34th Parliament, 1st Session

L117 - Wed 7 Dec 1988 / Mer 7 déc 1988

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

RETAIL STORE HOURS

SCHOOL OPENING EXERCISES

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

COURT FACILITIES

DRUG ABUSE

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

COURT SYSTEM

RESPONSES

COURT SYSTEM

ORAL QUESTIONS

OPTOMETRISTS’ FEES

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

NATIONAL SALES TAX

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

OPTOMETRISTS’ FEES

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

TRADE WITH EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

NORTHERN ONTARIO HERITAGE FUND FONDS PATRIMONIAL DU NORD DE L’ONTARIO

HOME CARE

USE OF PESTICIDES

PENSION BENEFITS

TRUCKING INDUSTRY

RETAIL SALES TAX

AIR TRANSPORTATION

COURT FACILITIES

TRANSIT SERVICES

COURT FACILITIES

PETITIONS

SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION

SCHOOL OPENING EXERCISES

MINIMUM WAGE

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THIRD READINGS

FARM PRODUCTS CONTAINERS ACT

CITY OF OTTAWA ACT

CHARLOTTE ELEANOR ENGLEHART HOSPITAL ACT

SARNIA KIWANIS FOUNDATION INC. ACT

LAPLANTE LITHOGRAPHING COMPANY LIMITED ACT

ROCKTON WINTER CLUB INC. ACT

PETERBOROUGH HISTORICAL SOCIETY ACT

288093 ONTARIO LIMITED ACT

TAVONE ENTERPRISES LIMITED ACT

KITCHENER-WATERLOO FOUNDATION ACT

GASOLINE TAX AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED) / LOI MODIFIANT LA LOI DE LA TAXE SUR L’ESSENCE (SUITE)

RETAIL SALES TAX AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED) / LOI MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LA TAXE DE VENTE AU DETAIL (SUITE)

GASOLINE TAX AMENDMENT ACT

RETAIL SALES TAX AMENDMENT ACT


The House met at 1:30 p.m.

Prayers.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Farnan: Recently I met with Brad Grimwood, president of the Cambridge Fire Fighters Association, and Paul Cutting, chairman of the safety committee of the Cambridge Fire Fighters.

Their concern is that firefighters in Ontario are wearing fire-protective clothing that is dangerously substandard. Patrick De Fazio, chairman of the safety committee of the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association, has made this government aware that protective clothing currently in use has caused severe burns to firefighters. It has resulted in firefighters going down at the scene of an emergency from severe heat exhaustion. It has also contributed to the death of firefighters in this province by way of heart attack.

The Canadian General Standards Board has completed a standard on fire-protective clothing, referred to as CAN/CGSB 155.1M88. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) is in receipt of this Canadian standard and will be held accountable for any delay in implementing these recommended standards.

In order to protect our firefighters, I urge the Minister of Labour to ensure that these new safety standards with regard to fire-protective clothing are made mandatory. It is imperative that this government move as quickly as possible to bring about the type of protection required for our firefighters in this province.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. McCague: I rise today to urge the government to provide some answers to the people of this province about shopping hours during the holiday season. Last week, one of my constituents phoned the office of the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) to get some clarification on whether it was legal or illegal to open a store on Boxing Day. However, officials in that office were unable to give a yes or no answer. He was told to call again. After several calls, he is still unclear as to what is or is not within the law, and it seems to me he is not alone. Press reports today say that merchants across the province have no idea whether or not they will be breaking the law if they do open their doors on Boxing Day.

This government owes it to the business people of this province to give them clear direction about the law as it pertains to Boxing Day. They must make a decision now to avoid the chaos that will occur if this government continues to sit on the fence. If, in its wisdom, the government does decide that Boxing Day is a holiday, it is my hope that it will enforce the law fairly and without exception.

SCHOOL OPENING EXERCISES

Mr. McGuigan: Some media editors and all of my constituents who have contacted me on this issue are of the opinion that the Lord’s Prayer cannot be used in school opening exercises. The Ontario Court of Appeal did not bar the Lord’s Prayer, nor did the Minister of Education (Mr. Ward) in his letter of advice to school boards. The minister said that the Lord’s Prayer may be included but that no prayer should be given a position of primacy. Perhaps the word “may” has created some confusion.

Common sense would suggest that in the predominantly Christian community, such as one finds in most of the small towns in rural Ontario, the Lord’s Prayer would be included and, to meet with the spirit of the court ruling, readings and prayers from other religions representative of the student population would also be included on a rotational basis. There would be recognition of the multifaith, multicultural tradition of Ontario, and no prayer would be given primacy where more than one religion is demanded.

The court decision recognizes the religious diversity that exists among students and their families. Surely we should also recognize that there are communities in Ontario that do not have as wide a religious base as is the case in our major cities. I believe the court decision can be interpreted by men and women of goodwill to serve all the communities and individuals of Ontario.

I call upon the minister and directors of education to be creative and sensitive on this issue.

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Mr. Allen: The Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney), the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) and the Premier (Mr. Peterson) miserably failed the province yesterday when they failed to respond to the Thomson report’s proposals for a simpler, fairer social assistance system and more effective programs for helping the poor to become independent, self-supporting persons.

Social assistance rates equal to 1975 and minimum wages of less value than a decade past are a sure formula to keep the poor poorer and the welfare recipient on welfare. Yet there is not one sign that even the simpler proposals of the first stage of reforms proposed by Thomson will get to first base, such as eliminating the 120-hour limit on paid employment for sole-support parents on family benefits, increasing basic earnings exemptions and lowering the tax-back rate -- only a few of the steps the minister could now be taking to encourage the transition to work.

The excuse that the government cannot afford the interim social assistance increases proposed by Thomson is patently false and a gigantic copout. The provincial cost for the balance of this fiscal year would be $50 million. The government even now has an accumulation in unspent accounts of $184.8 million in the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development and technology fund budgets alone. By failing to act now, the government is signalling that it will not act later.

What a gigantic hoax this whole enterprise has become. What an unprincipled fraud by the minister and the government. What a cruel betrayal of the most vulnerable of Ontario’s citizens.

[Later]

Mr. Dietsch: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I would appreciate if you would review the statement that was just made by the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen) to see whether the language used was parliamentary language.

Mr. Speaker: I will.

COURT FACILITIES

Mr. Cousens: Today I held a press conference at the provincial courthouse in Richmond Hill. For over one year, staff, members of the judiciary and the public have endured intolerable conditions at this courthouse, with little sympathy, if any, from the Attorney General (Mr. Scott). On any one day, carbon dioxide levels have exceeded safe levels to the point where staff and participants in proceedings suffer from headaches, discomfort and nausea. All of this is the result of extremely poor ventilation.

To add insult to injury, the people in this building are prevented from adjusting the thermostats and therefore are subject to working in unseasonably cold temperatures. The landlord has sealed off the thermostats with a notice saying, “Don’t touch or you will pay for the whole system.” It is not uncommon for court proceedings to adjourn every hour because of these conditions. This situation is unacceptable and belittles the process of due administration of justice. The Attorney General is aware of this situation, and yet corrective action has not been taken.

My actions this morning were meant to highlight this ridiculous situation and, furthermore, to impress upon the Attorney General that these conditions make a mockery of our judicial system. These people are cold. They cannot breathe without suffering injurious effects. This situation is disgraceful. We have a smoke-free environment, we have equal pay and yet basic working conditions do not exist in the Richmond Hill small claims court.

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DRUG ABUSE

Mr. Black: Mr. Speaker, as the Premier’s special adviser on drug abuse prevention, I am pleased to rise in the chamber today to bring a good-news story to your attention and to the attention of the members of this House.

This morning, representatives of the Metropolitan Toronto Young Men’s Christian Association held a press conference at which they announced a new drug/substance abuse counselling service to the young people of downtown Toronto. The concept of this program was developed under 10 different agencies that have come together here in Metro Toronto to serve the needs of the age group between 16 and 24.

The goal of the program is threefold: First, it is designed to assist youth in identifying and decreasing their abuse of alcohol and other substances; second, it is designed to assist other human services providers and related professionals to work more effectively with their clients; third, it is designed to facilitate the development of new programs and to provide input to direct service providers.

As a result of this new program, outreach workers will be going out on to the streets of Metro Toronto and trying to assist those young people who have problems with drug abuse. I want to commend the Metropolitan Toronto YMCA for its efforts, as well as those of the other 10 agencies that were involved in this very worthwhile procedure.

I should add that funding for this has come from the Ministry of Health.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

COURT SYSTEM

Hon. Mr. Scott: When Mr. Justice Thomas Zuber presented his report on our court system, he made more than 150 recommendations that he felt would, if implemented, lead to a better justice system in Ontario. Many of his recommendations had a common focus. His proposals called for better management of our court system by all those independent players involved: the bench, the private bar, the crown attorneys and the court administrators.

One of his key recommendations, perhaps the key recommendation, called for a decentralization of management to the regional level. In this way he suggested that the justice system could become more responsive to local needs and conditions.

I am pleased to advise the House today that my ministry is proceeding to implement this central recommendation. Both the courts administration division and the crown attorney system within the ministry will be involved in this regionalization initiative. The key decision-makers will move from Toronto closer to the people affected by their decisions.

I do not believe it is possible to overemphasize the importance of this move. In my view and I think in Mr. Justice Zuber’s view, regionalization is a critical underpinning for the reform initiatives which must take place in the future.

We are, however, making one significant modification to Mr. Justice Zuber’s recommendation. In his report he suggested the ministry establish seven regions. The people of northern Ontario made clear to me on a number of visits that they had a problem with this proposal. Many individuals and groups told me that one large northern region would not be practical. The government has taken this concern to heart, so I am pleased to announce that there will be two northern regions created: one for northwestern Ontario and one for northeastern Ontario.

Regional court administrators and regional directors of crown attorneys will be located in regional centres in Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Hamilton, London, Newmarket, Ottawa, Brampton and Toronto. These centres were chosen after careful consideration of a large number of factors, including case loads and geographic accessibility.

I know from my extensive consultations around the province that a major concern about regionalization of the courts administration division was that it would lead to the abolition of court sittings in some parts of the province. I want to make it clear that this will not occur. Regionalization will provide better service, not less service. For example, courts will continue to sit in those municipalities where they now sit. That will not change as a result of regionalization.

While regionalization is new for the courts administration division of the ministry, it is a refinement for the crown attorney system. This refinement will provide regional directors of crown attorneys with increased administrative support, thus allowing them to better manage the system within their region.

With regionalization, I believe my ministry will be in a position to become fully involved in the sort of joint management activity that Mr. Justice Zuber recommended. By being located in the region and by being available we will be able to work closely with the independent judiciary, the local bar and the public on improving the administration of justice in their respective areas.

This is an important first step on the road to court reform. Our goal remains to improve our court system so that it is efficient, accessible, comprehensible and affordable for the public. With the help of the other independent players involved in the administration of justice, I believe we will ultimately succeed in that endeavour.

RESPONSES

COURT SYSTEM

Mr. B. Rae: I want first of all to say to the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) that it has taken him a very long time after the publication of Mr. Justice Zuber’s report. Indeed, it is common parlance among lawyers across the province that they cannot understand what the Attorney General’s problem is with respect to the implementation of the report.

His statement is that the regionalization concept is “the key recommendation.” He added editorially to the text. It says “one of his key recommendations,” and he says it is “the key.” We know now that the reason the Attorney General is calling it the key recommendation is because he is not prepared to do anything about any of the other recommendations. Therefore, he has to kind of take one out and say, “Look what I have done.”

Of course, regionalization is an important step in terms of making the administration of justice in this province more efficient, but I can tell the Attorney General, quite sincerely and quite personally, that delays and inefficiencies and problems in the administration of justice, while they may not be the most politically sexy issues going, are extremely important to people who are the victims of crime and to the litigants who are waiting for months and indeed years for a solution to their problems. It is increasingly the case that the costs of legal services are exorbitant, are a ripoff and are in some cases a total barrier to real participation by the public in our justice system, issues which were addressed by Mr. Justice Zuber.

I hoped that, in addition to what he did today, the Attorney General would address some of those issues as well as the very touchy and difficult but important question of the administration of the courts themselves and making the administration of those courts more efficient and more accessible and more understandable to the citizens of this province. We have taken what I think is referred to on the streets as a small banana step in the implementation of the Zuber report, but nothing more than that.

Mr. Sterling: I would like to echo many of the sentiments that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae) put forward.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Sterling: The cost of legal services for people from other regions of the province far exceeds the cost of legal services for people who live close to the centre of Toronto. Therefore, we are anxious not only to see the Attorney General take this step, but also to see him implement many of the other recommendations of the Zuber report and have an opportunity to discuss those in the open and listen to all sides of the argument with regard to those very important recommendations.

I would also echo the Leader of the Opposition’s remarks with regard to this being a significant step. I might take issue with the Attorney General that this is a significant step, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt that this is a start. When he heckled the Leader of the Opposition and said, “Just wait,” I hope, I say to the Attorney General, that we do not have to wait too much longer.

Mr Speaker: That completes ministerial statements and responses.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order

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ORAL QUESTIONS

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition.

[Applause]

Mr. B. Rae: On this day of all days, I appreciate that applause, but my subject for questions is not here. I understood the Premier (Mr. Peterson) was to be here today and I shall stand down my questions until he arrives.

Mr. Speaker: Both questions? The member for Sarnia.

Mr. Brandt: I have much the same dilemma. My question is, as well, for the Premier. I will stand down my question. Perhaps my colleague can take the second question.

OPTOMETRISTS’ FEES

Mr. Eves: My question is to the Minister of Health. At noon today, I am sure she is aware, some 400 optometrists from across the province rallied in front of the Legislature to protest her refusal to give optometrists equal pay for equal work with ophthalmologists.

I would like to ask the Minister of Health, in view of the fact that a government-appointed mediator in recent negotiations between the ministry and optometrists concluded that parity was a compelling issue and recommended that optometrists receive the same fee for the same work, why she has ignored Professor Rayner’s recommendation. Why does she refuse optometrists equal pay for work of equal value?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: As I have said on numerous occasions in this House when there are negotiations ongoing between health professionals who negotiate directly with the ministry, I think it is inappropriate to have these discussions either in this House or on the steps of Queen’s Park.

I want to tell the member that I believe that negotiations will continue and that I have agreed to meet with representatives of the optometrists following a request for a meeting.

Mr. Eves: The minister knows the optometrists have had a request for a meeting with her in to her ministry for over 15 months. It was not until yesterday, presumably when she or the grand Pooh-Bahs in her ministry read an article in the Globe and Mail that the optometrists would be here today, that her ministry contacted the optometrists and said, “Well, perhaps we can arrange a meeting after all.”

As a matter of fact, when the New Democratic Party Health critic and I were outside addressing the optometrists at noon hour, the minister was standing in front of the main steps downstairs, coming upstairs. She did not have the time to walk 12 steps to talk to the optometrists.

The minister knows that the optometrists suspended negotiations on November 17 and notified her of that fact in writing. Will she now explain why her ministry gave a substantial increase to ophthalmologists, who basically offer the same diagnostic services as optometrists, but has threatened to reduce optometrists’ fees by 4.3 per cent?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: Some of the information in the member’s statement is not accurate, which is not any news in this House. I can tell him that a meeting was requested. I agreed that I would be pleased to meet with representatives of the optometrists. That meeting, as far as I know, has been scheduled for December 20.

Mr. Eves: On the basis for fees paid to optometrists and ophthalmologists, parity has been a fact in this province since 1974. Professor Rayner listened very attentively to the reasons being offered by the ministry for not offering them equal pay and did not accept them. Neither do I, and neither do most fairminded people, I would suggest, in Ontario.

They provide exactly the same diagnostic services, and therefore they should receive the same fee. As Professor Rayner said, it is a matter of simple fairness. Why will the minister not treat the optometrists fairly?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: I think it is important that members of this House know and acknowledge that we all want to make sure that those who are providing services in health care in Ontario are fairly compensated for the services they perform. That is the principle of basic negotiations that I always operate under.

We know there are many factors which the ministry in its negotiations with various groups takes into consideration. I would tell this member again that negotiations are ongoing. I think it is important to allow those negotiations to continue. I believe that through negotiations many of these issues can be resolved.

Mr. Speaker: I am wondering if we would revert to the original question from the Leader of the Opposition now.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr. B. Rae: I want to return to the questions we were asking the Premier yesterday about the Liberal Party’s plans on insurance.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. That means please be silent.

Mr. B. Rae: My question -- I did not hear an answer to it yesterday and I want to ask it very directly to the Premier -- is this: When he announced on September 7, 1987, three days before the election of September 10, that he had a specific plan to reduce insurance rates, was he at that time telling the truth to the people of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We went through this yesterday and I think I answered it very fully. A bill passed through this House. It is in independent hands, and I think my honourable friend knows our approach to that; we also know his approach. I think the judgements were made on that matter.

Mr. B. Rae: Surely it is noteworthy that when you ask the Premier of the province whether he was telling the truth on a given day, he cannot even answer yes, let alone no. He cannot give us an answer one way or the other.

It is a very simple question. When he made that statement to the people of this province, was he or was he not telling the truth to the electors of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The truth is over here.

Mr. B. Rae: Since the Premier is not prepared to tell us about his own integrity, perhaps he would care to tell us about the integrity of this process whereby the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board has hired William M. Mercer Ltd., which is owned by Marsh and McLennan Cos. Inc., which is, according to Moody’s, considered to be the leading insurance brokerage firm in the world.

As an interesting aside about what kind of corporate operators Marsh and McLennan are, Dun and Bradstreet’s Who Owns Whom lists a number of South African subsidiaries. Another holding of Marsh and McLennan Cos. Inc. is Marsh and McLennan Ltd., located in First Canadian Place in Toronto, the same address as William M. Mercer Ltd. When one of my staff members phoned Marsh and McLennan’s Toronto office and asked whether he could buy a personal automobile insurance policy from them, he was told that he could and he was put through to an insurance agent.

