Legislative Assembly of Ontario

[Report continued from volume A]

1800

WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LA GESTION DES DÉCHETS

Continuing the debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 143, An Act respecting the Management of Waste in the Greater Toronto Area and to amend the Environmental Protection Act / Projet de loi 143, Loi concernant la gestion des déchets dans la région du grand Toronto et modifiant la Loi sur la protection de l'environnement.

Mr Tilson: I do not propose to review all the criticisms that have come from this side of the House. I do wish to speak very briefly with respect to my riding, which I think will make the criticism unanimous from Peel. I think all members from Peel have spoken against this bill and have listed all the various examples of why they are against it.

I represent the town of Caledon, which geographically consists of one half of the region of Peel. In my riding the town of Caledon is a typical council which has had no consultation with respect to this issue. The town of Caledon, I think, at the last election elected all new members with the exception of two. Of course they have just recently been sworn in as members of their council and have had no opportunity to be briefed with respect to this bill. Those I have spoken to certainly are concerned with the lack of consultation in that respect, that more time was not given to those new council members.

They are concerned with the anticipated lack of consultation, not only in the planning aspects but in the present preparation of this bill and making any proposed amendments to this bill. They are concerned with the issue of cost. They have participated in the $5 million that has been spent by the region of Peel with respect to potential sites in the region of Peel, and they are concerned that has gone all for naught.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. There are too many people standing in the House. Please take your seats.

Mr Tilson: Very briefly, one of the major concerns that has come from my specific riding is the fact that we have not been made aware of the lists of the future sites and that all long-term and all short-term lists, all potential discussions of incineration and all possible issues of transportation to other areas, all that has gone. We are now going to have dictatorial schemes that will determine exactly where these sites are going to go.

Originally we were advised that these sites would be announced by the end of November. Now we have been informed it will be at least until after this bill has been passed, so that people across this province will have no idea whether they are going to be affected. That is a concern of the people of Caledon, particularly when they are part of the GTA, and also the fact of the lack of consultation with respect to them.

I will not go on any further with respect to criticisms of this bill. There will be time for that in the public hearings. I hope people from around this province will listen to some of the debate that has gone on in this House to date, will participate in those hearings and will show the bill for the sham it is.

Mr McClelland: I want to commend the member for Dufferin-Peel for his comments. He raises a very important point I did not get to in my comments. The Interim Waste Authority has been charged with the responsibility of going around and doing a preliminary site search and selection. There are some 100 places in this province.

I think too, and I am going to be very plain about this, the way this bill was introduced, the timing and the fact that the government wanted to see it all done, all finished, within a week says an awful lot of things. One of the questions it raises is why is the minister so afraid about that list of 100 places being made public. I will tell members the reason. It is because we know that right now there are concerned people across this province, primarily at Britannia and Keele, who are very angry about this bill, and well they should be, as they are in Dufferin, and as they will be as they begin to understand this across the province.

If the minister thinks she has a buzzsaw going right now, she should wait until we find out what those 100 areas are. I am telling her right now she will have untold grief on her hands when people understand the implications of this bill and the fact that she is prepared to go ahead and roll over people's rights, that she is prepared to dictate what she wants to see done and, furthermore, that she is prepared to distance herself from it and hand off to her bureaucrats some of the authority she ought to accept responsibility for. She knows full well that if that list of 100 areas was made available she would have untold problems on her hands.

I find it very interesting when the member raises this that one of the reasons that list has not come forward is because the minister does not want to face up to the people of Ontario. The fundamental principle of this bill is: "I do not want to talk to people. I know better." She knows what is going to happen when that list comes out. It is very important that people have a right to participate. She used to fight for that right. She used to fight for the principles. Now she is afraid to even let the people know that they may be on the line. What happened to those principles that she used to hold to?

I challenge the minister to come forward and thank my friend the member for Dufferin-Peel for raising a very important point. There are 100 other communities, 100 other sites around this province that could very well fall under the hammer of Bill 143.

Mr Callahan: I have to join with my colleague the member for Brampton North. This is an issue, Ruth, if I can call you that.

Hon Mrs Grier: Not in this House, you can't call me that.

Mr Callahan: All right. Minister of the Environment. The minister tells me I cannot call her that in the House and she is quite right. The rules do not allow me to call her Ruth. But I have to say to the minister that she has let down the people of this province, the young people most specifically. She has let down the young people in this province most specifically.

Her Premier, who was not Premier at the time, came out to Huttonville and talked about getting rid of portables in schools. People believed that. She came forward in opposition and said all these marvellous things about saving the environment and making certain that the environment would be her major priority and she has done nothing about it. She has done absolutely nothing.

The young people of this province, the young people of this country, are looking to this new government to supposedly solve all their problems. Well, they are not solving the problems. I suggest to the Minister of the Environment that she make a very significant apology to the young people of this province. She has done absolutely nothing in terms of looking after the number one priority.

Number two is education. Her Premier has done nothing about the portables in Huttonville at all, although he appeared on television during an election and said, "I'll get rid of the portables for you." He has done absolutely nothing. Was that just hyperbole? Is that how they get votes? Is that how they become the government of the day? Is that how they fool people?

I suggest to the members opposite if there is one thing that will come out of this session, the last thing of this session, it is the fact that those people have misled the young people of this province and have left them with absolutely no history, no future, no belief in their environmental concerns. I suggest that the minister do something about it. She is challenged by the young people of this province to keep her commitments, and the Premier should do the same thing in terms of education.

Mr Turnbull: I want to add my comments to those of the member for Dufferin-Peel. I think it is very interesting that the Minister of the Environment and minister responsible for the greater Toronto area has spent most of the time during this debate not in the House. She has not been listening to these important comments.

This is the very minister who in fact has always talked about the open process. So much for the open process. Not only does she want to cut off the environmental protection bills, the environmental assessment bills, the OMB and all the protection that is built into the system, but she does not even want to listen to what the people have to say.

Prior to bringing in this bill, she has refused to release the list of potential sites because she knows there would be a riot. It is very interesting that when she beetled out of here, she refused ever to look in the eye of my colleague the member for Etobicoke West when he spoke last night at great length about the problems she is creating with the process. She cannot look him in the eye because she knows that all of the things she said in opposition have gone out of the window.

Why would the minister turn her back on the people who are concerned about the environment? The reason I ran in politics is that I wanted to leave my children a clean environment and a clean set of books. She is going to do the reverse of this. She is destroying our environment with no public input and she is destroying the public coffers.

1810

Mrs Caplan: There has been quite a long debate on Bill 143. I would like to congratulate my colleague the member for Brampton North for his thoughtful comments. I believe he has done an excellent job in his analysis of this bill as our Environment critic. I know how passionately he feels about this.

As members know, I spoke at length on this as well. I notice government notice of motion 31 has referred this piece of legislation to the standing committee on social development, of which I am the committee Chair. I want to say to my constituents, to the people who are interested in this debate, that those committee hearings will be extremely important. Just as I have served as a member of a committee and as Chairman of a committee before, I will do my utmost to ensure that everyone receives a fair hearing and that all three caucuses share the time that is available fairly and equally.

I believe the committee hearing process will be a very important one and I encourage all those people across the province who have an interest in this important piece of legislation to be aware that the committee hearings will be commencing the beginning of January. There will be advertising and they will be encouraged to come before that committee and have their say.

I want to repeat to my colleagues from all three caucuses who will be members of the committee that I will endeavour, as committee Chair, to do as you do, Mr Speaker, and that is, to be impartial, to be fair and to be just in the conducting of those committee hearings and in the clause-by-clause debate that will follow. Then, hopefully, when this piece of legislation returns to the Legislature it will be improved because of the process at committee where all members and all citizens of this province had an opportunity to participate.

