with the budget statement that increased revenues are needed for capital outlays in education, health, housing and social services. He suggests even that we are deceitful. I invite him to compare this budget to the last budget presented by his party when it formed the government. He will find that capital spending for education, health and housing has been dramatically increased. The facts speak for themselves. The Tories curtailed spending, as their record will show, in the fields of education and health, and they were virtually bankrupt in housing. At the same time, they were spending on Minaki Lodge and Suncor.

I would like to turn now to the region of Durham. This budget has provided in excess of $37 million in direct capital grants to fund the building of six new elementary schools, three for the public board and three for the separate board. In addition, approval was given for the construction of a French-English secondary school.

A large portion of the $33 million allocated to GO Transit will provide the necessary funding to complete the extension of the GO service from Pickering to Whitby.

Durham College of Applied Arts and Technology has received benefits from the $440-million, four-year commitment to capital expansion for colleges and universities. It will be able to handle the anticipated space crunch by building a major addition to its main campus with a $5-million capital grant.

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars has been allocated by the Ministry of Health as part of a $1.4-million annual operating allowance to provide 86 supportive housing beds and seven new community mental health programs for the psychiatrically disabled in the catchment area served by the Whitby Psychiatric Hospital. This is the first stage in the $8.2-million redevelopment project for the Whitby Psychiatric Hospital.

Durham has also benefited from the initiatives in the Ministry of Housing. Earlier this year, 561 nonprofit residential units for Durham region were part of the federal-provincial nonprofit housing allocations for 1988. Since 1986, when Ontario began administering the program, more than 13,500 units have been committed across the province, for a total of 20,500 units by the end of 1988. This budget provides support for housing that will exceed $1.4 billion. We are making great strides to provide all Ontario citizens with affordable housing.

I support and endorse the comments congratulating the Treasurer on his commitment to the spending for the environment areas, as were so eloquently stated by my colleague from York East (Ms. Hart) in her address to this House yesterday. I can assure members that the residents of Durham region, who recently embarked upon an aggressive curbside recycling program, applaud the government’s commitment to the environment. I must say Durham would also encourage all municipalities to work aggressively to find solutions within their own communities to handle and reduce their garbage.

Le budget annonce les intentions du gouvernement dans le domaine socio-économique. Ce budget-ci démontre clairement que le gouvernement gère sainement les deniers publics et qu’il est aussi préoccupé au plus haut point par les questions sociales.

In conclusion, I want to assure members that as a consumer and as a member of the typical family of four, I too will feel the impact of tax increases. However, I will also enjoy the benefits and feel the effects of the benefits from the increased services that this budget will provide.

I will have increased environmental protection, better school facilities for my children, assurance that transportation routes will be upgraded and maintained, continued access to a high excellence of health care and the knowledge that we are striving to provide for the future in a fiscally responsible manner without transferring the costs to our children.

This budget gives the assurance that we will move towards the 21st century as a competitive, compassionate, viable and well-served community.

Mr. Pouliot: On behalf of my friend the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), who needs little help in defending the philosophy that he has brought forward over the many years, I wish to congratulate the member for Durham Centre, who has expressed his views in a fashion that is suited to the good fortunes of Ontario -- and he has remained positive and relatively nonpartisan throughout. But if I may, to come back, in terms of the difference between the two philosophies I have to find it somewhat ironic that a person on the one hand can associate himself with the Liberal Party of Ontario and talk about philosophy in the same breath. It is at the least ironic.

What the member for Nickel Belt mentioned in his address last week in response to the budget was the following: the party with the social conscience, the New Democratic Party of Ontario, has absolutely no quarrel with paying for services. I mentioned yesterday that better roads, new schools and better hospitals cost money and that we as consumers are quite willing not only to recognize that simple equation but to pay. What concerns us is that the less fortunate in our society and the middle class in our society are asked to carry the tax burden for people who have more.

We have no quarrel with increased services; we welcome increased services. We have some quarrel, but not that much, with paying for those services. We are asking very simply that it be done by everyone, especially the people who can afford more than other people to pay their fair share. It is very simple.

Mr. Beer: I too would like to commend my colleague the member for Durham Centre on his remarks today on the budget and, in particular, to underline what I think is important to all of us who are representing the fast-growth areas of Durham and York and Peel, what we are experiencing in terms of the tremendous pressures that are being put on educational, health, social, transportation and housing services.

One of the things that is clear to all of us in those areas is that there will be this continuing need over a long period of time, probably at least another decade, as we try to find the funds to pay for the kinds of services that we are going to require.

I think the member for Durham Centre has very clearly set out the dilemma and challenge that was in front of the Treasurer and how effectively in that budget the Treasurer sought to deal with both the issue of the deficit and trying to bring that down and, as he has said, putting his net cash requirements in better shape, while at the same time dealing with the very real needs that we have in those fast-growing regions and particularly, again, in terms of education and in terms of health services.

I think it is awfully important that those of us who are in the fast-growth areas continue to bring that message to this House and to this Legislature, because it is quite frightening when one looks at the population increases, as was noted very clearly by my colleague, in those areas. We are going to continue to have those tremendous pressures in all of these areas from now on and for a great deal of time further. The initiatives which we have taken this year are positive ones. We are keeping our eye on both of the important aspects, which are getting those services funded and getting the deficit down.

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Mr. Pollock: I just want to comment briefly on the comments of the member for Durham Centre about Minaki Lodge. I know that millions of dollars were spent on Minaki Lodge, but let us face it, there were millions of dollars spent right here in downtown Toronto on. say, Ontario Place, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the McMichael Canadian Collection, and it goes on and on. We lose more money on those things than was spent on Minaki Lodge all the time it was being built.

I cannot think it is so wrong to spend some money out in the rural areas. The people from the rural areas have to pay taxes too. I have been at Minaki Lodge, and when I was there it was employing well over 50 students on a summer program to train them in that particular line of work. They got those students from some of the northern colleges, and they were glad to get the jobs; they were training them there. As far as I was concerned, there were a lot of American tourists there and it was bringing money into that particular part of the country.

I might just say there was no mention in the budget as far as the Ministry of Natural Resources is concerned. There was no money for that particular ministry at all. I have been asking the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) to come down to my riding and look at an abandoned railroad to see if the government would even consider taking it over, and he will not even reply whether he is going to come or not. The Ministry of Natural Resources budget went up only one per cent overall.

Mrs. Marland: I congratulate the member for Durham Centre. I think that was his first speech in the House, and I do commend him for that effort. I might just help him and the people he represents about one area. He did refer to education, but I think he might like to know that there was a submission from the Durham public board and the Durham separate board which said, and I quote:

“The public expectation created during the recent provincial election and fuelled by recent announcements that all class sizes in grades 1 and 2 in Ontario will average 20 students has greatly aggravated the already serious accommodation problem in growth boards. The reality for the Peel Board of Education alone would be an additional 140 classrooms for full implementation. For the eight boards represented here today, we are looking at a total of 652 classrooms, or the equivalent of 44 average-sized junior schools based on present numbers.” That would include the former speaker’s boards, I understand. “The present year’s request for $1.7 billion contains nothing for this implementation. Obviously, this reality will be reflected in capital requests next year and for years to come.”

I think it is very significant when members of the caucus of the Liberal government speak about this budget that they do recognize that the reduction in class size simply is not fundable; it may be desirable but it is not fundable today in Ontario while the priorities for ordinary classrooms are not being met, simply because we have so many thousands of children in Ontario in portables. It is a lower standard of education when a child is in a portable, unfortunately.

Mr. Furlong: I can respond only to the member for Lake Nipigon by saying that I said in my statement that we do have a philosophical difference, and I will leave it at that.