The government of Ontario has been relying on William M. Mercer Ltd. for its advice for the Ministry of Financial Institutions. The auto insurance board has relied almost exclusively on William M. Mercer in dealing with the question of classification and now, in dealing with the question of what the rate increase should be, as well as hearing evidence from it on the question of what profitability should be.

Just what kind of integrity does the Premier’s process have when it is the people who are being regulated who are proposing the very increases that they are sticking to consumers in this province?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I say with great respect to my honourable friend that I understand his belief in conspiracy theories, but it is misplaced in these particular circumstances. It is an independent board that will get independent advice from the member and from whomever else it chooses.

My honourable friend believes there is a capitalistic conspiracy to destroy his --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt. I must remind all our visitors they are most welcome, but they are not to participate or demonstrate in any way. I just remind them of that.

NATIONAL SALES TAX

Mr. B. Rae: I want to ask the Treasurer a question about the national sales tax. It is suggested in the document that is being discussed and proposed by the Honourable Michael H. Wilson, the Progressive Conservative Minister of Finance --

Mr. Brandt: A fine man.

Mr. B. Rae: Now wait for it --

Mr. Brandt: Oh, I know there is something coming.

Mr. B. Rae: -- because on lot levies, he makes this government look like a piker.

Section 11, on real estate, proposes that a new multistage sales tax will apply to the sale or rental of real estate for commercial use and to the sale of new residential buildings.

The example given on page 117 of this Progressive Conservative document states as follows: “The tax will apply to the sale by developer X of the new home” when it is purchased by individual A. “A will not be entitled to claim any input credit in respect of the purchase price. The resale of the home by A will not be subject to tax.”

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The election is now over. The Treasurer has to decide what the position of the government of Ontario is going to be with respect to this national sales tax, which if applied to the sale of new homes would cost new purchasers not a couple of thousand dollars, not a few thousand dollars but tens of thousands of dollars on the price of a new home. What is the position of the government of Ontario?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question has been asked.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Members will know that the province of Ontario charges an eight per cent tax on almost everything that goes into the home in the first place. They are also aware that we have a land transfer tax that some people think is inordinately high. I, of course, think it is just about right.

So as far as we are concerned in the province, our sales tax is applied to almost every commodity building material that is presently going into a new home or a repair. The Leader of the Opposition may object to that, but naturally our revenue of about $7.5 billion from sales tax in general is allocated to a wide variety of programs which most of those members support.

Mr. B. Rae: I do not think I heard an answer.

This is a new, multistage sales tax which will apply all the way through the piece and in addition will apply to the price of the final sale to the new purchaser. If you take an average price of $240,000 and add whatever the national sales tax is -- there have been figures ranging from 14 per cent to 17 per cent -- you get some idea of the $35,000 or $40,000 that is involved in a sales tax paid by the purchaser of a new home.

The Treasurer is involved in these discussions very directly. I think the people of this province, where we have the greatest housing crisis in Canada right now in terms of affordability, are entitled to a clear answer from him. Is the Treasurer in favour of this new approach at the federal level, which will include the provincial government, or is he opposed to it? Which is it?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The honourable member will know that -- how many members are there in the House of Commons? -- 295 people have just been recently elected who are going to pass judgement on the policies of the government of Canada. If the government of Canada decides to implement a new sales tax, that is its business.

I tried to make it easier for the honourable member by saying that the province already taxes everything in the home. I wish we did not have to. If we went into some agreement with the government of Canada, our tax would be the same. The tax they levy is their responsibility, democratically; the member should understand that.

Mr. B. Rae: What I also understand is that this new national sales tax will include the Treasurer; he is involved in it, his government will benefit from it and he will be a beneficiary of a new tax on the sale of a new home. The Treasurer is shaking his head. He knows that is the case. We are talking about an integrated national sales tax which includes the provincial government.

Is the Treasurer prepared to stop these discussions and tell the federal government that he will have nothing to do with this kind of tax, or is he going to go along with it? That is the question.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: There are several questions there. The answer to the first one is no, I am not going to tell them to stop. It is their business. They have to pay their bills. Whether or not we participate in the future is a decision that is a long way off. I am not dealing with anybody directly on whether we will do that or not.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr. Brandt: My question is for the Premier and it relates to automobile insurance. Yesterday the Premier was quoted as having said that over a five-year period, the rates that would be brought in by the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board would be lower than rates that would be brought in without that particular board.

On September 7, 1987, the Premier was quoted as having said, “The point is if you aspire to govern, you’ve got to be credible and base things you say on accurate information, not just wishes and theories.”

Since I join with the Premier in not wanting to deal with wishes and theories as they relate to auto insurance rates, could he indicate what information or factual reports he based his statement on that five years under the Ontario Automobile Insurance Board would be cheaper than five years without the board? Could he share that with the House?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The whole object of having the board is to build an independent database. The member will recall the context in which these discussions took place, the very high increases in insurance. There was a suggestion by some that there was not enough capacity. Others were pulling out of the market. There was great pressure through liability claims and a number of other things. We brought in, as I said, a multistage program attacking a variety of different problems and we think it is going to seriously address this issue.

What the member will see in the hands of the auto insurance board -- and he will want to go and make submissions; I gather his theory now is to raise the price quite dramatically, but do it over seven years. We do not accept that, and I do not think the auto insurance board accepts that. They will, for the first time, have an independent database on which to make these decisions and to regulate this in the public interest. I do not think there is anything the matter with that.

Mr. Brandt: I can tell the Premier that I do not accept the fact that he has any factual database upon which to base his prediction that five years under the auto insurance board will be cheaper than five years without it. I also do not accept his statement of September 7 that in fact he had a plan, which he has yet to disclose, to lower rates.

In light of the fact that we have a so-called independent report prepared by Mercer with respect to the proposed increases, a report paid for by the taxpayers of Ontario -- the firm that wrote the report obviously was paid by the taxpayers of Ontario -- will the Premier indicate why this firm will not respond to questions from either the research department of our party or certain reporters as to how it arrived at its conclusions that there must be a 35 per cent to 40 per cent increase in insurance in this province in order to provide a reasonable return on investment to insurance companies? Why is Mercer put under a gag order? That is the question.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: They were retained by an independent board, not by us. They are having public hearings on this matter. That document is not government policy. Does the member understand that it is not government policy? As a former minister of the crown, he understands that there are a variety of reports around government on a variety of subjects from a variety of different points of view. It does not mean it is government policy.

I know my honourable friend has some problem with that and I invite him to make a submission to the auto insurance board -- he is perfectly entitled to express his point of view or to attack the credibility of that document -- as many others will do, so that it can determine the real facts in this matter. I am sure they would value his contributions.

Mr. Brandt: With respect, we have been pursuing the matter of auto insurance for the last few days as a result of this rather unusual report that came forward asking for a tremendous and totally unexpected increase in auto rates in this province.

We are concerned as well about what the future plans of his government are as they relate to auto insurance. The Premier has stated on many occasions that it is not the expectation on his part that he would bring in a government auto insurance plan in Ontario. Is he prepared today to state, without any equivocation whatever, that his government is not prepared to bring in government-operated auto insurance in Ontario prior to the next provincial election?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Just so we understand, the minister responsible was asked the question “Do you rule it out?” and he said he does not rule out anything. It is part of a look we are taking at tort reform, no-fault insurance, the liability side of the question and the auto repair side of the question.

We are constantly trying to build a system that serves the consumers well. Obviously we look at the examples in other provinces -- the problems of startup, the problems of rates, the political manipulation, all of that kind of thing -- and we think our approach is comprehensive and addresses the problem in a real way. If the member is asking me to rule out in perpetuity all other options, I am not prepared to do that.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

OPTOMETRISTS’ FEES

Mr. Reville: My question is for the Minister of Health, if I might intrude on the conversation between her and the member for Chatham-Kent (Mr. Bossy). My question as well concerns fairness for optometrists. In sort of an answer to my counterpart in the third party, the minister stated somewhat piously that a basic principle of her government was fair compensation for health professionals.

Given that it is clear that the optometrists provide basically the same service as the ophthalmologists in this connection, and given that in 75 per cent of the communities of this province only optometrists provide vision care, would the minister not agree that it would be fair and in keeping with those basis principles to provide the same remuneration for the same service by the two kinds of health professionals?

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Hon. Mrs. Caplan: If the member and the critic for the third party would like, I would agree that in fact it is inappropriate to conduct negotiations either in this House or on the front steps of Queen’s Park. As I mentioned to the critic for the third party, I have agreed to meet with representatives of the optometrists, and I understand the meeting has been scheduled for December 20.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would like to make it possible for members to ask questions.

Mr. Reville: I am not terribly surprised that the minister will pretend that she has nothing to do with this negotiation. That is a fairly standard tactic of a government that does not want to be fair to people with whom it is negotiating.

I am quite surprised by the taunting of the Attorney General (Mr. Scott), who suggests that somehow I may be associated with the Ontario Medical Association. That gives rise to a supplementary. Many of the optometrists believe that they have been separated out from the OMA for the simple purpose of having the government squash them and their demands. Is that correct?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: I think the member has raised a point which is very important for everyone to understand, and that is that optometrists are not members of the OMA. They are not physicians, and therefore they are not part of that negotiating and bargaining process. Optometrists are negotiating directly with the Ministry of Health. For the first time there has been a third party involved in those negotiations. The negotiations have been ongoing, and I am --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: -- planning and hopeful that, through the negotiating process, many of the complex issues which are under discussion can be resolved.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr. Harris: In the absence of the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek), let me save some time and go straight to the Treasurer anyway. The Treasurer may also want to reflect.

Yesterday when I was discussing this issue with the Minister of Housing, I indicated that, after having lost the sales tax battle and then losing the land transfer tax battle, if she lost this battle, she should resign. She is not here today.

Mr. Speaker: And your question would be?

Mr. Harris: I do not know if that is indicative of what happened in cabinet today or not.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Harris: Will the Treasurer confirm that he intends to shift even more of the burden of the costs of health care and education to the municipalities by introducing enabling legislation to permit the municipalities to impose lot levies to cover everything from schools to hospitals to libraries to parks, thereby putting more of the onus for those services on to the backs of new home buyers in this province?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: No.

Mr. Harris: The Treasurer will not confirm. This is exactly what he, the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and the Minister of Housing have been discussing with the development industry, that they want to shift that burden of payment to the municipalities by allowing all the soft services, as well as the hard services that are now covered, to be covered by lot levies.

I suggest to the Treasurer that if municipalities have to get their funding for schools and health care through lot levies, it will mean a wide variation in the level of service from one municipality to the other. With an affordable housing crisis the like of which we have never seen before, the Treasurer now appears to want to hit the new home buyer even harder. The people who can least afford any additional cost are being told they will have to dig deeper, something I find disgraceful.

The Treasurer knows that, as it now stands, lot levies vary widely from one municipality to another. The industry and many others have been after him to bring some consistency to this issue, to recognize that they are too high already. How can the Treasurer now talk about allowing them to be hiked even higher and to vary even more widely from municipality to municipality by allowing the lot levy to be --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: I have not been talking about it; the member has been talking about it.

We are very much concerned about providing sufficient money to the municipalities and the school boards to accommodate the rapid rate of growth that many communities are experiencing. The honourable Minister of Housing said very properly that the government, including myself and my colleagues, is considering a wide variety of alternatives. When we have a policy or a paper that might elicit discussion, the member will be among the first to know the specific contents. Otherwise, he is talking about it; I am not talking about it.

TRADE WITH EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

Mr. Daigeler: My question is to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. Last spring I asked him about Ontario’s preparations for the 1992 establishment of an integrated European market. I understand that since then his ministry has done a study on the possible impact of this very significant event for Ontario businesses. May I ask the minister whether this study has now been completed and, if so, whether he can inform this House and the people of Ontario on the highlights of this report?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I am sure members know that in 1992 the European Community is going to become one economic bloc, and at that time there are going to be incredible opportunities for a market that will exceed 300 million people.

We have done a study to see what the awareness is of Ontario businessmen and, sadly, it is very low. The average businessman has no concern for or knowledge of what is happening, and just those who are now dealing with the European Community are aware of it.

We are going to convene a major conference after the beginning of the year to indicate to the industry in Ontario what the opportunities are, what the ramifications of this new economic bloc are going to be and what can be done to penetrate what will be a major market in the world.

Mr. Daigeler: I thank the minister for the information, and I do hope that many of the Ontario business people will take advantage of the study that was done by his ministry, because I think there are some very interesting details and information included in the study.

I must say that I am somewhat concerned that, with free trade soon becoming a reality, many Ontario businesses will be centring exclusively on the United States market. I am wondering whether, even within his own ministry, the obviously limited resources the ministry has will be centred on trying to enter the US market.

In the minister’s view, does he think his own ministry will have enough resources to focus on the opportunities in Europe, and does he think he will be able to assist Ontario business leaders to look not only at the US but also at the European market?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: At the present time, as I am sure the member knows as a result of the free trade debate, 90 per cent of the trade of Ontario is with the United States, only four per cent is with Europe and four per cent is with the Pacific Rim. When you consider that there are going to be over 300 million customers in the new economic union, it is a wonderful opportunity, and we are taking advantage of that.

We have already had six trade missions go to Europe this year. We will be amplifying that. We have offices, as I am sure the member knows, in London, Paris and Frankfurt. We have an excellent relationship with the state of Baden Wurttemberg in Germany, and we will be concentrating our efforts to make sure that we expand our trading relationship in that area.

NORTHERN ONTARIO HERITAGE FUND FONDS PATRIMONIAL DU NORD DE L’ONTARIO

Mr. Pouliot: I have a question to the Minister of Northern Development. I wish to follow with the minister a sequence of events regarding the northern Ontario heritage fund.

The minister will no doubt recall that in May 1987, the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) made an announcement concerning $30 million in allocation to diversify and enhance the economic situation in the north, and some six months afterward, in the speech from the throne, a layer of bureaucracy was created, with an advisory committee to oversee the disbursement of these funds.

We are now a year and a half into the process and we are supposed to draw, as northerners, consolation from the born again, which is the reintroduction of the northern Ontario heritage fund. We never saw the first $30 million. It is now about 18 months after the first announcement. Can the minister tell the House today what exciting projects and what amount relating to this project he has approved so far?

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L’hon. M. Fontaine: Je tiens à remercier le député de Lac Nipigon de sa question.

Premièrement, je dois lui rappeler que le Fonds a été mis en place au mois de juin, ce n’était pas il y a un an et demi. Je pense que, des fois, sa mémoire lui fait défaut, je ne sais pas.

Mais une chose que je dois lui dire, c’est que la première assemblée a eu lieu au mois de juillet de cette année, et depuis ce temps-là, les membres de la commission se sont rencontrés quatre fois. De là, ils ont formé quatre comités qui ont étudié les termes de référence. Ces comités-là sont: l‘assistance aux petites industries, l‘assistance aux villes qui n’ont qu’une seule industrie et l’assistance aux petites entreprises. En plus, dans un autre volet, nous avons l’appui au développement de la technologie.

Interjection.

L’hon. M. Fontaine: Je parle des comités, là.

Il y a aussi l’assistance aux projets spéciaux. Pour finir, on a au moins six ou sept demandes devant nous. La commission est à les revoir, et à la prochaine assemblée, le 19 décembre, on devrait avoir des résultats.

Mr. Pouliot: The minister is quite right. His record is immaculate; he has done absolutely nothing.

By way of a supplementary question, I would like to remind the minister that it took very little time, on the other hand, to fund $30 million of provincial taxpayers’ money for a playpen, the SkyDome. It took two weeks in the approval process, and yet the minister has had a full year and a half to do what is right for the people of northern Ontario. Dozens of proposals have crossed his desk.

Will the minister make a commitment that during this fiscal year he will spend the full $30 million to enhance the quality of life in northwestern Ontario, and even in northern Ontario as a whole, clear and simple? Does the minister have the commitment to do it? What is lacking here is not my memory but the commitment on the minister’s part.

L’hon. M. Fontaine: Je ne sais pas si c’est moi qui me sens en brosse ou bien lui.

En tout cas, je dois lui rappeler qu’il me semble que chaque fois qu’il me demande quelque chose, je me rends à son bureau. S’il me demande de rencontrer certains de ces électeurs, je suis là. Alors, de me dire que je ne fais rien, je ne crois pas que ce soit approprié.

Je dois lui rappeler que le Fonds, comme c’est là, a accumulé au moins un million de dollars d’intérêts. Je lui rappelle encore qu’on travaille sur des projets. J’ai annoncé la semaine passée qu’on allait mettre de l’argent de côté pour Temagami; on travaille avec Ignace et avec Ear Falls. Alors, me dire à moi que je n’ai rien fait, je ne sais pas où il a pris cette phrase-là. Peut-être qu’il a un nouveau dictionnaire que je ne connais pas. En tout cas, je vais le rencontrer demain, puis on reparlera de ça.

HOME CARE

Mrs. Cunningham: My question is for the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens’ affairs. Will the minister publicly state that the Red Cross home care program deficit should be funded, and will she publicly lobby Ontario’s Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) for the funds?

Hon. Mrs. Wilson: As the member knows, as we have been discussing during estimates the last few days, there are significant challenges with the homemaker program. The operational review is under way. It is an issue that is of importance to everyone in this government. It is an issue I am working on very closely with the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney), the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) and, yes indeed, the Treasurer.

Mrs. Cunningham: We are talking here about community-based services for seniors, a priority, we are told, of her government. The minister’s mandate is to act as an advocate for the senior citizens of this province, not as an apologist for the Liberal government’s Treasurer or the Minister of Health.