Mr Tilson: I would like to thank all members for responding to my specific speech which dealt with the town of Caledon. Specifically, the member for Oriole's comments were certainly appreciated. I will zero in on one specific area with respect to my concerns for the people of Caledon at least, and that is the issue of cost, but that applies to all municipalities around this province. We have talked about the downloading that is going to affect these municipalities. As for the costs that have already gone on, in the region of Peel alone they have spent $5 million on studies that are now going to be thrown out the window.

On the whole issue of expropriation, "You're going to do it our way," says this government. "We're going to pick the sites and municipalities. You will do it our way and you will pay for it. You will pay for everything. You will pay for the 'injurious affection' clause" -- section 19, I think it is -- "and the whole effect of that."

This government had a lot of gall running around the province two summers ago talking about how dastardly the Liberals were and now here we are: The highest of downloading that could possibly exist has been by this government on Bill 143. Once the municipalities realize what has hit them they are going to be very mad, and particularly the people of the town of Caledon.

Hon Mrs Grier: Let me thank anybody who has participated and I thank them that the debate is over. It has certainly generated a great deal of heat. I hope those who have been watching and those who take the opportunity to read Hansard will feel that it perhaps also generated some light. There were times, I will have to say, when the level of misrepresentation and exaggeration that some of the members indulged in as part of this debate was, to say the least, a bit disturbing. However, I do not intend in the few minutes available to me to summarize --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The minister has the floor.

Hon Mrs Grier: I am sure the hearings that are going to be held on this bill will facilitate those members who perhaps have misconstrued or not fully understood the intent or the ramifications or the actual way in which those sections of the bill about which they are concerned would function. We will find, as a result of the hearings, that has become more clear.

Dealing with waste within the GTA is not an easy issue; it has never been an easy issue. When you look at the waste that is generated by four million people and their economic activities, when you look at the fact that previous solutions have tended to favour the "Out of sight, out of mind; put it in a hole and forget about it" kind of approach, and when you look at the kind of jurisdictional gridlock that has prevented clear and useful decisions from being made, one realizes why we have got to the state we are at.

In all the debate we heard over the last couple of days, as it has stretched over a couple of weeks, in all the rhetoric, one of the things that disturbs me is how very little of that debate focused on the environment. We heard a lot of discussion about campaign --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Hon Mrs Grier: We heard a lot of debate about campaign promises, people's backyards, process and powers. We heard very little about protecting the environment. We heard very little acknowledgement that this bill is primarily about protecting the environment, that the section dealing with the 3Rs is very strong legislation that for the first time gives a government the power to try to meet the targets of reducing waste. The targets were set by the previous government but were not likely to be met, because there were no tools available to the Ministry of the Environment to make sure those targets were met. That is what this legislation does.

We heard very little about the fact that the section of the bill dealing with the search for long-term sites within the greater Toronto area provides that this search will take place in accordance with the Environmental Assessment Act. If the decisions about how to make that site search were predicated on some very strong environmental criteria, the decision to ban incineration is an option in that process. The decision to ban incineration, which some members disagree with, is an environmental decision. The decision not to haul the GTA garbage to Kirkland Lake, or as the member for Northumberland pointed out, to Marmora or Plympton, is an environmental decision. This government is prepared to make these decisions for the sake of the environment.

The other aspect of the bill, the short-term dealing with the crisis --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Halton Centre and the member for Oriole, please.

Hon Mrs Grier: I have acknowledged time and again in this House and in public that the section of the legislation that deals with what has come to be known as the gap overrides existing agreements. It does not go through an Environmental Assessment Act, nor does it provide for the kind of process I wish it could have provided for. That was not an easy decision for this government to take or that we came to office wanting to take. It was dictated by the situation we found ourselves in and by the need to solve the problem.

The problem has been there for a very long time. If it was an easy problem to resolve, I suspect it would have been resolved by someone else. It was not an easy problem to resolve, but it has to be solved. It is not going to be easy ahead. Members are right: When the list of potential sites for the long term comes out, that is not going to be an easy process because these are not easy decisions, but they are decisions that those of us entrusted with the responsibility of governing have to make. If we do not make those decisions and if we subsume it in endless wrangles, then we find ourselves in the position this government found itself in when we took office.

Those decisions have to be taken for the sake of the people and the economy of the greater Toronto area. They have to be taken for the environment of the greater Toronto area, nay, for the environment of the province, and as some members have said, for the future of this province and the children of this province. They are decisions that have to be taken to resolve this problem. We are prepared to take those decisions. We are prepared to take them in the most environmentally sound way possible and get on with the job. That is what we were elected to do.

1820

The Deputy Speaker: Mrs Grier has moved second reading of Bill 143, An Act respecting the Management of Waste in the Greater Toronto Area and to amend the Environmental Protection Act. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour of the motion will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Mrs Cunningham moves that the vote on second reading of Bill 143 be deferred until 5:45 pm tomorrow, December 11, 1991. The vote is accordingly deferred.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Cochrane South, withdraw that, please. Withdraw that word. Order, please. The member for Cochrane South, I would ask you to withdraw that word. Thank you.

TRUCK TRANSPORTATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LE CAMIONNAGE

Mr Dadamo, on behalf of Mr Pouliot, moved second reading of Bill 129, An Act to amend the Truck Transportation Act, 1988 / Projet de loi 129, Loi portant modification de la Loi de 1988 sur le camionnage.

Mr Dadamo: This past spring the Minister of Transportation announced a package of initiatives to assist the Ontario-based trucking industry. The measures included a moratorium on the issuance of new motor carrier licences to operate for-hire trucking services within Ontario and a requirement that load brokers be registered and subject to financial security measures such as bonding.

Today I am pleased to have an opportunity to help guide these initiatives through the Legislature. The minister would have liked to have been here himself for this debate, but his responsibilities have taken him to an equally important UTDC gathering in Thunder Bay.

The legislation being debated here today, Bill 129, is a tangible indication that this government fully recognizes the problems facing our trucking industry and, more important, it is an indication that we are prepared to act in response to these issues.

I am no stranger to the topic. I live on the doorstep of this province's busiest trucking corridor in Windsor. I am all too familiar with the hardships this vital industry has experienced over the past couple of years due to the double whammy of deregulation and the recession.

Today I will explain how the amendments to the Truck Transportation Act contained in Bill 129 will help ease the competitive pressure on the Ontario-based trucking industry and how they will add a degree of financial stability to business practices which affect the industry. Both initiatives have received strong industry support. In fact, when our announcement was made --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. I suggest you hold your conversations out of the House.

Mr Conway: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Could somebody tell the House or at least myself what the order of business is? My friend the member for Windsor-Sandwich is making a very interesting speech. I am prepared to listen to it and debate it. It spares me going to a party tonight. But I would just like a little bit of direction as to what the plans are since the House seems to have dissolved into some excitement.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. The order of the day is second reading of Bill 129, An Act to amend the Truck Transportation Act, and Mr Dadamo has the floor.

Mr Conway: Just on a point of clarification and advice, do I understand we will go until midnight, Mr Speaker? Is that the order under which we are now operating?

The Deputy Speaker: If it is so ordered, we will go until 12, but at the moment, the member for Windsor-Sandwich has the floor.

Mrs Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I ask for unanimous consent of the House to revert to Bill 143 and withdraw my motion so that we can have the vote in five minutes.

The Deputy Speaker: Agreed?

Hon Mr Cooke: Mr Speaker, could we ask the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Transportation to move a motion to adjourn the debate?

On motion by Mr Dadamo, the debate was adjourned.

Mrs Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I ask for unanimous consent to revert to the Bill 143 vote and I withdraw my motion and ask that the vote be taken in one minute.

The Deputy Speaker: Is it agreed that we revert?

Agreed to.