I also would like to indicate to the member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. Pollock) that the point of my reference to Minaki Lodge and Suncor -- I lumped them together; he might have missed that point -- was that his party’s priorities were a little out of whack. I am simply saying, when you are looking at capital funding for school boards in 1984 at $80 million, the scheduling has to be out of whack. These children did not just arrive on the school scene. I am simply indicating that the priorities were not in place.

To the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland), I can suggest to her that it is my information, and I stand to be corrected, that based on the phase-in of the lower pupil-teacher ratio in grades 1 and 2, the Durham boards are already there. They will be receiving $222 per student as cash flow-through, and they will be able to use that money to do other things with it. When she says it is not fundable, Durham school boards will prove to her that it is in fact fundable.

Mr. Swart: I want to rise and speak in this debate and give -- I was going to say the third dimension of opinion, but perhaps it is only the second dimension of opinion. The member for Durham Centre (Mr. Furlong) talked about having a philosophical difference from this party. I notice he did not say anything about having a different philosophical view from the Conservative Party. I think people who have been around here for a while really know there is not any different philosophical view, except that the one that is out would like to be in and the one that is in wants to stay there. That is about the only real difference.

I have to say that of the 13 or 14 budgets I have now heard in this House, to some extent this is a unique budget. It is unique in the sense that it is a budget which raised taxes more than any other budget since I have been here, yet it is a budget which has left so many provincial needs unmet. I do not know when there have been so many. That is the view of the public generally around this province.

There are those, particularly in the party on my immediate left -- geographically, but philosophically some of them are way over on the right -- whose main thrust of criticism is that the government is taking too much money, that the budget is too high, that it should not have made those kinds of increases to raise that additional amount of money.

I want to say that party is not totally alone in this view. There is quite a segment of society -- I have here a clipping from the Welland Tribune, the day after the budget was announced.

An hon. member: The voice of authority.

Mr. Swart: Yes, the voice of authority.

It quotes an alderman in the city of Welland as saying, “The budget scares me in terms of the increases in sales and income taxes.” It goes on: “‘At a time when people are projecting we are heading into a type of recession, it would be the best time to keep money in people’s hands, not grab it from them. I do not think the economists will be happy with this,’ he said. ‘Last October, we had a meltdown in the stock market and there are feelings a recession is imminent. To impose a situation where purchasing power is limited is antiproductive.’”

That alderman happens to be Alderman Mark LaRose in the city of Welland, and he was my Liberal opposition in the last election. He was praising the virtues of the Liberal Party, and these are his comments. He went on to say, “If I sat in the House, I would have something to say about that.”

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I would just like to remind him and remind all the people of this province that there is not one of those Liberals over there who has had anything to say against the budget. If he was here in this House, he would be just the same as all of the rest of the Liberal members who were elected back on September 10 of last year. They would dutifully applaud the Treasurer when he announced his budget and they would applaud their other members when they get up to speak in support of it. He would do exactly the same thing. Now when he is out, when he did not make it, why, he makes those kinds of comments.

Mr. Ballinger: That’s why he didn’t make it.

Mr. Swart: It may be; and it may be why he might, I suppose, not even get the nomination next time, making comments like that about the Liberal government. But that is the Liberals’ internal problem; that really does not worry me.

I am not going to talk about the excessive increase in the budget. As has been stated by the member for Durham Centre, we think perhaps this size of budget is necessary, though I must say we have a very philosophical difference about how this budget should be raised. When the government gets a budget of a $3.75-billion increase, which is about the amount of increase in the budget this year, we do not think that practically all of that money should be raised from the lower- and middle-income groups, from the working people of this province. When you look at this $3.75-billion increase, $1.5 billion of that is raised in the sales tax alone.

All studies that have been done -- I do not need to belabour this point -- show that the sales tax is a regressive tax. It falls most heavily on those with lower incomes, yet $1.5 billion has been raised in that manner. As well, $750 million has been raised in regressive income tax. The income tax in itself is not particularly a regressive tax, but if you are levying that on those who are below the poverty line, as this government does -- people who are $7,000 below the poverty line are going to have their income tax raised -- that then is a regressive tax. The government had the opportunity to make it much less regressive. It chose not to do that. When you raise $175 million in gasoline tax, that is not at all based on ability to pay, either. If you add those all up, the great majority of that $3.75-billion increase in taxes is being raised from the working people and, for that matter, those of lower income in this province. That is what we take issue with.

I am not sure whether the member for Durham Centre really meant it, but he said he listened to the member for Nickel Belt -- and my colleague the member for Lake Nipigon dealt with this -- and he said he could not see anything of substance in it. I do not know what his interpretation of substance is, but there was the entire variation, a substantial difference of philosophy in how you raise additional taxes. I would call that substantial when we want taxes taken off the people below the poverty line. The people over there may not think that is important, they may not think that is substantial. We on this side of the House do. We think those people should not be paying those taxes.

I just want to go on and say that in spite of this increase, the main services to Ontario citizens in this province have never been in greater disarray. That is a factual statement: in education, in particular colleges and universities, but in elementary and secondary education too; in health, particularly in the area of hospitals and drugs for seniors; in community and social services, in rape crisis centres, in services for the handicapped, whether it is mental or physical; and in day care and in housing. There has never been the disarray in housing -- in every field --

Mr. Ballinger: Oh, that is not true.

Mr. Swart: It absolutely is true. I will deal with that in a few more minutes.

I just want to say that the combination of these massive taxes and the unprecedented needs says something about the effectiveness of this government, the priorities of this government and the quality of its administration. What it says is that in those regards they are blowing it on almost every count. They are immobile. Now that they have their huge majority, they are immobile. They are not initiators and they are so wedded to the marketplace and to the corporate sector that they really cannot make any new moves. It is the same old philosophy that they are applying to all of the decisions they are making: the marketplace and the corporate sector shall decide these things.

I mentioned housing just a few minutes ago, and the member for Durham Centre said that the vacancy rate was 0.15 in his riding. My gosh, I would think that is an admitted condemnation. The Liberal government has been in power for three years and that is the vacancy rate; nobody can get anyplace to live?

Mr. Breaugh: Nice guy, but he misplaced the entire General Motors complex and got in trouble.

Mr. Swart: Yes, and the backlog of cases with regard to rent review has never been greater than it has been under this Liberal government for the last year or two. How many cases are there, 25,000 backlog --

Mr. Breaugh: It is 26,000 and something.

Mr. Swart: -- 26,000 and something backlog of cases?

Mr. Ballinger: We’re working on it.

Mr. Swart: Oh, yes, they are working on it. It is like somebody is digging a hole. They are getting in deeper all the time.

And there have been these massive increases in rent, 30 per cent increases that my leader has documented here in the House. Where is their rent control? There have been these flips of the housing. What have they been doing about that, where the price of the apartment buildings may go up 50 per cent in two days and then the tenants have to pay? No, the rent review has never been in a greater shambles than it is at the present time.

What about construction of new homes? What does the government estimate this year, 85,000 units this year compared to 105,000 last year? We had a tremendous shortage of housing at the end of last year, and they are going to reduce the numbers by 20 per cent?

Prices are up three per cent in one month? The average price of a house in Toronto is up 58 per cent in the last two years.

Are the Liberals proud of that? Do they think it is good administration that those kinds of things happen? Of course not. And do members know what is the prime culprit in all this?

Mr. Black: Let’s not talk about housing, let’s talk about --

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Breaugh: I saw a white flag go up over there.

Mr. Swart: That is not a white flag. I know from looking in the mirror; that is hair.

There is one prime culprit in this housing situation -- and I am being serious on this -- and that is speculation. You have the entrepreneurs here who see a way of making a fast buck, and the flipping of the houses is what is causing these high rent increases. It has been speculation on land that has driven the price of houses out of reach. The government itself now is charging $160,000 a lot on its land out in Scarborough.

