Legislative Assembly of Ontario

[Report continued from volume A]

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GASOLINE TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT LA LOI DE LA TAXE SUR L'ESSENCE

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 86, An Act to amend the Gasoline Tax Act / Projet de loi 86, Loi portant modification de la Loi de la taxe sur l'essence.

Mr Mills: I am very pleased to rise and take part in the debate on Bill 86, the Gasoline Tax Amendment Act, 1991.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): There are many private conversations. The honourable member for Durham East has the floor.

Mr Mills: I am pleased to rise and take part in this debate on Bill 86. I am not going to be like some members who speak for three and a half hours, and at the end of that three and a half hours say absolutely nothing and the people who are watching on television knew more before they started. It does nothing for the vast audience that watches these proceedings in Ontario. They get fed up with that claptrap they watch and then they switch off and do not watch the meaningful debate in this House.

Last week I had the opportunity and the honour indeed of addressing the Durham region inaugural council meeting. Those meetings are very important in the riding.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): Order, please. I am having great difficulty hearing the honourable member who has the floor. Please allow him the opportunity.

Mr Mills: This regional council inaugural meeting is a very important function in the riding and I was very pleased to be there. At that meeting there were the mayors of Whitby, Oshawa, Uxbridge, Newcastle and Scugog. It is a very warm, exciting moment in their lives to debate and think about the things that they want in their ridings and in their municipalities. Those mayors spoke very vociferously of all the great improvements they want to see in their term of office. They want sewers. They want water. They want everything that could come in.

During that night's discussion that I had with those folks, the question came up of how we were going to pay for these things. That is the nub of the amendment in Bill 86. How are we going to pay for the things we need? How are we going to pay for the things the constituents we represent demand that we supply?

How do we do that? Are we going to print money? Of course not. The members opposite have blamed the draconian NDP government with its hairy ideas for the state of the economy that we are in today. The economy and the recession have absolutely nothing to do with this government. It is a worldwide recession and it is a result, mainly in Canada and in Ontario, of Conservative economic policies. We have the GST, we have the high rate of the dollar and we have high interest rates. All these things have contributed to the state we are in now.

How would the Conservative Party address a recession? One of the things they would do -- I hope every civil servant is listening with attention -- to address the recession would be to cut the civil service by one third. That is a start they would do. I hope all the civil servants in this building and across Ontario are listening, because those are their tactics; that is what they would do. When the civil servants had used up their separation pay, their holiday pay and the restricted UI pay, they would be on welfare. That is what would happen with the policies these people would make if they were in power.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): Order, please. There are many private conversations and a great deal of heckling, which is totally out of order. The honourable member for Durham East very legitimately has the floor. Other members will have an opportunity if they want to question or comment or if they want to participate in the debate, so please, the honourable member for Durham East.

Mr Mills: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I realize their enthusiasm is hard to contain and I sympathize with you as Speaker.

The last speaker but one was the member for Ottawa-Rideau. She is not here this afternoon. I would like to speak about some of the things that were said then. She spoke about cheaper gasoline in the United States. I do not know how many people in this House have driven to Washington. When they go to Washington, it gets very annoying because it seems that about every quarter of a mile you get stopped by a booth, you put your hands in your pocket and it is 35 or 50 cents. After a while this gets very annoying.

I have some friends who live in the United States and I have had some discussions with them over this. They said, "For the aggravation and the nuisance we would willingly pay some more gasoline tax," if they could take away all these booths that hinder them going to work, coming home and every time they turn around in Washington. We were talking about gasoline prices in the United States. The member for Ottawa-Rideau said gasoline is cheaper in the States. Of course it is cheaper in the States, but we do not have the toll road structure in Ontario that they have in the United States.

From this Legislature to my riding in Durham East I travel to and fro on Highway 401. I am amazed at the number of cars I see travelling into Toronto bearing New York licence plates. The reason they are doing that is very simple: They are trying to avoid the toll fees of the New York State Thruway, so they come up and zip by. So much for cheap gas, but they use our roads to facilitate their movement across Ontario and they save the fee.

Mr Stockwell: Sure they do. A buck and a quarter in tolls against $15 or $20 in gas. That is a different logic.

Mr Mills: The member for Etobicoke West wants to interrupt me. I never interrupt him. He keeps on and on.

Interjections.

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Mr Mills: No, I am not. I have manners in this House and I wish he had some too.

A lot of people drive to and from Florida, and I can tell members that as soon as you hit the Sunshine Expressway in Florida to go to Miami, I think it costs $16. That is another toll. They have cheaper gas, but there are some side effects to the cheaper gas.

We look at the infrastructure of our roads in Ontario and the roads in the United States. I can remember some time ago, before I was elected to this Legislature, driving through Toledo. They had holes there that would swallow up a small car. You had to hold on for dear life because your dentures would have shook right out of your mouth with these huge potholes. I must say that as you carry on, Cincinnati is the same way; it is even worse for potholes. This all comes down to the fact of gasoline and gasoline tax and that is what I am speaking to in this bill today. I am not aware of any highways in Ontario with holes so big they damage the front end of your car like there are in the United States.

The member for Ottawa-Rideau linked cross-border shopping with gasoline prices, and that is absolutely ridiculous. People do not cross-border shop to buy gasoline. They buy gasoline when they get there but they do not go there to buy gasoline. The reason the people cross-border shop -- the member for Essex South is waving his hands and shaking his head -- is that they are so fed up with the GST. They have such an aversion to paying it that they spend money to avoid paying the GST to Ottawa. That is a fact. I have talked to many of my constituents and I say, "When you cross-border shop, why do you do this?" They say: "We can't bear to let Mulroney get money. We'll spend more, but he won't get it." The member has it wrong when she says people go cross-border shopping for gasoline.

During the debate the members, in their usual self-righteous manner, ask for impact studies before the gasoline taxes are raised. There are a lot of people. What about the impact studies? They ask for a study of a graduated gas tax system. Where were they in 1985 when the Liberal government increased gasoline taxes to go along with vehicle registration fees and drivers' licences? Where were they in 1988 when they again increased gasoline taxes? Where were they in 1989 when the government introduced propane tax on friendly environmental vehicles? Where were they when the government increased vehicle registration fees and licence fees yet again? Where were their impact studies? I do not hear anything.

Where were they when they increased the retail sales tax used to transport the disabled? Before they did that, did any of those people demand impact studies to be carried out? Did they ask for any studies on graduated tax systems? Of course they did not. Yet they did this when the coffers of the Ontario revenue were so full from retail sales tax that they had an unprecedented amount of money in there. The member for Ottawa East knows; he was Minister of Revenue. He is laughing. They had so much money they did not know what to do with it yet still they --

Mr Mancini: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I do not take tax measures lightly. I was not laughing and I want the honourable member to withdraw those remarks. The honourable member referred to me as laughing about a tax measure. I want the honourable member to clarify the record immediately.

Mr Mills: I realize the sensitivity of the member for Essex South but I was looking at my former boss, the member for Ottawa East, who was the Minister of Revenue, and he was laughing.

Mr Mancini: I want the record to be clear on what the honourable member has said.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): The honourable member for Essex South has made his point. The honourable member for Durham East has the floor.

Mr Mancini: The member who was on his feet a moment ago accused me of laughing at a tax measure. That is incorrect, untrue and I want the honourable member to correct the record, or it is going to be very difficult to continue.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): A point of order has been made. The Chair really cannot force anyone to withdraw in a situation like this. The honourable member for Durham East has the floor. He heard the point of order. Please continue.

Mr Mills: I certainly never mentioned the member for Essex South. I mentioned the member for Ottawa East who, I know, is the previous Minister of Revenue. He knows that we have a personal joke about that.

Anyway, having cleared that up, I want to turn my attention in this debate on Bill 86 to the member for Etobicoke West. When we were debating this, the member said: "You people over there haven't got the intestinal fortitude to vote for anything. The only person who votes against the government is the member for whatever, down there. You people stand there and you jump up and you act like seals. You can't do anything for yourself."

Mr Stockwell: I never said that.

Mr Mills: Yes, you did. I made a note of this. So I took the trouble to look back to something my Conservative predecessor in Durham East said in this House. I am going to quote from Hansard what he said in 1985: "Back in those days we had the god-emperor running everything here. He ran it with a tight fist. It was his show. No one dared step out of line, not one bit. When I was Deputy Speaker I called him to order from time to time" -- he is speaking about the former Premier, Mr Davis -- "and that was the end of my political career. It was a lesson well learned, I might add."

I say to the members opposite, if they are ever lucky enough to form the government again, god-emperor Harris or his successor would again be running the show with a tight fist, daring anyone to step out of line. So in their high, almighty position, they say we cannot do anything. They are the same.

The member for Ottawa-Carleton is not here. He spoke, when he was here, in this debate so lovingly of the Conservative government when he reminisced about those days of luring business to Ontario through cheap gasoline, but the members' mind must still be attached to the past. We have had a war in Iran, which has seen crude oil jump from less than $8 a barrel --

Mr Stockwell: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I do not believe the government has 20 members in here. I do not believe there is a quorum.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve) ordered the bells rung.

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Mr Mills: I will continue. I will just go on to say that, unfortunately, we live in a different world today than the world the honourable member for Ottawa-Carleton so likes to go back to. We live in a different set of circumstances altogether.

I would like to touch on some of the comments made on the effect of this gasoline tax. People over there have spoken about how it is driving business away and people are lining up to get their green card and businesses are going all kind of crackers to get across to the United States. I would like to say, in reference to Bill 86, that despite all our so-called draconian madness, Ontario remains a great place of business. Business is not lining up to go to the US. In terms of foreign investment, and I am quoting from Investment Canada data, over the past year 58.6% of all foreign investment came from the US to Ontario and 54.3% of all foreign investment in Canada came to Ontario too.

It costs less to live in Ottawa, Hamilton, KitchenerWaterloo and Windsor than it does in Buffalo and Cleveland. It costs less to live in Toronto than it does in New York or Boston. That is from Investment Canada last week.

The opposition, both parties, continue on a daily basis to paint a picture of doom and gloom for Ontario, and they continue to do that with the introduction of Bill 86 and the gasoline tax increase. Yet in 1986 -- I see the member is leaving; he cannot take the truth -- Canada's quality of life marked sixth out of 160 nations. In 1990 Canada moved up and was ranked second out of 160 nations. The gloom and doom spread by the opposition is harmful to all Ontarians and is absolutely disgraceful. It is disgraceful.

In Ontario the life expectancy of the population is 75.5 years. Murder is 2.5 people per 100,000 population. In New York, the wonderful place where all the business is going, where the member says they are piling up to leave Ontario to go to, the life expectancy is 73 years, two years less, and the murder rate is 12.5 persons per 100,000. So much for that wonderland he keeps talking about.

I have a few more statistics to put forth. Household incomes in 1990, within 40 miles of Toronto, are as great as or greater than they are in Cleveland, Detroit, Boston and New York. Ontario's infrastructure, as compared among 24 industrialized nations, shows us in second position as far as roads go, to the United States' seventh position. Cheap power? They keep talking about brownouts and all this happening. In Ontario we are first out of 24 industrialized nations, whereas the US is eighth.

I do not see really much reason why they keep saying business is taking off to the green hills of the United States. It is nothing more than fearmongering, as my colleague the member for Chatham-Kent has echoed.

As we talk to Bill 86 and this so-called phantom exodus to the United States, Ontario relies more on corporate income taxes and less on other taxes of business inputs compared with other jurisdictions -- and I see the member is actually going; he cannot take it any longer. As a result, Ontario's tax system is generally more sensitive to a firm's level of profitability. In my opinion, and that of my colleagues, Ontario is a pretty good place to live in and a pretty good place to do business in despite all the gloom and doom we are hearing from over there.