Once again, will the minister assume the responsibility that comes with her job by stating her support for the Red Cross program publicly and by lobbying Ontario’s Treasurer for the funds which are required so that Ontario’s seniors will continue to benefit from this program?

Hon. Mrs. Wilson: The integrated homemaker program is a program that is of importance to the seniors of this province. We are working to provide home support programs to assist seniors to remain in their own homes, which is where they clearly want to be. That is why this government has put the millions of dollars in increases that we have put into this program over the last three years.

I continue to meet with groups of seniors. I continue to meet with the care providers, including the Red Cross, to get from them their points of view in order that I may bring those forward effectively to the cabinet table, which I do on a regular basis.

USE OF PESTICIDES

Mr. MacDonald: My question is to the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Last year the minister announced that his ministry would establish a program called Food Systems 2002, aimed at reducing pesticides used by farmers by 50 per cent. Could the minister tell the House what steps are being taken to accomplish this goal?

Hon. Mr. Riddell: I appreciate the honourable member’s interest in this matter, as he does represent a good agricultural part of Ontario. I am pleased to report that the 15-year Food Systems 2002 program is up and running. The intent of this program is to provide farmers with tools to reduce pesticide use.

Up to $10 million over four years has been allocated to this program, with about $800,000 a year being devoted to research and to biological alternatives to pesticides, integrated pest control, improved pesticide application technology and pesticide efficiency. I must say that about 24 projects have been approved to this point in time.

As well, we have hired four pest management specialists across the province to work with farm groups and farmers directly to incorporate research results into practical farm applications. Really, the effort on our part is to ensure that farmers will be able to use alternatives to pesticides, such as genetic resistance, biologic control agents --

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, this is very important.

Mr. Speaker: I appreciate that, but I thought you should leave some information in case there was a supplementary.

Mr. MacDonald: I do have a supplementary. Even when we are able to fully utilize the advances the minister has described, farmers will continue to use some pesticides. What steps are being taken to reduce the risks that the improper use of pesticides can pose, not only to the environment but to farmers themselves?

Hon. Mr. Riddell: I agree that it is important to make sure that farmers are properly trained in the use of pesticides and application equipment. To that end, we are preparing to establish a course for about 10,000 farmers next year. This course will upgrade their knowledge about safe handling and storage of pesticides.

I would say that farmers themselves are at the most risk in the use of these pesticides, so this education component of our Food Systems 2002 program will train them in proper application techniques for the person who is actually applying this chemical.

PENSION BENEFITS

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I have a question to the Minister of Financial Institutions. It also tends to deal with the government’s credibility and integrity on promises that it has made in the past. The minister will remember very clearly that his predecessor, now the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. Kwinter), made a promise on June 23, 1987, in this Legislature when dealing with the Pension Benefits Act. He said, “A new section” of the act “will be added to the bill to reinforce the government’s commitment to inflation protection for pensions.”

As a result of that amendment to the legislation, the Friedland report was commissioned and reported back, and still, nearly two years, going on two years from the time this amendment took place in the legislation, we have no inflation protection for pensions and pensioners across this province.

When is this government going to act to protect our pensioners and to start providing inflation protection for future retirees?

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Hon. Mr. Elston: I want to thank the member for the question. I can tell the honourable gentlemen that we have taken the Friedland report. In fact, I have met with Mr. Friedland, and as well with another member of the group, to get their views with respect to a number of pieces of information that have come to my attention through our consultation.

I have made a commitment to the business community and to others, pensioners and otherwise, to consult with them further with respect to the questions that surround the issues of indexing, including the question of whether or not it be prospective only or whether it be retrospective in nature. They are very serious questions we have to consider with respect to how the whole area is resolved, and I have undertaken a very thorough investigation of all the options that are available to us with respect to all of the Friedland report’s recommendations.

That having been said, we are moving forward, and I can note for the honourable gentleman that there has been progress and that there continues to be progress as we meet with various groups who are interested, not only in the way things are today but in the way they will be on the Ontario scene in years to come. I can tell the honourable gentleman as well that one of our biggest concerns is --

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. That seems like a fairly reasonable answer. Supplementary.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I am tempted not to, but I will.

If I could sum up what the minister has said, he said it is being held up because he is consulting with the business community and to hell with the pensioners of this province. That is exactly what he said.

I would like to ask the minister, why is it pensioners have to wait while he consults with corporations across this province, and he has not even come to grips with the fact of whether or not he is going to make this inflation protection retroactive? He has not even made that basic decision yet. When is he actually going to report and make some decisions with respect to this matter?

Hon. Mr. Elston: As is normal with the member for Windsor-Riverside, he does tend not to put the entire case in front of the public. I said very clearly that the business people were among the groups with whom I was consulting, but that I was also consulting all people who had interests in this particular area. I want to make that very clear because those people opposite sometimes leave the impression that we do not talk to the entire world. In fact, when we do not consult widely enough, they accuse us of not being open and consultative. I am talking to the people who are interested in this issue from all parts of the province.

That having been said, there are very interesting and difficult questions that we have to resolve to assist people to progress suitably where they will have protection, the type of protection that was indicated when the bill was put through. We are doing that.

He says it is two years. I can tell the honourable gentleman that the group that formed the Friedland task force met and wrestled with several of these questions, and it took them some time. We are now going through and examining each one of their recommendations in turn.

Now, it may be that he has a little bit more time, since he probably was able to assist Mr. White in writing a letter to their national party or whatever. Maybe he wants to get on with something else. But I can tell him that the work on this side of the government does not stop.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Elston: We are continuing to do the work and we will complete the task --

Mr. Speaker: Order; new question.

TRUCKING INDUSTRY

Mr. Wiseman: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation. The Ontario Court of Appeal yesterday turned down his attempt to appeal the October 20 decision of the Ontario Supreme Court, a decision that authorized the Ontario Highway Transport Board to issue extra provincial truck and bus licences in this province.

As he knows, the decision affects the compatibility of Bill 88, the Truck Transportation Act, and the federal Motor Vehicle Transport Act, which regulates the public interest test for new entrants. The federal legislation has been on the books since January 1 of this year and has been the topic of discussion with his ministry since 1984. Bill 88 recently completed clause-by-clause review, at which time his ministry had ample opportunity to change the wording to make it compatible with the federal legislation.

Mr. Speaker: Does the member have a question?

Mr Wiseman: I ask the minister, how can he blame the federal government for the public interest test fiasco when he himself is the author of the legislation that created this mess in the first place?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I am not quite sure I heard a question in the member’s dialogue, but I did hear him say we were blaming the federal government for something. We were not blaming the federal government; we were appealing a court decision with respect to a legal matter. We were not blaming the federal government as the member suggests.

Mr. Wiseman: We see long lineups to get into our hospitals, our universities and public housing, and now we see long lineups to get a licence to operate in this province.

The federal Motor Vehicle Transport Act is consensus legislation reached between the provinces and the federal government. It took three years of exhausting consultation before the federal government and the provinces could come to some terms. The minister was told by the federal government at the Roads and Transportation Association of Canada meeting in Halifax in September that it would not compromise its legislation in order to accommodate the minister with Bill 88, yet the minister still rammed the bill through clause-by-clause.

Will the minister revoke Bill 88? If not, will he accept full responsibility for the chaos this legislation is sure to cause?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: That was a much longer statement than the member made while he sat in on the committee hearings.

I suggest that this minister and this government did not ram anything through. We spent the summer in public hearings across the province. We spent three weeks in clause-by-clause. The member had ample opportunity, and in fact he did not appear for the last day of hearings, at which time he could have placed the amendment he is referring to.

RETAIL SALES TAX

Mr. McClelland: I have a question to the Treasurer. The Treasurer, I am sure, will be among the first to acknowledge the importance small business has in the vitality of the economy of our province. Significant pressure felt by small business is related to cash flow. Most small businesses that sell their products on a net 30-day basis consider themselves fortunate to receive payment for goods and services within that 30-day period.

My question to the Treasurer is, what is the provincial policy with respect to sales tax collection? When is it due and what is our policy with respect to the collection of those taxes for goods and services sold on a given day?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: As Treasurer, I consider that the money, when collected, becomes public money, but that it does not have to be returned to the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Grandmaître) until the 23rd of the month following its collection.

Mr. Brandt: Or.

Hon. R. F. Nixon: Period. We think that is reasonable.

Mr. McClelland: If a particular company is experiencing particular difficulty with respect to accounts receivable at a critical time in its development, is it the policy of our government to exercise some discretion with respect to the enforcement of collection, having regard to all the circumstances of a particular company?

Hon. R. F. Nixon: The actual nuances of the application of the policy are the responsibility of my colleague the Minister of Revenue, but essentially, if there is some thought that the money in the cigar box or the till or the bank is the property of the tax collector, that is the vendor, then that can lead to some substantial problems.

If that money is considered simply a little cash into which the vendor can dip for his immediate responsibilities, then unfortunately the taxpayers in general and the Treasury of the province are liable to find they are writing off even more bad debts than we are now, and we do not like to do that.

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AIR TRANSPORTATION

Mr. Morin-Strom: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation with regard to serious problems that travellers are facing when trying to travel within Ontario as a result of the serious flight delays and cancellations that we are facing at Pearson International Airport. I refer in particular to the fact that the policy rule 302, that is being applied at that airport is clearly discriminatory against residents in Ontario.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, the member for London North (Mrs. Cunningham). I remind all members this is question period. All members would like to ask questions, if other members will allow it. The member for Sault Ste. Marie.

Mr. Morin-Strom: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To repeat, my question is to the Minister of Transportation with regard to the serious flight delays and cancellations that have been faced by travellers within Ontario and the fact that rule 302, which is being applied at Pearson International Airport, is discriminatory, particularly against travellers within Ontario, and is causing real hardship, particularly in regions such as northern Ontario where air transport is the main means of transport to the major centres in southern Ontario.

Has the minister approached the federal minister or the Department of Transport with respect to Ontario’s concerns in this matter? What in fact can the minister tell us is going to happen in order to ensure that we have a reliable transportation system in terms of air transport here in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: I am sure the member, and most members on both sides of the House, would be aware of our very active and progressive interest in developing regional air transport in this province. We have done that very successfully in many towns and cities across the province within our jurisdiction.

However, there are 28 federally operated airports in this province, and of course Pearson is first among those. However, being well aware and well ahead of the recent publicity with respect to the difficulties being experienced, I indeed spoke to the Honourable Benoît Bouchard, the federal Minister of Transport, in Halifax to bring to his attention then, not in the last few days, our concerns with respect to the difficulties at Pearson.

Since then, we are awaiting momentarily some indication of a meeting that may take place today or tomorrow, which we have also asked for, and other steps we can take that we think might be appropriate.

Mr. Morin-Strom: I guess what we would like to know is what, specifically, the minister is planning to do, given the fact that the current rule that is being applied at Pearson implies flights are being cancelled or delayed on an interminable basis, flights not only in the region that is within easy driving distance from Toronto but also to airports in Sudbury, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and as far as Timmins. Those flights are being delayed and put off indefinitely.

The winter is coming. The minister knows he has an inadequate highway system in terms of connections to northern Ontario. The most reliable source of transportation has been air transportation through Pearson International Airport. I would like to know specifically what the minister’s proposal is in order to ensure we do have reliable transportation this winter, for the residents of northern Ontario in particular.

Hon. Mr. Fulton: First, I reject the member’s notion that we have an inadequate highway system in this province. It is utter nonsense and he knows it.

As I said earlier, we have had a meeting with the federal minister. He will be aware of our concerns. There are a number of options that are available. Some are not acceptable to some people because of noise levels, new runways and other things. There is limited jurisdiction in this province in what we can do to help operate a federal jurisdiction, a federal airport. There is some concern, however, that has been expressed that it may also involve a labour dispute with respect to some of the air traffic controllers perhaps working to rule.

Mr. Speaker: New question, the member for Markham.

Mr. Cousens: It is too bad the Minister of Transportation is not accepting his responsibilities.

Mr. Speaker: Your question is to which minister?

COURT FACILITIES

Mr. Cousens: My question is to the Attorney General. I held a press conference today at the small claims court in Richmond Hill. Staff and litigants have appealed to the Attorney General to correct the faulty ventilation system, as well as to permit them to adjust the thermostats in the building. These people, in the course of carrying out the administration of justice, are not only suffering illness from poor air circulation; they are also freezing.

As the chief law officer of this province and the one responsible for the courts, what is the minister doing to correct this unacceptable situation?

Hon. Mr. Scott: I am grateful to the honourable member for bringing this to my attention. I am going to take it up with the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Patten).

Mr. Cousens: That answer would be good. In the minister’s letter of November 18 to someone who was asking about this, he said: “To ensure that the earlier conditions do not reoccur, the building’s control system will be modified. This work will be carried out shortly.” That is what the Attorney General said in his letter.

Since this response, further testing has been carried out by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Government Services. It has been found that the carbon dioxide levels have reached as high as 1,200 parts per million, which indicates a grossly inadequate air-handling system. Court proceedings have had to be recessed because people are cold and nauseous.

When is the minister going to stop dilly-dallying with the owner of this building, get his act together and put an end, ironically, to these injustices in the Richmond Hill courthouse?

Hon. Mr. Scott: I told the honourable member that we are going to look into it and do what we can to fix premises which we do not own and for which others have landlords’ responsibilities. We are going to do that. I mean to do it. I am not standing up here the way the member did, as minister, making a whole lot of promises I have no intentions of carrying out.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is still question period.

TRANSIT SERVICES

Ms. Bryden: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation. As the minister is aware, the Toronto Transit Commission has approved a fare increase averaging five per cent to start on January 1, but actually there will be a 6.5 per cent increase for Metropass users and a shocking 7.6 per cent increase for seniors’ Metropass users. Under the present cost-sharing formula, Toronto transit riders pay 68 per cent of the TTC operating costs. The provincial government pays only 16 per cent, while it picks up about 40 per cent of GO Transit costs.

Will the minister commit more provincial funds to end this discrimination among TTC and GO Transit operators and sit down with the TTC and Metropolitan Toronto council to work out a new and fairer cost-sharing formula before the January 1 fare increase goes into effect?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: The member will be aware that we meet on a very regular basis with officials from the Toronto Transit Commission and I meet on a very regular basis with members of Metro council. The fare increases the member is referring to have not yet been approved by Metro council.

When she talks about our 16 per cent sharing of the operating costs of the TTC, I suggest that is in the range of $80 million per year, which is no small amount of money. I think we have a very strong commitment to transit riders in Metropolitan Toronto on the TTC. We pay 75 per cent of their capital costs in addition to those previously mentioned figures. I think we are very dedicated and have demonstrated with our record our commitment to transit riders in Metropolitan Toronto.

Ms. Bryden: The minister has not changed the cost-sharing formula in about eight years, so those meetings must be pretty fruitless.

Yesterday, the minister gave a speech to the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto on the topic of the economic and social cost of congestion. When he allows TTC fares to continue to escalate, is he not encouraging transit riders to return to their cars and add to the already serious traffic congestion in Metropolitan Toronto?

Hon. Mr. Fulton: It is a good question, but judging from the phenomenal increases in ridership both on GO Transit and on the TTC, I would suggest that the member’s assumption is incorrect.

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COURT FACILITIES

Mr. Cousens: On a point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker: I had a question this afternoon for the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) on a very important matter that pertains to the health of people who are working in the courthouse in Richmond Hill. His comments, which I am afraid may not have been picked up by Hansard, were certainly picked up by me. He said, “It’s of no small interest.” I have to say that is wrong. This is of great importance.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Cousens: He said, “It’s no big deal.”

Mr. Speaker: Order. Would the member take his seat?

Mr. Cousens: Mr. Speaker, it is a big deal.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the member for Markham, as a former presiding officer, will from now on show more respect for the chair.

PETITIONS

SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I have a petition that is of no small interest to the constituents of mine in Windsor-Riverside and also the constituents of the member for Essex-Kent (Mr. McGuigan). I present this petition on behalf of both of us to the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly:

“We, the parents of children attending St-Antoine school, Tecumseh, Ontario, petition the Ministry of Education” -- and I hope the minister is listening -- “of the province of Ontario for a new French-language elementary school to be built in our area due to the present overcrowding of our school and the predicted rapid growth of the student population.”

I present this on behalf of myself and the member for Essex-Kent and I hope the Minister of Education (Mr. Ward) will listen to the 400 families who have signed this petition.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: I am certain there are other members who would like to present petitions, if members could keep their private conversations down to nil.

SCHOOL OPENING EXERCISES

Mr. Black: This petition is to the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly:

“We, the undersigned, are opposed to the use of multifaith prayers and readings in Simcoe County Board of Education schools.”

It is signed by 300 people from Simcoe county, and I add my name to the petition.

MINIMUM WAGE

Mr. Morin-Strom: I have a petition that has been signed by 400 residents of the city of Sault Ste. Marie. It reads as follows:

“To the Honourable Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and in particular the Minister of Labour:

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

“That the minimum wage be increased from $4.75 per hour to $6 per hour over a period of two years.”

I suggest that this would also be of interest to the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Sweeney). I have endorsed this petition and I hope that the government will give serious consideration to it.

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

Mr. Cousens: I would like to give notice of dissatisfaction, under the standing orders of the House, with the answer given by the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) to my question.

Mr. Speaker: The member has given proper notice. I am certain he will present that to the table and I will announce it later on.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THIRD READINGS

The following bills were given third reading on motion:

Bill 160, An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act;

Bill 66, An Act respecting Agricultural and Horticultural Organizations;

Bill 78, An Act respecting the Sale of Farm Implements;

Bill 139, An Act to amend the Grain Elevator Storage Act.

FARM PRODUCTS CONTAINERS ACT

Hon. Mr. Riddell moved third reading of Bill 140, An Act to revise the Farm Products Containers Act.