Mr. Breaugh: Oh, but it’s good news.

Mr. Ballinger: It’s old news.

Mr. Swart: So it is old news, but it is very real, my friend. It is very real, and when you get this situation where now in the greater Toronto area the price of land is more than the cost of building a house, I say there is something wrong with that housing program and something wrong with the values in our society when you allow such speculators, and yet this government refuses to put on the speculation tax. The member for Durham Centre has left, but he said there was no substance. I suppose the government does not think a speculation tax is anything of substance.

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Mr. Polsinelli: It doesn’t work.

Mr. Swart: It doesn’t work? He documented that it does work. Of course, it does not work for the criteria of the Treasurer, who wants to use it to make money, but that is not the purpose of it. It is to stop speculation, and it does work.

There is public land development, which even a Conservative government in this province initiated many years ago, and they were a bit more progressive than they have been in recent times. In fact, before the member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman) got into the caucus, they had public land development and it did a lot to keep the price of land down. Either they do not care about what is happening in housing, or I think it is really the other way around. They are not prepared to intervene, to step on the toes of their friends.

In the field of community and social services, there are many areas which are also in a very serious situation with regard to service to the needy in our society. I am not going to go over a lot of them, but in day care, the doubling of day care spaces still will not meet the need that we have in Ontario, even if the government is able to double them. That is the shortage in that area. We know what has been going on for the last month or two in rape crisis centres because of lack of funding, because they do not have the money to pay the staff. We know what has been taking place there, and with the physically and mentally handicapped.

I want to give an example of the city of Welland. The other day I called the Welland District Association for Community Living to find out what the situation was there with regard to meeting the needs that we have in that community. They tell me that of those who are in the sheltered workshops, those who are mentally handicapped and in the community work sites, there are 67 in the programs. There are 33 on the waiting list. There are those who are waiting at home, some of them for more than two years, to go into a sheltered workshop or into a community program, and they are out there waiting to get into those programs.

Numbers of residential units have been set up to provide living for these same people. We have 80 of them living in those units in Welland, but we have another 22 on the waiting list with very little hope of their getting in at all, because those people who are in there now simply do not move out. They have to have more units, which is the only way they can provide those residential homes for them.

It is over a year ago now that there was a publication put out called Challenges and Opportunities. It was a seven-year plan to deal with the services for this group of people, the mentally handicapped. That was approved by cabinet over a year ago. There has been no funding of it yet. It is a great program on paper. The association for community living commended it at the time. They are surprised that no funding was put in last year, and they are equally surprised that there is no funding for it this year either. What is the use of having something like that which has no meaning in practice? There are a lot of needs to be met, tremendous needs, urgent needs to be met in the field of community and social services, which are not being met.

We have heard a lot about education in the last few days, for a variety of reasons.

Mr. Ballinger: Good news.

Mr. Swart: Good news? The local taxpayers do not think it is good news. Do members know that in this House 12 years ago, in the budgets that were brought in, almost 60 per cent of the money for elementary and secondary education was being provided by the provincial government?

Mr. Polsinelli: In most areas of the province it still is.

Mr. Swart: The average is 41 per cent, my friend.

Mr. Polsinelli: The average.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Swart: The average in those days was 58 per cent. We have had a Liberal --

Yes, Mr. Speaker, ignore the interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: And you shall address your remarks through the Speaker, of course.

Mr. Swart: I am delighted, Mr. Speaker, to direct my remarks to you, because you are so understanding. Not only that, you never make these nasty interjections that people do over on the other side. I will make my comments to you.

The taxpayers, in the regressive property tax, have had to pick up a much greater share than they had to 10 years ago. Since it came in, this Liberal government has not done anything to resolve that, nothing; even though when they were over on this side of the House, that was a big issue: the government over there then, how it was betraying the public of this province, letting education be funded on that regressive property tax.

Such things as the numbers in portables at this time, when we know we have not had any great growth in school attendance over the years. I am not blaming this all on the present government, because this situation existed to a large extent before they came in. For instance, in the rather slow-growth area of the Niagara Peninsula, in Denis Morris secondary –- and where is the member for St. Catharines-Brock (Mr. Dietsch), because it is in his riding, a riding represented by a Liberal? -- they have 29 classrooms. Do members know how many portables they have? Twenty-five. Almost half the school population is in portable classrooms. Is that satisfactory? Is that even excusable?

We know the funding for colleges and universities is still inadequate. To the Liberal government’s credit, it has increased it proportionately to what the other provinces have been doing. Three or four years ago, Ontario spent the least amount of money per capita for university students. Now I guess we are getting up someplace close to the middle, but I would remind those people over there, through you, Mr. Speaker, that they are constantly bragging about what a wealthy province it is under this Liberal government. Many of those other provinces are poor, yet here is a province that is one of the wealthiest in this nation, which still cannot get above the average, and perhaps not even up to it, on the funding of our universities.

Of course, colleges are even worse. They are in a crisis. There is no other way of describing it at the present time. The colleges of applied arts and technology in this province are in a crisis. When 18 out of 22 colleges expect to have deficits between $1.5 million and $3.5 million this year, this inevitably means drastic cuts in programs and, therefore, in the number of students who can be admitted, I would say we are in a real state of crisis under this Liberal government.

Yet, of course, we have the Premier saying in this House just three weeks ago, on April 7: “we are committed to accessibility. We are committed to the maximum number of young people receiving post-secondary education.” If ever the old adage, “Your actions speak so loud, I can’t hear what you say,” is appropriate, it is on the funding of our colleges and accessibility for the students in this province.

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Let me just quote from a report that was made by the president’s executive council to the board just recently at Niagara College, and I quote verbatim, “To address this financial shortfall, it had been recommended by officials in the Ministry of Colleges and Universities at an earlier meeting that the college curtail the number of academic offerings and services to the post-secondary population of the regional municipality of Niagara, effective September 1988.”

The consequences of such a reduction would be: “Denial of access to 546 students over the next 12 months as a result of cancellation of as many as 16 of the programs currently offered in the college. One in three eligible students could therefore be denied entry into the college.”

This is the result of the recommendation of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities: “Reduction of our full-time staff complement by 77 persons, or 14 per cent. Simultaneously, as a result of the forced downsizing of our adult training operation, consequent to the Canada-Ontario agreement, the college is in the process of reducing by 24 staff, four per cent, in the 1988-1989 year.”

And finally, “The total reduction of our full-time staff could be as high as 103, 18 per cent, one in five employees, during this year, with a long-term impact of 139 employees or 24 per cent.”

That is the situation Niagara College is in.

Mr. Ballinger: What’s your point?

Mr. Swart: Oh, I am glad you asked. I am sorry. Yes, I was just going to say that the point of this is that the Liberal government over there, particularly the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, is destroying our college system. They are dramatically limiting accessibility. They are cutting programs.

The whole purpose of community colleges -- and I am old enough to remember and of course, everybody in this House is old enough to remember when we first got community colleges -- was to locate these colleges across this province so that post-secondary students and others who wanted to upgrade their education could get that in the community. That was the purpose of it, so they could get it in the community.

Although the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, and the minister of course, never say it publicly, the simple fact is that they are now moving dramatically away from that philosophy. They are going to streamline. So they want to cut out 16. They are cutting out the theatre arts program in Welland. It is one of the two or three good ones in Ontario. Students come there from as far away as Manitoba to take that program. They are cutting out, even in Welland --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Swart: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, because I was speaking to you and I am being interrupted by people whom I am not even talking to, whom I am talking about, of course, but not talking to.