1830

WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 SUR LA GESTION DES DÉCHETS

The House divided on Mrs Grier's motion for second reading of Bill 143, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes -- 55

Abel, Allen, Bisson, Boyd, Buchanan, Carter, Christopherson, Churley, Cooke, Cooper, Coppen, Dadamo, Duignan, Ferguson, Frankford, Gigantes, Grier, Haeck, Hampton, Hansen, Harrington, Hayes, Hope, Huget, Jamison, Johnson, Klopp, Kormos, Lessard, Mackenzie, MacKinnon, Malkowski, Mammoliti, Marchese, Martel, Martin, Mathyssen, Mills, Murdock, S., O'Connor, Owens, Perruzza, Pilkey, Rizzo, Sutherland, Ward, B., Wark-Martyn, Waters, Wessenger, White, Wilson, F., Winninger, Wiseman, Wood, Ziemba.

Nays -- 28

Arnott, Callahan, Caplan, Carr, Conway, Cousens, Cunningham, Eves, Fawcett, Grandmaître, Harnick, Henderson, Jordan, Mahoney, Mancini, Marland, McClelland, Miclash, Offer, O'Neill, Y., Phillips, G., Poirier, Poole, Runciman, Sterling, Sullivan, Tilson, Turnbull.

Bill ordered for standing committee on social development.

COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION OF BILL 143

Mr Cooke moved resolution 32:

That the standing committee on social development shall meet to consider Bill 143, An Act respecting the Management of Waste in the Greater Toronto Area and to amend the Environmental Protection Act, during the winter adjournment in accordance with a schedule of meeting dates to be agreed to by the three party whips and to be tabled with the Clerk of the assembly at a later date, as follows: three weeks to receive public submissions at televised meetings in Toronto, one week to receive public submissions at meetings outside of Toronto and one week for clause-by-clause consideration of the bill at televised meetings in Toronto. All proposed amendments shall be filed with the clerk of the committee prior to the last day on which the committee is authorized to consider the bill clause by clause. At 4 pm on the last day on which the committee is authorized to consider the bill clause by clause, those amendments which have not yet been moved shall be deemed to have been moved and the Chair of the committee shall interrupt the proceedings and shall, without further debate or amendment, put every question necessary to dispose of all remaining sections of the bill and any amendments thereto. Any divisions required shall be deferred until all remaining questions have been put, the members called in once and all deferred divisions taken in succession. The committee shall report the bill to the House on the first available day of the spring meeting period that reports from committees may be received. In the event that the committee fails to report the said bill on the date provided, the bill shall be deemed to be reported to and received by the House;

That upon receiving the report of the standing committee on social development, the Speaker shall put the question for adoption of the report forthwith, which question shall be decided without debate or amendment;

That two sessional days shall be allotted to further consideration of the bill in the committee of the whole House. All amendments proposed to be moved to the bill shall be filed with the Clerk of the assembly by 4 pm on the last sessional day on which the bill is considered in the committee of the whole House. Any divisions required during clause-by-clause consideration of the bill in the committee of the whole House shall be deferred until 5:45 pm on the last sessional day that the bill is to be considered in the committee of the whole House. At 5:45 pm on that sessional day, those amendments which have not yet been moved shall be deemed to have been moved and the Chair of the committee of the whole House shall interrupt the proceedings and shall, without further debate or amendment, put every question necessary to dispose of all remaining sections of the bill and any amendments thereto and report the bill to the House. Any divisions required shall be deferred until all remaining questions have been put, the members called in once and all deferred divisions taken in succession;

That upon receiving the report of the committee of the whole House, the Speaker shall put the question for adoption of the report forthwith, which question shall be decided without debate or amendment;

That one further sessional day shall be allotted to the third reading stage of the bill. At 5:45 pm on such day, the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and shall put every question necessary to dispose of this stage of the bill without further debate or amendment;

That in the case of any division in the House relating to any proceedings on the bill, the division bell shall be limited to 15 minutes.

The Deputy Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour of will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Motion agreed to.

TRUCK TRANSPORTATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LE CAMIONNAGE

Resuming the adjourned debate for second reading of Bill 129, An Act to amend the Truck Transportation Act, 1988 / Projet de loi 129, Loi portant modification de la Loi de 1988 sur le camionnage.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Windsor-Sandwich, you have started the debate already; please continue.

Mr Dadamo: This past spring the Minister of Transportation announced a package of initiatives to assist the Ontario-based trucking industry.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. We will wait until the members leave.

Mr Dadamo: I will try it again. The measures included a moratorium on the issuance of new motor carrier licences to operate for-hire trucking services within Ontario, and also a requirement that load brokers be registered and subject to financial security measures such as bonding.

Today I am pleased to have an opportunity to help guide these initiatives through the Legislature. The minister would have liked to have been here himself for this debate, but his responsibilities have taken him to an equally important UTDC gathering in Thunder Bay.

The legislation being debated here today, Bill 129, is a tangible indication that this government fully recognizes the problems that face our trucking industry. More important, it is an indication that we are prepared to act in response to these issues.

As well, I am no stranger to this topic. I live on the doorstep of this province's busiest trucking corridor, in Windsor. I am all too familiar with the hardships this vital industry has experienced over the past couple of years due to the double whammy of deregulation and recession.

Today I will explain how the amendments to the Truck Transportation Act contained in Bill 129 will help ease the competitive pressure on the Ontario-based trucking industry and how they will add a degree of financial stability to business practices that affect the industry. Both initiatives have received strong industry support. In fact, when our announcement was made, the president of the Ontario Trucking Association called it "a great beginning" and an example of "strong leadership."

At a September meeting in Winnipeg, ministers of transportation from right across Canada agreed in principle to follow Ontario's lead to legislate responsibility and also disclosure requirements for load brokers in jurisdictions where problems exist.

Bill 129 is already doing what it was intended to do. For all intents and purposes the moratorium on new for-hire trucking licences has been in effect since it was announced April 25, 1991. The moratorium is temporary and will only continue for another 17 months. While it will not play a role over the longer term in assisting the industry, it is providing some breathing space now, relief from the competitive pressure that new entrants bring to trucking within Ontario's boundaries.

Owner-operators, pressured by the current economic climate, sometimes accept work from unfamiliar sources and become victims of unscrupulous business practices. But truckers operating in today's competitive industry cannot afford any delay in payments. They certainly cannot survive if they are not paid at all. Therefore, we are moving to provide additional financial security for truckers by registering and bonding load brokers.

The legislation being debated here today will give our ministry authority to monitor and control the load broker segment of the Ontario-based trucking industry. Currently it is unregulated. You need only a telephone to be in the business as a load broker.

Load brokers do provide a vital service. They arrange the movement of goods. They find out what has to be shipped and they also find a carrier willing to move it. Their profit comes from off the top; that is, the difference between what the shipper is willing to pay and the amount for which the carrier is willing to work. But the competitive crunch within the trucking industry has reduced the margin from which load brokers take their profits. Because there are no regulations, carriers are sometimes the victims. They may have to wait lengthy periods for their payments, or in some cases they do not get paid at all.

We will establish a registry of load brokers. As long as carriers deal with brokers, some of the risk will be taken out of their business operations.

1840

Bill 129 will also allow the Ministry of Transportation to develop regulations requiring entrepreneurs to post a surety bond and channel their incoming and outgoing payments through a trust account if they wish to operate as load brokers in the province. The bonding and trust account will help to protect carriers against non-payment.

The draft regulations developed by my ministry are now being discussed with all segments of the trucking industry: truckers, shippers and load brokers. There is plenty of opportunity for input from all involved.

This is not by any means the final answer to the trucking industry's woes. This is one segment of a developing strategy, a longer-term strategy, which will ensure a healthy and competitive trucking industry in the years to come.