I would like to turn back to the gasoline taxes and some comments the member for Carleton made when he spoke so lovingly of the Conservative government increasing gasoline taxes about nine times over a period of two or three years. That is absolutely not right. He says the nine bites were to allow industry to readjust to the increases in taxation. What a way. You increase taxes in nine bites so that industry can adjust to the bites little by little.

I am sad to report that the member for Carleton had a very convenient lapse of memory, because we know and the Speaker knows that the Conservative government, when they were in power, added their terrible ad valorem tax. Every three months they pumped up the tax, and the former Minister of Revenue sitting in his place over there had the courage, when he was appointed to be the minister, to cut that tax off as really a diabolical tax that the people could not suffer for. I applaud the member for doing that. That was a wonderful move.

It does not take too much imagination to understand why the god-emperors across the way were tossed out of office way back in 1985. We are talking about Bill 86 and taxes and tax increases to the population of Ontario. I still remember when Frank Miller was the Treasurer. I sat here this morning at the induction of the new Lieutenant-Governor. I looked down and I saw Frank there. I remembered that fellow so well. When he was the Treasurer of Ontario we could have helped everybody in Ontario by taking down the retail sales tax by a point. Everybody would have benefited for it. But what did he do? He took it off cars. Who buys cars? He was a car dealer. It helped the car dealers, no doubt, but it only helped a certain level of the population that could afford to buy new cars. It did not apply to all the people all over Ontario. I still remember that.

I have heard all these other speakers talk about the bill and how draconian it is and how awful it is and what it is doing to industry and how people are leaving for the United States by the boatload. I thought to myself that they have not really addressed an important part of this bill. That is what I am going to address here now. That is the administrative revisions to this bill.

This bill implements a system of mandatory registration of importers, exporters and extrajurisdictional transporters of gasoline, aviation fuel and propane in bulk. This system has been initiated as a measure to counter the evasion of tax imposed under the act. That is a very important part of this bill, yet I have not heard any member speak to that yet. Maybe they do not understand it or maybe they did not think it was really worthwhile to make any political hay about, but I think it is very well worth it.

A constant problem with the Gasoline Tax Act over the years -- the former minister sitting there, the member for Ottawa East, will well know this -- has been people's cheating. They cheat in such unrealistic ways that it boggles the mind. I spoke before of the diesel tax. They are here and there, they start up here, they are a numbered company this week, a numbered company that week, some other company that week, and they kept vanishing off the face of Ontario. This is a real problem. It has cost everyone in Ontario so many millions of dollars that it is almost frightening to think about it.

I remember that a lot of this gasoline used to be sold all over Ontario. It was imported from the United States. It was imported also by the boatload -- the amount of tax there is absolutely astronomical -- from Europe. All this gasoline was dispersed throughout Ontario in many different ways. It went out in trucks. It went to service stations, it went to contractors, it went all over the place.

Some of that gasoline ended up in an environment whereby the people could claim back the tax on it. This was adding insult to injury. They did not pay the tax on it in the first place, yet they had the audacity to fill in a form to claim the tax back.

I remember going out there to do an audit on their books and having a chat with a lot of these people who had claimed for the tax back, and I would say to them, "Let me see your invoices for the gasoline first." We had a process that we used to follow. "Let me see your invoices so that I can come to grips with what your rebate is." They push out all these different invoices and they would have on the top, like, Smokey Joe's Gasoline Co or something, obviously a phoney.

I would say to them, "Your invoice here does not reflect that you paid any tax on this." They would look at me in absolute amazement and they would say, "But the tax is included." I would say, "You expect me to believe that in the price you paid for this gasoline the tax was included?" "Oh, yes, the tax is included." I said, "How do you know?" They said, "Because these people told us it was." These crooks told them it was. Can members believe this?

It really riles me a little bit and I have heard it all over about people who are cheating on welfare. There are over a million people in Ontario now who are on welfare and many of those people are really down and out and suffering. They have turned to this government for the last help they can see. It rather annoys me when I hear, especially in small-town Ontario, so many people just blindly saying, "Well, half of the people on welfare are cheating and they should be doing this, they should be shovelling snow, they should be working. Why don't you get them off their backsides and get them going?" And all this sort of nonsense.

Here we have the so-called entrepreneurs of Ontario, the business people, the reputable business people who were cheating on their taxes. That was all right. That is supposed to be all right in the eyes of the entrepreneur society. That is fine. But the poor little person --

Mr Turnbull: It shows the inspectors were lousy; they weren't doing their job.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order.

Mr Mills: This member is absolutely outrageous in his outbursts and I wish he would be quiet because I do not interrupt him when he talks. He has no manners or decorum.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): The member for York Mills adds absolutely nothing to this debate by the type of interjection. Please remain quiet and allow the member for Durham East to have the floor.

Mr Mills: I can see that I am getting under some of their skin because when we talk about entrepreneurs and business, it is all right for that segment of society to cheat like old dickens. It gets under their skin and they have to keep yapping and going on about it.

Mr Turnbull: You don't like it. You didn't do your job.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order. The member will be seated. The member for York Mills is stretching my patience. I would ask him to co-operate with the good order of the House.

Mr Mills: I will move along because I do not really mean to stand here and agitate people. That is not my nature. What I am here to do is speak in favour of Bill 86. We as a government have to somehow -- and goodness knows, it is difficult enough -- come to grips with the revenues that we are --

Mr Turnbull: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I do not believe a quorum is present.

The Acting Speaker ordered the bells rung.

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Mr Mills: I am always encouraged when the member for York Mills gets so wound up because I know I am touching some very sensitive nerves about the cheating that we did see in Ontario in so far as the use of gasoline by, as I said previously, the entrepreneurs.

Mr Speaker, I, like you in your riding, cannot really stomach too many more tax increases, but the point I am trying to make is that we have an appetite out there of our constituents who demand so many things. I go back to that inaugural meeting of the region of Durham when I had the opportunity to speak to so many mayors, how they spoke to me of the things they wanted done in their municipalities. How on earth we can ever hope to do even a small portion of those things without increasing taxes, I do not know. It does gall me considerably to have the members of both the official opposition and the third party so self-righteously keep on giving it to us about increasing the gasoline tax when the point is that when they were in office, when they had unlimited funds, they continued to put the tax up almost on a continual basis.

I am going to close out my remarks to allow some of my colleagues to speak to this bill. I am going to close it out on a high note. We have heard and we continue to hear as recently as yesterday about the firms and the lack of investment in Ontario.

These figures are not mine. These announcements are not mine. These announcements are from Statistics Canada, and I am just going to read some of them out as I close.

Last year the Ford Motor Co of Canada had a $500-million painting plant in Oakville. That represented the largest new automotive project, not in Ontario or in Canada but in the entire world in 1990. In January, Digital Equipment of Canada in Kanata -- and the member is not here now -- was selected as the facility where a new computer would be built for all world markets except Europe. 3M Canada has invested $50 million to expand or upgrade in Ontario its operations -- $12 million for the London plant, $30 million for a new plant in Brockville, and $5.6 million in the small community of Havelock. In May, Chrysler Canada announced it was going to introduce a new car model in its Bramalea plant, leading to the creation of 1,000 new jobs, and planned to add another shift to its Windsor plant, creating 1,400 extra jobs. Finally, in August, GE Silicones, a subsidiary of General Electric Canada, officially opened a new $20-million plant in Pickering. This plant has GE's global product mandate for a wide range of silicone adhesives and sealants.

Does this seem to members the picture of gloom, the picture of doom to the Ontario that we are destroying by adding to the gasoline tax? I ask members, does this look to them to be gloom, doom, and the dire straits that Ontario is running into, according to the members of the official opposition and the third party? I do not think so, and I think neither do the majority of the residents of this great province of Ontario. With that, I conclude my remarks and thank members very much.

Mr McLean: I want to comment briefly on the remarks made by the member, but I want to draw to his attention that for many years here in this Legislature when his party was in opposition or the third party, its members were always talking about the north and how they wanted to level the services across the north. The member tonight has not spoken about that very subject that was so dear to their hearts so many years ago.

They wanted the same price in Cambridge as there was in Thunder Bay. They wanted it the same across the province. But did we hear the member speaking about that very subject here? No, we did not. Did the Minister of Revenue, when she brought in her bill, address that very subject for making the same level of cost across the province? No, she did not. The increase that has been put on has been tremendous when you look at what we used to have, eight cents a gallon, and the increase that has gone on in the last year. When I look at the net increase in the 1991 budget, it is up to $410 million. That is the extra revenue that is being taken in with regard to this very gas tax we are talking about.

When the member is speaking about this very budgetary item, Bill 86, the gasoline tax, he is not giving the people all the facts. He is not telling them about what his party wanted to do when in opposition: how it wanted to level the playing field across the province and make sure that the people in Thunder Bay were paying the same price as people here. But what has he done? The minister has increased gasoline three cents per litre right across the province. There is a tremendous difference. I say he should go back and look at his notes to see where the real increase is.

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Mr O'Connor: I want to comment after listening to my colleague the member for Durham East, another fellow member from Durham, speak about all the fine things that are happening right now. It seems strange we cannot open the paper and see it. It should be right across the front pages. Last year Canada was number two out of 160 countries in the world to live. That is terrific. That should be front page news. I am glad the member raised that. It is incredible. We have an awful lot of good things we should be highlighting, and the member has done it so eloquently. It is just astounding.

It is possible in this Legislature that instead of always being so negative we could take the high road once in a while and praise each other when we are doing something that is important. There is a lot of investment. The member for Durham East spelled out some of the investment, like $500 million for a new paint plant in Oakville for Ford Motor Co. That is a terrific amount of money. It is a huge investment. It is an investment in the future of Canadian and Ontarian workers. It is terrific. And the 3M expansion he talked about is just wonderful.

There is a lot of good news out there. Unfortunately, it does not seem to make the front page. I guess the tabloids cannot sell papers on the good news all the time. If there is a little bit of controversy they like to put that on the front page. That is too bad because there is an awful lot we need to be proud of.

The time for members' statements in this House seems to highlight some of the best parts we recognize in our ridings, and we try to share that with all the members and everybody who watches us on TV. It is kind of terrific. I think we should try to do that a little more often. The member for Durham East elevates the debate in the House to such a high road. I want to compliment him on it and thank him.

Mr Bradley: I want to comment on my friend the member for Durham East's reference to the former Treasurer and former Minister of Health of Ontario, Frank Miller, because it reminded me of the policies of the Frank Miller administration in terms of health.

Members may recall the television show The Time Tunnel. They could go to any particular time, either forward or backward.

Interjection.

Mr Bradley: I am watching the reruns. That is why I knew it.

If I think back to the time of Frank Miller wanting to close hospital beds, perhaps wanting to close whole hospitals and wanting to rationalize the health care service, if the time tunnel sent me through a warp and I came back into 1991, I would think I must be living in Frank Miller's era because I am hearing the same policies coming from the government today that I heard in those days. In other words, let's shrink the number of beds in the hospitals, let's rationalize the service, let's see where we can cut back, let's see where we can put in some costs that people will have to pay themselves. That is why I love the reference my friend the member for Durham East made to that.

The other was his reference to the fact that it would have been nice to see one cent taken off the sales tax. It seems to me I recall somebody proposing that in the summer of 1990 and that being ridiculed by a person who now sits in the Premier's chair. How time changes things. I agree with the member if he is advocating a cut of one cent in the sales tax to spur on sales. I would support that, and I only hope he can persuade the Treasurer of the same thing.