They are even cutting out the bilingual secretarial program, or propose to cut it out, as a result of these cutbacks. In a community where 17 per cent of the population considers French its native tongue, they are cutting out the bilingual secretarial program, and I am asked what the point is.

The point is that we want these programs continued. We need them not only for the people of Welland; we need these programs that are given in all of the colleges continued so that the post-secondary students and others have access to a wide range, and in the long run can acquire the kind of education that will be of great value and make them of greater value to our society. That is the bottom line. That is the point in what I am saying here.

What the government is doing is betraying two things, and I am using that word “betraying” advisedly. It is betraying its commitment to accessibility; you cannot have access to programs that are not there. Second, it is betraying the original and ongoing principle that community colleges were designed to provide a broad range of courses for the people living in that community, the majority of whom cannot afford to come to Toronto or someplace else to get that education, so that they do not have to go away from home.

I want to touch very briefly on the health situation in our society. I would like to touch on it at much greater length, but I do not want to speak too long. I know I will be applauded for saying that; I will be applauded even more loudly if I do it.

Of course, this is, as we all know, the biggest ministry of the government in many ways, but certainly in funding, and I guess perhaps it is fouled up the worst of all. I want to say immediately, though, that sometimes when one is critical, even legitimately, of the operation of a service or a program, one can lose sight of the principle behind it and maybe destroy the philosophy. I want to say that regardless of problems which exist in our health system, it is so far superior to the private health system they have in the United States, which, incidentally, we would still have in Canada and in Ontario if it had not been for the New Democratic Party bringing it in in the west, that we should continue to remind ourselves of its advantages.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Swart: I have been to Florida occasionally and sometimes when I am down there, I pick up some newspaper clippings.

Interjections.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, you will notice I am ignoring the interjections.

I have here a copy of the Tampa Tribune. This was just a little bit over a year ago. I cannot take time to read it, but it talks about how at Tampa General Hospital a valet attired in a wine-coloured jacket parks cars free for those going to see the physicians at the new Harbourside Medical Tower. At Largo Medical Centre patients can dine on filet mignon, poulet à l‘orange and chocolate éclairs.

Then it goes on to talk about the competition to get these well-paying patients to come in. Let me go on and read the really serious part: “On an average day in 1986, about 1,600 hospital beds were empty in Hillsborough while roughly 2,000 were unfilled in Pinellas county, according to the health council of west central Florida, yet even these hospitals then made money.”

I would like to read these, but I will not take the time, especially when my whip has sent me a note that if I do not finish in five minutes, I will not get on to question period for three weeks.

They point out that there are 35 million people in the United States who cannot get into hospitals; not those on welfare, but the low-income wage earners. Incidentally, many of those are black. Thirty-five million really have no access, so let us never knock the principle of public health insurance or medicare or the Ontario health insurance plan or whatever you want to call it when we are criticizing the administration here.

I am going to conclude by pointing out that it has been, and is being, tremendously badly administered here, in spite of the soundness of the principle. It is little short of deplorable. Ask the people waiting to get into hospitals. Ask the people laying on stretcher beds in admitting departments or hallways. Ask the administrators who cannot get funds for additions or nurses.

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Anybody looking at the basic figures objectively can tell what is wrong. The budget for hospitals is $5.5 billion. That is a 6.9 per cent increase this year, but it is really up only 4.4 per cent for the hospitals. The doctors have a budget of $4 billion. It is up this year by 10.8 per cent, after a 17 per cent increase last year.

Then when we look at the number of hospital employees, those figures are not too far apart. There are 125,000 hospital employees who are getting 75 per cent of that $5.5 billion, and 22,000 doctors who are getting more than 75 per cent of that $4 billion. If we work that out, it means that the employees, for all expenses, are getting about $33,000 per employee; the doctors are getting about $135,000.

It is said, of course, that the doctors have a lot more people coming to see them, that there are a lot more operations. Of course there are, but there are more people going to the hospital too, and when we fund the hospitals at a 4.4 per cent increase and we fund doctors at 10.8 per cent --

Interjection.

Mr. Swart: Because they have much more clout with that government over there, that is why. They are the ones with the clout with that government. They get the money and that is why we are in the problem we are. If we shared that equally, we could be out of a lot of those problems. Welland County General Hospital is caught in this bind as badly as any in Ontario. That government over there has to revise its priorities in the health field if we are going to get the solutions that the people of this province are demanding, I want to tell members. They are pretty unhappy with the way things are.

In conclusion, I just go back to where I started. There is a dramatic increase in the provincial budget this year, but there is equally a growing increase in the unmet needs of the people of this province. That ought to tell us something about the government and the way it is operating. More and more people throughout this province are realizing that when they gave that party its huge majority, it was the worst thing they could have done.

The Deputy Speaker: Do members want to respond.

Mr. Polsinelli: It is my pleasure to respond to the comments of the member for Welland-Thorold. I did agree with him when he was talking about our publicly funded health care system. He was talking about medicare. I think it is one of the finest systems in the world. It is costing us a lot of money; I am sure he knows that. Thirty-three cents of every tax dollar we pay goes towards our health care system and we collect only 29 cents in personal income taxes, so we can understand some of the pressures and strains on government in terms of funding our health care system.

I was a little bit unsure what he was saying in his final comments when he was talking about the various allocations in the budget. Was the member saying that we should cut doctors’ pay or that we should raise the pay of everybody else who works in the health care system? That is something I hope he will clarify in his comments.

I personally found the speech of the member for Welland-Thorold to be very enlightening because I think I have finally understood how the official opposition, the New Democratic Party, the socialist party, would pay all its bills and would have a whole host of new programs. What it is doing is that on the revenue side of the equation, when it is calculating how much added revenue it would get in new taxes, it grossly overestimates what it would get.

For example, the member for Welland-Thorold indicated that a one per cent increase in the retail sales tax would bring in about $1.5 billion, when the reality is that the Treasury officials are estimating it would bring just over half of that amount.

On the expenditure side of the equation, what they do is greatly underestimate what the new programs would cost. They have spoken of reducing it so that families with less than $25,000 in family income would pay no provincial income tax and they say that would cost the province about $100 million. That is a figure that is so far from reality that it goes to prove my point on how the official opposition would pay for its government programs. They overestimate what they would get in taxes, underestimate what the programs would cost, and they would solve the world’s problems.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I want first of all to say how much I enjoyed listening to the member for Welland-Thorold, as we always do. I think the member has to be one of the best and most knowledgeable speakers in this Legislature.

When the member was talking about the medicare system, I would like to ask whether he was talking not necessarily along the same lines as the previous speaker, but more along the line that instead of doctors getting the fee for services they now get, in getting rewarded for seeing patients time and time again, he would endorse the idea of going towards more community health centres and health service organizations, which reward doctors and people in the health care system for preventive medicine and which try to have health promotion. This is the direction the government says it wants to move in, but since it has taken office, in three years it has done virtually nothing to head in that direction.

We all know from the experience in Sault Ste. Marie, where they have a health service organization, that hospital utilization is considerably lower than it is for other communities. We know that in other jurisdictions, they have been experimenting extensively with health maintenance organizations. Economically and from a health care perspective as well, we know that it is very, very successful.

I wonder whether the member shares my concern that the government talks a good line on reforming the health care system, but instead just spends more and more money on institutions and doctors’ salaries. In the end, we really do not get an improved quality of health care.

I would also like to ask the member if, in talking to his constituents, he had the same experience I did last weekend. People were absolutely outraged with another aspect of the health care budget, and that was the tax unfairness imposed by the Treasurer, where sales taxes and gasoline taxes are way up, but people with huge incomes are still able to get away with paying absolutely no income tax in Ontario.