Mr. Villeneuve: Recently there has been a situation in eastern Ontario where milk was contaminated by the containers the milk came in. I would like the minister to comment on that and what his ministry has done to look into that situation to prevent some of our very good milk, when it leaves the farm, from being contaminated by containers.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any other members wishing to participate in the debate? If not, the minister may wish to respond.

Hon. Mr. Riddell: The testing of residues in products really is the jurisdiction of the federal government. We do not have any authority to do anything other than to impress upon the federal government that if containers are causing the problem, other containers made of another substance be used. But this again is something that does not really fall within our jurisdiction.

Motion agreed to.

CITY OF OTTAWA ACT

Mr. Morin moved second reading of Bill Pr6, An Act respecting the City of Ottawa.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

CHARLOTTE ELEANOR ENGLEHART HOSPITAL ACT

Mr. Smith moved second reading of Bill Pr9, An Act respecting the Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

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SARNIA KIWANIS FOUNDATION INC. ACT

Mr. Harris moved, on behalf of Mr. Brandt, second reading of Bill Pr18, An Act respecting the Sarnia Kiwanis Foundation Inc.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

LAPLANTE LITHOGRAPHING COMPANY LIMITED ACT

Mr. Velshi moved second reading of Bill Pr32, An Act to revive LaPlante Lithographing Company Limited.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

ROCKTON WINTER CLUB INC. ACT

Mr. Reycraft moved, on behalf of Mr. Elliot, second reading of Bill Pr42, An Act to revive Rockton Winter Club Inc.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

PETERBOROUGH HISTORICAL SOCIETY ACT

Mr. Reycraft moved, on behalf of Mr. Adams, second reading of Bill Pr53, An Act respecting The Peterborough Historical Society.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

288093 ONTARIO LIMITED ACT

Mr. Reycraft moved, on behalf of Mrs. LeBourdais, second reading of Bill Pr55, An Act to revive 288093 Ontario Limited.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

TAVONE ENTERPRISES LIMITED ACT

Mr. Reycraft moved, on behalf of Ms. Collins, second reading of Bill Pr63, An Act to revive Tavone Enterprises Limited.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

KITCHENER-WATERLOO FOUNDATION ACT

Mr. D. R. Cooke moved second reading of Bill Pr65, An Act respecting the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

GASOLINE TAX AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED) / LOI MODIFIANT LA LOI DE LA TAXE SUR L’ESSENCE (SUITE)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 121, An Act to amend the Gasoline Tax Act.

Hon. Mr. Conway: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Revenue (Mr. Grandmaître) will be away today on a family matter. The parliamentary assistant, the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Faubert), is going to have the carriage of this bill. I would just like the permission of the House that perhaps he could take the minister’s seat on this side of the aisle, simply so the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) and others might more easily direct their comments through you to him.

Mr. Speaker: Any member may sit in any seat during the debate. However, are you referring to the final windup speech?

Hon. Mr. Conway: Yes.

Agreed to.

Mr. Laughren: I assume sitting in the minister’s chair will not go to the member’s head.

I rise in opposition to Bill 121, An Act to amend the Gasoline Tax Act. The explanatory note in the bill states, “The purpose of the bill is to increase the tax on gasoline and to impose an additional tax on leaded gasoline, effective April 21, 1988.”

The explanation of the bill makes no reference at all to the environment. If this was an environmental bill, one would have thought that under the purpose in the explanatory notes of the bill there would have been a comment as to why it would be regarded by the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) as an environmental bill. If this government wants to make some impact on the environment in a positive sense, let it do so but not under the guise of an environmental act that simply is designed to increase revenues from the long-suffering motorists in Ontario.

I would not want the parliamentary assistant or the Minister of the Environment to think these are just my paranoid ramblings from Shining Tree, but rather that these are views a lot of people have expressed concerning what the government has done with this bill.

I wanted to quote from a few people who have made statements.

Pat Curran, the Canadian Automobile Association spokesperson, said, “It is a very regressive tax and it hits the little guy the most, the people that can least afford it.” Curran said, “Consumers are still feeling the effects of the federal government’s 1.1 cent increase this month.” This was back in the spring. “The hike in leaded gas could cost a motorist who drives 24,000 kilometres per year an additional $96 a year at the pumps.”

I wanted to quote someone from Sudbury: Oryst Sawchuk, who is president of the Sudbury and District Chamber of Commerce. He called “the sales and gasoline tax increases doubly regressive for northerners since the cost of living here is higher than in the south.” He said: “As a result, those tax increases will cost more in actual dollar amounts in the north than in the south. There are not incentives for industrial and tourist development in northern Ontario and the extra money for highway improvements is inadequate.”

This is not simply we, as opposition members, complaining about this sales tax grab. It really is just an extension of the sales tax. It really has nothing to do with the environment.

There is an extra cent increase on leaded gas but there is a three-cent increase -- as a matter of fact, four cents -- on regular gasoline and one cent on leaded. If the government were really concerned about the effect of lead on the environment, it would have reduced the unleaded gasoline tax, not done it the way it has done it.

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Hon. Mr. Bradley: We need the money to do all these good environmental things.

Mr. Laughren: Well, if the government were indeed doing good environmental things, perhaps we would feel differently. It must be months and months now that I have been after the Minister of the Environment to even respond to a letter of mine and he still has not responded to it. I do not know what he is doing in the Ministry of the Environment.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: It’s in the mail.

Mr. Laughren: “It’s in the mail.” Yes, I know that line. The other line is, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” There is a third one I will not use.

The Deputy Speaker: Through the Speaker, please.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, this is not an environmental bill at all and for the minister to pretend it is -- if he were really serious about it, I would accuse him of misleading the House, but I do not think he is serious when he says it is an environmental bill and therefore I will not accuse him of misleading the House and the Canadian public.

I want to make a couple of brief comments. I will not go on at length, because other members wish to get in on the debate and others have already spoken about the impact of this bill on northern Ontario.

A few years ago, a Conservative backbencher from Algoma-Manitoulin, John Lane, had a private member’s bill that would have equalized the price of gasoline all across Ontario. As I recall, the Liberal caucus at that time supported John Lane’s private member’s bill. The Tories voted against it; his own members voted against it. Now we get the Liberals in power with the opportunity to do something about the gasoline price differential between north and south, and what do they do? They increase the taxes on gasoline all across the province.

No, not even any kind of pretence that they will do anything about the increased price of gasoline in northern Ontario. They did have a study. They commissioned a study and the study indicated that the price of distributing gasoline in northern Ontario was, as I recall, approximately 1.5 cents a litre extra. Therefore, if there is any greater increase in price, if the differential in price in a northern Ontario gasoline station is more than one and a half cents a litre, then something is wrong.

Perhaps the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) said it best in a debate in this chamber. My colleague the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Pouliot) was speaking and the Treasurer was talking about the price of gasoline at Earl’s Shell. The Treasurer said it was 41.9 cents at Earl’s Shell near where he lives, I gather. The member for Lake Nipigon stated, and this is from Hansard, “In Schreiber, Ontario, it was 56.9 cents, a disparity of some 15 cents a litre.” That is about 70 or 75 cents a gallon.

The greatest injustice that was ever done to the motorists of this country was when we went on to the metric system. I am not opposed to the metric system overall, I remind members, but nobody took advantage of the metric system like the gasoline marketers in this province and elsewhere. Nobody else did it as they did. They exploited the Ontario public when they went to metric, because they seem somehow now to get away with a cent or two a litre. Anyway, I digress.

The member for Lake Nipigon indicated that while the price may have been 41.9 cents down near Brantford, it was 56.9 in Schreiber, a disparity of 15 cents a litre. Do members know what the Treasurer responded in that debate. He said, “You’re being ripped off.” The Treasurer said that. If one of the key cabinet ministers of government can say, “You’re being ripped off,” but then do nothing about it, you wonder what they are there for. Why has something not been done about the disparities between north and south?

As a matter of fact, if you examine carefully the price differential up north, you will see there is a greater differential between urban and rural centres up north than there is between north and south. It is very clearly a case of charging what the traffic will bear where competition, or the lack thereof, allows them to do it.

Mr. Faubert: Right; that is why it is 10 cents more in Ottawa than in Toronto.

Mr. Laughren: There is the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere agreeing with me, I gather. If members of the government agree with this, why do they not do something about it? I thought that was what governing was all about, to rectify flaws in the system.

We know, and others have spoken more eloquently than I, that in northern Ontario the prices are already higher, the distances are greater and public transit is not nearly as well developed as in the south. As a matter of fact, in an enormous number of communities, there is no public transit, and yet here, down in Toronto and other major urban centres, public transit is highly subsidized by the provincial government.

Yet is there any question of the government moving in and equalizing prices between north and south to aid motorists in the north? Not at all. This government has done absolutely nothing about equalizing prices between northern and southern Ontario.

When I say I oppose this bill, I do so not simply because it is going to increase revenues to the government. If we are honest with ourselves, we know governments must raise taxes to provide the programs they deliver, and I have no problem with that, but what I do have a problem with is when something is done under the pretence of something else, as in this case, for example.

The Minister of the Environment said this is an environmental bill. That is absolute hogwash. This is simply a way of increasing tax revenues to the government, and the government is not doing with it what it should be doing.

If, for example, tied in with this bill there was a clause or section that said, as in Nova Scotia, that there will be an equalization of prices -- in Nova Scotia, the last time I checked, there was a rule that said you could not have more than a 1.7-cent a litre differential, I think, between different parts of Nova Scotia. Would that not be wonderful in Ontario? But we do not have that here. The government has the authority to do that. We are talking about retail prices. We are not talking about wellhead prices or prices at the border. We are talking about retail prices.

As long as the government sits back on its fat haunches and just assumes the marketplace will dispense justice, this is the kind of action we are going to get.

For those reasons, I am happy to join with my colleagues in opposition to Bill 121, which is simply another tax grab by the Liberals.

Mr. Morin-Strom: I am pleased to be able to speak on Bill 121, An Act to amend the Gasoline Tax Act, but I am certainly not pleased to see what the actual content of this act is.

Here we have Ontario sticking it to the people, the consumers of this province, again, with another price hike in taxes, a regressive tax, one that hits particularly hard against drivers in more remote areas, in areas where highways and the use of cars are absolutely essential to everyday life. I particularly express concern, for those of us in northern Ontario, that in its first budget after its election as a majority government, we see this Liberal government moving an increase in gasoline taxes.

In fact, as I remind the government members, during the minority government of 1985 to 1987, there was a very important item included in the accord agreement between the New Democratic Party and the Liberals that gave this Liberal Party the opportunity to govern the province for the first time in over 40 years. That item specified that this government was to have a freeze on the ad valorem taxes it was applying to gasoline in Ontario and during the period of that minority government we saw no gasoline tax increases from this government.

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Now that the government has been loosened from the binds, I guess, of the NDP and the kind of protection we were providing to the people of Ontario, we have the government sticking it to the people of the province and increasing gasoline taxes again, as was the common practice of the former Conservative government.

This tax is one of the most regressive taxes we have. The distances people drive their vehicles are not based on ability to pay, on the wealth of the individual. They are based on the needs to move one’s family around and to be able to get to work. The fact that people have to drive their vehicles results in relatively equal amounts of driving in any particular area, whether you are at the lower end of the income scale or at the upper end. So a tax like this hits low-income earners very severely in terms of the percentage of their income they have to pay into taxes.

We know the comparison between the kinds of prices we pay for gasoline here in Ontario and those paid in other jurisdictions, particularly in the United States, where they recognize that at least in terms of gasoline tax it is inappropriate to use that as a major source of revenue.

I suggest this government should be looking at other, more progressive ways of raising tax revenues, and perhaps applying a tax, in terms of corporate taxes, to the oil companies and other major corporations that have not been paying taxes in recent years. This would be more appropriate than applying this kind of regressive tax to the consumers of this province.

We in this party, certainly myself in particular, have been very strong advocates of the concerns about the cost of transportation for the residents of this province, particularly in such areas as northern Ontario. During the minority government we had a study commissioned, as a result of the accord agreement, on north-south gasoline prices. This study, which was issued to the government in 1986, came to a conclusion that any of us could have told the government at that time. There were basically three conclusions about the causes for price differentials between southern Ontario and northern Ontario.

We know that in northern Ontario those price differentials are far out of line solely with the cost of transporting gasoline to northern Ontario. The causes of the price differential in this report are, first, that “the market in the south is larger and therefore experiences more competition” -- we certainly know that; second, that “average volumes per outlet are lower in the north, changing the retailers’ attitudes towards gasoline and making them less aggressive”; third, that “the distribution and retailing of gasoline in the north are less efficient than in southern Ontario.”

There is something wrong with the free market system when it comes to gasoline pricing in northern Ontario. There were some graphs done by this study on pricing levels in a comparison of communities in northern Ontario and southern Ontario. One might look at figure 2.5 for the comparative population centres of Sault Ste. Marie and Guelph, two communities about the same size.

Over a period of months, the price in Sault Ste. Marie only had one change over a period of nearly six months. In Guelph, the price was up and down as there was some competition in that market. In Sault Ste. Marie, the only pricing factor in this particular period was a federal sales tax increase of two cents a litre.

What typically happens in the north is that the major integrated oil companies get together and determine a price. They specify those prices to the retailers. I have talked to many of the retailers in Sault Ste. Marie. They are not given the flexibility to be able to compete on a price level. They are told by their distributors in Toronto what price they have to set in northern Ontario and those are the prices that are established.

As a result, we have a comparison between Sault Ste. Marie and Guelph where the difference in prices ranged anywhere from, at the lowest, about five cents a litre up to as much as 13 or 14 cents a litre over a period of six months.

The cost of getting the gasoline to these centres is probably quite comparable. In southern Ontario, distribution to a city like Guelph would be by tanker truck. In Sault Ste. Marie, the gasoline would be handled by major vessels on the Great Lakes, which would be a very low-cost source of transportation, and so that cop-out, that the transportation costs are the major difference, is not the case at all.

We have other evidence from studies done by the Ministry of Transportation less than a year ago. It issued a survey report on Public Attitudes towards Provincial Highways. This particularly reveals the kind of discrimination we face in northern Ontario.

In section 3.6 they have the total annual distance travelled on public highways by region. I quote from the report:

“Highway users in the central region, excluding Metro Toronto, on average, travel about 14,000 kilometres on the provincial highway system, 16,000 kilometres in the eastern region, 15,000 kilometres in the southwestern region and 15,000 kilometres in Metro Toronto.” However, on average, “highway users in the northern region travel 32,000 kilometres, while those in the northwestern region average 30,000 kilometres per year.”

We have drivers in northern Ontario averaging over 30,000 kilometres per year, while the drivers in southern Ontario, particularly in Metro Toronto, are averaging approximately half that.

This is a tax that is based on the amount of driving you do and means northern drivers are paying at least double the tax of drivers in southern Ontario, a tax that is absolutely unconscionable given the kinds of disadvantages we have in northern Ontario, particularly when it comes to transportation services.

We do not have the kinds of highways they have in southern Ontario. The government has been remiss in providing us with highways equal in quality to those in the south, and as a result we have problems of competitive pressures. There are higher costs to our businesses in having to compete and get their goods and supplies from southern Ontario and into markets elsewhere in Canada and the United States.

Certainly, this kind of tax regime is one that is totally unfair. This government could be moving to a fairer tax system on gasoline taxes, one that better reflects the ability to pay and who is paying these taxes. There is no reason why residents of northern Ontario should be forced to pay double the highway taxes and gasoline taxes of residents of southern Ontario.

I ask that all members of this Legislature oppose this bill. We are strongly opposed to this gasoline tax increase. We feel that it is an extremely regressive one. We want to see the government act, as has happened in other regimes. In Nova Scotia, there is a government that has an energy board that has some powers over gasoline prices.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: And look how high their prices are.

Mr. Morin-Strom: Their prices at least are fairer.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: They are high, though.

Mr. Morin-Strom: Admittedly, they do not have the refineries in Nova Scotia. We have the refineries here and we can have a fairer system of gasoline prices and of gasoline price taxation here in Ontario. We know that in communities like Sault Ste. Marie, today about 40 per cent of the drivers are buying their gasoline not on the Ontario side of the border, but are buying it in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

The prices there are the equivalent of about 30 to 31 cents a litre for gasoline in comparison with prices up in the mid-40s to high 40s in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. As a result, we see drivers in Sault Ste. Marie going to Sault, Michigan, to get their gasoline, and while they are over there, they are buying a lot of other products as well and bringing them back, taking business away from Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: They pay for their own health care, too, over there.

Mr. Morin-Strom: I am not advocating that we become a part of the United States, as the minister quite rightly and well knows. We have a lot of advantages in comparison with the United States, but our highway system is not one of them, nor is the kind of tax structure we have when it comes to gasoline prices.

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Hon. Mr. Bradley: You don’t want tolls on the highway, though.

Mr. Morin-Strom: The minister brings up a point about the United States. The highways are a particular concern when, in northern Ontario today, the only major divided four-lane highway into northern Ontario ends at the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge. It is the highway in Michigan, 1-75, which goes through the United States clear down to Florida. That is the only major highway that connects into northern Ontario. It is an embarrassment that we do not have that kind of highway going through this province.

We have what we call our Trans-Canada Highway going through Ontario, a two-lane highway which does not deserve that name in terms of the investment this province has put into it, a highway that we should be proud of, that should be a vital link in tying together the economy of northern Ontario, that is critical to the future development of industry in northern Ontario.

This government has a time frame in terms of the four-laning of that highway which is going to see it four-laned within maybe 100 years, if we are lucky. In the last two years, they have put less than 10 miles -- in fact, it was less than 10 kilometres -- of divided highway into northern Ontario in each of the last two budgets of the Ministry of Transportation. We have a highway that is going to take over 1,000 kilometres to cross northern Ontario. We are looking at a program that is going to take maybe a century for this government at the rate it is investing in that highway.