As the members are no doubt aware, the province does not have jurisdiction over transborder or interprovincial trucking. Ottawa rules over this sector of the industry and is not prepared to abandon its deregulatory policies by restricting new carrier licences for trucking operations under federal control.

The best we can do is to proceed in areas on which we have an impact, in harmony with other interested parties where it is possible, or in some cases alone. This bill embodies both aspects: going alone on the licence moratorium front, while enlisting co-operation from other jurisdictions in pursuing the regulation of the load brokers.

I would encourage all members of this Legislature to recognize the significant progress being made by this government in pursuing meaningful and co-operative assistance for the Ontario-based trucking industry.

On behalf of the Minister of Transportation, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the member for York Mills for his input. The resulting amendments have, in my opinion, made the legislation even stronger.

Mrs Caplan: My constituents in the riding of Oriole are always interested in pieces of legislation that come before this House, and I know in discussion of this bill they would be very interested in the comments that the parliamentary assistant just made.

I know they would also want me to say how pleased they are with the representation my colleague the member for Essex South has done as critic for the Transportation ministry. He has done an outstanding job in advocating for the Sheppard subway to begin now, for example. He understands the important creation of wealth and job opportunities that would come from a government decision to begin the Sheppard line immediately. He is very concerned and has expressed to me his concern that this present government has not taken any action that would see that subway beginning as expeditiously as possible.

During this debate on a piece of legislation carried by the parliamentary assistant for the Ministry of Transportation, I want to take this opportunity, on behalf of my constituents, to echo their concerns about the transportation planning and policies of this new government. My constituents know they said a lot of things when they were in opposition.

My constituents believed many of the things they heard about what the NDP would do if it were in government. They heard about their commitment to public transit, and each day, along with each broken promise, my constituents are becoming more and more concerned about the transportation policy and particularly the rapid transit policy commitments of this new government.

Today, in the few minutes allotted to me, I would ask the government to consider doing everything it can to expedite the development of the Sheppard subway line as a benefit not only to my constituents but to all of Ontario.

Mr Kormos: I am pleased that the parliamentary assistant is presenting these amendments as he is. I was especially pleased to hear this evening that this Legislative Assembly is open for the public to watch the business of the public taking place, people like Roy Popovic, a young man visiting here, a Toronto resident --

The Deputy Speaker: Speak through the Chair, please.

Mr Kormos: -- a student at Silverthorn school. He is pleased that he has got a chance to watch the business of government taking place, to watch the debate, the exchange that occurs and to listen to the parliamentary assistant for the Minister of Transportation present these fine amendments to the Legislature -- he, along with people like Nikola Malbasic visiting from Niagara Falls, and other people from Etobicoke.

It is incredibly important -- I know the parliamentary assistant feels this way as well and I know almost every member of this assembly feels this way -- that people in Ontario recognize that this is their building, this is their assembly and these doors have to be open. The television cameras themselves are not enough. People have to feel comfortable and free to walk into this assembly, sit in it and watch what is going on, knowing it is their responsibility to oversee what their politicians are doing for them and sometimes to them.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Guests are welcome in this House but they are not welcome to participate unless you are a member of Parliament.

Mr Kormos: I certainly am, Mr Speaker. Politicians, and I believe all of us, have a significant responsibility to the people who put us here. We have a responsibility to our constituents. I say that the people of this province have a responsibility to make sure their politicians know what they are thinking, what their criticisms are, what their praise is and what their goals and aspirations are.

Mr Hayes: I would like to get up and show my support and also compliment the Minister of Transportation and the parliamentary assistant, the member for Windsor-Sandwich, on the great job they did.

This particular bill has proved that there is some flexibility, and flexibility that is needed in some of our legislation. You cannot just put blanket legislation in to cover everything, because it might adversely affect others. A good example is in my riding and across this province. There were farmers who were affected, maybe not intentionally, by this particular piece of legislation with the moratorium. These farmers really depended on the off-farm job of hauling fruit and vegetables and their contracts with some of the canning factories for hauling tomatoes and sweet corn and things. They were not excluded at the beginning.

I spoke to the minister of the day and also to the parliamentary assistant. They got on this very quickly and took care of that situation and allowed those farmers to be able to continue to work and haul the fruit and vegetables to supplement their farms. As members know, they are losing lots of money. I would really like to compliment them on that. I think it is a good example of how government can consult and take people's concerns very seriously. I really appreciate the hard work they have done.

Mr Lessard: I would like to express my support and congratulations for the initiatives of the Ministry of Transportation and the comments that were made by the member for Windsor-Sandwich wherein he stated he was in the heart of an area that had been impacted very hard by the recent actions taken by truckers who have been very frustrated with some of the policies of the federal government and its failure to respond to their concerns. Those truckers really took those frustrations out in the past year and set up a blockade at the Ambassador Bridge, which is in the member for Windsor-Sandwich's riding. My riding abuts that one, and I have a link with the United States, the Windsor-Detroit tunnel, as well.

One thing we do not want to see again in the city of Windsor is a blockade set up by frustrated truckers because it adversely affects the economy in the city of Windsor and really the economy of the whole province. The actions that are being taken today by the Ministry of Transportation are to address some of the concerns -- at least concerns we are able to address at the provincial level -- to ensure that truckers are able to operate on a more level playing field and that we do not experience blockades the way we did in the past year in the city of Windsor or any other place in Ontario.

Mr Dadamo: I have some official closing remarks that I would like to make but I would like to thank those colleagues of mine who have spoken on this and the member for Oriole as well. I have listened carefully and I will give the message back to the minister when he returns from Thunder Bay. I guess we are still to hear some remarks from the opposition.

1850

Mr Mancini: I am going to address the Legislature this evening on behalf of the Liberal caucus. First, I would like to welcome the parliamentary assistant, the member for Windsor-Sandwich, in what is I believe -- is this your first opportunity, George, to shepherd through a piece of legislation?

The Deputy Speaker: Please address the member by his riding and not by his first name.

Mr Mancini: You have to understand, Mr Speaker, that since the member is from Windsor-Sandwich and I am from Essex South, we travel together on the same flights and we attend the same functions. I am sure my colleague the member for Windsor-Sandwich took no offence to my addressing him in such a casual way.

Bill 129 is, in our view, an ad hoc attempt by the government to help the trucking industry. It is symptomatic of the way this government deals with the economic problems businesses in this province are facing. We would think the government would look at the entire industry in a comprehensive manner. Instead its actions are similar to other things this government is doing such as tax increases and a number of other things I would like to mention but we are under a time allocation this evening. They basically, in my view, have no plan for this industry. The industry is on its own.

I further understand that the parliamentary assistant is going to be moving a number of amendments, perhaps five. They were last-minute amendments sent to us only the other day. We do not have any particular quarrel with the amendments, but we were concerned as to why, after the bill had been on Orders and Notices for such a long time, the government waited until the last minute to make these amendments.

After all, it does have a fairly significant ministry with several thousand employees and one would have thought, since the trucking industry is so important to the province and has had such a high profile over this past number of months due to the economic decline and due to the tax increases imposed by the NDP government, we could have got that information somewhat sooner.

The Ontario Trucking Association would like to see addressed a number of recommendations it has made over the years to improve the competitiveness of Ontario truckers.

I will only list a small number of these recommendations. They are: (1) a temporary exemption from provincial sales tax on heavy trucks and trailers; (2) a reduction in the diesel tax; (3) interest rate assistance similar to that provided to farmers -- I might add that was something the NDP had promised to small business during the 1990 election campaign; however, that promise, along with the dozens and dozens of other promises, has been shelved, probably never to see the light of day again -- and (4) having US-licensed trucks meet the same rigid safety and inspection standards as Ontario trucks.

This legislation will not address any of these requests that have been made. However, I understand that the legislation is generally supported by the trucking industry, so we will be supporting the legislation in principle. But there are a number of concerns that we intend to raise.