Mr. Ballinger: I would first like to agree with the member for Windsor-Riverside that since my election in September, the honourable member for Welland-Thorold has been probably one of the better speakers in the House. He probably provides, for the newer members, a very enlightening aspect of what goes on in Ontario.

I would like to say, though, that the only problem I find with the member for Welland-Thorold is that when he speaks, he speaks of doom and gloom on a continual basis. Things are not that bad in this province. They are not as bad as the member for Welland-Thorold tries to portray on every issue. Every time he stands in this House, he speaks of nothing but doom and gloom. This is a good budget. The people who live in this province do not share the same concerns the member for Welland-Thorold does on every aspect of it.

Mr. Villeneuve: Be here next Tuesday, Bill.

Mr. Ballinger: I hope to be here for the next four years. I can say to the member that as a new member, I continuously feel like a punching bag in this Legislature. The opposition members do nothing, ever. All they ever do is complain. They never contribute anything positive to the process whatsoever and I really do believe they should take a more objective look at this budget and they will see there are some good points in there for the people of Ontario, and they agree with us.

The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): Would any other honourable member wish to comment? If not, the member for Welland-Thorold has a chance to respond for two minutes.

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Mr. Swart: I want to reply to that last one first. He is the only member I ever knew in this House who has got up and said he hoped he would be here for this term, four more years. I guess he realizes the inevitable, the way his government is going. Talking about doom and gloom, I think maybe that is the ultimate in personal doom and gloom.

We deal with this for two reasons. First -- talking about doom and gloom; we do not deal with that all the time -- it is the job of the opposition to point out the errors and the faults in government. That is the reason for having an opposition. The Liberals would like to have it like New Brunswick, I am sure, but they do not have that privilege here. There is an opposition. Second, if we are going to do our job even half-heartedly, we have to spend all of our time talking about the faults of the government. There are so many.

I want also to reply to the member for Yorkview and say either the member for Yorkview was not listening or he has not looked at the budget. In my remarks, I said there was a one per cent increase in the sales tax. I also said that this year the sales tax took $1.5 billion more than it did last year. Those statements are correct.

Mr. Polsinelli: So you weren’t just talking about the one per cent.

Mr. Swart: I was not talking about the one per cent. Either the member was not listening or, more than that, I think he is trying to take the easy way out now. If he looks at his budget, he will find there is a $1.51-billion increase this year in the sales tax. I say to him that is too much if he wants a fair tax system.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Villeneuve: That is a difficult act to follow here, but I will try.

It is a privilege to participate in this debate on a budget that was not good news for Ontario. I will put forward some of the positives that I think should have occurred. I will not be only negative, as some people are accusing this side of being.

When the Premier took office some two and a half years ago, he told the press and a number of people that he was a very fortunate Premier indeed, the most fortunate for many years in Ontario. He took over after a recession, a period of time when interest rates, as we all remember, went well into the double digits, into the 20s, and he took over a province that had been pretty well administered during those very difficult economic times. What I am afraid this budget tells this province and certainly tells this party is that the Premier and the Treasurer will ensure that their successors are not nearly as fortunate as they were when they took over in 1985.

I think we are seeing living proof of this now. I think the public of Ontario is starting to realize what it got on September 10 last. Certainly the election on March 31 last gave a message. Remember, that election came before this great budget by the Treasurer. I dare say, if that election were to be held today, the figures would be even higher in favour of the Tory candidate, who was an excellent candidate and who will be an excellent member of this Legislature for many years to come, not only this term.

I am here primarily to talk about agriculture and food, the most basic industry to this province. Agriculture employs directly in the production of food something less than three per cent and yet provides employment directly and indirectly for well over 20 per cent of the residents of Ontario and provides some of the finest-quality food anywhere in the world.

What we have seen in the budget pertaining to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food is shocking. We have seen the smallest increase of any ministry, less than two per cent, when indeed inflation is at 4.7 per cent, government spending is in the double digits and government income is also in the double digits.

We had from the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) a report in early January. The heading reads as follows: “Assessment of the Impacts of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement on the Ontario Agriculture and Food Sector.” This is a report that was prepared by the minister. It states that agriculture stands to lose $95 million because of the free trade agreement. If that is right on, where is agriculture being looked after in this budget? A two per cent increase. That is a shame. If the member believes this, then he has not done his homework.

I think it is an affront to the agricultural community of this province to be faced with a report which says they stand to lose $95 million and then be forgotten totally in the budget. The 1.9 per cent increase in Agriculture and Food is barely sufficient to give the employees in Agriculture and Food an increase of 4.7 per cent, which is anticipated to be the inflation rate. I think there is a very serious dichotomy here. Either this government does not believe its own report or it has told agriculture, “We don’t care a damn about you.” It is one or the other. It cannot have it both ways.

The Ontario farm management, safety and repairs program, a most popular program: $50 million, totally subscribed, totally gone. The farmers cannot apply for the 1988 portion any more; it is totally subscribed.

The Ontario cream quality assistance program: Cream producers of Ontario found out in November that they had to improve their facilities in order to qualify to produce a quality product. This particular grant, only $1.5 million, was terminated on March 31, before the farmers even had time to find out what it would cost to upgrade their facilities or indeed to make those expenditures. The Minister of Agriculture and Food has said he would look at it. I guess he is still looking because it certainly was not mentioned in this budget.

However, it is alarming to read, on page 47, table 5 of the 1988 budget report, headed “Target Expenditure Savings and Constraints Secured in 1987-88.” Would you believe, Madam Speaker, how many millions of dollars were removed from the agricultural budget of 1987-88? It is right there up on top: a $20-million saving. In a ministry that has less than a two per cent increase, they go and chop off $20 million from the 1987-88 program. We have the Ontario farm management, safety and repairs program fully subscribed, a very popular program providing services to Ontario agriculture, yet they cut the budget for Agriculture and Food by some $20 million.

I will use a small example, one I think the members will understand. Anticipated tobacco tax revenue for one year is $776 million. What is the total cost of operating the Agriculture and Food budget? It is $567 million over a year. We have a $110-million surplus on tobacco tax only. That is enough to fund the entire additional capital program this budget encompasses, the difference between operating the Agriculture and Food budget and the $110-million difference in tobacco tax revenue. It totally funds this Treasurer’s increase in capital expenditures in one year.

Members may ask what the additional operating expenditures of this government and this budget are in one year. It is $3 billion-plus. That is what it costs in additional operating expenditures, because of a large increase in bureaucrats, a large increase in whatever this government feels it needs to give to its friends. There we go: $3 billion additional operating expenses and $100 million in additional capital expenses year over year.

I think it is rather pathetic. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture sums it up, and I want to read into the record what the OFA president, Brigid Pyke, has to say in part. “Stand-Pat Budget a Disappointment to Farmers” -- l think Brigid is being kind when she heads it this way.

“‘This is essentially a stand-pat budget that will disappoint Ontario’s farmers,’ said Brigid Pyke, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. ‘That the budget is very silent on OFFIRR and crop insurance program is ominous. We hope this doesn’t indicate a weakening of government support for farmers facing difficult markets,’ says the president of the OFA.

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“Commenting on OFFIRR, Pyke noted, ‘The debt load of Ontario farmers has not fallen significantly since OFFIRR was introduced. The real cost of carrying debt has remained high. We’re disappointed the government didn’t reaffirm its commitment to a program that put much-needed cash in the hands of hard-hit farmers.’

“On the crop insurance program, she pointed out, ‘Basic changes are unfunded after two years of study and discussion.’”

The president of the OFA finishes her press release with this:

“‘In the beef industry, for example, Ontario farmers get a little over $6 in government support for every $100 of cash receipts. Compare this with our sister province, the province of Quebec, where beef producers get over $45 of every $100 in cash receipts. Government commitment to the industry is essential to maintain market share. We’ll be working with government to ensure that commitment is backed up with dollars,’ says the president of the OFA.”