As stated in the government’s own study, we know that drivers in northern Ontario are putting in double the mileage of drivers in southern Ontario. Based on the current tax regime, when we pay on a per litre basis, we are therefore putting in double the gasoline tax, but we are not seeing it come back out in terms of the highway construction going on in the north and the commitment of this province to highways across northern Ontario.

Throughout this government’s whole tax revisions in the first budget since the new majority Liberal government has been elected here in Ontario, we have had a Treasurer who is committed to regressive taxation. He has increased sales taxes by one cent. He has increased taxes in this case very seriously on gasoline prices. We have a Treasurer who is doing nothing about the high level of property taxes that is being faced, particularly when it comes to servicing the costs of education and social services in our local communities.

We have a Treasurer who is now in bed with the federal government in terms of a national sales tax. We know he is the principal player in those negotiations. A major national sales tax cannot go ahead without the agreement of Ontario and the commitment of this province to be a part of Michael Wilson’s program. We have the possibility of seeing not only an eight per cent sales tax but a national sales tax of anywhere from 16 cents to 19 cents on the purchase of not only goods, as we have had in the past, but now services across Ontario.

Certainly, this government deserves to have the castigation of the people of this province on all its items of tax reform. We have seen the biggest tax grab in Ontario’s history in this last budget. I guess the Treasurer feels he has to stick it to the people of Ontario as quickly as he can in the new regime, and perhaps by the fourth year he might be able to give something back.

This whole tax program should be rejected by the people of this province. Certainly, it is going to be rejected by the members of the New Democratic Party, most particularly this severely regressive increase in gasoline sales taxes which is going to be a real hardship to consumers across the province and a real economic disadvantage to those of us from northern Ontario.

I ask that this House turn down this tax increase, and I will be voting against this bill.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): Are there any comments or questions?

Mr. McCague: Just a couple of comments. The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere is in the same boat as the Minister of Revenue was. He has these nasty bills foisted on him by the Treasurer and really is powerless to do anything about them, even though we make some excellent suggestions in this House as to how they could be renovated or, more particularly, how they could be made more palatable to the people of Ontario.

As has been mentioned by the member for Nickel Belt, if it was an environmental bill, people probably would buy the increases that are involved in it. If it was dedicated to roads or traffic, Students Against Driving Drunk or any of those things, people would weigh it in view of what the end use of that money was, but the way it is, we really do not know.

This member for Scarborough-Ellesmere knows how vehemently the Treasurer opposed the ad valorem tax when he was in opposition. When he was surprised, as he was, to get into the government, he had no choice but to get rid of the ad valorem tax and find another way to add more than we would have had to pay through the ad valorem tax. It really is a kind of mess they have made of it, but I do not blame the member. He can carry those words back to the Treasurer.

The Acting Speaker: Is it understood by the House that if the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere speaks on this, he is wrapping up the debate on this issue?

Mr. Morin-Strom: Do I get to respond?

The Acting Speaker: If you wish to respond to the member for Simcoe West, yes, you may.

Mr. Morin-Strom: He was responding to me, right?

The Acting Speaker: Yes.

Mr. Morin-Strom: I find it disturbing that the Minister of Revenue is not here to stand up for his own tax bills and I find it even more disturbing that the Liberal Party is not represented in this House. The fact that we have in this House at this time no cabinet ministers and only six out of 94 members of the Liberal Party is an absolute embarrassment. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that in fact we do not even have a quorum in this House and would ask that you confirm the same.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

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The Acting Speaker: A quorum is now present. The member for Sault Ste. Marie may continue.

Mr. Morin-Strom: I am done.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere to conclude the debate.

Mr. Faubert: A number of comments have been made concerning the tax increases contained in the Gasoline Tax Amendment Act in relation to the impact of the increases on particular sectors of the provincial economy and on specific groups within the province. I think we will all concede that no tax increase is without some impact, although I must say that I think the negative effects of this particular increase have been significantly overstated by the opposition’s spokespersons.

In response to comments by the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) and the member for Nickel Belt, and including other members of the opposition who state that this increase in gasoline tax is unfair because it is regressive, it may be of interest to the members and all who make this argument to know that in order to raise the $1.2 billion it is expected that the gasoline tax will provide in 1988-89, the provincial income tax, which is a so-called progressive tax, would have to be raised by 10 per cent. I would like to know if this is what the opposition is actually advocating.

The positive impact that has been largely overlooked in all the comments by the opposition is the fact that the additional revenue raised is allowing the government to provide additional capital funding to the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Northern Development to finance important improvements to the province’s transportation network.

Indeed, in relation to the impact of this increase on the north, my colleague the Minister of Northern Development (Mr. Fontaine) has stated previously in this House that this government’s initiatives in funding projects in the north through increased expenditures on highway and other major programs more than offset the economic cost of the increased cost of gasoline in northern communities.

Le cas de la taxe supplémentaire sur l’essence au plomb illustre bien comment une politique budgétaire peut contribuer directement à assurer les objectifs du gouvernement.

In this case, the tax increase on leaded gasoline is helping to reduce lead emissions and is contributing to the creation of a cleaner and healthier environment.

I would also point out to the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) as well as to other members who categorize an increase of three cents per litre on leaded gasoline as a regressive tax on the poor -- a point that was also raised, I believe, by members of the third party -- that Environment Canada estimates that only 2.2 per cent of all automobiles on Canadian roads today actually require leaded gasoline for operation. The extra three cents per litre was intended to remove the price advantage which some drivers obtained through the use of leaded gasoline, although their vehicles could operate equally well on unleaded gasoline.

I am happy to report that between April and October 1988, sales of leaded gasoline in Ontario have decreased from 28 per cent of the total gasoline sales to only 16 per cent of total gasoline sales to date, thus contributing to a healthy environment for all Ontarians. The additional tax has in fact succeeded in addressing the price advantage that leaded fuel had over unleaded fuel prior to the budget. The result has been an acceleration in the decline of leaded fuel sales in this province. This measure is working in precisely the manner in which it has been intended.

The Acting Speaker: Mr. Grandmâitre has moved second reading of Bill 121.

All those in favour will please say “aye.”

All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

There being at least five members standing, we will have a division at 5:45 on Bill 121.

Vote deferred.

RETAIL SALES TAX AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED) / LOI MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LA TAXE DE VENTE AU DETAIL (SUITE)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 122, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): I understand that the member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Charlton) had the floor at the time that the debate was adjourned.

Clerk of the House: He has completed his remarks.

The Acting Speaker: The next speaker will be the member for Cochrane South.

Mr. Pope: I would like to thank the members of the opposition and the government for their co-operation. I am pleased on behalf of our party to speak on the matter of yet another piece of Liberal tax legislation, Bill 122, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act. As critic for our party with respect to the Revenue and Treasury portfolios, I would like to briefly summarize the positions that the member for Simcoe West (Mr. McCague), the member for Markham (Mr. Cousens), the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris), the member for Carleton (Mr. Sterling) and the member for Mississauga South (Mrs. Marland) have all brought before this House in the matter of the tax bills proposed by our Liberal government.

With respect to the increase in the retail sales tax, we feel this increase is unnecessary. Without any tax increase whatsoever being proposed by the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Grandmaître) or the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon), government revenues would have increased this year by 8.2 per cent or $2.8 billion. That is without a single tax increase. Additional economic activity in this province would have generated $2.8 billion in additional revenues for the provincial government to administer its programs, and that is without one, single, solitary tax increase. In spite of those additional revenues in the hands of this Liberal government without any tax increase, it chose to grab off another $1.3 billion in new tax increases from the taxpayers of Ontario.

This year, the Ontario government tax revenues will be 72 per cent greater than they were in 1984-85 and retail sales tax collections will be up by more than 75 per cent since the year 1984-85. That is the size of the tax grab this government is responsible for since it came into office. Those kinds of staggering increases are coming directly from the pockets of the residents of the province, from the working men and women and their families here in the province.

There is no doubt about it. All the studies have shown this in terms of sales tax programs. The low-income and middle-income classes are going to bear the brunt of this tax increase, as they do the increase in gasoline tax and as they do the increases in anything other than the progressive income tax system. So the sales tax will hit the middle-income and low-income the hardest. This increase will be an additional burden on the low-income and middle-income families in this province. The Liberal government did not need it but chose to take it anyway. We do not think it was necessary.

We have seen additional increases from this Treasurer and the Liberal government of Ontario on virtually everything since they came to office. The effects on the cost of housing are clear from increases in the land transfer tax that this Liberal government brought in. It is an extra $200 million from increased land transfer tax this year alone. The tax now equals almost one per cent of the value of real estate conveyed in Ontario, according to the former president of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association.

The tax that will be levied on things like asphalt mix and ready-mix concrete will increase the cost of a $200,000 home by $900. These are all additional costs that people who are now having trouble affording a new home or a first home in this province are going to be facing, and it is all because the Treasurer and the Liberals decided, as a political strategy, that $2.8 billion in additional tax revenues in their pockets and out of the taxpayers’ pockets was not enough; they wanted to add $1.3 billion to it.

In our respectful submission, we do not think it is right; we do not think it is fair or just, and we think the proper course of action for the Liberal government of Ontario would be to get its expenditures under control.

I want to deal with the justifications I have heard from time to time from the Treasurer and the Premier (Mr. Peterson) with respect to these tax increases. First of all, there is some suggestion by the Premier, and even the Treasurer in his weaker partisan moments -- the Premier has made it in the Legislature over the past few weeks and particularly before the last federal campaign when it was politic to do so -- that one of the reasons for this additional revenue is that there will be reductions in federal transfer payments and they have to protect Ontario and the Ontario government from the consequences of this reduction in federal transfer payments and federal support for essential programs delivered to the people of Ontario.

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The fact of the matter is that in the standing committee on finance and economic affairs last Thursday, the experts from the Ministry of Treasury and Economics prepared graphs on revenue sources that they made available to the committee members, which show that they themselves are not predicting any reduction in federal transfer payments or federal support for provincial programs; none whatsoever.

In spite of what the Premier was saying for political purposes immediately prior to the election and in spite of what the Treasurer was saying in his weaker partisan moments, the Liberals now admit in the committee, from their own experts, that federal transfer payments will account for 15 per cent of revenues this coming year as they did last year and approximately the same amount, on a percentage basis, as they have for the past three years.

Mr. Harris: In spite of the fact that they’re spending double the rate of inflation.

Mr. Pope: In spite of the fact that every budget of every department of this province has increased and in spite of the fact that revenues are increasing substantially because of the tax increases the Treasurer and the Premier are bringing to the people of this province, the proportion of federal revenues is not decreasing whatsoever; it is remaining the same.

In other words, even more money is flowing from the federal government to the provincial government in the coming economic year. The government’s own experts have predicted it. Its own experts in the committee have given us those figures, and that is their basis for preparing the next budget. So let’s get the facts on the table and never mind the partisan red-tie dance that we have seen from the government party over the last three months in this Legislature.

The second excuse the Premier and the Treasurer give for the increase in taxes that the working men and women and their families will have to pay in Ontario is that they want to maintain basic services to the people of Ontario -- the basic services of hospitals and highways and social services.

The one cabinet minister who is here is nodding in agreement, so I want to just talk about basic services. I want to put this in the context of the maintenance of those basic services which are given as the excuse for raising taxes in this province. I want to compare the state of basic services in Ontario now, on a ministry-by-ministry basis, and the state of increases in ministry administration budgets since the Liberals came to power, as they pay more for administering those basic programs compared to what basic programs they are delivering.

Let’s talk about the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. It is clear now and it has been clear in conversations with administrative boards and directors of innovation centres in our community colleges across the province that funding is going to be withdrawn, that these are going to close down in the spring. There is no financial commitment forthcoming.

For instance, it is clear in Ottawa that the innovation centre at the local community college will be closed down. That is almost an accepted fact now in the community college locations across this province. It is now clear that community colleges are expecting even more cutbacks, and we saw this in the discussions with respect to Brock University and other community colleges across this province over the past few months.

More cutbacks are coming. There is going to be a reduction in the available courses in our community colleges for our young people. There is going to be a reduction in the number of student positions available because of basic government decisions. We are not getting more financial support for the community college system. We are not getting more support for the university systems. We are getting cutbacks. We are getting reductions in student positions. We are getting reductions in courses.

At the same time that these basic services, which the Premier gave as an excuse for raising taxes, in reality are being cut back, the ministry administration budget of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities has gone from just over $3 million in 1985-86 to $5,912,023 in 1988. While they are cutting back on the basics of college and university education, they are increasing their own ministry administration budget for themselves in Toronto by $2.8 million -- a 90 per cent increase in administering even fewer programs for the college and university students of this province.

With respect to education, the record is clear. We now have a record number of portables. Some schools have more portables than classrooms. It is clear that the support of the provincial government for school boards across this province as a percentage of total budget expenditures is dropping significantly, not increasing. It is clear that we are going to see a recalculation of the grant systems by the Treasury boys so it will look as if the percentage is higher, but in reality it will be lower again in the next budget.

With all of these basic services -- and there is no doubt that this is the perception across the province -- while the financial support for the boards of education is dropping dramatically, while we have a record number of portables and all of the problems of the education system that are not being attended to, the Ministry of Education administrative budget went from $2,368,000 in 1987 to $3,292,000 in 1988, a 40 per cent increase in one year. While they are reducing services to the boards of education to the high school students of this province -- thank you very much -- they are increasing their own ministry administration budgets down here in Queen’s Park by 40 per cent in one year.

What about the Ministry of Health? We have heard stories about bed closures and what they have done to the good people of Cambridge and the Cambridge Memorial Hospital. That has been in front of us in the Legislature. We have seen stories about bed closures at Mount Sinai Hospital and how bed closures are going to be a way of life. We have seen complaints of hospital administrators about a lack of adequate financial support from this government for basic and new services in our hospitals. We have seen the ambulance services in disarray, with absolutely no air ambulance available in Timmins last weekend, for instance. We have seen the threat by the Canadian Red Cross Society, a very responsible group, to close down the homemaker services in this province starting on January 21.

With all of those cutbacks in basic services -- and remember, the Premier said we need these additional taxes to maintain basic services and approve them -- in the Ministry of Health, what do we have in terms of administrative expenses in the Ministry of Health? We have a ministry administrative expense in 1985 of $88,227,000 and by 1988 it is $120,462,000, an increase of $32,235,000. They will take care of themselves down here, thank you very much, but hospitals and basic health care services can suffer. The taxes are going to pay for more staff and more administration expenses and they are not going to the hospitals and the health care programs across this province.

Let’s talk about the Ministry of Labour. There are fewer health and safety inspectors than under the previous government. There are Workers’ Compensation Board delays and Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal delays of three and a half years that can be documented, in getting simple justice for workers under the workers’ compensation system. Assessments from the Workers’ Compensation Board are increasing dramatically. Reforms are socking it to the injured workers.

All of these problems are indicated in the statistics on industrial deaths, accidents and disease in this province, which continue to be unacceptably high and increasing dramatically. At the same time, the Ministry of Labour ministry administrative expenses in 1985 were $12,803,000. By 1988, they were $26,115,000, a 110 per cent increase in administration expenses. And that is not with respect to field services; that is a different element in the budgetary allocation of the Ministry of Labour. They are ministry administration expenses, while the basics of the Ministry of Labour are not being given the priority they deserve.

What about the Ministry of Skills Development? There is an almost complete breakdown in the local offices in Ottawa -- I know this for a fact -- in terms of counselling for workers who are trying to be upgraded and those who want to get access to apprenticeship and retraining programs. With all of this reduction, which is clearly seen in the Skills Development portfolio across this province in local offices and in programs province-wide, we see the Ministry of Skills Development administration budget going from $4,034,000 in 1985-86 to $14,941,000 in 1988, a 220 per cent increase at the same time that the basics for the people of Ontario who need it the most are being reduced.

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What about the Ministry of Northern Affairs? Their great beacon of hope was the heritage fund announced almost two years ago, $35 million a year. Not one dollar has been spent and not one dollar will be spent in this current financial year. Not one dollar has been spent.

There have been no new economic development initiatives in the private sector sponsored in northern Ontario since this government came to power, but oh boy, did they take care of the ministry administration expenses for the Ministry of Northern Development. In 1985, they were $3,771,000; in 1988, they were $14,390,000, a 300 per cent increase. They sure took care of the administration, but there were no heritage fund disbursements and no organization or programs to help northern Ontario industries to create new jobs.

Let’s look at the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation. Clearly, we have seen cutbacks in basic support programs for travel grants for people from eastern and northern Ontario. There is clear evidence now, in spite of the denials of the then Minister of Tourism and Recreation. We have seen the changes with respect to lottery legislation and the complaints of recreation people and groups across the province.

But at the same time as these reductions in financial support were taking place for recreational facilities and services basic to the recreational needs of people across this province, they sure took care of themselves. In 1985 it was $18,227,000 for ministry administrative expenses; by 1988 it was $21,372,000, an increase of over $5.5 million, or 35 per cent, while they were reducing their commitment to the basics that the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation was offering.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: Your math is wrong.

Mr. Pope: I am sorry, my math was wrong. I will go over that again. I thank the minister for reminding me. I gave the minister the wrong numbers. It was $18,227,000 in 1985. In 1988 it was not $21 million; it was $27,495,000, or $6 million more than I thought. That is $9,268,000 more, and that is a 50 per cent increase over the 1985 base. I thank the minister for allowing me to correct that.