Mr Turnbull: It is absolutely astounding that a member of the NDP, today of all days, gets up in this House and suggests there is some sort of connection between the Conservative Party and the fact that people are smuggling gasoline, impugning entrepreneurs. The member for Durham East said over and over again that somehow it was entrepreneurs. I suggest to him it was smugglers who, when he was a civil servant charged with collecting provincial gas tax, he did not catch: the people he is talking about. It was his enforcement he was not good enough at.

As for the suggestion that we would reduce the civil service, he is absolutely right, we would, in the same way we reduced the civil service in the last 10 years the Conservatives were in power. We reduced the civil service by 5,000 people. We did not do it by cutting and slashing; we did it by attrition. We made the civil service lean and effective. Unfortunately, during the following five years the Liberals added back not just the 5,000 we had cut but in addition to it another 4,000. The people of Ontario have on their backs not only the 9,000 civil servants the Liberals added but the thousands the NDP has now added.

Further, this NDP is a party that promised us it was going to reduce the price of gasoline in the north and that it was responsive to the concerns of the north. They have not done it. They have not delivered on it. They have increased the taxes to everybody, including the north. I think this is a party with a very bad record, and now the suggestion of pointing blame at entrepreneurs. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Mr Mills: First of all, I would like to thank every member for participating and answering some of the things I said. I would like to say a particular thanks to the member for Simcoe East, whom I have known for many years, and despite differences in political stripe we are and have been very good friends. I welcome his suggestion about the northern gasoline prices. Believe me, I have a great deal of empathy with that myself. However, the facts of life are what they are.

As far as the member for York Mills is concerned, it is absolutely scandalous for him to stand in his place and suggest they cut the civil service when they were in power when in fact -- they know it -- they contracted the work out. It cost more, but it did not show up. You can cut civil servants adrift right and left; that shows up. But it does not show up when you contract the work out.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order.

Mr Mills: It is after suppertime. I hope there are a number of civil servants in Ontario watching this debate and recognizing that their future, if they ever support the Conservative Party, is very dim indeed because contrary to what their member says it would slash and cut. Those people would take the brunt of that.

In the closing 30 seconds I want to say that the member also referred to the fact that these people were not entrepreneurs, they were smugglers. All I can say is that they were pretty well dressed for smugglers and had some pretty swank offices. I remember going in one office and the guy said to me, "Come back in an hour and I will have all the books." He had a mahogany desk and everything. I got back there in an hour and the only thing left was the telephone on the floor. So much for the well-dressed smugglers.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): In recognizing the member for Ottawa East, I do want to say to members in the House there is some good-natured ribbing going on, but when it becomes too frequent it interferes with the quality of the debate and I would ask the co-operation of all members on all sides of the House.

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Mr Grandmaître: I must say, I listened to the member for Durham East with great interest. I can recall when the member for Durham East was an employee of the Ministry of Revenue and a very good employee, mind you. I can say this without having access to his file: He was a very good employee. But I simply do not agree with some of his comments, for the simple reason that members opposite can blame the Tories, they can blame the Liberals, but now they are the government. They are the decision-makers in the province of Ontario and they have been for the last 14 months. We have not seen great success since they have taken over this responsibility.

In addressing Bill 86, I would like to say that the only good section of this bill, as pointed out by my friend the member for Durham East, is the mandatory registration for importers and exporters. I am not going to argue about whether they were smugglers or entrepreneurs or whatever. The fact was, people were getting away with murder. They were not paying their fair share of taxation.

Hon Ms Lankin: Figuratively.

Mr Grandmaître: Absolutely. My first question to the minister is, how many new tax collectors have been appointed in the last 14 months? I know she is getting all her facts in another briefing at the back. I would like to get an answer, because at one time I can remember in the ministry there was a lack of tax collectors. In my days as the Minister of Revenue, we did increase the number of tax collectors, but I thought we could have done a better job. At the same time, I think nobody likes to pay additional taxes, not even on tobacco, gasoline or liquor. Nobody likes to pay taxes. It is the timing of the tax increase I do not agree with.

Only a few days ago we were addressing Bill 85 and we were ruining the truckers of this province, who paraded around Queen's Park telling us that another fuel tax increase would kill their business. Again, bad timing for this government, which chose to fight the recession; never mind the deficit. I am not saying this out of context; I am simply repeating what the Treasurer and the Premier of this province have said: "We have chosen to fight the recession." I would like to remind the government that it is bad timing. People need their cars, their trucks, they need to fly -- aviation fuel has gone up. I do not know how often members fly, but I fly twice a week back home to Ottawa and I can tell them it costs $425. These fares are increasing every third or fourth month. I think it is very unfair. We are talking about tourism and I do not think that by increasing the gas tax that we are encouraging people to travel to Ontario.

The members have heard their own Minister of Tourism and Recreation saying some months ago how tourism was affected in Ontario because of our gas prices. I do not agree with the member for Durham East, who says people do not cross the bridge or go to the States to buy cheap gas -- they do -- and to buy cigarettes. Now the latest vogue is to buy groceries. People do cross the bridge regularly, weekly, to buy less expensive and the very same quality of groceries.

This government is strapped. Everybody who stands in this House says the government is losing revenue. I believe the minister that our revenues are falling every day, every week, every month.

On April 29, when the Treasurer introduced his budget and added on 11 different taxes, I thought it was unreasonable, but at the same time he needed that extra $1 billion. That is the total accumulation of those 11 different taxes. I hope we are still faced with the same deficit of $9.7 billion. Some say it could be close to $11 billion or $12 billion. Let's hope the government will respect that engagement of $9.7 billion.

On April 29, by increasing the gasoline price by 1.7 cents a litre, I thought the government would think twice about adding another tax on January 1. I know members from the government caucus have asked the Treasurer to reconsider the next increase. The member for Bruce did ask the Treasurer and the Premier to reconsider the next tax, but to no avail.

I realize and I agree with the member for Durham East that we do need revenues if we expect to have first-quality education and social services. I agree that we need money, but I think we are digging in the wrong pockets. That is the problem with gas increases.

I would like to talk about gas prices in my own area of Ottawa-Carleton. I think that in the last four months the Ottawa Citizen has done a great job of keeping track of or surveying the gas prices in the Ottawa-Carleton area. When we look at the gas prices paid in the Ottawa-Carleton area as compared to southern Ontario -- let's say Toronto -- it is a crime. People in Ottawa-Carleton are paying a dear price, and why is that?

I am asking the minister to look into it. I think these people are taking advantage of maybe a soft market in the Ottawa-Carleton area. Maybe they are taking advantage of people working for the federal government having a steady job, a guaranteed job for life now. Maybe they are taking advantage of us. I am very serious when I do implore the minister to conduct our own survey. Do not create a commission, but keep track of gas prices in the Ottawa-Carleton area. I know we tried to get the citizens to boycott the major oil companies but it did not work out, and I would like the minister to look into this.

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In the last six years I can recall that every time we would introduce a gas price increase or impose a tax or increase the tax on gasoline, the now Treasurer was the first one to stand on his feet and say: "Mr Minister, this is the wrong way to go about it. You are punishing northern Ontarians and I want you to investigate. We are paying dearly. We have to travel farther distances than you people in eastern Ontario and southern Ontario." It was the best-selling record I have heard in years.

Now that they are in power, what they preached for years and years they do not want to put in practice. Why? Do not tell me it is because they need more revenue.

Mr Fletcher: We had a surplus.

Mr Grandmaître: Let's talk about a surplus. The member for Durham East was saying that when the Liberals were in power and I was the Minister of Revenue our coffers were full with dollars. I want to remind the members of this government that we balanced the budget.

An hon member: Balanced?

Mr Grandmaître: We balanced the budget in 1988-89. The member would not remember. He was not around.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order, please.

Mr Grandmaître: I just want to remind the --

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): I ask the member to direct his comments to the Chair, please.

Mr Grandmaître: Where will he direct his comments?

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): The member makes a good point. The interjections are unwelcome. I ask that the member direct his comments to the Chair.

Mr Grandmaître: I have tried and I think I have done well up to now.

I would like the minister to look into the price fixing in the Ottawa-Carleton area. I am not accusing anybody, but I think it should be looked into. It is very serious.

Small businesses will be affected by this gasoline increase. Some of them, I am sure, will go out of business for the simple reason that they cannot afford this extra tax.

Again, I say it is bad timing. Now is the time to really help the small business people, and I am talking about small trucks, cars, deliveries and so on and so forth. I thought it was an excellent opportunity to protect these small businesses and prevent people from crossing the bridge and buying groceries and cheap gas and cheap cigarettes.

Another member mentioned that whenever we pick up the newspapers in the morning we are talking about gloom and doom. I do not think it is gloom and doom. We are talking about realities, things that are happening in our province, and we are questioning the priorities of this government. We realize they are going through some tough times. We realize this and we are trying, at least my party is trying to help the government introduce programs that will help the small businessman and families. We realize this.

I think we have to sit back and take a long look at where this government is leading this province, leading 10 million people, and right now with no leadership --

Mr Jordan: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: This is a very important bill and a very important discussion and I do not believe there is a quorum here of members.

Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees: A quorum is not present.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan) ordered the bells rung.

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Mr Grandmaître: I want to emphasize the fact that the people in Ottawa-Carleton are paying dearly for gasoline and there must be a reason behind the cost of gasoline in eastern Ontario. I would like to remind the minister to survey Ottawa-Carleton very closely. For 23 of the last 24 weeks the people in Ottawa-Carleton were second in Ontario when it came to gas prices. Only Timmins was paying more for gasoline.

This government has to take a serious look at its priorities, including increasing gas prices and introducing more taxes. They have to be much more reasonable, look at their priorities and introduce programs that will help this province and help the economy to gain back its confidence. Right now I do not think the people, not only in Ottawa-Carleton but right across this province, have confidence, not only in this government but at every level. We have to turn this around and tell people that Ontario, the once-mighty province, is still a good place to live and a good place to do business.

I have in my hand a report from the Petroleum Communication Foundation. I would like to indicate to you the differences in provincial taxes in Canada. In British Columbia the tax is 11.8%, in Alberta, 9%, Saskatchewan, 10%, Manitoba, 10.5%, Ontario, 13%, New Brunswick, 12.7%, Nova Scotia, 12.3%. I can go on. Only Quebec has higher taxation, and that is around 18.9%.

With the natural resources of this province, we can do a better job when it comes to taxing our natural resources. People who are looking for jobs, applying for jobs, having to travel for jobs out of their own community -- maybe it is only 25, 30, 40 or 60 kilometres; they still need their car -- are finding this new tax is not the answer to their worries.

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I did say 15 minutes and I am beyond my 15 minutes; I know more people would like to address the bill.

Since this government has been in power increasing the gas tax by 30% is unreasonable. I ask the Minister of Revenue to meet more often with the Treasurer to make him realize that revenues are not coming in and that we are not attracting new business by increasing tobacco, liquor, gasoline, aviation fuel, propane gas.

The member for Durham East was fingering me for introducing the tax on propane fuel. The Treasurer had a golden opportunity on April 29 to abolish that tax. If they really did not like it, they could have abolished that tax and reintroduced it in another, fuzzier way, as they have tried to do for the last 14 or 15 months.

I think the priorities of this government are wrong. I think the people of Ontario are looking for guidance. They are looking to this government to guide them to better things in Ontario. With the predictions given to us by the Treasurer only 48 hours ago, I think the people of this province are dead serious. I would not be surprised if the people of this province were not only parading in front or demonstrating in front of Queen's Park; I am warning this House that people will be walking the streets in Ontario, objecting to taxation.

In conclusion, I would like to say that this party is willing to work with the government to improve -- not improve taxation; one cannot improve taxation -- the quality of life in this province. Adding 30% to the gas price, I think, is unreasonable.