That is a condemnation and it is actually a kind condemnation. It could have been much, much harsher. We have a situation where the one per cent increase in sales tax will add approximately $2,000 of additional cost to an average new home in the city of Toronto. It will be less than that in the riding I represent in the far eastern reaches of Ontario because we seem to be able to put up houses for somewhat less money. However, we still have to put furniture in that new home and the car under that carport also has to have that additional one per cent sales tax. The average family of four will be paying approximately $1,000 a year in sales tax alone, up some $112 just because of the increase of one per cent.

On the petroleum increase, I would have liked to have seen something slightly different, something like: “Fine, leaded gas is a polluter. Let’s put it in a price range that is in excess of the nonleaded gas so that we would have an incentive to use no-lead gas.”

That was not done. This was a grab-grab budget: “We’ll grab here and we’ll grab there. Let’s forget about the consumers.” It would have been very, very easy to do.

Again, I am glad -- I thought the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton) was here. He was here a moment ago and I see he is gone.

However, I want to address some problems in a positive fashion. We have in Ontario a large surplus of grain corn. It could have been turned into ethanol, ethanol plus. It has already been tried by the United Co-op. The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) is here and he knows that much of the pollution created in the province of Ontario is produced from car emissions, and that is a problem.

The federal government has decreed that by 1992 we must be rid of lead. We can, through a home-grown solution, be producing methanol-ethanol, a mixture, a blend I am sure the Minister of the Environment is familiar with.

I want to quote a few figures here: “Ethanol, a high-octane, pure chemical, can be produced from sugar, starch-containing grain such as corn or cellulosic compounds such as straw or wood. In addition to being renewable fuel, ethanol has properties which include high-octane value and low exhaust emissions.”

Where was this government if indeed it is committed to a cleaner environment? Why could we not take a lead and set up some methanol-ethanol plants right here in Ontario so that we can have a home-grown solution to a problem that can be addressed by governments?

“Provision of an additional domestic market for Ontario com and the development of value added industries” is one of a number of benefits. “Provision of an environmentally safe source of octane to replace existing octane boosters such as lead, MMT and aromatic hydrocarbons.” I might add that MMT is a serious polluter and it is all imported from the United States.

“Enhancing Canadian energy, self-sufficiency and reducing future dependence on imported light crude oil, diversification of the economy, promotion of regional development by creating new investments and employment opportunities in Canada” and particularly right here in Ontario where we have a surplus of grain.

On another subject, also involving the possibility of pollution -- it is not only a possibility, it is a fact of life and the Minister of the Environment will be aware of this one as well -- in the Niagara Peninsula, the Ministry of Transportation has been found guilty of polluting some orchards through the use of road salt or calcium chloride. A replacement for road salt, something we take for granted, could be calcium magnesium acetate, or CMA; it is just as effective as salt and only one tenth as corrosive.

That is a positive move, but there were no positive moves in this particular budget. It was simply a matter of grabbing money shortly after an election and hoping that in four or three and a half years the electorate will have forgotten. I assure members, this party will make sure the electorate does not forget what happened in early April 1988 when this budget came down.

We have a number of other areas, and I know that many Liberal back-benchers and frontbenchers represent urban ridings and also a lot of rural Ontario. I wonder what the member for St. Catharines-Brock and the member for Lincoln (Mr. Pelissero), in those grape-producing areas, would tell their hard-pressed grape producers because of a certain decision under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade on discriminatory pricing of their product. What are they going to tell their farmers? What is in there for them? A two per cent increase to satisfy the wage increase of the bureaucrats. That is really all that is in there.

I would not like to be the one to go into rural Ontario and try to defend this type of budget. Had there been some positive aspects to it, had there been innovative ways of using some of our surplus farm production, it would have been different. Farmers are still in distress. They are putting in a crop this spring. They are not too sure exactly what sort of a return, if any at all, there will be for the crop that they are going to work hard on, spending big money and a lot of time putting it into the ground.

Mr. Mahoney: Wait until next spring when we get free trade.

Mr. Villeneuve: Free trade is one of the reasons the economy will continue to be buoyant in this province, and the members know that. If they do not, then why did they not react to the so-called, supposed $95-million loss that I spoke of a while ago?

Mr. Reycraft: You’re telling us we should, but it’s not going to occur.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Villeneuve: Madam Speaker, your predecessor in the chair is my neighbour in eastern Ontario and we have a mutual problem; it is no funding at all for major projects on the Nation River and by the South Nation River Conservation Authority. We have areas at Plantagenet, Brinston, Bear Brook and Augusta that need channelization. The previous government spent $7 million in partially channelizing the South Nation River in the Chesterville-Winchester area. However, an additional $12 million to $15 million has to be spent.

We have some of the best land in eastern Ontario. It is tile-drained land. I know you come from a farming community, Madam Speaker, and you know what I am talking about. In the summer we have floods. We have photographs of corn eight feet tall, standing in six feet of water. That is a shame. The South Nation River has to be dredged; considerable funding has to be spent.

Some 10 days ago my colleague the Deputy Speaker and I met with the member for Essex-Kent (Mr. McGuigan), the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Natural Resources. We did not get very good news. But I will continue the fight towards obtaining funds to channelize the South Nation River via the South Nation River Conservation Authority to protect the more than 10,000 acres in that area that are tile-drained but silting in at present.

The farmers have cleaned out their municipal drains. It is the main watercourse, the South Nation, that backs up in the summertime. Tile drains are silting in. Ten years from now, it is rumoured -- and it is not only rumoured, it is a fact -- that if we have water backing up in these tiles for very long, we will have a silting-in process that not only will reduce the effectiveness of these tiles but certainly can render them totally inoperable.

I am glad to see the Minister of Transportation back. I am sure he was watching on the monitor out there. I made some very positive suggestions for him.

Hon. Mr. Fulton: Actually I was on the phone. If you want to repeat all that go ahead.

Mr. Villeneuve: I am sure the minister will read Hansard with a great deal of interest, and very closely, because we do have some very positive suggestions. We have been accused of being negative. I have been trying to be as positive as I can with this budget, which tends to be very, very inflationary.

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In summing up, I feel -- and history will bear it out -- this one per cent increase in the sales tax in the budget means one-half per cent added on to the annual inflation. I do not think anyone can argue that. Whenever housing in Toronto will cost $2,000 more, families will be paying $1,000 or more just in sales tax.

I have not even touched on the personal income tax, many people have. I suggest very strongly to those people who are just finishing up in the last days of having to complete their income tax, to go back to 1984, look at the schedule of provincial tax they had to pay in 1984 and compare it with what they have to pay in 1987 and they will find a tremendous increase. Next year it will be even worse.

I appreciate the opportunity of addressing this rather sad budget and I hope it is not as bad as it tends to be oriented towards.

Mr. Pollock: I want to compliment the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry on a very excellent speech. It was well delivered. He explains things extremely well. I found it very inspiring.

I was a little surprised at his tone, though. He seemed to be quite upset that the Minister of Agriculture and Food got only a 1.9 per cent increase in his budget. As I pointed out, the Minister of Natural Resources got only a one per cent increase in his budget. The Minister of Agriculture and Food and the Minister of Natural Resources must not have a high profile at the table. They do not seem to be able to get the funds they should for their particular ministries.

I was quite surprised that the Minister of Agriculture and Food actually dropped that farm safety and repair program. That was a $50-million program that was well received by the agricultural community, an extremely popular program, and yet he dropped it. He brought it in last year just before the election and this year he has dropped it. It leaves one with the feeling that he brought in that program more or less to buy votes. Surely that was not the reason, but one would get the impression that this is why that program was introduced and then all of a sudden dropped.