Everyone knows that the housing market in Metropolitan Toronto is in worse shape now than ever and that the problem with the homeless in this great community is greater now than it has ever been. We have seen nothing but failure after failure after failure of this Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek) to meet the targets that the Premier and the Treasurer promised in budgets and the speech from the throne. Every single target they have set out has not been met, but at the same time they sure took care of themselves in ministry administration budgets. In 1985 it was $15,814,000, and by 1988 it was $21,372,000, and that was a 35 per cent increase in their budget.

We see the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) spending all sorts of time on diplomatic missions to Washington in a failed acid rain strategy. Any objective assessment will say that it has been a failure in terms of getting any action, but it is very politically sexy, so the Minister of the Environment has embarked on that at the same time he has refused to solve the basic problems of garbage and the disposal of waste in the metropolitan areas of this province.

Those basic decisions have never been further away. There has never been a greater crisis. It has been reported in newspapers across this province, and that crisis has not been addressed or met by this government. But at the same time, the ministry expenses of the Ministry of the Environment have gone from $18 million in 1985 to $30 million in 1988, a 66 per cent increase. They sure took care of themselves, but when it came to the basics of disposing of waste and getting a proper garbage disposal system in this province, they failed the test. The basic services were not provided.

Of course, the crowning touch is the Premier’s office, the operations of the Premier himself, who says he is just spending the same amount that Frank Miller spent. What he did not tell the people of Ontario was that he has neatly shifted some of the expenditures from his own office to the cabinet office. Here is what the true numbers show; they are from the government’s own budgetary documents. In 1985, the cabinet office budget was $3,390,000. By 1988 it was $5,401,000, approximately a $2-million increase or an increase of 60 per cent. They sure take care of themselves and their friends, but when it comes to the basics they are found wanting.

I want to go back and reiterate the two excuses that were given for an increase in taxes to the people of Ontario, the taxes that working men and women and their families have to pay. They were a federal reduction in transfer payments -- that is not what the Treasury experts have said -- and a need to provide money for basic services to the people of Ontario. In fact, the basic services have never been in sorrier shape.

That is the actual history of this government’s performance. They do not deserve to have this additional revenue. They have not shown they can manage the basic services of the province.

In fact, they have shown a real propensity to mismanage basic programs, to the detriment of the people of this province. They have not shown any fiscal responsibility. They will cut everyone else back, but not their own ministry offices, not their own administrative expenses. Everyone else will pay the shot because they do not have their act under control over there.

What are the consequences on a regional basis here in the great city of Metropolitan Toronto? A garbage crisis, a housing crisis, a crisis for the homeless, a crisis with respect to family benefits pensions and a crisis with respect to basic transportation needs at Pearson International Airport and other places.

When we talk about eastern Ontario, we see the promises made by the Premier in 1985 when he said the Queensway would be finished by 1986 or 1987. He laughed at the Progressive Conservative completion date of 1988. He said that was irresponsible, that he wanted to speed up the completion of the Queensway and that he would have it finished by 1986 or at least by 1987. Now what do we have? A projected completion date of 1993.

We now see the Premier’s performance with respect to the federal space agency announced in October 1986. On January 15, 1987, my colleague the member for Carleton asked the Premier what he was doing about getting that federal space agency in Ontario, in the capital region. What was his answer? He did not know much about it. What did the government do about it after that? They wrote two letters to the federal government. In the meantime, Quebec was having dozens of meetings with respect to the establishment of this federal space agency.

Only in September 1988, for partisan purposes, did the government decide to accelerate its sensitivity about the location of the federal space agency in Ontario and start to make it an issue. They could not even convince John Turner, the federal Liberal leader, to support their position.

Clearly, there was nothing that this provincial Liberal government did to help the good people of the national capital region to get this federal space agency. They talked a big story when it came to a federal election campaign, in the hope of getting some partisan advantage of it, but before then they did nothing of substance to try to get that agency into Ontario.

Look at the support for the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board. It was one of four leading growth areas around the province. The other three have received from 50 per cent to 100 per cent of their capital requirements. The Carleton board has received 15 per cent, at most, over the last three years. In some schools, there are now more portable classrooms than classrooms integrated into buildings.

There has been virtually nothing for eastern Ontario in budgets and throne speeches. The one sign of progress we have seen is the removal of the Eastern Ontario Development Corp. office to Pembroke. While they closed the microelectronic centre in Ottawa, while they closed the innovation centre at the University of Ottawa, they did move the EODC to Pembroke.

What about the small hospitals in the Ottawa region that are now being penalized by the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan)? What about even the holding of Liberal events associated with the Grey Cup when all of the local members, except for the one opposition member, the member for Carleton, are invited at taxpayers’ expense to functions that the opposition members are not invited to?

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That is what the Liberal members mean for eastern Ontario: No substantive progress; the basics not being done; no support for eastern Ontario, its innovation centres, its universities, its institutions and structures; no support for the basic industries that add employment to eastern Ontario. It is a complete disgrace, the record of this Liberal government in eastern Ontario.

What about northern Ontario, the Temagami issue, where William Milne and Sons lumber is closing down because of the inaction of this Liberal government? They are going to spend much money on studies and consultants for the Temagami region; and if they had put that money into helping Milne lumber, it would be surviving today and those jobs would not be at risk, would not be lost.

What about the reforestation programs? It is clear that there has been an actual reduction in reforestation support from this government out of the Ministry of Natural Resources in the last year. It is clear that the Ministry of Natural Resources has embarked on a path of the destruction and dissolution of the private tree nurseries that have produced millions of seedlings for the reforestation program in eastern Ontario. Half of them are up for sale now and the rest will be closed in the next year, because of deliberate decisions made by the Ministry of Natural Resources to wind them up.

Roads budgets for access for reforestation purposes are at an all-time low. The decision with respect to the provincial parks denies northerners the right of economic access to these lands to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families as they have traditionally done in the past. The northern Ontario heritage fund has become a joke, even to those who sit on the councils, because this government will not disburse a single dollar with respect to the heritage fund.

The government did not address the gasoline tax it promised to address for northern Ontario. In fact, northerners are paying double the taxes on a yearly basis, in total dollar terms, as the rest of the province, because they drive twice as far. The answer of this government is that it is environmentally sound. I guess they think we should use snowshoes to go from one community to another when we need to do so. That is their indication of environmental sensitivity.

As we go over the urban centre of Toronto, northern Ontario and eastern Ontario, region after region is being alienated by this government, because it refuses to recognize regional priorities and it refuses to work with regional interest groups and economic groups. It believes that it has all the answers within these four walls and no one else counts in this province.

They have the right to increase their ministry administration budgets as they talk to each other and send each other memos, but when it comes to the basics in every region of this province and for the people of this province, they are found wanting. They do not have the same sense of urgency, the same understanding of the problems that they should as a government for this province.

For all of those reasons, we are not prepared to support any tax increase of any nature whatsoever, not this retail sales tax increase, which is unwarranted and unjustified, the increase in the gasoline taxes, all of the other tax increases; $1.3 billion out of the taxpayers’ pockets, people who cannot afford to pay more, in addition to the $2.8 billion in additional revenues they took anyway, without tax increases, to mismanage the basic programs of Ontario that people have grown to accept and need and depend upon. They are being mismanaged.

At the same time, the real spending priority of the Liberal government of the Premier and the Treasurer is to increase their own staff at Queen’s Park, increase their own administrative expenses and increase their own main office expenses as they hire their Liberal friends. In the meantime, the basics that people have a right to expect are not being done.

For all of these reasons, we will not support this legislation. We will not support any legislation to increase taxes. We have no confidence in this Liberal government. We do not think it is committed to providing the basic services to the people of Ontario. We know that, with our words and the words of the members of the opposition party, the New Democratic Party, we have convinced the members of the Liberal government to vote with us against this tax increase.

The Liberals know it is not necessary; they know we do not need it; they know it is unjust; they know this money is being mismanaged. It is the taxpayers, the men and women of this province, who are suffering because of this neglect and mismanagement. We ask them to join with us now in voting against their own government, to clean up the act of this government, exert their influence in the caucus, get it to properly administer its programs, as we have a right to expect, get the minister’s office expenses under control and let us have the basics delivered for the benefit of the people of Ontario.

Mr. Daigeler: I would just like to make a few comments on what the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope) had to say about what he calls the lack of services.

I would like to point out to him, for example in the area of colleges and universities, that the operating grants to the universities since 1985, when this government took power, have increased by 25 per cent. There have been $124 million given towards greater accessibility of our universities to all levels of students from across the province, and $273 million have been committed to 58 post-secondary capital projects. That is the record of government service that the member for Cochrane South fails to recognize and apparently does not want to pay for.

In the area of education, I would like to point out to the member, on the capital side again, that from a measly $75 million in 1985 capital grants, we have increased this to $300 million a year over three years. I will agree with the member for Cochrane South that this is still not enough; however, it is not possible within a fair and reasonable government to make up within three years what the Tories failed to do over 10 years.

The situation we are in, especially on the capital side, is due to the neglect of the Progressive Conservative government, of which the member for Cochrane South was a very important member and for which he has to assume his responsibility.

We have shown over the last three years that we are prepared to increase the capital stock and not burden future generations to pay for it. We are willing to increase the taxes now, pay for it now and have the benefit of new and good capital facilities for our children.

Mr. Harris: I have a question for the member for Cochrane South. I was surprised to hear him say in his remarks that he was at the meeting of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, where the provincial officials from the Ministry of Financial Institutions were laying out documents that indicated that transfers from the federal government are not only keeping pace, but they are keeping pace with the total expenditures which this government has been making.

As we know, this government has been spending at double the rate of inflation. We also know that the Premier, the Treasurer and others, even pre-election and post-election, were going around this province, saying, “We have to tax more, we have to raise more revenue, because the feds are cutting back here, they are cutting back there.”

So something is not jibing. When it is politically opportune, the Premier and the Treasurer are saying one thing publicly, yet the officials of the ministry themselves, when they are finally questioned and have to produce the documentation before the finance committee, have produced these documents that indicate the federal government is still paying the same percentage of the income of this government.

When we look at the spending at double the rate of inflation, the tax dollars coming in at double the rate of inflation, the question I have to ask is why, in this booming province, is the federal government giving so much money to us? Surely it is aware of the way it is spending like drunken sailors. Surely it is aware that the money is being wasted. It has responsibility for the whole country. There have been responsible governments, some of them even Liberal, where, if we look at their budget increases, they are in the four per cent or five per cent range. But ours are double. Why is the federal government wasting all this money, giving it to Ontario, which in turn is throwing it away? I do not understand that.

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Mr. J. B. Nixon: I am enjoying watching the member for Cochrane South and the member for Nipissing begin their leadership campaigns by selling themselves as voices in the wilderness, telling us what we know. I just want to let these guys know that we do not agree with them and they really do not know what we know. What they know may be based upon their assumption of facts, their twisting of facts and their deceptions which they may try to practice upon us. But that has nothing to do with what we think, so whatever they have to say, do not presume that it is what we think.

Mr. Pope: First, the member for Nepean (Mr. Daigeler) took great pride in a 25 per cent increase in transfer payments to the colleges and universities. I thank him very much for making my point because the ministry administration budgets went up by 90 per cent in the last three years; a 90 per cent increase in ministry administration. That is a ministry administration completely out of control and, I might say to the member for York Mills (Mr. J. B. Nixon), that is from his own documents. So that is not what we think; that is what he is telling us.

If the member is saying he is not telling us the truth, that would not surprise us. It would not surprise us that he would not be telling us the truth in the documents, but I am just quoting from his documents. If he wants to know whether we are talking about what we know, it is his own documents; he is telling us.

Talking about the increase in capital stock, the member for Nepean took great pride in that. We have never had as many portables in this province as we have today. We have never had crisis in the quality of education as we have had today, and it is due to the Liberal government mismanagement of the capital allocations to the boards of education.

It is a disgrace what is happening in Carleton, and for the member for Nepean to be an apologist for what is happening to the Carleton Board of Education is absolutely unconscionable. That is a betrayal of the interests of eastern Ontario. I cannot believe that the member for Nepean is saying that.

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I go back to my basic appeal to the people of this province to reject these tax increases, reject this budget that fostered these tax increases, reject this Liberal government’s mismanagement of the programs of the government, reject this Liberal government’s mismanagement in expenditures on itself for ministry administration -- a lot of it wasted in memos and studies of each other -- turf this crew out because it has become financially irresponsible. Join us and we will do it.

Mr. Brandt: I am honoured to follow my colleague the member for Cochrane South in the very eloquent and very pervasive arguments he raised with respect to the reasons why the people of Ontario should look very carefully at what is being proposed by this government by way of tax increases.

Mr. Furlong: Say “ditto,” Andrew.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. One member at a time, please.

Mr. Brandt: He has put his arguments forward in, I think, a very forceful manner and I would like to underline the comments that he has made by saying that I listened, both from my office and in this House, very carefully to the issues that he has identified. I am in total, complete and unequivocal agreement with everything the member for Cochrane South has said. I would like to build on some of those arguments and share my thoughts with the members of the House.

With respect to Bill 122 in particular, and the attendant increase in the sales tax from seven per cent to eight per cent -- and I know this point has been made before but I want to underline it again. Some people may have some misinformation with respect to this particular tax, that it is a tax of only one per cent increase. In fact, on the base -- and the Treasurer full well knows the amount of money that one point on the tax raises -- it is about a 14 per cent increase in revenue in that particular area alone.

It is not just the increase in the sales tax that bothers me. It is not just the fact that we are reaching deeper and deeper into the pockets of the taxpayers that bothers me. What bothers me are some of the comments, some of the positions; the attitude, if you will, that was taken by the Treasurer himself when he sat on this side of this very esteemed chamber not all that many years ago.

The last time the sales tax was increased through all of those Conservative governments that served in office for those many years was back in 1973. What did the Treasurer of the day say when another government raised the sales tax? He indicated, number one, that it was a serious enough problem, my friends, that we should go to the people and have an election on it. That is what he said and that is why my friend the member for Carleton is saying to members that the people of this province should reject this particular tax, as well as the host of other tax increases that they have brought in.

We should ask the people whether they, in fact, want to be subjected to -- and hear me well -- the largest tax increases in the history of this province, the largest percentage tax increases of any government anywhere in Canada. That is what they are so proud of over on that side of the House and what they should be embarrassed about.

The Treasurer in 1973, when he was in his former capacity as a critic for the Ministry of the Treasury, indicated that the sales tax was regressive. I agree with what the Treasurer said in his former capacity as a critic. Why did he say that? I ask that of my Liberal friends. They know as well as I do that a sales tax hits everybody in society in an equal way. The rich, the poor and those in between all pay the same percentage by the application of that very regressive sales tax.

The unfairness of a tax which hits particularly hard at those who are poor in our society is the very kind of tax which the people opposite me and some of those with loud voices to the left of me feel that they can bring before the people of Ontario and have them accept. I will tell them that the people of Ontario do not accept this sales tax, and they want this government to roll it back. They want the government to live within its means in a more effective way than certainly it has been able to show up until this point in time.

As a result of these tremendous increases in taxes, some $1.3 billion, how effectively has the government used that money? Has it reduced the deficit? It has reduced the deficit very slightly, yes. The overall deficit continues to grow, continues to increase.

Let me share some figures with members. The interest on the deficit alone in 1975 was $4.4 million a day. That was back in 1975. In 1988 it has now grown to more than double that to $10.4 million a day, which is $433,000 an hour, which is $7,220 a minute, which is $120, rounded, a second. As each second goes by, interestingly enough, the interest on the deficit is costing us $120.

Mr. Furlong: You were in office for nine of those years.

Mr. Brandt: I hear the member beside me indicating that we were in office for many of those years. I am glad he said that because that was a trap I laid for him. The trap happens to me that of the $10.5 million a day in deficits on interest, it is interesting that his government in three short years is responsible for about $2.5 million of that -- fully 25 per cent of it in the last two and a half years alone.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Shame on you.

Mr. Campbell: Shame -- getting the triple A rating back.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. May I remind the members that it is one member at a time, and of course the member will address his remarks exclusively through the Speaker.

Mr. Brandt: If that is the way it works, then I will do that, Mr. Speaker.

I want to read into the record what is happening with this deficit problem because I think, of all parties in the House, it appears that the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario is the only one that has a concern about deficit reduction and how we are dealing with this particular problem.

But I want to say to members that we had a convert at some time in the past. That convert back in the mid-1970s was no less an individual than the Premier himself. Here is what he had to say about deficits: “Endless deficit financing is destructive. It is the essence of irresponsibility to be transferring wealth from the next generation to your own.” That is what the Premier had to say back in the mid-1970s, when he was indicating some concern about the increased cost of deficits and deficit financing.

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The situation has become far more serious today than it was back in 1975 and 1980, because the interest is going up at a tremendously rapid rate and is now costing us a tremendous amount of money -- $120 on a per-second basis -- just to service the interest costs alone on our deficit.

What is the problem with the budget and the tax increases that were necessitated by this budget and this government? The problem, obviously, is that they had to increase taxes to pay for certain programs, and they had to increase taxes in order to reduce as much as they did, which was only very slightly, some of the deficit they have been carrying since they have been in office. But they have also done a number of other things that have necessitated these very rapid increases in taxes at a time when they have been experiencing record revenues.

The revenues have been going up very rapidly in this province, but they are not enough; and to put the whole matter into perspective, the reason this government requires more in terms of new taxes very simply is that it continues to spend at more than double the rate of inflation. Is that acceptable?

I guess in good times it would be acceptable if the government in fact spent slightly above the level of inflation, if there were particular programs it wanted to introduce that were of value, of necessity and required by the people of Ontario. But, interestingly enough, when you take a look at some of the things this government has done with that new money, what you see is that it has in fact hired more staff in the ministers’ offices.

They have hired more staff in the provincial bureaucracy and at a more rapid rate than any government that I am aware of anywhere in the entire country. While other governments are trying to control the size of their bureaucracy, control the size of their staff, we have a free-spending, irresponsible government across from us, which gives no consideration to that kind of concern whatsoever.