Mr Tilson: The member for Ottawa East spent many of his remarks on the issue of the deficit of this province and how this bill is contributing to the deficit of this province. There is no question that in the view of most of the people of this province what this government intends to do is spend and then tax. It is like shooting first and asking questions later.

The member for Durham East said: "How are we going to do all this? How are we going to implement these programs?" I think the real answer to what this government is doing is that it is taxing first. It is not analysing what the effects of these various tax bills are having on the economy of this province, on the bankruptcies in this province, the loss of business in this province, the businesses that are moving out of this province. They have not analysed that.

I think the member for Durham East put his finger right on it: They do not care; it is a tax grab. They are determined to implement their policies and they do not care how they do it. They are going to tax, and that is that. That is their philosophy. They have not looked at the transportation industry and the effect on the transportation industry. They have not looked at the effect on the tourism industry. They certainly have not looked at the effect on the retail industry or the cross-border shopping issue. They certainly have not looked at manufacturing.

The deficit has tripled to $9.7 billion. My guess is that it is substantially more at this particular stage. It has increased by 219%, an astounding effort put forward by this government. This is the largest deficit this province has ever seen, I think, the largest provincial deficit in Canadian history. This bill is a major contribution towards the deficit and should be voted against.

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): I would remind the member for Durham East that he is not in his chair.

Mr Turnbull: I am particularly pleased to be rising to speak on this bill, this great tax grab that the NDP has foisted upon us. I want to point out that taxes comprise the largest single segment of gasoline prices. This is just another tax grab by this government, which has spending completely out of control. Let's just talk about the effect on drivers.

Gasoline has been viewed by this government and, I regret to say, previous governments of all stripes, as a cash cow. It has been lumped together with sin taxes. But there is a vital difference between gasoline taxes and taxes on cigarettes and on alcohol, and the vital difference is that this is not a luxury for a lot of people. People who have to drive to work, people who live in northern communities, women who leave work late at night need a car to be able to get around for safety reasons, salesmen, seniors and the handicapped all need automobiles.

What we are doing is bringing in a punitive and very regressive tax. It is quite clear that what we do is hit the least able in society when we bring in this kind of taxation. I find it absolutely bizarre that it should be brought in at the level that it is being brought in -- 1.7 cents when the budget went through, bringing our provincial tax up to 13 cents on gasoline, and by another 1.7 cents effective January 1, which will bring our gas taxes in the province up to 14.7 cents.

Taxes are the largest single component of gas prices at the pump. When we are filling our tank with gas we should all be very aware that most of the money is not going to gas companies; it is not going to the workers; it is going into the general revenue fund of the government. This particular party, the New Democratic Party, which is bringing forward this at this time, is the very party where I remember that the now Premier and the now Treasurer always used to rile against taxes on gasoline. They used to say it was regressive.

We know that the New Democratic Party is finding some different realities in government, and we understand that they are learning. A rather amusing cartoon I saw recently was a picture of an airliner. The pilot is speaking to all of the passengers and saying: "Please bear with me. It will take a little while until I learn to fly." I think the taxpayers, the voters of Ontario, should expect better from a party which knew all of the answers in opposition. Now suddenly it is doing all of these evil things but in more significant numbers than the two previous governments, the Conservative and the Liberal governments, did.

They are hitting the people of northern Ontario. I have heard the Treasurer when he was in opposition talking in a very spirited way about the need to help the people of northern Ontario. Typically they do not have any transit. The only way they can move around is by automobile or by aeroplane. Not only does this fuel tax increase hit cars but aviation fuel is also increased by this tax at a time when private airlines are having great difficulties and at the very time that the Ontario government under the NDP is expanding service in competition with the private sector and taking away jobs from the private sector.

I find it absolutely bizarre that they would be doing this at a time of restraint. We all know what the historical background of the NDP was. They always favoured huge governments who did everything for everybody and that they were against private industry. We know that. But it is quite strange that when the government is learning this new reality, a reality which I may say they recognized in this fraudulent document called An Agenda for People, which I have christened by many other names -- but at the beginning of page 2, under "Ontario at Work," it says, "Ontario is now in a recession."

It was not a revelation when they got elected that Ontario was in recession. It was known by them it was in recession. Indeed, it was known by the previous Liberal government they were going into a severe recession. That is why they hurried up the process of having an election: so they could try to get elected again before the bad news came out.

It is not good enough. The Treasurer, who said we would be hurting the people of the north by increasing the taxes, is the very person grabbing and sucking taxes out of the people who live in northern Ontario. It is all dressed up in environmental language. The reason the Treasurer gives is that it is to encourage the purchase of more environmentally responsible equipment: cars, and as we saw with the fuel tax increase, trucks.

1910

I fail to see how putting tax on fuel addresses the problem. The problem, we know very well, is that half of the pollution from automobile exhausts comes from just 10% of the vehicles on the road because they are improperly maintained and tuned. If we really want, and I certainly do, to make sure we are environmentally conscious -- I notice the Minister of the Environment is in the House and I would encourage her to speak to the Treasurer -- the way to do this is to somehow address the tax against that 10% of automobiles that are causing half of the pollution. Putting massive taxes on gasoline and sucking money out of the taxpayers' pockets does not give them the ability to buy new cars, which generates work for Ontario workers because we know the bulk of automobiles built in Canada are built in Ontario.

Let's not try to fool the voters with some silly talk about the fact that this is for environmental reasons. This is a tax grab, plain and simple. Not one member opposite should for one minute miss that point. They are grabbing taxes.

Interjection.

Mr Turnbull: The target group they have is everybody who drives an automobile.

Interjection.

Mr Turnbull: Higher taxes have the opposite effect from encouraging drivers --

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order, please. The member for Scarborough Centre, since you have entered the House you have continually interjected. I would appreciate your co-operation.

Mr Turnbull: The gas tax simply means raising revenues. The government is deceiving the public if it tries to suggest there is any other motivation, as indeed it deceived the public on such items in -- remember this wonderful document -- An Agenda for People. They deceived the public on restoring education funding. "The Liberals like to talk about international competitiveness and preparing for the next century. Yet they've broken their promise of 60% funding for elementary and secondary schools." Gee, I wonder what the government did with its promise.

"Ontario is now in a recession...we propose offering reduced interest rate loans to three critical areas of Ontario's economy at no cost to the taxpayer." I have not seen any bill in the year and a half this government has been here to reduce the interest rates for the public: another set of fraudulent claims.

"Ontario's Communities: Rights to a Clean Environment" goes right back to this whole guise of environmentally cladding a gas tax grab. This Agenda for People, as I say, I have called a lot of other things. I do not think it was an agenda for people; I think it was an agenda for power. It says, "Pass the environmental bill of rights immediately," Ruth. What is "immediately"? A year and a half later we have not seen it, yet the government is bringing in bills guised as being for the Toronto area, which affect the whole of the province. We see what an NDP set of promises means.

"Building a Stronger Northern Ontario" is one of my favourites. "We propose a northern fund of $400 million over two years." What happened to it?

"Four-laning the Trans-Canada" Highway: Once again we get back to the whole transportation issue. It says they would commit to spend $100 million a year in estimates for northern affairs. I asked how much the government had spent on four-laning the Trans-Canada Highway. They said $3.5 million, but they said it very quietly and I had to drag it out of them. That is 3.5% of the promise that was contained in this document.

Now we know there is no promise this government is not prepared to break. Indeed, we have heard the member for Durham East suggesting it was entrepreneurs who were cheating the taxpayer. I said in my comments to him that it was not entrepreneurs; it was the crooks and the pilots he was charged with policing. If he did not do a good enough job, I am sorry. He should not blame the Conservatives. He should blame the people who were not doing the job.

Let's just look at this. We have this gas tax which is cloaked in the garb of an environmental bill and somehow we are going to affect the environment with it. It reminds me of the Liberal tire tax. Remember the $5 per tire and it was going to create a fund which was going to regenerate tires? The Liberals were going to recycle them. Of the $100 million that has been collected to date, there has been $17 million spent on scrap tire projects.

I am struck by a statement the member for York South made when he was in opposition before he became Premier. He said what was dishonest about what the Liberals did was they used the environment as an excuse to raise the tax and then failed to deal with the environmental problem. Gosh, that seems to have a ring of similarity. Do members notice the similarity between what the member for York South said was dishonest about what the Liberals did and what this government is doing in the name of the environment? They are raising taxes and picking the taxpayers' pockets.

Turning to the whole question of cross-border shopping, we know the provincial government always blames the federal government for everything. Indeed, in this House I have heard the federal government blamed on several occasions for the fact that people are crossing the border to shop. It is very interesting when we look at the proportion of provincial gas taxes that is sending them over the border. A large accounting company did a survey on the major reasons people cross-border shop. I am sure members know these numbers, but for the people watching I will point out that the major reasons were gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, beer and then groceries. They tended to buy groceries because they were over there, and then they find that milk is cheaper and things like that. We know it is cheaper.

The difference between cigarettes and alcohol and gas is that cigarettes and alcohol are in this funny grey area; we put sin taxes on them and say it is bad to drink and it is bad to smoke. You know something, Mr Speaker? I have known NDPers, I have known Liberals and I have known Conservatives who are known to smoke and drink. That does not mean it is a good idea, but it is well distributed across the whole of the province, and in fact, I think you will find, across the whole of the world. But with gasoline the difference is that this is not an issue where you can simply say, "This is a luxury." Gasoline is not a luxury.

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Interjection.

Mr Turnbull: I hear a member across the way suggesting there was a deal that we would only be 10 minutes. There was a discussion earlier with our whip, where the first speaker, the member for Durham East, said he was going to be 15 minutes. He took an hour. I am reminded of the old axiom that people who live in glass houses should not cast stones.

I would like to read into the record an extract from the report on cross-border shopping for the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, dated June 1991. The extract that I want to put in is:

"Of particular concern to the communities close to the border, in the convenience zone, was the level of taxation on gasoline. Surveys have suggested that gasoline, which is 20 to 25 cents per litre cheaper in the US, is one of the drawing cards enticing Canadian shoppers across the border. Once there, they buy other goods. In one survey in Sault Ste Marie, 68% of respondents indicated that they would not shop in the US for milk, groceries and other items if the price of gas was comparable. The majority of the difference in gas prices can be attributed to taxation. For example, based on data from Energy, Mines and Resources Canada, all but six cents of the 21-cent difference in the Canadian and US average retail prices in 1990 can be accounted for by taxes. Provincial and federal taxes each account for around 20% of the retail price at the pump."

I want to read that again: "Provincial and federal taxes each account for around 20% of the retail price at the pump."

This is the party across the floor that always wants to blame the feds. I am not saying the feds are right; I am saying the government is just as bad as the feds. Further, the report reads:

"In view of the key role that gasoline appears to play in cross-border shopping, the Ontario Border Communities Task Force has been advocating a system of gas tax zones similar to that practised in Quebec. In that province, there are four concentric zones around the Ontario and US borders with gas tax rebates ranging from 33.3% in the zone within five kilometres of the border to 1.27% in the zone from 15 to 20 kilometres away. The task force believes that if both federal and provincial governments reduce their gas taxes according to a zoning formula, the incentive to cross the border to fill up -- and then shop -- would be diminished."

That is what our own standing committee on finance and economic affairs suggested. Instead, we see not only the tax grab that we have with the budget, but built into it a further tax grab of 1.7 cents per litre on January 1. To make an already difficult situation worse, the government proposes to grab it.

It has been said that the art of taxation consists of so plucking the goose that you get the most feathers with the least hissing. I would suggest that we are getting a lot of hissing from the goose and I think we are going to get more hissing from the goose as they say, "No, New Democrats, stop picking my pocket."