As I say, that was a popular program. A lot of farmers took advantage of it, repaired their machinery and bought safety equipment. I have actually stood in this House and promoted a program to subsidize safety equipment.

Mr. Reycraft: It is always good to listen to the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry talk about agriculture. I know his support of that is very strong. I am very happy he chose to speak in English because I reached for my translation device and found it was in two pieces.

I enjoyed the comments of the member. However, there was one particular thing that left me somewhat perplexed and that was the way he approached the topic of free trade.

Mr. Ballinger: Only one.

Mr. Reycraft: One in particular.

On the one hand, he talked about free trade creating unprecedented prosperity in this province. I always find that argument a little puzzling, given the fact that here in Ontario we have already got a degree of prosperity that surpasses that of any one of the 50 states I have ever been in. I can never understand how somebody thinks it will lead to greater prosperity here than anybody has been able to achieve in any one of those states.

However, he talked about it creating that prosperity. On the other hand, he referred to the report from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food which projects very large losses for farmers in this province if the free trade agreement, as proposed, is implemented.

Mr. Ballinger: Some $95 million.

Mr. Reycraft: Yes, to the extent of $95 million. He criticizes the Treasurer for not responding to that in the budget. If free trade is supposed to lead to all this prosperity, why should there be a need to address its costs in the budget?

The other thing I would like him to respond to in his remarks is the mention he made of the use of ethanol and methanol. I wonder if he could perhaps give us some indication of the financial implications of its use in this province as a substitute for more traditional fuels.

Mr. Mahoney: I did catch most of the honourable gentleman’s address on the monitor, but I happened to come back in the House just at an interesting point when the member was citing statistics about what an inflationary budget this is. I believe he said -- and maybe he could correct me if I misheard him -- that an average family would pay an extra $1,000 in sales tax. To do that you would have to spend an extra $100,000 based on a one per cent increase, so maybe he could correct that for me when he gets an opportunity to speak.

Mr Breaugh: Buy a house.

Mr. Mahoney: You do not pay sales tax when you buy the house. The member knows that as well.

The other thing I found interesting, which none of the honourable members from the other side has spoken about when they talk about inflation, is the reduction of the deficit, the lowest deficit in 19 years in this province. When this government took office -- I was not part of it in 1985, but I recall it -- the planned deficit at that time was $2.2 billion. We are now talking about $473 million, the lowest deficit, cash deficit, net cash requirements, in 19 years.

If I might make a brief point about agriculture, I kind it amazing that anyone could try to suggest that the agricultural sector is going to benefit from free trade. Just imagine yourself, Madam Speaker, trying to milk a cow at six o’clock in the morning in northern Ontario or Portage la Prairie and compare it to doing that same job in Orlando, Florida, or in South Carolina. That puts it in very simple terms that most simple people could understand. It is a lot more difficult, a lot more costly. Free trade is a devastating tool against the agricultural sector in the entire country of Canada.

Mr. Pollock: You can’t prove that.

Mr. Mahoney: The gentleman knows it, but he will not admit it because he is just singing the Tory line.

Mr. Haggerty: I was thinking about the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, who is a member, I guess at times, of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs. He knows of some of the discussions and of the witnesses who have appeared before the committee. I suppose I can say he understands, as I do, that the main focus of the Canada free trade deal agreement seems to be based upon economics. That comes through very clearly.

We have had representations where men have talked about the multinational corporations. Do we want Canadian agriculture to follow the American trend of corporate land ownership? I do not have to remind the member that the person who owns the land and can control the production and the produce can also dictate to society the price it will pay at a later date. Do we want the level of economics in the marketplace to dictate what will happen to Canadian agriculture?

Those are the two questions I want to ask him, because we have seen the erosion of the agricultural sector in the Niagara region, particularly in the tender fruit industry. At one time we used to can all of our fruits here in Ontario until the multinational corporations came in and bought up the small canneries. Now we find we have the biggest import of canned fruit and goods and produce from the United States through the multinational corporations.

I know that his party supports the free trade agreement, but is he not concerned about the agricultural industry in Ontario? Will it be able to survive? We know that subsidies are a question on the free trade deal in the United States, and the question is that the subsidies we may apply to the agricultural sector here may cause problems within that agreement, if it is accepted by the United States House of Representatives and the Senate.

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The Acting Speaker: Order. The member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry for two minutes.

Mr. Villeneuve: I guess I must have woken everybody up in here.

To the member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. Pollock), yes, I too am very disappointed. When he mentioned that he thinks there may have been some little hint of buying votes, all I can tell him is that this Ontario farm management safety and repair program was fully committed for the $20 million that it was allocated early in 1987, and the 1988 portion was fully allocated by the end of March 1988, and it has not been renewed. I have to think that possibly the suggestion that he makes that indeed agriculture was given a few crumbs in this is a little bit true.

To the member for Niagara South (Mr. Haggerty): he was with us on a trip to Washington about a month ago. I found it strange when a couple of congressmen got up and said, “What kind of a free trade is this when you protect 95 per cent of your dairy market and your poultry products market?” That is exactly what we were told. We were also told by prominent union leaders: “We do not want this free trade. It creates a very uneven situation. The auto pact is slanted in Canada’s favour. We do not want free trade to protect the auto pact. We want to destroy the auto pact.” That is not a hidden agenda. That was stated.

There were a number of other questions, but the reason I support the free trade deal is I like to have some input as opposed to being dragged in kicking, as John Turner and the Premier would have happen to us. Dairy production is protected. Our markets are protected in the feather industry and the dairy industry, and I am proud to say that it was done by a federal government that cares and that had input in the free trade agreement.

Mr. Elliot: I am delighted to rise on the first occasion in the House to speak on behalf of a new riding. I believe it is traditional when you represent a riding such as mine, Halton North, that on that first occasion, you say something about that riding and the wonderful people in it. This gives me particular pleasure, because my people are a reasonable group, and in talking about the budget, which I think is a significant, good document, I can give members a real flavour of what the heartland of Ontario is all about.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order. Please continue.

Mr. Elliot: With respect to my riding, it is west of Toronto, north of Derry Road, and encompasses all of that part of the Halton region to the boundaries. The significant built-up areas are Acton, Georgetown and Milton, and all of the land mass that is outside of the urban areas belongs to Esquesing and Nassagaweya townships. Through these townships, there are many urban clusters, like Campbellville, Moffat, Brookville, Speyside, Limehouse, Norval and Hornby.

I mention Hornby last because a resident of that particular community was a long-time member of this House and is now a constituent of mine, the Honourable James Snow. He is well known, particularly to the third party here. When the riding of Halton-Burlington, the former riding, was formed, for some reason the Honourable James Snow chose to run in Oakville and was always a nonresident member of that particular community. I am not sure I had the pleasure of running against him twice, but I did do that. I ran against James Snow in 1977 and 1981.

Julian Reed contested the seat when the new riding of Halton-Burlington was formed 12 years ago. I think he was a terrific member of this House for the 10 years that he sat as a member here. He chose not to run in the 1985 election. Don Knight, a Liberal, successfully ran and retained the riding for this party.

It is a new riding in that the Burlington portion of the riding is no longer in my riding of Halton North. Everything in my riding belongs to the town of Milton or the town of Halton Hills.

The number one concern in this area of Ontario is the environment. This is largely due to the fact that 30 per cent of the land mass is on the Niagara Escarpment. There is a lot of farm land in Esquesing township in particular because of the way the rural area of Ontario is designated. To be farm land, you have to be a dairy farmer or a cattle farmer or a hog producer. That particular area of concern I am closely related to, because I was raised in the small community named Chesley up in Bruce county. I am closely related in philosophy to all the fine people in the rural area in Esquesing.