Now, what do we have to replace, if you will, the kind of activity they are engaged in with respect to all this new hiring and all this new spending? Well, on the other hand, the other side of the ledger, what we have is a government now becoming known for waiting lines: waiting lines in hospitals, waiting lines for licences, waiting lines for housing and for everything you can think of. All the basic necessities of life in this province are now becoming impossible to receive from this government, even though it has had record revenues and record tax increases. It boggles the imagination that we could get this kind of bad administration and bad management to result in a problem in Ontario where people cannot get access to very fundamental and basic services.

By increasing taxes, as it has, from seven per cent to eight per cent in Bill 122, the government also accomplishes another very nasty kind of thing that bothers me: that is, it squeezes the total amount of revenue that is in the gross provincial product so that fewer dollars are left in the hands of those people who are required to pay those particular taxes. Any economist will tell you that there is room for government taxation, there is room for government activity, if you will, within the total productivity of a province, but once you go over a certain line, once you edge a little too close to the bone in terms of what you are taking out of society, there is not enough to keep the engine of growth running.

I have indicated that this particular tax increase is specifically a burden on those people who are at marginal income levels. It is particularly hard on people who live in eastern and northern Ontario, in areas where there are high levels of unemployment, because those people do not have the financial wherewithal to be able to buy products, goods and so forth if in fact there is a constant and continuing increase in the cost of purchasing those particular products.

It hits a whole range of things. It hits the affordability of housing, which this government says is a high priority. Well, how can it be a high priority when literally everything associated with the housing market has been taxed and increased taxes have been placed on top of those taxes?

Obviously, the statement the government has made with respect to the importance of housing and providing affordable housing in our communities is a worthless statement because it continues to tax and, therefore, to raise the prices on these particular products, like housing, and put them out of the reach of people who would otherwise be able to afford them.

But the tax is even more insidious than that, because it reaches into virtually every pocket of every person throughout our society. It costs the municipalities more money. They, in turn, have to pass those tax increases on to the home owners, and then the property taxes have to increase to reflect that kind of additional grab by the Treasurer.

It affects school boards, and we have the same kind of scenario there, where once again they have to ask for more money from property taxpayers in order to be able to pay their bills. It affects hospitals. But more particularly the ones who concern me are the consumers. They are hit in a very regressive way, if I may use the term used by the Treasurer back in 1975, when he very clearly and, I think, very appropriately identified this as a regressive tax.

That is the reason, I want to say to my friends opposite, that the governments through the years 1973 on to 1985 never touched the provincial sales tax. We were convinced that it was, in fact, a regressive tax. It did not reflect a person’s ability to pay. It reflected only a tax grab that could move by some 14 per cent or 15 per cent in one fell swoop because the Treasurer decided it was a nice easy way to fill up his particular coffers.

What we have is a government that seems to hold very dearly to the philosophy that it can tax, tax, tax and spend, spend, spend without being responsible to the people who elected it to office. I say that is simply not acceptable to our party.

If you talk about budgetary control, administrative control and good management, what you normally talk about is a Treasurer and a government that can set forth their position relative to the economics of the province and their budgetary expenditures and can project those with some degree of integrity and credibility. What has happened with this government, in spite of all the measures it has taken, some of which I have pointed out today in regard to increasing taxes in this province, is that it has exceeded its expenditure predictions every single year it has been in office. Not once have this Treasurer and this government been able to live within their own budget which they established at the outset of the year.

Therefore, I would say in a very direct sense to the government that it has to learn to live within its means, as taxpayers have to learn to live within their means. Taxpayers are not getting eight per cent, nine per cent or 10 per cent increases. Taxpayers have to be satisfied, in most negotiated settlements, in most contracts that I have seen that have been resolved in the last year or two years, with an increase in the four per cent to five per cent range.

Is that adequate for this government? No. This government finds it necessary to be spending at almost double-digit rates, at almost 10 per cent, annualized. In fact, if you took them over the last three years, it would average out at about a 10 per cent increase on an annual basis. That is clearly double the rate of inflation and that is clearly double the rate at which other people in society are receiving increases, if they are fortunate enough to receive any increases at all.

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It is interesting to note that on the base of 1984 to 1985, the year this government took over, it has increased taxes by some 72 per cent in this province. That is a horrendous number, a frightening number and a clear indication of a government that is out of control in its expenditures. If the members opposite do not buy the fact that their expenditures are out of control, then let them answer one very simple question: Why, of all governments in this entire country, are this government’s expenditures going up faster than anybody else’s? Why are this government’s tax rates and tax increases going up faster than any other government’s anywhere in this entire country?

Mr. Ballinger: It is the fastest-growing province.

Mr. Brandt: You ought to be ashamed.

Mr. Ballinger: No, I am not ashamed.

Mr. Brandt: Come on down here and sit beside me and show the people of Ontario who you are. Why don’t you do that?

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Ballinger: You ought to be ashamed, making all these outlandish statements.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The standing orders call for one member at a time and the remarks through the Speaker. The member for Sarnia.

Mr. Brandt: Mr. Speaker, I want to repeat my remarks, because the member behind me from the Liberal Party found it necessary to indicate in his own belligerent fashion that I was not being open, fair and honest with the people with respect to the statement that I just made, so I will repeat it for the purpose of Hansard.

No government in this entire country is increasing its expenditures at a rate that is even comparable or even close to the rate of increase of the government of Ontario. No government in this entire country is raising taxes as fast as this government is, at more than double the rate of inflation.

If this money were going to the people, if it were going for affordable housing, if it were going into environmental control programs, if it were going into expansion of our hospital system and our education system to get rid of some of the portables; if it were going for those purposes, then our party would not disagree with some of those increases. But I have to tell members, that is not the case.

Much of the money is going into areas that concern me, areas such as advertising and ministers’ offices. Some of the most rapid increases on a percentage basis of any expenditures in that entire government are right inside the four walls of the very ministers who are supposed to be controlling their budgets. That causes me some concern.

We have now got deputies in this government who are earning up to, according to the latest figures released by the government, $130,000 per year. But we have changed the ground rules, have we not, fellows? What we have done, my friends, is that we no longer identify specifically who is getting paid what. What we now have is a bracket, and I think the bracket for deputies is something like $85,000 to $130,000. It happens to be more than $130,000, but --

Hon. Mr. Wrye: It is a salary range.

Mr. Brandt: That is right. Well, it happened that not too many years ago, during the term of a former government, you could specifically look at a deputy and, in fact, at every single employee who earned $50,000 per year or more. Their names were printed right beside their salaries so that you could clearly identify what everybody was getting paid.

Here is a government that talks about no walls, no barriers, open government. All of a sudden everybody is clustered under a category, and those categories, of course, have been inflated very substantially. Why does this government need a seven to eight per cent increase in sales tax? Well, they have to pay these people, and they have to pay them this very substantial increase that many of them have received.

I ask the government, is it ashamed to print their names? Why did the government have this cabinet decision to get rid of the clear identification of who was getting paid what in this government? The reality is that all of a sudden a government that prided itself and stated very clearly that it was not going to have any walls and any barriers and was going to be open in every respect, is a government that is holding back on releasing information with respect to the salaries that are paid for by the taxpayers of this province. I say that is wrong.

I would also like to say that since the time I came into this House back in 1981, if the government is taking a look at where it can cut back expenditures and where it can control costs, maybe this is a small item, but it is an interesting one. If you listen to people who have been at least relatively successful in life, they will tell you that if you look after the pennies, ultimately the dollars will look after themselves.

This may be a small item with respect to the overall expenditures within this budget, but it is interesting the way in which this government proceeds with public relations events: the glossy brochures, the high travel costs, the many seminars, the many meetings and all of the so-called consultation and the wine and cheese parties.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: Just because your limo doesn’t stop at La Scala any more.

Mr. Brandt: Look, don’t tell me. I can see it day in and day out. There has never been so much stroking of the Ontario public with its own money in all the years I have been in this place, at a cost which is very, very significant. That bothers me.

I would like to go on and talk about the gas tax. I would like to go on and talk about the fact that this government, again more than any other government in the entire country, is increasing personal income taxes faster than anyone else is doing it. You cannot look at a tax, you cannot look at a part of the budget that is not being abused by this government in a way that is unequalled or even modestly unequalled by anyone anywhere else in the country.

I say that this government is wrong. Our party indicates to it very, very directly and very sincerely that it has to start putting a lid on expenditures, it has to start bringing this kind of increase in taxation under control, because we may well head into rougher economic waters. The government has had three pretty good years in terms of revenues and revenue increases, but it has to learn to cut the suit to fit the cloth, and it may have to learn to live with less. That is something this government has never had to do.

It should be very careful with the money that it gets from the taxpayers of this province. They work very hard for it and they deserve to be treated in a way in which they get full value for the money they give the government in trust to spend on their behalf. They are not getting full value for their money under this government.

Mr. B. Rae: I am delighted to participate in the debate and to follow such a distinguished speaker as the member for Sarnia, who preceded me. I will have things to say about Conservative contradictions as the time proceeds, but nobody could have stated those contradictions more eloquently and more effectively than the leader of the third party.

I am delighted to participate in this debate; I always enjoy participating in budget debates. Perhaps it reminds me of my previous incarnation in another place when I participated very actively in budget debates, but I do have some things to say about this government’s approach to taxing and to spending that I would like to share with the House.

It was the great American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes who said that when he paid taxes, he liked to think he was buying a little piece of civilization. I think most of us who pay taxes would like to be able to feel that way. I think that when one looks at the way in which this government misspends and misallocates money and considers whom it taxes and how it taxes them, it is hard to share the sentiments expressed over a hundred years ago by Mr. Justice Holmes.

I do want to say that, on the taxing side, this province is in as great a need of glasnost and perestroika as other places have been in other aspects of their administration. There has not been any significant tax reform in this province. What we have had is a series of taxes added on over time.

It is quite interesting. If you look at the tax system in Ontario, you can see it is a kind of geological layer. It is very interesting to examine the history of taxes in Ontario, because obviously the tax system has reflected the changing nature of our province and the changing nature of our society, as it has reflected the growing needs, and indeed the growing appetites, of governments.

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The taxes on property, for example, have long been a foundation of our system. I think it is important for us to notice that like the iceberg, these taxes are not widely discussed in this forum because they are discussed in every single municipal forum and in every municipal council and every board of education. I think all of us realize that the taxes this government does not impose are taxes that are frequently imposed on local property taxpayers and a much higher rate ends up being paid by them than might otherwise be the case.

If I can speak personally on behalf of my constituents, I can tell members that in the city of York, which in the context of Metropolitan Toronto is the area which has the lowest general income and which, because it does not have a substantial industrial base, has a very high mill rate and a very high property tax level paid by its citizens, the issue of property taxes and property tax reform is at the very forefront of the political agenda.

I do want to say that when it comes time in this House -- and it may not come time in this House, it may come time in the next election; we may not get to it in this Legislature because the Liberals may not put it to the people of this province -- to look at the issue of tax fairness, which I will be addressing in my speech today, we have to deal with the question of how the property tax has grown, how its impact has particularly hurt younger couples and older people who are either not into their full range of earning power or past their full range of earning power, and deal with the fact that the property tax, for the most part, remains unrelated to ability to pay and so is an unfair way of raising as many taxes as we do in this province.

The principle of taxation is very clear. The first principle, of course, is that it should be based on ability to pay. The second is that no burden of taxation should be so onerous as to prevent the economy from working effectively and from working in a way that will generate the most jobs and generate the most fairness, which is what we expect from our economy.

Many charges have been levelled at the New Democratic Party over the years, none more frequently than the charge that we simply want to spend money all the time and that we do not have any regard for how government spends and that we have no regard for economy in government. I am here to say that of all the charges levelled against our party, that is perhaps as unfounded as any.

If we look at where New Democrats have been in government, at the historical experience of our party in Saskatchewan, at the way in which our party has always attempted to combine a sense of economic fairness with the tough decisions governments have to make, I think it is important to recognize that there will always be this limitation on governments in terms of their responses to the tax system: You never want to get a situation where any government feels that it is rolling in dough, if I can repeat a phrase used in my presence by the Premier the other day.

There has been a mood in this province, certainly since 1985, since the recovery that began in 1984, that the Progressive Conservatives -- tragically for them, I think, on the whole; not so tragically for everyone else -- were not able to take advantage of that dramatic increase in revenues. But still, the fact of the matter is that there was a long recovery that began in 1984 which went through 1985, 1986, 1987 and now we are in 1988. It has been a long, rolling recovery, which has meant that there are more people working, there are more people making more money and there are more taxes being paid to the government of Ontario than at any time in our history.

It is also fair to say that this relative affluence, combined with a government only too willing, from time to time, to impose new kinds of taxes and new levels of taxes, has produced an extraordinary windfall in terms of government revenues, which has been the experience of this Liberal government and this Liberal Party since 1985.

How has this government been taxing? What is interesting about its approach is that it involves absolutely no significant reform of any kind directed at dealing with the major problems of our tax systems. The major problem in our tax system is that working people, working families, ordinary folks, pay too much and those who are more well-off and wealthier pay too little.

It may sound like an excruciatingly simple formula, but in fact it is true. If we take the average couple and the average working person and look at where and how they pay taxes, there is precious little opportunity for that person or that family to avoid taxes.

If they own their own home, they pay taxes to the city. There is no avoiding that. If you do not pay your taxes to your city, you cannot stay in your house for very long. Every time they go to the store or every time they make a purchase or every time they buy anything, regardless of whether it is a necessity or a luxury, with the exception of food in a grocery store, they pay sales tax.

My colleague from the third party said that the Tories never touched the sales tax between 1973 and 1985, by which he meant the Tories never increased the level of the sales tax from seven per cent. But I remember the budget in 1982 very vividly, when the Tories did touch the sales tax, because they broadened the base so that it would touch a numbers of things which had previously been exempt from taxation.

In fact, it is not entirely the case -- and I do not want to expand this argument too much -- that the Tories did not touch the sales tax between 1973 and 1985. Mr. Miller did touch the sales tax, and I think it is fair to say he suffered some political criticism for doing so, quite rightly, in my judgement.

Having broadened the base -- in other words, having had the touch-up blow delivered by Mr. Miller -- we now have the knockout blow delivered by this Treasurer. We can look at the Carter report on tax reform; we can look at the Smith report on tax reform some 20 years ago; we can look, most recently, at the Thomson report on poverty in Ontario. These reports make it very clear -- certainly, the Thomson report makes it very clear -- that our commonsense judgement that the sales tax is an unfair way to raise taxes is absolutely correct.

The sales tax is an unfair way to raise taxes. It is unfair because whether it is Joe Blow or Conrad Black who is making a purchase of a coat or a car, he is paying exactly the same tax to the government of Ontario, regardless of his wealth. That is what makes it an unacceptable tax.

If we look at the history of the sales tax, it is a reasonably recent invention. There is one province, Alberta, which still does not have a sales tax. But I might point out that this government sees the sales tax clearly, early on in its life as a government, as the opportunity simply to soak up hundreds of millions of dollars on the basis of that one per cent increase in the sales tax.

The argument is: “Well, it’s not very painful. People will be angry for a week, but they won’t be worried too much about it.” I was fascinated to see a picture of the leader of the third party, on a rather cold day, standing at a subway station handing out a leaflet to passengers about to get on to the subway. I know what he was telling them, in addition to introducing himself as Andrew S. Brandt, the interim leader of the third party, the Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario. I am sure that after he got that out, he said he wanted to talk to them about the sales tax and how unfair the Liberal tax increases were.

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Mrs. Marland: No. He wanted to talk to them about being Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. B. Rae: To my colleague, the member for Mississauga South, I can only say that job is spoken for for the next two years. After that, the voters will decide who will be here and who will be there.

When the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt) was talking about the Liberal tax grab, I wonder if at the same time as he was discussing that he was discussing the implications of the national sales tax, this monstrosity about to be imposed on us not simply by the Minister of Finance of Canada, Mr. Wilson, but also by the Treasurer of this province.

This is not a single act; this is a double act. The national sales tax will happen only when the provinces and the federal government get together and agree that they are going to occupy that field together and impose a new level of taxation on the voters.

The Treasurer may like to think and may want us to believe that he is like the proverbial piano player downstairs in a house of ill repute who has no idea what is going on upstairs, but I am here to tell members that act of feigned innocence on the part of the Treasurer will not work. He is deeply involved, he is as involved as he possibly can be, in the imposition of this new national sales tax. I am here to tell members it is time he came clean on the national sales tax and its implications for taxpayers in this province.

Hon. Mr. Conway: I can scarcely believe my ears.

Mr. B. Rae: I know it shocks the ears of the government House leader, but I can simply say to him that if he does not think his colleague who sits merely two seats away from him is intimately involved in these discussions at the national level on the introduction of a national sales tax, then he is even more naïve and innocent than I had previously believed him to be.

Hon. Mr. Conway: That’s pretty hard to imagine.

Mr. B. Rae: And it is hard to conceptualize in any other way.

Let’s look again at this question of tax fairness and tax reform. The first thing I have suggested is that if you are going to have tax reform, it has to deal with the unfairness of the property tax as it is now imposed on most people. The second thing is, if you are going to have tax reform, you cannot rely on the sales tax the way the Liberal and Conservative governments have relied on sales taxes, whether working separately or together.

A fair taxation system would be one in which every profitable corporation in this province that was able to pay taxes would pay those taxes. I know this will shock members when I tell them that there are in fact thousands of corporations in this province which are profitable that do not pay any income tax whatsoever. Every cent that is not paid by those corporations is paid for by my constituents; it is paid for by the people who live in public housing, who are paying more in a sales tax simply because this government does not have the courage to tax those who have great wealth. It is paid for by those senior citizens who live in their own homes in my riding, who are paying more in property tax, sales tax and income tax because this government does not have the will to impose a fair burden of taxation on those who should pay.