I see my friends across the floor do not like the lines. That is tough but they campaigned on a platform which was fraudulent. Consequently the taxpayers, the voters of Ontario, have a right to be annoyed, and it is more than geese. They are hissing and they are hissing badly. I dare say if the government were to call an election today, it would lose very badly.

I want to turn to the effect on industry. In January, Ontario's gasoline tax rate will be the highest in Canada. It affects small businesses that are running parcel trucks. It affects courier services and we already know that these people are very badly affected by the recession.

I can tell members that the majority of people, not all but the majority of people who work as a driver for a courier service are not Conservative supporters. We know that. Chances are they are or were supporters of the New Democratic Party and the government is going to put them out of work. Why? Because it is not a big union movement, because we know the government panders to anything a big union asks it to do, but it could not care less about the rest of the workers.

The government is hitting industry when it is down and the burden of tax increases compounds the difficulties faced by business, which is competing against the Americans. Whether the government likes it or not, we will always be competing against the Americans because -- do you know something? -- we have a border with the Americans and we simply live here. The majority of all our trade, 90% of Ontario's exports, goes to the United States. Across Canada, it is 80% but in Ontario we have a greater dependence on the US, and unless we want to close the borders and make us into a Third World country, that is the reality that is going to continue.

In conclusion, I would like to mention a little bit about the effect on the tourist industry. Ontario is one of the most travelled places for tourists from the US and we know that almost all -- in fact, three quarters -- of Americans who visit Canada come by car. They do not come by plane. They do not come by train. Three quarters come by car. The reaction of people who come by car is, "It has become a very expensive place." They are thinking about not coming in the future. I hope the members here well realize what an important part of our economy the travel industry is. It employs literally thousands and thousands of people.

Some of the people have quite modest jobs. They do not earn very much and they are at the bottom of the pay scale, but that is all the employment they can get. If the government takes this away, there are no alternatives other than unemployment insurance. I am alarmed at the number of people we have who are now reaching the end of their unemployment insurance payments.

I find it absolutely astounding to find the degree of jollity the NDP benchers have over something so serious as people who are losing their jobs. The members can chuckle away all they like when they are not on camera, but the people of Ontario have a right to know that they find it so hilarious that people are losing their jobs.

In conclusion, the new tax should be invested in the roads but instead it is being sucked into general revenue. We know that in the US they dedicate the majority of their taxes from gasoline to roadwork, and indeed Ontario has a serious need to address its roads. The roads are deteriorating and we must address them. We have to.

Going back to the NDP document An Agenda for People, the government said it was going to spend $100 million a year on four-laning the Trans-Canada Highway, yet 3.5% of that promise has been paid in the last fiscal year. Whichever way members opposite want to look at it, $3.5 million or 3.5%, they are making this huge tax grab.

To give the people a sense of this, for the year 1990-91, the Ontario government collected $2.7 billion in revenue from direct vehicle user taxes, fuel, licences and permits, and in addition to that, $1.3 billion in revenue from sales taxes for new and used vehicles and parts. Yet the government is only going to spend $1.8 billion on road expenditures, and of that only $3.5 million will go to the Trans-Canada Highway, an issue so important that it made it into this wonderful document, An Agenda for People, an agenda for power. It was so pressing they had to have it in here and they gave a number as to how much it was going to cost. That, like everything else, is a broken promise.

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We know the comments that were made by the member for Durham East suggesting that entrepreneurs were crooks. That is consistent with the kind of comments his ministers are traipsing around the province making. They are slandering innocent people around the province, yet the Premier is saying he wants to encourage doctors in northern Ontario. He wants to encourage business, yet we have ministers of the crown slandering taxpayers. We have members who bring forward the bills and speak on the bills suggesting that in some way it is entrepreneurs who are ripping off the tax --

Mr Drainville: You should know.

Mr Turnbull: Mr Speaker, I am going to point out the fact that the member for Victoria-Haliburton suggested I should know about ripping off taxpayers. I would not have mentioned this, but I would suggest that I have paid in corporate and personal income taxes more than most of your benches have in your lives and I earned it.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order.

An hon member: You hit a sore point.

Mr Turnbull: It is not a sore point; it is a point of pride. I have contributed to this province that I came to, which I found so wonderful and I have worked hard in and I have prospered in. To have members impugning my integrity in terms of what I pay in taxes is outrageous, Mr Speaker, and I would ask you to --

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): The member will take his seat. Let me point out that there have been considerable interjections by the member for Victoria-Haliburton and the member for Windsor-Sandwich. This does not help in the debate. I also want to point out to the member for York Mills, when you make inflammatory remarks, you can anticipate an unwelcome response.

I also want at this stage -- I did not want to interrupt the flow of your speech -- to say that it does not enhance the decorum of this House when you refer to members by their first names. The standing orders in this House are very specific: You refer to members by their riding. The record will show that you referred to a minister of the crown by first name. This does not help the decorum. All members would be well advised of this fact.

Mr Turnbull: Mr Speaker, I think that is a good lesson. Thank you very much. I think it is in the same light that it does not help the decorum or the admiration people have for the government when a minister of the crown goes around the province slandering private citizens and not doing the correct thing and withdrawing from her ministry.

I have spoken at a little more length than I had anticipated, but it goes to the heart of the message that we in the Conservative Party have, that we have gone beyond the point where the government can raise any more taxes. Whether they like it or not, I say to my friends across the way, this is it. There are no more taxes, because the people are at tax exhaustion and the voters and the taxpayers are voting with their feet and leaving this province.

I will close by saying that in our document New Directions: A Blueprint for Economic Renewal and Prosperity in Ontario -- which any of the viewers can write to me and get a copy of -- we suggest that as far as gasoline and fuel taxes are concerned, 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.

The full-year cost of a 10% gasoline cut would be approximately $160 million; for fuel taxes, it would be $37 million. Both costs are in the form of forgone revenues to government and can be fully offset by new revenues generated by economic activity along with expenditure controls, economic activity that we sorely need in this province to stimulate and get us back on track. I do not know if we can get back on track completely as long as we have this government, but to the extent that it is stumbling along it should understand the fact that the taxpayers cannot afford any more taxes.

Mr Drainville: I am glad to rise in my place and just respond to a number of comments that have been made by the member for York Mills. It is not so much the substantive comments that he has made that are in some senses offensive to this side, but rather the innuendo and tissue of half-truths that he trots out in response to some of the initiatives of the government.

For instance, saying that cabinet ministers go around the province slandering people is surely inflammatory, and to say that this is true is surely an indication of his particular point of view. His point of view does have some merit inasmuch as he is a member of this House, but to use slander as an inflammatory comment to the members of the Treasury bench is totally unacceptable.

To take also the point, as if somehow this was relevant to the people of Ontario, is the amount of money that is paid in taxes by the honourable member for York Mills. Quite frankly, who cares? I certainly do not, and the Treasury benchers certainly do not. Really, that is rather like information he should maintain for his own good or at least share it perhaps with his solicitors or those who might be interested and even impressed by such a thing.

I want to say in terms of the other comments that have been made, when we come here to debate these very important bills, these initiatives that have been taken part in by the government, we must do that within a framework of acknowledging, first and foremost, that at least the government believes that the direction it is going in is for the benefit of the people of Ontario. It is the opposition members' role to refute that if they believe it, but it is not their role to be inflammatory, to be derogatory, or just to be rude.

Mr Tilson: I would like to rise in support of the --

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): If the member for Dufferin-Peel wishes to concede the floor.

Mr Tilson: I will yield to the opposition.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): The member for St Catharines.

Mr Bradley: Actually I was going to speak next, Mr Speaker, but I will use the two minutes anyway so that the member for Dufferin-Peel can have his full two minutes on that occasion.

Who was speaking on the other side anyway? It was a good speech. Oh, the member for York Mills was speaking and talking about the problems that have been created by the policies of this particular government and particularly this tax. I want to say that when I get an opportunity to speak a little later in the evening perhaps subsequent to him, I am going to outline some of the problems I have with this particular tax. Some of them may be the same as the previous member but others may be different because I happen to feel, as the member does, that this bill at this particular point in time is particularly damaging to Ontario and its economy.

I guess people believe that when times are good, when the economy is booming, there is an opportunity to tax and that tax (a) will not be felt as acutely by those who have to pay it and (b) will not have as dampening an effect on the economy as it might on other occasions. There is a recognition, as the member has pointed out, that the government has put itself in a position where, because of its huge deficit not only this year but the projected deficits of years to come, it will feel it is necessary to impose this tax.

But one has to wonder whether this particular tax that we discuss here this evening and the member discussed in his speech will again be raised by the government in an effort to produce more revenues for the various programs the government wants to carry out or perhaps to hold the deficit in line, because the Premier has obviously heard from the business community. I know that Mr Agnew and others in his office will be suggesting to him that he cultivate at least a civil relationship with the business community, if not one which would produce applause and considerable support.

1940

Mr Tilson: I rise in support of the member for York Mills and his comments with respect to this bill. The question that keeps arising throughout these debates is, how much can the taxpayers stand? How much can they afford? I mean, why are we doing this? Why is the government putting forward this tax?

It is a substantial amount of revenue that it is going to be receiving if this full tax is implemented, which it will be if the votes go the way they have been going. Effective January 1, it will be a total of 3.4 cents a litre on provincial gas, and as a result of this tax increase, the 1.7 cents in April and the 1.7 cents as of January 1, there will be additional revenue for a full year of $410 million. That is an astounding amount of money, and I think the question we have to keep asking ourselves is, what are we going to do with it? This is the theme the member for York Mills mentioned. Are we going to put it into the repair of roads? Are we going to put it into solving some of the issues of the environment and what our motor vehicles cause to the environment? Are we going to develop additional alternative means of transportation? Are we going to build new roads? We have not heard of any result of the revenue that is going to be put forward as a result of this bill. There is no question that in a few short weeks, as of January 1, the unleaded gasoline tax rate in this province will be the highest in Canada. Already leaded gasoline has the highest tax rate in Canada.

I think the member for York Mills is quite correct. The real purpose of this bill is not to solve these other problems that I have referred to, the environmental problems or the repair of roads. This tax is indeed a tax grab.

Mr Johnson: I was not particularly taken with the member for York Mills' speech. A lot of the comments he made were very inflammatory indeed, and truly the people of Ontario who were watching him on TV and are listening to me now would probably disagree with his commentary, and I am sure they would have noted the inflammatory aspect of his remarks as well.

To suggest for a moment that this is a tax grab is absolutely wrong and incorrect, and for them to say that --

Interjections.

Mr Johnson: The members opposite are laughing now because their arguments are frivolous. Their arguments are senseless but they are arguments none the less. I hope the people of Ontario realize that. But to say that it is a tax grab is incorrect.

Ontario at this time is in probably one of the worst recessions it has seen in 60 years -- in fact, it is in the worst recession it has seen in 60 years -- and I think it is very important that this government manage its fiscal responsibility to the province the very best it can. There are very many needs at this time. There are needs in welfare. There are needs in services that are exacerbated by this recession, and we have to raise some money somewhere. Certainly whatever the taxes may go towards ultimately, if it is better roads, better infrastructure on our highways, maybe this tax, which is a gas tax, will go to help that.

Ultimately, all taxes are collected and dispensed around the province to make sure the people of Ontario suffer as little as possible during this very bad recession.

Mr Turnbull: Within the literature, I am reminded of the idea of rewriting history every few years so that anything which is embarrassing and unfortunate will be swept under the rug and it will not appear anywhere. I presume that in this brave new world that we have, the Agenda for People will be swept under the rug and we will rewrite history. But I am absolutely struck by the idea that an increase in the tax of 1.7 cents per litre is not a tax grab. This truly is newspeak. I am not quite sure what it is. He did not explain. He just said it was not a tax grab, but they are raising 1.7 cents per litre.