The other half of the riding I consider to be rural and farm community too, but the horse industry is not considered to be part of Agriculture and Food at the present time. The largest industry in my riding is the Mohawk Raceway and the attendant horse population out in Nassagaweya township now.

There are only about five or six of the other type of farms in all of Nassagaweya. Most of Nassagaweya now is housed by people with a paddock. A lot of them are restricted to six horses, but there are thoroughbreds and standardbreds because of the proximity for the standardbreds to the Mohawk Raceway.

There were some comments when I first rose, about talking about the budget to my community. I actually did that last night to 250 members, mostly of the rural community.

I am not sure how it was received by that community, because they have not all talked to me personally as yet. But I think they are a realistic group and after they have read the complete document and looked at the detail of it -- in the agricultural area, for example, when I meet with the group there on a continuous basis, they are aware that we have increased the agricultural budget for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food by 86 per cent over two and a half years. They have had an opportunity to look at that area. They do not think that is too bad. We have not really lost anything and we are doing fine, thank you.

The third industry I would like to comment on in my area, because this is why the environment becomes the number one concern in the area, is that we have several very large quarries. The quarrying operation in Halton North is the third largest in the province. There are 11 million tons of aggregate quarried annually in that area, which is very significant. I think the most quarried in any other municipality is 15 million, so it is a lot.

There is an attendant truck industry associated with that business and that is another very viable and important industry in our area, as is the quarry business. The problems associated with having such a large industry in an environmentally sensitive area like the Niagara Escarpment though, has to do a lot of the time with the truck traffic, the infringement on what is classified as agricultural land, on a percentage basis. The other thing that is the main concern in Halton North, and I am happy to see that the Minister of Transportation is in the House today, is the roads, particularly those leading into the quarrles.

Mr. Laughren: He says he’s not listening to you.

Mr. Elliot: Oh, yes he is.

We just came through an election back in September. I came here and I think I am reflecting accurately the expectations of our community. They consistently told me they wanted continued quality health care, in our hospitals, in our clinics and the other facilities in that area. They also want quality education. They want quality care for the increasing number of seniors in our population. They want improvements in our roads.

More important than all this, though, in our particular area, because one thing that impacts on us a lot is the fact that Highway 401 runs right through the riding, we are developing in an ordered fashion and we want that to continue because the growth associated with that ordered development is really very important to us.

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The reason the environment ties into that ordered development is because of waste management. We need a lot of water. We need attendant sewers for the capacity of houses, industry and business that we hope to build there, and the most continuous, long-range environmental problem in our area has been acquiring and deciding on our next landfill site.

The other thing I think I have time to talk about today has to do with my satisfaction in having some input in the kind of budget that was delivered a week or so ago. I would like to serve notice here that because some of us are quiet and thoughtful and do not really stand up and say much unless we really have something to say, it does not mean we are ineffective as back-benchers in this government.

What we require in Halton North is sufficient operating capital to maintain the level of service that the people have become accustomed to. What we need are longer projections regarding the capital expenditures with respect to health care delivery, educational delivery and the other things that I enumerated a moment ago. For six months now, on a lot of occasions, I have had the opportunity to designate that to the Treasurer who delivered the budget a short time ago.

The attendant thing with this that ties me up a bit in that kind of delivery of service is the demand by almost everybody in my riding that we balance the budget, an idea that I subscribe to fully and an idea that later on I will talk about in a little more detail. But I think we have done a pretty good job on that. The main concern here is that the accumulated deficit should not be increased any more.

The third thing is that because I have a particularly knowledgeable and intelligent constituency, the people there have actually read the Premier’s Council report, and in order to go at trade on a global basis, which is what we have to do in the long haul, they realize that there has to be a lot of research and development money put into Ontario in the very near future, including this year, so that down the road our people are trained for the competition that is necessary on a global scale.

We could, in this last regard, worry unduly about the United States. We all know that we are overly dependent upon the United States as a trading partner, but the kind of manufacturing investment incentive that was in the budget in a growing area like my own, where small industries are settling in along the 401 so that they are adjacent to the major market in Ontario, namely, Metropolitan Toronto -- that additional 15 per cent deduction of the cost of new machinery and equipment is going to cost us $120 million. It does not take an astute mathematician to realize that the return of $6 billion on that investment in Ontario annually makes that a terrific investment. That is the kind of funding we should be arguing for as a complete group of people on a continuous basis, and we need a lot more money in that area.

The additional $45 million for research and development really does not affect me much in my riding, as far as the 25 per cent that is geared towards large firms goes; but the 35 per cent that is geared to the smaller firms, again, is dynamite as far as my riding is concerned, particularly when, if they get a three-year plan in place, there is an additional 50 per cent in the superfund that is available for that on an incremental basis.

A number of people who are already in the high-technology type of supply industry in my riding have commented to me that they have to persistently retrain their personnel. The $38 million that has been set aside to do that job is another indication of the commitment towards the Premier’s Council report.

One thing of particular interest to me and a fund that I hope is addressed with more money in future years is the $25-million procurement program. The government of Ontario has to be the largest buyer of goods and equipment in the province. This $25 million of research and development money is geared towards developing items that can be used specifically in that area.

The next item I would like to talk about is really the second item in the three priorities that I talked about that are of concern to me. It has to do with sufficient operating capital on a year-by-year basis. It also has to do with having a game plan that looks down the road three to five years with respect to capital allocation.

With respect to health care, which may be the only one I am able to address today, I make no excuse as l talk to the people in my riding that we have increased the expenditure there to $1 .2 billion. We have to deliver a quality level of health care, and those people who are present today who are in my age bracket know exactly why. My parents and my wife’s parents are over 80 years of age. There is a significant amount of money involved in satisfying the health needs of that segment of the population.

Within the past three weeks my dad, who is 85 years old, had to have a hernia operation in the Kitchener-Waterloo Hospital. l might say we had nothing but high-quality health care with respect to him. He is back at home now being looked after because of the one-stop home care type of program that is slowly being enforced over the province on a voluntary basis, jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

It is not an easy situation for my mother, who is in the same age bracket -- but I am not going to say how old she is, because she would shoot me if I did -- or my older brother who lives at home. When you have somebody who has been incapacitated and in bed for five and a half years, going on six years, and you get that kind of support, you very willingly pay the cost that is associated with that quality health care. I think that is the type of thing we are talking about in this budget.

I think because of the closeness of the hour to six o’clock, I should move adjournment, if that is appropriate today. I understand there will be a fair break before I get to give the other half of what I have to say some time next week, by the orders that were presented today. I look forward to talking again on this matter.

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

ROYAL ASSENT

The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): I beg to inform the House that in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, His Honour the Lieutenant Governor has been pleased to assent to a certain bill in his chambers.

Clerk of the House: The following is the title of the bill to which His Honour has assented:

Bill 115, An Act to provide for Construction Work in connection with the Toronto Economic Summit.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Conway: It being Thursday evening, pursuant to standing order 13 and for the particular benefit of the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), I would like to indicate the business of the House for the coming week.

On Monday, May 2, we will consider the nonconfidence motion standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae).

On Tuesday, May 3, we will deal with second reading of Bill 109, the Ottawa-Carleton French-language School Board Act, followed by, if time permits, second reading of Bill 106, the Municipal Elections Statute Law Amendment Act.

On Wednesday, May 4, and Thursday, May 5, in the afternoon, we will continue with any business not completed on Tuesday, followed by a continuation of the budget debate. On Thursday morning, we will consider private members’ ballot items standing in the names of the member for St. Catharines-Brock (Mr. Dietsch) and the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston).

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.