Bill 129 is scheduled to sunset in April 1993. We realize it is interim legislation. We will have to wait for 17 months while the NDP government figures out some long-term solutions to truckers' concerns. I doubt if those solutions will come forward.

In dealing with these concerns and in preparing the legislation and initiatives which will replace Bill 129, the government must address some of the following issues. I repeat, I doubt if this will be done, but it is important to have it said and put on the record because the trucking industry is in need of friends and certainly in need of a friendly and sympathetic government.

The competitiveness report tabled in September 1991 issues a number of challenges to the government. Last spring the minister commissioned a study of the industry which showed that the real competitiveness issues lie in problems such as taxes. The Ontario Trucking Association has challenged the government to move on its report noting that it just confirmed what the association had been telling the minister all along.

The report is now gathering dust on some shelf and the government still has not taken any action. As I have been saying through my entire discourse here this evening, we do not expect this government to take any action, sad as that may be, even though the report showed that Ontario carriers were at a significant operating disadvantage, as much as 20%, with their American counterparts.

With this legislation the NDP is saying, "Here's something that might stop the problem from getting worse." But that is not accurate at all. We want to know from the minister, and hopefully we will hear from the minister through his parliamentary assistant this evening, what concrete actions the NDP government is going to be taking.

What actions, as called for by the Ontario Trucking Association, will the government move on? When will the government move on the tax problems and the cost crisis faced by our industry? Does the minister expect us to believe that Bill 129 is going to be of significant assistance to the industry? If so, how?

We would like to get the government's views on the record as to what it thinks the benefits of this legislation may actually be after it has been in place for its full two years.

The minister and this government have only delayed and studied, delayed and studied and finally they have brought in ad hoc, temporary legislation dealing with a small portion of the industry's concerns. I believe the Ontario Trucking Association said it best, "It's time for the government to act."

I want to talk this evening about the diesel tax increases levied on Ontario truckers by the Ontario New Democratic Party government. Bill 129 will not be able to undo the damage done to truckers by the NDP's mishandling of Ontario's economy. The NDP's new diesel taxes can do much more to hurt truckers than Bill 129 can ever repair. The NDP's April budget raised the general diesel fuel tax by 1.7 cents per litre to 12.6 cents per litre. In addition, there will be a further NDP tax on January 1, 1992, of 1.7 cents per litre to 14.3 cents per litre for the general diesel fuel tax rate.

In the midst of a major recession, a crisis in the trucking industry and a cost spiral which is forcing Ontario truckers off the road into bankruptcy and on to unemployment lines, the NDP government's response has been two tax increases, one in April of 1.7 cents and one on January 1, 1992, of a further 1.7 cents. What a way to start the new year. What a way to face the new year, when your competition is literally running you off the road. The new diesel fuel tax increases will raise over $90 million in new revenue for the government. Every single penny will come from an Ontario trucker who is trying to compete with his American counterparts. I know the member for Welland-Thorold shares my concerns.

1900

This represents an over 30% total increase in fuel taxes for diesel; not the rate of inflation, not the 4% or less which is going to be the rate of inflation for this year, I am told, not double the rate of inflation, not triple the rate of inflation, but eight times the rate of inflation, I say to the parliamentary assistant; eight times. No wonder the minister is not here. No wonder he does not want to face the Legislature. My poor colleague the member for Windsor-Sandwich is sent here to face the Legislature. Small wonder the minister is not here: eight times the rate of inflation.

Trucking is a $5-billion industry in this province, and for every trucker on the road there are other workers employed to service and repair the trucks, to load the trailers, and in truck and trailer manufacturing and sales. The Ontario Trucking Association estimates there are over 228,000 workers directly employed in the trucking industry in Ontario, 5% of the total provincial labour force; 5% and they get short shrift from this government.

Truck transportation is responsible for over 70% of our trade with the United States. This is an industry that needs to be able to compete in an international marketplace. Seventy per cent of our trade with the US is done through truck transportation. Think of the thousands of jobs that could be created if the NDP government would get off the backs of the truckers, if it would withdraw these unfair taxes, 30% --

Mr Duignan: It was your guy put it on the backs of the truckers.

Mr Mancini: I know the government does not like to hear this. They do not like to hear this. It is even shocking to me when I have to read it into the record, when I have to look at the statistics and realize again that the government offered the trucking industry, as its solution to problems, a 30% increase in its cost of fuel. That was their solution.

The diesel fuel tax increases can cost truckers $15 in additional tax every time they fill up their tanks: $15, not 15 cents, not 50 cents, not $1.15, but $15. Every time a trucker pulls up to a gas station or a truck stop he literally takes $15 out of his pocket and throws it out the window. The new diesel tax will cost independent truckers at least $4,000 a year in new taxes.

We have talked a lot over the last year and a half about high interest rates. Now the interest rates, thank goodness, have been coming down so that hopefully the truckers and anyone owing money on their rigs, etc, will be getting some type of benefit. But they are not going to see the benefit. They are not going to realize the benefit. The industry will not realize the benefit. Why? Because the NDP government of Ontario is taking it away from them by $4,000 a year in new diesel taxes.

Whatever benefit they receive from the lower interest rates is being taken from them; it is being robbed. The NDP just put its hands into the pockets of the truckers and pulled out $4,000. It is as simple as that. The member for Welland-Thorold knows that, because he is very sympathetic to the concerns of the truckers. I know that if he still had a responsible office as senior minister in the cabinet, some of the things we see coming forward now might be delayed; not stopped, but maybe delayed.

The NDP move to increase diesel fuel taxes is another example of the catch-22 the NDP finds itself in with its anti-business policies. This is the most anti-business government that has ever assumed office in Canada, sitting right over there across from the opposition benches, just to your right, Mr Speaker, not realizing in its anti-business crusade that it is business that creates jobs, that it is business that gives people opportunities, that it is business that pays taxes, not realizing that at all, blinded by its socialist ideology and all the other encumbrances it brought to office. We know that and we accept that, but it is a shame people like the truckers have to receive the brunt.

Interjection.

Mr Mancini: I am being told by my colleague from the Conservative caucus that the agreed-upon time we talked about has expired. In closing, I want to put on the record that we are prepared to do something to assist the truckers. For this reason, I hope to introduce an amendment to Bill 129 exempting truckers from the budget's diesel tax increases. The minister may not like this, but we are going to try to move the amendment and we are going to try to give the Ontario truckers back their $4,000 that the Ontario NDP government has taken.

Mr Turnbull: Looking at the background to Bill 129, we know there are four significant factors that have come together to really significantly destroy the trucking industry in this province: deregulation, recession, slower depreciation and fuel taxes. I would just like to go over these bit by bit.

Deregulation was certainly much needed in the sense that having a licence to operate trucks in Ontario and indeed in Canada used to be a licence to print money. However, it is unfortunate that the deregulation has come together at the time of a significant recession. We know that with the recession we have fewer loads to move. What has happened is that we have people who are competing with some US truckers. I will quote the example of Hunt Transportation from the US, which actually hires ex-cons to drive its trucks. They are working them incredible numbers of hours. Canadian truckers do not do the same number of hours, and I certainly would not like to see that.

The most important aspect is the fuel taxes. There was the question of the slower depreciation in Canada, which is a federal matter. I see that the federal government is moving to decrease the depreciation period so that this will significantly help it. However, the president of the Ontario Trucking Association, David Bradley, has gone on record at the time of the publication of the Trucking Competitively report, which came out in September 1991, as saying that all the items in that report are all very well, but that unless we get lower fuel costs at the moment, we will probably still have a significant number of members going out of business.

The provincial government, while hugging itself and saying how good it is to this industry, should be reminded, as my colleague from the Liberal Party suggested, that there was a 1.7-cents-per-litre fuel tax increase in the budget. Indeed, it is to be followed by yet another 1.7-cents-per-litre fuel tax increase on January 1.