As far as spending money on the roads is concerned, we know of the broken promise about spending $100 million per year on four-laning the Trans-Canada Highway. We know from estimates that they spent 3.5% of that. That is a broken promise, and I listed a litany of broken promises. People can call it inflammatory language but it is the truth. We know the Minister of Northern Development went and deliberately lied to get the better --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order.

Mr Turnbull: Excuse me, Mr Speaker, I take that back.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): The member will take his seat. We talked about decorum in this House and the public perception. That type of comment does absolutely nothing for the public perception of this role of a member of Parliament. I ask the member to withdraw it.

Mr Turnbull: I certainly withdraw it. I would like to remember the words the minister used about the fact that she had misled the people in a heated argument. If this is what a minister of the crown is going to do --

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Order. The member will clearly withdraw the comment or I will have no alternative but to ask the member to leave the chamber.

Mr Turnbull: I clearly withdraw it and suggest that it was a terminological inexactitude that she used. I forget her exact words as to how she described it.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Very clearly, I am going to say to the member once more, you will either withdraw unequivocally or you will leave this chamber.

Mr Turnbull: I think I did withdraw unequivocally, and I pointed out that there were other words.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Farnan): Will the member please take his seat. If the member wishes to rise and simply state, "I withdraw," period, it will be acceptable. Nothing else.

Mr Turnbull: I have already said that I withdraw. Indeed, you will have more to hear from me on this issue.

M. Bisson : J'ai un certain plaisir d'avoir la chance de me lever aujourd'hui dans la Chambre et de parler au sujet du projet de loi qui est devant nous dans cette Assemblée. Je regrette un peu les commentaires de notre collègue qui a parlé avant. Je pense que beaucoup de monde qui regarde du public et qui essaie de voir ce qui se passe ici ces journées-ci aimerait voir un peu plus de respect et de civilité dans cette Chambre. Après tout, on a été élu pour venir ici représenter le monde de cette province, et c'est notre responsabilité de toujours nous comporter selon le plus haut calibre possible dans les débats. Mais quand on vit en Ontario, on va un peu d'un bord à l'autre.

1950

C'est intéressant : on se trouve ici, encore en 1991, dans une situation où le gouvernement de l'Ontario, comme d'autres gouvernements à travers le pays, vient devant cette Assemblée pour dire qu'il a besoin de mettre une taxe sur l'essence.

Ce qui arrive, c'est que je pense qu'on a besoin de se poser la question : pourquoi est-ce necéssaire ? Je pense que les députés de l'Assemblée ont parlé en assez de détails pour expliquer pourquoi c'est nécessaire, pourquoi ce n'est pas nécessaire, qu'est-ce qui est mieux, qu'est-ce qui est faux ou de quelle manière s'y prendre quand ça revient à n'importe quelle taxe.

Je pense que c'est un fait accompli, un fait que tout le monde comprend qu'aujourd'hui on se trouve dans une situation à travers ce pays, et puis je pense à travers l'Amérique du Nord et possiblement en Europe où beaucoup de monde dit : «Écoute, les taxes, on vient au point des fois où on pense qu'on en paie un peu trop.» Je pense qu'ici en Ontario, comme nos autres collègues et nos autres concitoyens à travers le grand pays, des provinces Maritimes jusqu'à la côte ouest du pays à l'océan Pacifique, on a vraiment une situation dans ce pays-ci qui est remarquable.

On a un standing de vie qui est soulevé, le deuxième dans le monde, de cette planète entière. On a un ensemble de services desquels on est fier comme Canadiens. On est fier, comme Ontariens, de dire que se sont les nôtres. On regarde le système de santé qu'on a dans notre province, comme l'ont d'autres juridictions au Canada. On sait que si on devient malade, on a la chance d'entrer directement dans un hôpital sans sortir un cent de notre poche, pas un cent pour aller voir le docteur ou aller à l'hôpital dire : «J'ai mal ; j'ai une maladie et j'ai besoin d'aide.» Je pense que c'est une qualité, c'est une situation de privilège, ce sont toutes sortes d'affaires que disent les Canadiens de côte à côte et qui nous désignent comme Canadiens.

Ça veut dire que l'on besoin de payer pour ces services-là. On est dans une situation dans ce pays où on a d'autres programmes, pas seulement un programme de santé, mais aussi des programmes ayant affaire avec toutes les questions de logement et être capable de mettre en place des logements à des prix qui font du bon sens pour nos citoyens. C'est être sûr que quelqu'un qui est sans capacités sera capable de travailler pour avoir des sous pour payer le logement nécessaire, que les provinces, comme la province de l'Ontario, mettent en place des programmes de logement pour que ces personnes-là puissent vivre avec une certaine dignité et savoir qu'ils n'ont pas besoin de s'inquiéter quand ils se réveilleront demain matin, qu'ils auront un toit sur leur tête et ils ont quatre murs autour d'eux, que c'est chauffé et qu'ils ont une place où ils peuvent demeurer et qu'ils n'ont pas besoin de s'inquiéter trop qu'ils devront aller rester au froid dans les rues.

Oui, on a des problèmes en l'Ontario comme dans toute autre place, mais je pense qu'on a fait jusqu'à un certain point cette société. On a bâti une société où il y a de la compensation dedans. On a la chance de dire qu'on peut prendre soin de ceux dans notre société qui n'ont pas toutes les capacités des fois, et seulement des fois des chances d'être capables de retrouver et regagner l'argent nécessaire pour soutenir une vie avec une certaine dignité.

Ce que ça veut dire, c'est qu'on a besoin de payer les taxes. Des fois on ne sait pas et on dit: «Écoute, j'en paie assez, j'aimerais en payer moins.» Tous les députés de l'Assemblée, tous les citoyens l'Ontario disent : «Oui, on aimerait payer moins de taxes.» Mais si on veut soutenir un standing de vie dans notre province et à travers tout ce pays, il y a un prix à fixer à cela. On peut prendre des décisions ici en Ontario comme on peut prendre des décisions n'importe où et on peut dire qu'il n'y aura plus de système médical universel pour tous les citoyens et citoyennes de l'Ontario ou dans n'importe quelle province du pays du Canada.

Peut-être qu'on pourrait imposer moins de taxes à nos citoyennes et citoyens. On pourrait prendre des décisions en disant qu'on n'a pas besoin de routes à travers notre province. On n'a pas besoin de faire sûr que des routes qui font du bons sens, que l'on peut amener nos camions pour transporter les produits d'ici d'un côté de la province à l'autre, ou d'être capable de prendre la route avec une certaine confiance et sécurité en étant certain qu'on est capable de se rendre de point A à point B. Ça veut dire qu'on a besoin de dépenser de l'argent pour être capable de soutenir ces routes. Et si l'on prend la décision que non, on ne veut pas faire cela, encore pourrait-on dire aux citoyens et citoyennes de la province : «Vous avez besoin de payer moins de taxes.»

Une affaire que j'ai vu qui est très au courant pendant les de quatorze ou quinze mois que je suis ici comme député, c'est qu'on a beaucoup de monde qui vient dans nos bureaux dans les comtés et ils nous disent : «J'ai besoin d'un service. Je suis une entreprise privée qui a des problèmes. Comme entreprise privée, j'ai besoin de l'argent du gouvernement pour être capable de soutenir mon industrie, pour être capable de traverser la récession qu'on a aujourd'hui et donner des emplois à des travailleurs et travailleuses. Et nous comme gouvernement donnons de l'argent à ces compagnies.

On a beaucoup de monde qui entre dans nos offices de comté et nous disent : «Monsieur le député, j'ai un problème médical ; j'ai besoin de partir de Timmins, de Cochrane, de Kapuskasing, et aller à Sudbury ou à Toronto pour rechercher un service de santé qui n'est pas disponible dans notre coin de la province. Nous comme gouvernement donnons de l'aide directement à ces citoyens-là pour prendre un avion ou un train ou leur auto pour chercher ces services si ces services ne sont pas sur place. Il y a beaucoup de monde qui dit : «Je veux avoir plus de services.» Ça veut dire que l'on a besoin de payer les taxes pour avoir ces services-là.

Le grand problème qu'on a aujourd'hui, je ne pense pas que ce soit une surprise, c'est que l'on se trouve au milieu d'une récession qui est possiblement la pire récession que l'on a jamais eue dans l'histoire de l'Ontario, qu'on a jamais eue à travers l'histoire du pays qu'on appelle le Canada. On a une récession qui a touché chaque personne dans notre société bien proche. Ça touche les travailleurs dans les industries pareilles comme elle a touché ceux qui appartiennent aux petites entreprises dans nos communautés et même certaines personnes qui travaillent dans le secteur public de nos gouvernements provinciaux, fédéral ou municipaux.

La grande décision qu'il faut prendre comme gouvernement et comme députés élus à cette Assemblée, c'est de trouver des manières pour retrouver les dollars nécessaires pour payer ces services-là. A un certain point, cette taxe représente le coût d'être capable de livrer ces services-là qu'on a présentement dans la province.

Mais est-ce-que c'est assez ? On sait que l'année passée, en 1991, le Trésorier est venu à cette Assemblée et il a donné son budget pour l'exrcice financier 1991-92. Dans cette année fiscale, il a dit qu'on allait avoir un déficit de 9,7 milliards de dollars et beaucoup de monde de l'autre côté de l'Assemblée et certaines personnes de notre communauté ont dit : «9,7 milliards de dollars, ce n'est pas acceptable.»

On doit avoir un budget qui est balancé, qui n'a pas de déficit. Le gouvernement de l'Ontario aurait pu dire dans le temps : «Bien, oui, on peut enlever 9,7$ milliards de notre budget et on va aller couper des services. On va couper les services de santé, de sécurité, les services de logement, les services du bien-être social, tous les services qui sont nécessaires aux citoyens de la province.» Mais on a dit non. Pourquoi ? Parce qu'on a assez de confiance en le monde de l'Ontario ; on a assez de respect pour savoir que ces services-là sont nécessaires.

Les 9,7$ milliards -- ce n'étaient pas de nouveaux dollars -- on a dit : «On va aller dépenser encore une somme de 9,7 milliards de dollars.» C'était seulement pour maintenir les programmes qu'on a aujourd'hui. Grâce à la récession, on se trouve dans une situation où les revenus -- on va les baisser par un point dramatique dans notre situation, qui est pareille aux autres provinces, d'ailleurs. On a appris dernièrement en Saskatchewan que sous le gouvernment de M. Devine, il y avait un déficit. Si on compare la population de l'Ontario avec celle de la Saskatchewan, il est trois fois plus élevé qu'ici en Ontario. Ce n'est pas parce que c'est du méchant monde ; c'est la réalité de la récession dans laquelle on se trouve aujourd'hui en 1991.

2000

Là, ce qui arrive c'est que nous au gouvernement avons besoin de payer les «bills». Il faut payer notre système d'éducation. Il faut aider nos municipalités à travers la province. Il faut aider ceux qui sont plus démunis, qui ont besoin de l'aide du gouvernement pour donner la dignité de vie dans cette récession. En même temps, on a besoin de trouver des solutions nécessaires pour remettre de leur argent dans notre économie pour rebâtir l'économie de l'Ontario. Il y eu beaucoup d'affaires qui sont arrivées pendant les derniers cinq à dix ans qui ont vraiment changé le jeu économique qu'on trouve ici au Canada. Il ya des pressions mondiales comme il y des pressions interieures à travers le gouvernement fédéral qui nous ont mis dans cette situation.