Let me take one other example, this question of lot levies which has been raised, which I think deals directly with the question of who pays taxes and when they pay them. Can members imagine, can we conceive of a tax that would be more unfair than to say that a new home buyer should be paying an upfront amount of $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 or $8,000 towards the construction of schools and hospitals, when all the other citizens, perhaps the very well endowed who already have their own homes, are not being asked to pay that tax?

Why is it that the Liberals always say, “This part of the economy is booming; let’s make that part of the economy the part that pays”? Why is it that my friends in the Conservative Party are approving an approach which for the first time in the history of Canada will impose a sales tax on the sale of real property, a national sales tax which would be a national provincial-federal tax?

I am describing it here: “Individual A purchases a new home from developer X after the implementation date of the tax. Shortly after moving in, A is transferred and sells the house.

“The tax will apply to the sale by developer X of the new home. A will not be entitled to claim any input credit in respect of the purchase price.”

That is what is being contemplated, both by the Treasurer and by the Minister of Revenue. That is the tax that I think is so unfair because it means an additional $10,000, $20,000 or $30,000 on the price of a new home, which places already expensive and indeed exorbitantly priced homes out of the reach of ordinary citizens.

I want to touch in my closing few moments, if I may, not only on the fact that the sales tax is unfair but also on the fact that user fees generally have been increasingly relied on by governments and are unfair, that the property tax should not be used as extensively as it has been by governments, that the income tax system should be made genuinely progressive and fair and should not be imposed on people on low incomes, but instead should be made even more progressive than it is, and that the corporation tax should become an effective way of raising money. I want to suggest that we need to look again at the question of how we tax wealth and how we tax inheritance in this province and indeed in this country.

It has been almost an undiscussed subject, but it is one that needs to be discussed. When we moved, as a country, to introduce the capital gains tax in the late 1960s and early 1970s, one of the things that the capital gains tax was supposed to accomplish was the taxation of wealth as it transferred between generations. For that reason, we saw across the country a pattern where, in province after province, taxes on inheritance and taxes on wealth, as it transferred between generations, at the provincial level were abolished. They were abolished for the principal reason that in a sense they were in addition to the capital gains tax and seemed to act unfairly in that regard.

As a result, in relation to other countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development -- and even, I might add, in relation to the United States -- we have a country where we tax wealth less effectively in this province and in this country than virtually any other OECD jurisdiction. It is easier for large amounts of wealth -- when I say large, I mean not only hundreds of thousands but millions and indeed tens and hundreds of millions of dollars -- to be transferred from one generation to the next in this province than it is in virtually any other jurisdiction.

What is the result of this kind of transfer? My friends on the free-enterprise right will say that an individual should be able to do with his wealth what he wants and that the state should not interfere with that decision. But I say to those on my right, if they genuinely believe in the principle of equality of opportunity -- I know they believe genuinely in the principle of equality -- and if they think that equality must be limited only to equality of opportunity and not to some notion of equality of result, if they genuinely believe in that, then surely they, of all parties, should be saying, “We must make sure that inequality is not transferred from generation to generation and that we do not have the kinds of inequities within generations that we now have in this province and in this country.”

The reality is that most people in this province who are well-off are well-off because their parents either are or were well-off. Most people in this province who are wealthy are wealthy for one reason alone: they have inherited that wealth. I see the member is shaking his head. I am sorry to tell him he is wrong. If one looks at the tax statistics, at the numbers which are available, at the documents which have been made available by the Canadian Tax Foundation and at the information that has been made available to various royal commissions, our wealth in this country is more concentrated than in virtually any other jurisdiction within the OECD.

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We have more wealth concentrated in fewer hands. We have more families able to pass wealth on from generation to generation without any interference or any taking away or any equalizing by government, whether provincial or federal, than in virtually any other jurisdiction.

I am here to tell them that if they are going to talk about tax reform in this country and in this province, they have to talk about how we tax wealth and how we tax inheritance. There is no other way. There is no other answer.

If we are not prepared to do that, if we are not prepared to say that we do not want to see the children of poor people placed at an incredible disadvantage in relation to the children of the affluent, if we genuinely share a belief in equality of opportunity, which I think in all parties we do, then why this continued attachment to the idea that those who can stand on the shoulders of their parents or their grandparents should somehow have such advantage over those who have no such parents or grandparents to give them money?

I say to members opposite that what is most troublesome about what has happened in this province in the last five years is the way in which this boom has been unfairly shared. What is most troublesome about this affluent society in which we live is that we have lost sight of our obligation to love one another and to care for one another in this crazed search for affluence and success.

I am here to say that the inequality between people, between generations, between different classes, between different groups, between different regions, the inequality between what has gone on in Metropolitan Toronto and what is happening in various other parts of this province, has become worse, has been exacerbated and has become more serious as a result of this boom, without the government having the courage to intervene to share wealth more effectively. That is what a decent and reasonable taxation system should do.

Nothing symbolizes more clearly the abject failure of this government to deal with this problem than its consistent refusal to impose a speculation tax in Ontario.

What is the logic of saying to a woman who lives on the 17th floor of a public housing estate, “We are going to increase your sales tax by one percentage point and we are going to increase the cost to you of the things you purchase by as much as 13 or 14 per cent,” in terms of the sales tax she will have to pay, in terms of the tax component of what she spends, but saying at the same time that when you have condominium developments on the Lakeshore, the government is not prepared to tax those, when it is estimated as many as 60 per cent of the units in those condos are not being purchased by people who intend to live in them, but by people who intend to use them as a speculative investment? What is the message that comes forth from government?

From this government, it is very clear. It has been an easy ride for the last three years in terms of taxes. They have imposed them where they thought people would not be able to fight back and would not be willing to fight back.

I am here to tell members that I think the government has badly miscalculated, because at the same time as the quality of life has deteriorated and the needs have grown for a great many of our citizens, this government has spent so unwisely and so badly. There is the sense that it has been, to use the Premier’s marvellous phrase, “rolling in dough these last few years.” That is the sense people have.

I am glad my line was borrowed by the leader of the third party on this becoming a province of waiting lines and waiting lists. I take that as a compliment. I have always thought imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. It has become a province of waiting lines and waiting lists, where the demands for public service have grown and will continue to grow. When citizens look at the tax system, they want a little bit of fairness, and when they look at government, they want a little bit of service.

When citizens do not get that, their anger grows. We look at a government that has done nothing to deal with the transportation crisis, that has not looked at the cities of France, the cities of England, the cities of Europe and seen what modern transportation systems can be like. You can leave London and drive on an electric train for 30, 40 or 50 minutes and you can be literally tens of miles outside of the centre of town. You cannot do that with respect to this so-called world-class city we created right here in Toronto.

There is much to be done but at the very foundation of everything government does is its social contract with its citizens. This is where I go back to Mr. Justice Holmes, who said when he paid taxes, he would like to think that he was buying a little piece of civilization. There are not very many citizens in this province who have that feeling when they pay their taxes, and that is far more eloquent an expression of what has gone wrong in Liberal Ontario, on the derailment of Peterson’s Ontario, than any speech I might give.

Having said that, I have now spoken for my allotted half-hour. I want to express my appreciation to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House for listening to how much importance we continue to attach to this question of tax reform.

The Acting Speaker: Are there any comments or questions arising out of the speech by the Leader of the Opposition? Are there any other participants in the debate? There are no other participants in the debate?

Mr. Faubert: I was waiting for someone else.

The Acting Speaker: Is this the final wrapup of this bill by all parties?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: We have no idea what is going on over there, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, if I might, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Revenue will be making concluding remarks on behalf of the government.

Mr. Faubert: I would like to thank the members for their participation in this debate and I would like, on behalf of the Minister of Revenue, to offer some comments on the issues raised. I would also appreciate the consideration given to me by the opposition and the third party to assist me in this task by allowing me to speak on this side of the House.

Mr. Brandt: Unencumbered.

Mr. Faubert: Unencumbered.

Bill 122 gives effect to a key component of the 1988 budget of the Treasurer; that is, to increase the sales tax rate from seven per cent to eight per cent.

During this debate, honourable members have been quick to criticize this measure without giving due credit to the fiscal responsibility exhibited by the overall budget. The question that keeps being asked or commented on is, where is it planned all the money will go? I just point out to the members opposite that an excerpt from page 60 of the Ontario budget gives an answer to the question, where is it planned for the retail sales tax will go?

In five major categories alone, which set out the priorities for this government, it indicates that the Ministry of Colleges and Universities is to get a 7.5 per cent increase; the Ministry of Community and Social Services, a 14.6 per cent increase; the Ministry of Education, a 6.2 per cent increase; the Ministry of the Environment, a 9 per cent increase; the Ministry of Health, a 9.8 per cent increase.

We would indicate that is called catch-up and that is the question that was raised. In response, certain members said, “Why are we in Ontario expending money at a faster rate than anyone else?” I would say, as stated by the Treasurer in his budget speech, that our government’s program of continued reduction in cash requirements and pay-as-you-go approach to fiscal management will enable us to prepare for the economic challenges of the future.

With this budget, the government’s expenditure priorities are accomplished with the lowest deficit in 19 years. I remind the honourable members that the forecast deficit for the fiscal year 1988-89 was $473 million, which is down from $1.2 billion in 1987-88 and $1.3 billion in 1986-87. In addition, transfers to local governments and school boards increased from $7.7 billion in 1987-88 to $8.4 billion in 1988-89, an increase of nine per cent in one year. That is what I would call fiscal responsibility.

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La majoration de la taxe de vente au détail aura pour effet d’augmenter les recettes de quelque 900 millions de dollars sur une année complète. Cette majoration contribuera à génerer les recettes nécessaires pour investir dans l’amélioration des programmes de soins de santé, d’éducation et divers programmes sociaux.

Even with the eight per cent rate, Ontario still has the lowest rate in Canada. Provinces to the east of Ontario have higher rates, ranging from nine per cent in Quebec to 12 per cent in Newfoundland. With this budget, we are funding our priorities and meeting our commitments in a fiscally responsible manner.

I believe all speakers mentioned the problem of regressivity associated with the sales tax system, which has also been recognized by Mr. Wilson in his tax-reform, stage-2 proposals. Here at the provincial level, however, the regressivity of sales tax has been reduced for low-income and middle-income earners by exempting necessities of life such as food and home heating and providing tax credit for low-income families.

In the budget “Highlights,” under “Ontario Tax Assistance Programs,” I point out where some of this is going. “The budget enriches and restructures tax assistance benefits to low-income Ontarians. New property and sales tax credit programs will deliver $444 million in tax credit benefits to over 1.8 million low-income Ontarians. Sales tax credits are set at $100 per adult and $50 per child, more than doubling the total benefits under this program for low-income households. The new $40-million Ontario tax reduction program will eliminate provincial income tax for 350,000 low-income tax-filers.”

On that basis, that is what is called addressing regressivity of the tax.

I would also like to address what the member for London North (Mrs. Cunningham), the member for Nipissing, the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Morin-Strom) and the member for Sarnia all stated, and that was that this is the largest tax grab in the history of the province.

It is very interesting that in 1988, this year, the increase in the retail sales tax from seven per cent to eight per cent is a 14 per cent increase on base tax, but let’s put that in perspective. It is not the largest in the history of Ontario. Let’s try 1966: The rate increased from three per cent to five per cent for a 60 per cent increase, and who was the government at that time? Let’s try 1973: The sales tax rate increased from five per cent to seven per cent for a 40 per cent increase, and who was the government of the day?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Who?

Mr. Faubert: We all know it was the Tories.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: You have to go back to 1966 to find something bad?

Mr. Faubert: No, 1973 was pretty bad too.

I would also like to comment on something that was touched on by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. B. Rae). In responding to the comment by the member for Sarnia, who said the Tories had not touched the sales tax from 1973 to 1985, I think he forgets the 1982 budget which abolished exemptions for municipalities, school boards, hospitals, and incidentally, as of today, zoos.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: That is when you guys wanted to bring them down, as I recall.

Mr. Faubert: It abolished the $6 exemption for working people’s lunches. The interesting thing is that it applied to every doughnut at Tim Horton’s. It abolished the exemption on personal hygiene products. The 1982 budget also required some 30,000 small-scale vendors to become sales tax collectors, and it taxed labour on repairs to cars and appliances, which hurt people who cannot afford new cars, new appliances or alterations.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Some of us were here for all these dastardly things.

Mr. Faubert: It still went on.

In this connection, it is worth noting that some of the extra revenues from the sales tax increase, an estimated $84 million per year, will be used to finance improved sales tax credits for low-income Ontarians. The increased sales tax revenue also means income tax rates will remain generally lower.

The opposition considers income tax the fairer or more progressive tax, and we heard several arguments related to this. Would they really like the $7.8 billion that is raised from the sales tax to be added, for example, to the personal income tax burden, requiring a rate increase of some 70 per cent? In other words, the increase in retail sales tax must be viewed in terms of the need to maintain a sensible balance in the use of all taxes in achieving a fair distribution of burden and ensuring that Ontario’s taxes are competitive with other jurisdictions.

I am sure other members in the House would be interested to know that if the one-point increase in the retail sales tax was loaded on to the Ontario standard personal income tax rate, this would be increased from 51 per cent to 55 per cent, for an increase in burden or revenues of $8.4 million to $900 million. Second, the corporate rates, of which we have several, would be increased by 20 per cent. Is this really what the opposition is proposing?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: What a preposterous notion.

Mr. Faubert: That is exactly what it is proposing.

The member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) criticized the government’s reliance on consumer taxes versus corporation taxes. I would like to remind the honourable member that the three-year tax holiday for new small business corporations was phased out as a result of this budget so that the corporate sector shared in the pain.

The member for Beaches-Woodbine also voiced concerns on the potential impact of a national sales tax on the housing sector, colleges, universities and health care. Although the federal government has yet to release details of all aspects of such a tax, Mr. Wilson has clearly stated -- if we cannot believe Mr. Wilson, who can we believe? -- that municipalities, schools and hospitals will not pay more. In order to offset the potentially regressive impact of a national sales tax, Mr. Wilson also stated that the tax will not apply to food and prescription drugs.

The member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) wanted to know if Ontario intends to co-operate with the federal government on a national sales tax. Many of the concerns raised by him are being considered by the Treasurer. It is precisely because all our concerns have not been fully explored that the Treasurer has not declared his position on this matter.

The member for York South, the Leader of the Opposition, talked very eloquently on regressivity and the unfair nature of the retail sales tax. I think the average person, when asked to choose between income tax deducted from the paycheque and an equivalent amount raised through a retail sales tax or a consumption tax, would probably choose the latter. The reasoning would be that at least the taxpayer has a choice about paying the retail sales tax, provided that it does not apply to necessities such as food, drugs and rent. At least, they are getting something when they pay the tax, not just a receipt, as they do when they pay their income tax.

One last point I would like to refer to is the statement by many members of the opposition, especially those in the third party, that somehow all this spending is simply going on increasing the bureaucracy. I would like to at least point out in defence of the Ministry of Revenue that the Ministry of Revenue’s planned staffing has been flat-lined for many years, and actual staffing is in decline. For example, for the retail sales tax division alone, in 1985-86, there were 477 personnel; in 1988-89, 452; and for 1989-90, it is projected at 440.

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Other tax branches, for example property assessment, showed a similar trend within the ministry. This is all despite increases in workloads and complexity of the job and the increase in the tax rolls.

In closing, I would like to reaffirm the necessity of increasing the sales tax rate from seven per cent to eight per cent in order for my government to meet its commitment to fiscal responsibility. As I stated in my opening remarks, this will enable all of us to prepare for the economic challenges of the future.

Mr. Speaker: As the House decided to stack the votes on Bill 121 and Bill 122, we will deal with them in the order they were debated in the House.

GASOLINE TAX AMENDMENT ACT

The House divided on Hon. Mr. Grandmaitre’s motion for second reading of Bill 121, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes

Ballinger, Black, Bossy, Bradley, Brown, Callahan, Campbell, Caplan, Chiarelli, Cleary, Collins, Conway, Cooke, D. R., Cordiano, Curling, Daigeler, Dietsch, Eakins, Elliot, Elston, Epp, Faubert, Ferraro, Fleet, Fontaine, Fulton, Furlong, Haggerty, Hart, Henderson, Kanter, Kerrio, Keyes, Kozyra, LeBourdais, Leone, Lipsett, Lupusella, MacDonald, Mancini, Matrundola, McClelland; McGuigan, McGuinty, McLeod, Miclash, Miller, Neumann, Nixon, J. B., Nixon, R. F., Oddie Munro, Offer, O’Neil, H., O’Neill, Y., Pelissero, Peterson, Phillips, G., Poirier, Polsinelli, Poole, Ramsay, Ray, M. C., Reycraft, Riddell, Roberts, Ruprecht, Smith, D. W., Smith, E. J., Sola, Sorbara, South, Stoner, Sullivan, Sweeney, Tatham, Velshi, Ward, Wong, Wrye.

Nays

Allen, Brandt, Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Cousens, Cunningham, Eves, Farnan, Grier, Harris, Jackson, Johnson, J. M., Johnston, R. F., Kormos, Laughren, Mackenzie, Marland, Martel, McCague, McLean, Morin-Strom, Philip, E., Pollock, Pope, Pouliot, Rae, B., Reville, Runciman, Sterling, Villeneuve, Wildman, Wiseman.

Ayes 79; nays 33.

Bill ordered for third reading.

RETAIL SALES TAX AMENDMENT ACT

The House divided on Hon. Mr. Grandmaître’s motion for second reading of Bill 122, which was agreed to on the same vote.

Bill ordered for standing committee on finance and economic affairs.

The House adjourned at 5:56 p.m.