1910

Each increase is the equivalent for the trucker of $2,000 per year, for a total of $4,000 per year tax increase. If this government was serious about its desire to help the trucking industry, it would address the central problem. It is not a question of cutting into their profits; it is further increasing their losses. Members can bring in moratoriums all they like, but it does not address the central problem.

In Canada we have significantly older equipment. The only way people can afford to buy new, more fuel-efficient equipment is if they are making profits. As I have said, the federal government is moving to decrease the depreciation schedule, which will allow a more rapid depreciation of the vehicles, which will help. Nevertheless, you still need to make profit. You will not make profit when the government is taxing fuel at this rate. We are now moving to be the second most expensive place in the whole of North America to buy fuel.

My colleagues from across the floor might suggest, "Yes, but a United States trucker coming into Canada has to pay an amount of money equivalent to the fuel he is using here, even if he gassed up in the United States." The basic problem is, this government is not policing the collection of that tax. We only have the equivalent of two man-years of auditing in the US, whereas New York state alone has several people auditing in Ontario.

Not only is the government forgoing a significant potential income source in not collecting the fuel tax outside Ontario as diligently as it should be, but it is piling on fuel taxes to truckers whose home base is Ontario, and $4,000 a year is an awful lot of taxes. That is just the increase members opposite are putting on taxes to these truckers.

Turning to Bill 129, this is a quick fix that they are trying to achieve. The moratorium, on which I am delighted to say they have put a two-year sunset clause, is really closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, because there are so many licences out there that it is not going to help. Anybody who was to try to get a licence at this moment in Ontario has to be a mental midget. There is no money to be made in the trucking business.

Indeed, the president of one of the major trucking companies told me that probably the only way they could solve the problem is to take all the excess tractor-trailers down to SkyDome and get Bigfoot, that tractor with all the great wheels, to crush them, because that is probably the order of magnitude we need to address the problem.

During deregulation there were a lot of people who had worked as truckers who thought, "I'll get rich," and they ran out and got a licence. I applaud them for the fact that they wanted to become independent business people and were prepared to take the risks. But the risks are always apparent in any business, and when you have a lot of extra licences, there is a lot of competition. They are now suffering. What we have to do to help these people is make sure the taxes are lowered. My colleague from the Liberal Party who spoke before me has suggested he will bring in an amendment requiring a reduction in the fuel tax. It is certainly an amendment I will be in favour of.

Turning to the question of controlling load brokers, it is a fact that a significant portion of the loads carried in Ontario are brokered through so-called load brokers. By and large, load brokers are very useful people and service the trucking industry well, but of course there has been the odd example where a load broker has not paid for the delivery of the service, and there are a few aspects to that.

The government is bringing in a clause in Bill 129 which allows them to require a bond. I have very vigorously worked on behalf of the industry to say that this should not be more than $10,000. The reason $10,000 is acceptable to my party is because in that respect it will be a level playing field with the United States.

Had the government gone ahead with its initial proposal of $100,000, Ontario load brokers, who do play an important role, would have been at a yet more significant disadvantage at a time when there is a lack of loads. Certainly we welcome protection for the truckers but it is no excuse for the trucker not to do his own checking about the creditworthiness of the company he is trucking for. That applies even with a $10,000 bond.

When the load broker is paid for the shipment, he is required to put the amount of money he is indebted to for the actual trucking company into a trust account, and that seems like an appropriate action. This is very similar to a lawyer putting money into a trust account or a real estate broker putting it into a trust account.

The exercise of that trust account we will only understand fully when the regulations are published. Of course this government is certainly famous for bringing forward legislation without us seeing the regulations, although from the co-operation we have had between the Ministry of Transportation and my office, I am encouraged to think that perhaps this time we might get a reasonable set of regulations. Certainly the work I have done with the Ministry of Transportation, in the typical non-partisan way which I am so famous for with my friends across the floor, has paid off in that some of the aspects of this bill are very much what we asked for.

But this is not a long-term solution. We need to have more efficient equipment, and in order to buy more efficient equipment we must have profits. We are only going to have profits if we have lower fuel costs, and we keep on going back to fuel costs. This has been one of the cash cows that the Treasurer has gone for, absolutely ignoring the pre-budget consultation where he was told there was a need for a reduction in the fuel tax, not an increase. It seems quite bizarre that we get a 30% increase in the cost of fuel when the Treasurer was told very clearly that unless there was reduction in the fuel tax cost, this industry would continue to haemorrhage the way it has.

The disadvantage we have over the US is something which cannot be ignored. The more fuel-efficient trucks the US is operating, which are typically two or three years old, compare with our trucks, which are seven or eight years old. In fact, we would stimulate the production of trucks in Canada if we were to somehow find a way of getting some profits into this industry.

One of the ways, as I have said, would be a reduction in fuel tax. Another way would be to have some kind of industry assistance. Probably the best thing would be a provincial sales tax moratorium for a period of time until this industry turns around.

This is a route which I believe a previous Conservative government went into. From the Conservative document we issued a few weeks ago called New Directions: A Blueprint for Economic Renewal and Prosperity in Ontario, I would just like to read in:

"Gasoline and fuel taxes should be immediately cut by 10%. This would benefit all sectors of the economy, including transportation, tourism and manufacturing. Combined with a reduction in PST, these cuts would begin to address ongoing concerns and job losses associated with cross-border shopping."

With that, I will say that we will be voting for this bill but it is only one step. Part of it is fixing a perception and other parts of it are probably appropriate in terms of the load brokers, but as long as we keep to a $10,000 bond which is consistent with the United States, I think that is fine. I look forward to seeing the regulations.

1920

Mr Dadamo: I do not see too many on that side who are ready to speak.

I thank the member for Essex South and also the member for York Mills for contributing. Bill 129 sets the stage for government and interested parties to co-ordinate longer-term strategies for the Ontario-based trucking industry. We will work with the private sector to foster a competitive and financially viable industry.

As well, besides the two initiatives contained in Bill 129, this government has pursued and continues to pursue other actions of benefit to the industry. In March we changed our regulations to allow quarterly payments of interprovincial truck licence registrations. This helps truckers faced with cash-flow problems. Instead of paying several thousand dollars in one lump sum they can also spread their payment over the duration of one year.

The actions this ministry has taken cannot be assessed individually by themselves. They may seem insignificant but the cumulative effect will help stabilize the industry. These initiatives are components of a developing strategy, a longer-term strategy which will ensure the survival of a viable Ontario-based trucking industry.

Motion agreed to.

House in committee of the whole.

TRUCK TRANSPORTATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LE CAMIONNAGE

Consideration of Bill 129, An Act to amend the Truck Transportation Act, 1988 / Projet de loi 129, Loi portant modification de la Loi de 1988 sur le camionnage.

Mr Dadamo: I intend to move five amendments to the bill at the appropriate time during the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, those being section 3 of the bill, proposed subsection 4.2(2) of the act; section 3 of the bill, proposed subsection 4.2(10) of the act; section 3 of the bill, proposed clause 4.3(5)(b) of the act; section 7 of the bill, proposed subsection 37.1(2.1); and also subsection 9(4) of the bill.

The Chair: I believe the member for Essex South has some amendments.

Mr Mancini: Has the government moved its amendments?

The Chair: Yes, he just did.

Mr Mancini: I understand the government has a number of amendments. My amendment will be at the very end of the legislation, so it might be advantageous for the government to move the three, four or five amendments, whatever it has.

Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.