Mais là on a besoin de trouver des solutions. Le gouvernement a pris une décision l'année passée avec notre budget, qu'on était pour maintenir ces services pour cette année pour nous donner le temps de regarder à long terme ce qui peut être fait pour résoudre nos problèmes fiscaux à long terme. Cela veut dire que oui, il va y avoir des rajustements, il va être nécessaire de regarder tous les ministères et tous les services pour voir où on peut épargner l'argent qui nous revient en taxes, pour pouvoir balancer notre budget à long terme.

Les taxes en font une partie. On ne peut pas faire l'un sans l'autre. Si on essaie de balancer un budget de 50 milliards de dollars en services pour la province, ce n'est pas seulement qu'on va couper d'un bord à l'autre et dire que ça va arranger notre problème, parce que en même temps on a les services qu'on a besoin de fournir de l'autre côté. Si on dit qu'il y a une balance, la balance qu'on essaie de trouver autant que possible c'est des manières à faire des économies dans le système gouvernemental. On a donné des directives à tous les ministères de faire chacun des recherches pour trouver des manières de couper leurs dépenses. On leur a demandé de regarder les projets qui sont nécessaires pour voir s'il y a une manière de faire des économies directement dans les programmes.

L'autre solution a été les taxes. Je n'ai pas de difficulté, en tant que député de ce gouvernement et de cette Assemblée, de dire que je peux supporter ce projet de loi qui va dire : «Oui, M. le Président, une autre taxe.» Je dirais à n'importe quel député de cette Assemblée qui peut me regarder droit dans les yeux en me disant que si son parti était le gouvernement, il n'aurait pas fait de même, qu'il a peut-être besoin d'aller encore regarder dans le miroir, parce que je connais la réponse à cette question. Pendant les années passées, pendant 44 années, les Conservateurs ont mené cette province et ils ont beaucoup augmenté les taxes pendant ces années. Ce n'est pas que c'est du méchant monde ; c'est parce que les citoyens de l'Ontario sont arrivés et ils ont dit : «Écoutez, on veut avoir des services.» Le gouvernement conservateur à l'époque a dit : «Oui, on vous donne les services. On recherche l'argent à travers les taxes.»

En 1985, nos collègues de l'autre côté de l'Assemblée, les Libéraux, se sont trouvés au puvoir un jour. Par l'intermédiaire d'une démocracie, le peuple de l'Ontario a dit : «On donne la chance aux Libéraux de mener notre province et de prendre des décisions que nous pensons être importantes pour notre province», et le gouvernement à l'époque, de 1986 à 1991, a pris des décisions.

Le Parti libéral, quand il était au pouvoir, a augmenté les taxes sur l'essence et sur les cigarettes et sur d'autres tabacs, sur les boissons, sur nos revenus ayant à faire avec les petites entreprises ; il a ajoute une taxe aux pneus des camions jetés au rebut. Ils ont augmenté les taxes parce que c'était une nécessité. C'est une nécessité pour n'importe quel gouvernement, une responsabilité. On va donner des services et il faut trouver un moyen de les payer.

Comme n'importe quel Ontarien ou Canadien, on n'aime pas payer ces taxes parfois, mais si on demande des services à nos provinces ou aux municipalités ou au gouvernement fédéral, il faut avoir les taxes pour payer ces services. Je pense que le monde commence à réaliser un peu que si on demade des services, ça veut dire qu'on y rattache un prix. Le prix, c'est les taxes. Le gros défi de ce gouvernement, ce sera regarder dans les années à venir où il pourra faire des économies dans le système gouvernemental, où économiser dans les ministères. Il nous aidera peut-être de ne pas faire une augmentation des taxes d'un bord à l'autre.

Mais pour les députés de l'Assemblée et la population de l'Ontario, ça va être un jeu très difficile. On se trouve aujourd'hui dans la pire récession dans l'histoire de la province depuis 1930. On est dans une situation où les revenus ont baissé tellement parce qu'il y a moins de postes et il y a moins de personnes qui dépensent l'argent, et ça veut dire que nous comme gouvernement recueillons moins de taxes.

En même temps, parce qu'il y a moins de personnes qui travaillent, on a beaucoup plus de monde qui recherche les services de l'Ontario. Cela veut dire que l'on a besoin de payer. Une couple de chiffres seraient intéressants. Si on regarde des communautés, je sais qu'il y en a a une dans le nord de la province qui estime que pour janvier 1992, 30 % de toute la population de cette municipalité va être sur le bien-être social. Il y a possiblement certaines personnes dans cette Assemblée qui diraient : «S'ils sont sur le bien-être social, c'est qu'ils ne veulent pas travailler.» Les députés m'excuseront, mais ce n'est pas qu'ils ne veulent pas travailler ; il n'ya pas de jobs. Le monde veut travailler. Ils ont besoin des emplois pour avoir les dollars nécessaires pour payer leurs coûts. C'est une situation qui n'est pas mal sérieuse dans la province, et nous le gouvernement avons besoin de trouver les moyens pour résoudre certains de ces problèmes.

Une autre affaire qui est intéressante c'est quoi qu'il arrive, quand certaines personnes soit de cette Assemblée, soit du grand public parcourent la province, tout ce qu'ils peuvent dire c'est que tout est terrible, que tout est méchant, que tout est grave : «Il n'y a pas un projet de loi qui est bon qui vient du gouvernemet de l'Ontario. L'économie n'est pas bonne. Les faiseurs de décisions sont corrompus. Ils ne font rien de bon.» Ce qui va arriver, les gens vont commencer à dire : «Si les affaires sont tellement graves, mon Ski-Doo que je voulais acheter la semaine prochaine, je ne l'achèterai pas. J'ai un poêle à acheter. Notre poêle est cassé et je ne dépense pas l'argent pour pouvoir en acheter un autre.

Quand on baisse la confiance des consommateurs dans notre province ou dans notre pays, ça nous met dans une situation où ça augmente le problème. Je pense qu'un des plus grands services que nous dans cette Assemblée pouvons rendre, spécialement dans le secteur d'affaires, dans notre économie, c'est essayer de monter la confiance des consommateurs. Si on peut augmenter leur confiance, on va se trouver dans une situation où ils vont possiblement trouver la confiance pour aller dépenser des dollars et rétablir l'économie en Ontario. Peut-être qu'on pourrait être dans une situation plus élevée qu'elle ne l'est aujourd'hui.

Donc, oui, à la fin de la journée je vais appuyer cette position prise par le gouvernement, entendant que c'est une mesure nécessaire faisant affaire à être capable de donner des services nécessaires à la population.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any questions or comments?

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Hamilton East.

Hon Mr Mackenzie: Just a very brief comment. I listened to the speech of the member for Cochrane South and I thought it was one of the better and more thoughtful speeches that we have had delivered in this House tonight. I want to indicate that somebody has taken a serious look at what the problems are. It was a different speech from that of the member for Durham East, who put a bit of humour and lightness and challenge into some of his comments across the way, but I think the speech by the member for Durham East and the speech that we have just had from the member for Cochrane South are two first-class examples of somebody really paying attention to a bill and articulating well what that bill tries to say.

Hon Mr Wildman: I listened intently to my colleague the member for Cochrane South. I want to assure all members of the House and all members of the public who might be watching on television that there are simultaneous translation facilities in the House available to anyone who is not bilingual, so my colleague who was speaking eloquently in his native tongue could express his views on behalf of his francophone constituents in this House as we would want him to be able to do, and all members could understand.

To suggest that perhaps there is no comment because one did not understand is simply to show that whoever would take that position was not interested in listening to the translation so he could understand what my friend the member for Cochrane South was saying.

Mr Cousens: I do not know how anyone can put a positive slant on an increase to the gasoline tax. Regardless of the language one says it in, it is still going to come out to have an increase in gasoline tax and an increase of cost of doing business. It is something that is going to hurt everybody in the north and in the south. The honourable member for Cochrane South certainly represents the people from the north. In saying what he says, he is certainly trying to support the government.

2010

I have not seen anyone across the floor stand up and oppose the government on any of its tax bills. Yet I have to tell you, Mr Speaker, that when the government members sat in opposition they whined and screamed and cried with outrage at every tax increase made. There was unanimity then when they opposed any tax increase and there is unanimity now. What I am trying to find out is, what happened? This honourable member was not here when they were in third-party status or opposition status and those days when they strongly opposed tax increases. Why is it that he becomes such a strong proponent for these things? Could he explain to me what has happened to the mentality of the socialists here in Ontario who, at one time, opposed it but now support it?

The member is a person who is honest and honourable. Is he in a position to explain to us what has come over the NDP since it got into the government? Is the NDP in a position to live with its conscience from what it used to be as it sat on the outside looking in? Is it in a position to stand up and truly speak its mind? Or, when it falls from power a few years from now -- and it cannot be soon enough, as far as I am concerned -- is it then going to come along and start crying like the Liberals do? Every time they have a chance to complain about the tax increases, they are just as much a reversal as the government is showing.

Mr O'Connor: I want to thank our French translators who helped me and the viewers at home understand exactly what the member for Cochrane South was saying. I think he added quite a bit to the debate. He talked about the privilege of paying tax. I know that has to be a hard thing to understand, but we have to recognize that by paying taxes we have some ownership.

We own the health care system we have in this province, which he spoke so well about. That is part of this country we live in, what makes it terrific. He spoke quite well about it. He spoke about housing projects, which, of course, cost money, and also about people who cannot afford to move into some of the housing projects but need some assistance in housing, period, and maybe the people who just need some assistance for food. He spoke about that, and those needs all cost dollars. Unfortunately, in the times we are in the government has to raise them. He spoke about that and he spoke quite well about it.

During the summer, when I was on the standing committee on public accounts, I had an opportunity to speak to a young person down in the States. I say "young person"; he is around my age. He has two young children, a three-year-old and a six-month-old. His wife worked part-time in a hospital, coming back from her maternity leave. He was making $7 an hour. The payroll deduction for the health care he had to pay for was $100 a week on $7 an hour. That is what they were paying for. There are more people in the United States without any health care at all than we have in all of Canada. That must say something really good. It is something that all of us members can be proud of and, I think, all of Ontario should be proud of. The member for Cochrane South put it more eloquently than perhaps I could have, perhaps members opposite, who seem to like to chastise us because they think we are big spenders. When people are in need, I think we would all agree that the money has to be spent and well spent.

M. Bisson: Je trouve interéssant que le député de Markham a pu prendre deux minutes pour répondre au discours, aux commentaires que j'ai faits en ce débat, car le député n'a pas même utilisé les services nécessaires pour faire la traduction. Je trouve ça très intéressant, pour en dire le moins.

J'aurais aimé clarifier un point que j'ai fait faisant affaire avec les taxes. Il n'est pas question d'un privilège ; c'est une responsabilité. La question de payer les taxes, c'est une responsabilité de tous les citoyens de la province ou du pays pour qu'on soit capable de maintenir les services nécessaires pour établir la dignité de la vie, si on peut le dire, dans cette province ou dans ce pays. Le point, c'est simplement qu'à la fin de la journée, si on veut avoir un Canada, si on veut avoir une province de l'Ontario qui donnent les services nécessaires, commes les services de santé, commes les routes que l'on veut avoir dans notre province, comme le développement régional dont on a besoin dans le Nord de l'Ontario, ou n'importe quel autre service, ça veut dire qu'on a besoin de payer des taxes. Parce que sans taxes, ça ne se paie pas ; il n'y a pas d'argent, il n'y a pas de services.