Section 3:

The Chair: Mr Dadamo moves that subsection 4.2(2) of the act, as set out in section 3 of the bill, be struck out and the following substituted:

"(2) During the effective period of a direction made under section 37.1, the registrar shall continue to grant new operating authorities of a class identified by the direction to a person who, during the six months before the direction was made,

"(a) had entered into an agreement to carry goods of any other person for compensation; and

"(b) in order to carry out that agreement, had entered into an agreement to purchase or lease for more than 30 consecutive days one or two commercial motor vehicles."

Mr Dadamo: This motion tightens up the exception for persons who had already committed to acquiring trucks and to providing for hired trucking services at the time the moratorium took effect. The applicant's eligibility for obtaining operating authority under this exception is being made conditional upon (1) existence of an agreement to purchase or lease one or two trucks, and (2) an agreement to provide for hired trucking service, provided such agreements had been entered into during the six-month period prior to April 25, 1991, the effective date of the moratorium.

Motion agreed to.

The Chair: Mr Dadamo moves that subsection 4.2(10) of the act, as set out in section 3 of the bill, be amended by inserting before "agreement" in the fifth line "purchase or lease."

Mr Dadamo: This amendment is necessitated by the previous amendment related to tightening up the exception for prior agreement to acquire one or two trucks and providing for hired trucking services.

Mr Mancini: Maybe I will just put on the record now that we have no objections to the previous amendment, to this amendment and to the other amendments the government will be placing.

Motion agreed to.

The Chair: Mr Dadamo moves that clause 4.3(5)(b) of the act, as set out in section 3 of the bill, be amended by striking out "under it by the transferor" in the fifth line and substituting "under the transferor's operating authorities."

Mr Dadamo: This motion is necessary to clarify the requirements as to the limit on the maximum number of trucks which can be operated by licence holders who choose to transfer some of their interprovincial operating authorities while retaining at least one authority during the period of the moratorium. The bottom line is that the transferor will be allowed to operate a fleet size equal to the number of vehicles operated interprovincially before the transfer minus the number of trucks which the transferor is eligible to operate under the transferred authority for the duration of the moratorium.

Motion agreed to.

Section 3, as amended, agreed to.

Sections 4 to 6, inclusive, agreed to.

1930

Mr Mancini: I have an amendment I would like to make. Before I place my amendment, I would like to take a moment or two very briefly to put on the record why my amendment is absolutely essential and why it should receive the support of the government this evening.

During second reading debate earlier on this evening, I pointed out the statistical economic implications of the government's two 1.7-cents-per-litre tax increases that have been placed on diesel fuel, the original 1.7 cents to take effect the same day that the Treasurer brought in the budget and the further 1.7 cents as a New Year's present to truckers that will commence on January 1, 1992.

This taxation by the NDP government is taking $4,000 from the pocket of every trucker in Ontario and further increasing the disparity in the costs of operation between Canadian truckers and American truckers. My amendment is going to bring some relief to Ontario truckers. My amendment will give Ontario truckers their $4,000 back. I am going to be quite disappointed if the government does not see fit to support my amendment.

The Chair: Mr Mancini moves that section 6 of the bill be amended by adding the following subsection:

"6.1 Section 2 of the Fuel Tax Act is amended by striking out clauses 2(1)(a) and 2(1)(b) and substituting the following:

"2(1)(a) 10.9 cents per litre on all clear fuel received or used by a purchaser in Ontario after the 31st day of December 1991, to generate power in a motor vehicle other than railway equipment operated on rails in connection with a public transportation system."

I find this amendment out of order because it proposes to amend an act not being amended by the bill.

Mr Mancini: If that is the case, if the rules of the Legislative Assembly do not allow me to move this amendment at this particular time, I would like a commitment from the parliamentary assistant that such action will be taken forthwith at the earliest opportunity.

I wonder if the parliamentary assistant could inform the Legislature whether or not the intent of my amendment is going to be accepted by the government and all of the government members who have claimed some sympathy for the Ontario Trucking Association and the industry. I want to know if the intent of my amendment is going to be accepted by the government and whether or not it will move under, I guess, more proper circumstances for bills to be amended.

Mr Dadamo: The member well knows that this particular item is not playing a part tonight. We are not discussing the 1.7-cents-a-litre tax increase and, as he knows, the Treasurer controls the tax items. We will bring it to the Treasurer's attention again.

Mr Mancini: I appreciate the honourable parliamentary assistant's reply. The Ministry of Transportation is the ministry that should be looking after the interests of the Ontario trucking industry. They are its clients. The minister and the parliamentary assistant are the spokespeople in government for the industry.

There are a couple of Christmas parties going on, but we may have to stay here a while unless we hear some clear answers. I want to know what the position of the ministry is going to be in regard to the intention of my amendment, what the parliamentary assistant is going to do, how he is going to do it, when he is going to meet with the Treasurer, what he is going to tell the Treasurer and how he is going to advance the interests of the industry. I want to know those things this evening.

Mr Dadamo: We could go back and forth all night. If the member wants to stay all night, we will stay till midnight and beyond. It does not matter. But I will say to him again and I will make it perfectly clear that we have had these discussions with the trucking industry, we have had these discussions with the Treasurer and we will continue to have these discussions with the Treasurer.

One thing the member did say that is correct is that the Ministry of Transportation is taking care of the trucking industry the best it can. Let me say to the member again that we will have discussions with the Treasury over the 1.7-cents-a-litre tax on fuel. We promise the member that.

Mr Mancini: Let me see if I understand this right. Is it the intention of the minister to request the Treasurer to repeal the 1.7 cents instituted in April and to not move forward with the 1.7-cents tax increase in January? Is that going to be his position to the Treasurer?

Mr Dadamo: The 1.7 cents is not up for grabs tonight. We are not discussing that. The member is playing with words. He knows I am not going to stand here tonight and give him any words I may make a mistake on. We will discuss it with the Treasurer, as we have already said.

Mrs Marland: What is up for grabs tonight, to use the colloquialism of the parliamentary assistant, is the future of a major part of the Ontario economy. A major part of the Ontario economy is driven by what happens to the Ontario trucking industry. This government has already demonstrated its disdain for the Ontario trucking industry with other legislation. The legislation to which the parliamentary assistant correctly refers is not the legislation of his ministry; it is the Treasury's responsibility when we are talking about budget bills.

When we are talking about the concerns that are trying to be expressed here, we are looking at an industry that is an entity on its own. It is an industry on which many millions of dollars depend through the whole process of doing business in this province. What business survives in any manufacturing area and even in some service areas without the trucking industry?

If this government is saying, "Of course we don't have to deal with that tonight because it's not this bill," I want to say, on behalf of the member for York Mills, who is the spokesperson for Transportation for our Progressive Conservative caucus, that he is concerned, as are the other members of our caucus, because this whole approach to the tax on gasoline has a total disregard for the future of the Ontario trucking industry.

David Bradley, the president of the Ontario Trucking Association, explains in detail, as he has probably explained to this parliamentary assistant and certainly to his minister and to ministry staff, that the industry is losing money. We are not talking about reducing profits here. We are not talking about how much money people who own and operate trucks are going to make. We are talking about how much money they are going to lose, how much more money they can lose. With that business loss, of course, go the jobs.

1940

I have said, as I have stood in this House a number of times in the last few months, that every time we get up on the opposition side of the House and talk about anything to do with business, commerce and industry, the socialist members opposite say, "Well, we've got to save the jobs," and we agree with them totally. But what this socialist government does not seem to realize is that in order to save jobs it has to save the commerce, the business and the industry that provide the jobs.

In speaking to this bill I want to express our concerns for the fact that on the one hand the Bob Rae socialist government talks about wanting to protect workers and save jobs, and on the other hand it brings in all kinds of punitive legislation that impedes the ability of businesses to stay in business. The trucking industry is only one example.

I will understand, Mr Chairman, if you do not accept the amendment of the representative of the official opposition to this bill. But I will support the intent of the question behind the mover of that amendment to also ask the parliamentary assistant if there will be a commitment and pledge for his ministry to do something with the rest of the people with whom his minister sits around the cabinet table, and show some regard for an industry that is already foundering, closing down, where jobs are lost and business is lost across this province as a result of it. I would appreciate his concern being expressed on the record.

Mr Dadamo: In response to the member for Mississauga South, let me make it perfectly clear to her tonight that the Minister of Transportation has always made clear to his cabinet colleagues his sincerity that we are committed to assisting truckers in this province. He has never shirked that responsibility, and of course we will continue to examine methods of helping the industry in the long term. But here tonight, some of the members are tending to go off on wide and varied tangents. What we would like to do is to home in on a moratorium on truck licences, and I believe this is what we should be discussing here tonight via Bill 129.

As the member for Mississauga South would know, the increase in any taxes on fuel for the truckers is certainly under the purview of the Treasurer and the Treasurer only. We can of course make our views known to him, but he holds the purse-strings that will make that decision and he will live with that. I am sure the member for Mississauga South understands that.

The Ministry of Transportation has always been of assistance to the trucking industry. I need not explain that they were deregulated by the member's federal counterparts in the year 1988 and since then have gone downhill. The trucking industry has experienced some bad times not only in the last 15 or 16 months, but has been slowly going down in the last four or five. We are doing the most we can under our purview and of course under the amount of money that we can spend on its behalf.

I would like to say also that I have spoken to many trucking industries in Ontario. I have talked to truckers in the riding which I represent, Windsor-Sandwich. As we said earlier, whenever the trucker blockades occur, they occur in the riding I represent on the foot of Huron Church Road off the Ambassador Bridge, and I have to live with that also.

I am close to the truckers. I spoke at the first rally they had in Windsor. I assisted them as much as I could and worked alongside. Now we are in this enviable position of having to do something for them, so I would hope the member understands that I understand the industry and that I understand the problems it has. I am committed to doing whatever it is I can do for it.

Mrs Marland: I have just one final brief comment. The legislation that is before us at this magical moment in history has to do with truck licences. The point I am making, that I hope this parliamentary assistant will take to his minister, is that we will not have to worry about truck licences the way business is going in this province under this socialist government.

I am concerned about truck licences. This bill is going to go through, fine, and yes, this bill is dealing with truck licences, but a number of businesses in the trucking industry are going out of business. They simply have to close up shop, close their doors and sell whatever is left of their capital investment in terms of equipment. Those people do not care about a piece of legislation about their licences; they care about the future of their industry.

While this government is in power in Ontario, it had better get its act together and it had better start worrying about the future of all industry in this province, particularly the industry about whose licences we are speaking in this case tonight.

Hon Mr Cooke: Mr Chairman, I do not want to prolong this, because I know the member who just spoke would like to join her colleagues tonight.

Mrs Marland: No, I am not, so you might correct the record.

Hon Mr Cooke: She is not joining her colleagues. Okay then, she is not; she is going to stay here. Actually, there are five or six other items on the agenda that we could do. That would be great.

I do not think I could let her comments pass without at least pointing out to her that the truckers in this province, the truckers in this country, have made it very clear that the major contributing factor to their decline and to the difficulties they have had in the industry has been this freeenterprise, right-wing approach the federal Conservative government has taken with deregulation, which has gutted the trucking industry in this province and in this nation.

I know she has to take the opposition point of view and throw in the barbs about socialism and so forth, but if she wants to talk about ideology that is destroying this country, all she has to do is to look to her cousins in Ottawa in the Mulroney government. This industry is the best example of what that right-wing ideology in Ottawa is doing to our nation. It has done it to the trucking industry and we are doing the best we can at the provincial level to try to help and try to mitigate the disastrous consequences from the disastrous economic policies of the Mulroney government.

If she thinks that she stands up here and makes these silly statements and anybody believes her, she is absolutely wrong. People know, and the truckers know, that their problems have been created by her federal government. If she wanted to do something constructive, instead of making the silly statements she is making here tonight, she would hop in a plane, go to Ottawa and beg them to understand the problems of the truckers and ask them to get out of the deregulation mode and bring back some control so that Canadian truckers can be protected.

Mrs Marland: The government House leader, the member for Windsor-Riverside, certainly has an advantage tonight because he has a full audience present. I do not have a whole lot of trained seals sitting around me tonight applauding my comments. That is not why I am on my feet. I am on my feet --

Mr Abel: If there is something worth applauding.

Mrs Marland: Does the member see how they respond? The trained seals are responding again. We are getting quite used to the interjections from across the floor of the House.

When the member for Windsor-Riverside, the government House leader, talks about the disdainful right-wing, free enterprise approach, I want to tell him that Ontario became the premier province in Canada not because of left-wing socialism, but because we believed in free enterprise in this province. We believed in this province that it was not a dirty word to refer to profits.

1950

The Chair: I would ask you to speak to the bill.

Mrs Marland: I am speaking to the bill in the same direction the member for Windsor-Riverside did. He referred to my cousins in the federal government and their policies and their legislation. I am not doing what he is doing, which is dumping responsibility on another level of government. He knows as well as I do that I do not control the federal government. I am not part of developing their policies. When he talks in this House about silly statements, I shall refer him to his own Hansard record tomorrow and we will see where the silly statements are.

The fact is that it is free enterprise in this province that allowed the trucking industry to develop as successfully as it has. The relationship between the trucking industry in this province and all the other businesses is what we are talking about in my comments tonight, and the fact that this government thinks the solution to everything is to damn the federal government while it does nothing to secure business and commerce in this province, but everything to drive business, commerce and industry out of this province.

I take strong exception to anyone who stands up on behalf of a socialist government and tries to pretend the way to go is the opposite to free enterprise. We will see where we are with their provincial deficit in another three or four years because of the taxation and the regressive legislation they bring into this House that penalizes business, industry and commerce, which in turn affects what the Ontario trucking industry has an opportunity to do.

Hon Mr Cooke: I really will be short, but I cannot let that pass either. I think the member for Mississauga South knew she would force me to respond. I think what developed the economy in this province in a very strong way was that there was pragmatic governance in this province for many years, and that is what built the trucking industry. Then it was destroyed by federal policies that are not pragmatic.

The Chair: Perhaps I should read the amendment to the bill again.

Hon Mr Cooke: I know, but you did let the member for Mississauga South go on for quite some period of time.

The Chair: Yes, I did, but I will not let anybody go through it again.

Hon Mr Cooke: I agree. Let's finish the bill and then maybe the member for Mississauga South and I can talk later and I can remind her about things Mr Davis did with Suncor, UTDC and the domed stadium. If that is what she calls free enterprise, she has me very confused.

The Chair: Mr Dadamo moves that section 37.1 of the act, as set out in section 7 of the bill, be amended by adding the following subsection:

"(2.1) A direction shall cease to have effect on a day not later than the 25th day of April, 1993."

Motion agreed to.

Section 7, as amended, agreed to.

Section 8 agreed to.

Section 9:

The Chair: Mr Dadamo moves that subsection 9(4) of the bill be struck out and the following substituted:

"(4) Subsection (2) does not apply to an operating authority,

"(a) granted to a person who, during the six months before the 25th day of April, 1991,

"(i) had entered into an agreement to carry goods of any other person for compensation, and

"(ii) in order to carry out that agreement, had entered into an agreement to purchase or lease for more than 30 consecutive days one or two commercial motor vehicles; and

"(b) limited to the operation of the number of commercial motor vehicles that are the subject of the purchase or lease agreement."

Motion agreed to.

Section 9, as amended, agreed to.

Sections 10 and 11 agreed to.

Bill, as amended, ordered to be reported.

On motion by Mr Dadamo, the committee of the whole House reported one bill with certain amendments.

The House adjourned at 1956.