J'ai eu la chance de rencontrer un sénateur de Minnesota dernièrement, il y a deux ou trois semaines. C'était très intéressant de m'asseoir avec lui regarder de sa perspective les responsabilités du gouvernement dans son coin de son pays. Là, on n'a pas les services qu'on a ici. Oui, ils paient moins de taxes, il n'en est pas question. Ils paient moins de taxes qu'ici en Ontario sur certaines marchandises qu'ils achètent, pas tout. Mais ils n'ont pas les services. Ils n'ont pas les services de santé. Ils n'ont pas les services qu'on a ici dans la province de l'Ontario. Si on veut aller dans cette direction-là, qu'on ne paie pas de taxes. Ça va être bien simple. La situation, c'est que si on veut maintenir les services, c'est important d'avoir les revenus nécessaires pour mettre sur place les services nécessaires pour la population de l'Ontario.

Mr Bradley: I appreciate the opportunity at long last to be able to speak on this bill, which increases the cost of gasoline in this province by, I think, somewhere around 30%, particularly in the context of one of the deepest recessions this province and country has seen. The recession has been particularly difficult for Ontario, which is why I question not only the implementation of this tax at any time now with the level of taxation we have reached but in particular the timing of this tax in the midst of the recession to which I have made reference.

One can recognize what some of the problems are of people locating in Ontario or people taking their business away. Daily, if we listen to the news, we hear of yet another business that is moving out of Ontario. There are a few exceptions, and the government members have a role and responsibility to bring those to our attention and to paint a rosier picture than those of us in the opposition might be inclined to do.

But I must mention that it is most depressing to me to hear, day after day, the number of businesses that are closing down, scaling down or planning to move out or close down in Ontario. It is not something one looks forward to with anticipation. One might say it provides good fodder for the argument in the Legislative Assembly. It provides a good opportunity to politically attack a government. Frankly, I would prefer not to have that opportunity. I would prefer that Ontario was enjoying good economic times, that people were investing in this province, and that people who are already here were retaining that investment, but such is not the case.

I know members opposite, as is their wont, will indicate that the high dollar, free trade and high interest rates -- at least until recently high interest rates -- had a profound effect on our economy. I cannot quarrel with that. Those policies are ones with which I disagree.

The artificially high dollar, if we talk to people who are employees in Ontario, they will tell us its detrimental effect on job creation and job retention in this province. But what is more interesting probably is that people in the business community, who often are sympathetic to the federal government, will tell us that the effect of a high dollar in Ontario is rather dramatic. I remember being in Thunder Bay speaking to a vice-president of a pulp and paper company and asking the person what one cent on the dollar meant in terms of gross income for that company. The person indicated that one cent's upward movement in the Canadian dollar would cost him $17 million in a year. So we can appreciate that the high dollar has had a marked effect.

Second, free trade: I think we are watching to a certain extent -- I hope this is not the case; I do not think I am much of prophet saying it -- the deindustrialization of Ontario. Former Premier Peterson, when he had spoken at federal-provincial conferences on this, made that prediction, again based on what many economists and many groups in our society had said. He indicated that we would likely be presiding over the deindustrialization of Ontario if we were to implement the specific free trade agreement that was negotiated between Canada and the United States. So certainly that is a factor this government has to contend with.

Third, until recently we had high interest rates. What has been particularly concerning to me is that the interest rates have now dropped substantially. They are the lowest they have been in years and yet we do not seem to see the economy picking up quickly. One would have anticipated that might have happened. Frankly, the same thing is happening in the United States at the present time. Their economy is not picking up as quickly either and their interest rates are of course relatively low.

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The reason I mention these things in this debate is that when people are making a decision to leave Ontario, or to invest in a particular place such as Ontario, they look at a multiplicity of factors. One of those is taxation. This is just one tax. The gasoline tax increase of approximately 30% is just one tax. I would suggest to members of the Legislature and to the people of Ontario that people are so overburdened with taxes now, are so concerned about government interference at a time when we are in this economic recession and competition is tough, that even a tax such as this can have some influence. I am not saying it is a deciding factor, but it is one of the influences on whether someone is going to continue to keep his or her investment in Ontario or to invest in the future.

The gas tax, those of us who reside in border areas would know, is one of the loss leaders. It is one of the lower gas prices in the United States. In border areas such as the Niagara Peninsula, Sioux Ste Marie, Cornwall and various points along the Canadian-American border in Ontario, we find people heading to the United States. Some will say, "They always did." Some people went on a shopping excursion because they liked the fact that there was perhaps more available, more options to buy and sometimes the price was lower.

What we have been seeing for the last year or two is a different phenomenon, people going over the border to make some smaller purchases and while they are there making larger purchases. Let me explain that for a moment.

The member for Lincoln mentioned the tobacco tax. When I spoke on the tobacco tax in the House, I indicated that in good economic times and under some circumstances, if a government had raised the tobacco tax, people would say, "Hurrah, it is going to help the health of the province if it encourages people to quit smoking." It would not really have a measurable effect on the province. As the member for Lincoln discovered, I think in discussions with some of his constituents -- this prompted him to vote against the bill on second reading, which cost him his job as Chair of the standing committee on finance and economic affairs because no one dared deviate from the Premier and the group of people in the Premier's office who dictate all that goes on over there. He was fired as Chairman of that committee, but the reason I get to this --

Hon Mrs Grier: If only you knew.

Mr Bradley: It is true. The Minister of the Environment says, "If only you knew." I know who controls everything. It is the Premier who controls everything. The Minister of the Environment would be much more benevolent and understanding of a member who is voting to save his skin in his own riding.

We see people heading across the border to buy tobacco products. We see them going across the border to buy alcoholic beverages because they are cheaper, cases of beer for instance. The spinoff of that, the sidebar to that is they tend to eat in the United States because the beverages that go with the meal are so much cheaper that it makes the entire evening out cheaper.

I mentioned the tobacco products. I mentioned the alcoholic beverages. The third component of that and perhaps the most significant, because not everybody drinks and not everybody smokes but virtually everybody drives a car or has access to a car, is that we have people in areas that are not even that close to the border heading over there to fill up the tank with gasoline, to buy some cigarettes, to buy some alcoholic beverages, and while they are over there of course they visit one of the malls on the other side of the border and make other purchases.

That is why I am concerned that we would drive the price of gasoline up with this tax. The federal government did it and now the provincial government, which is often so critical of the federal government, has followed suit. That is why I think that is unwise. Second is that it increases the transportation costs. For people who are driving around Ontario, there are many companies and the public service where there is mileage paid, as I still call it, or kilometrage I guess they would call it today, paid to people using government vehicles or who use their own vehicles on business. That increases the cost to government when that tax goes up. It increases it to the private sector where that payment is made to individual employees as well. So we see that increase, 30% in this case, in transportation costs.

It discourages tourism. One of the industries which is often forgotten in this province for its significance is that of tourism. The spinoff effect of having people visit Ontario and actually stay in Ontario is rather significant. They tend to spend millions upon millions of dollars in this province and I think that is good for this province. One of the complaints our American friends are heard to air with people on this side of the border is the cost of gasoline.

Every time the cost of gasoline goes up, it discourages people who come over here from spending any length of time in our province, where we have so much to offer. I think everybody in the Legislature would agree that we in Ontario have a lot of natural attributes that have been built by men and women in this province and they are worthy of a visit. Nevertheless, because of the costs, we are discouraging those visitors from coming here, leaving their dollars in Ontario and creating jobs.

We also have an increase in the cost of goods and services. Quite obviously if it costs more to transport goods around Ontario, that is going to be reflected in the ultimate cost of the product. It means that when we are trying to sell a Canadian product, it increases the cost compared to, for instance, the United States. Even when we are trying to sell products that have been imported but where there could be some direct benefits to those in our own stores, we find out that the cost has increased, again a compelling reason for not proceeding with this gas tax at this time.

We have heard the stories the past couple of weeks of various retail chains closing down. Some people may say, "I hear a lot of those are just stores for rich people to go and buy things." I have heard that argument made. While those people are spending dollars, that is filtering down through the economy to those who are making those products and are --

Mr Christopherson: Trickle-down theory.

Mr Bradley: Certainly. The member for Hamilton Centre does not believe in the trickle-down theory, that somehow when money is spent in stores it eventually makes its way, first of all, back into the coffers of the government and of course make its way into the hands of the employees of the store. I know they always have a term over there. If you explain these situations, these circumstances, they just dismiss it immediately. "Reaganomics," we hear, "supply-side." They do not understand all these things. That is what they say to us.

Yet we look at what is happening in the province and take a look at what we have in this province now. They should tell me that there is not some benefit to people being able to have more money in their hands to spend on consumer products to get this economy going. Not everybody works in the public sector. There are a lot of people out in the private sector, men and women, who have had jobs in the private sector and rely on them, whether it is the automotive industry, the steel industry, the garment industry or those who work in retail. Those people see that those jobs are either diminishing in terms of the hours they are working or are disappearing completely. It is easy to say, "Those were stores for rich women or rich men, or whoever it happened to be," but they all helped to provide employment in this province, so they cannot be dismissed.

I heard a couple of weeks ago -- it snuck in; it did not get much attention in the House -- that IBM was laying off 2,000 people in Canada. Some 80% of those people would be losing their jobs in Ontario, most of them in the Toronto area. It was not going to be a dramatic layoff immediately, but it was going to be largely by attrition. That sounds good, but members should talk about attrition to people who are in the labour union movement, because they see not only the jobs -- it is actually more difficult for them to accept in many ways. When they see the jobs leaving immediately with some hope that they will come back in good times, that is one thing. When they see a company announcing that the jobs, yes, will be gone by attrition but will never return, that is of great concern for future generations and for people who are going to lose their present jobs. Also, I heard today that Xerox was announcing about 200 people being laid off after the Christmas season.

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All of these are matters of great concern. We have had Piper Aircraft, which has been looking to locate somewhere in the province of Ontario. The name Piper always strikes some kind of smile on the faces of some people in this House, but in this case there is a company which is looking to locate in Ontario. The government is correct, in my view, when it looks carefully at the proposals. One cannot simply say that because a company is knocking on the door that company should automatically be brought to the province under any conditions. But we should make them feel welcome. We should have a regime in which there are attractive taxes and attractive pieces of legislation and regulation and an absence of rhetoric and which encourages people to invest here with their money and not simply at the cost of the taxpayers of the province.

I heard a concern mentioned about leaded gas and unleaded gas. We have attempted to encourage in this province over the years, I think wisely, more people to consume unleaded gas than leaded gas. We know the effects of leaded gas environmentally, particularly on young children and their potential for learning and full development. I think a tax regime which sees a greater cost for leaded gas than unleaded gas is a wise one, but of course we want to keep the price of unleaded gasoline down in this province at this time.

One of the reasons the Treasurer would advance for needing this money is the huge deficit this province is incurring. I think anybody who suggests this government could avoid running a deficit in the midst of one of the deepest recessions is fooling no one if he says that. The government must run a deficit at this time. The question is, how large should that deficit be? People in opposition are obviously always going to be more critical in their rhetoric than those on the government side, but I have heard people say that somehow we have to balance the budget at this time. We are concerned about the size of the deficit because we recognize that to keep the economy going some expenditures by the government have to take place. We understand that revenues are not going to be as high and that there is some necessity to assist the economy.

I am not a believer in the fact that you can spend your way completely out of a recession, but I know there are certain essential services that must be maintained no matter what. I know there are capital works that must be undertaken that can be helpful in generating economic activity, even when it is building logging roads, as the Minister of Natural Resources was in Algonquin Park. He had some money to build some logging roads in Algonquin Park and I know that was a public works project of which he is proud and the member for Victoria-Haliburton would be proud --

Hon Mr Wildman: And the member for Renfrew North.

Mr Bradley: -- and the member for Renfrew North would certainly see as being beneficial. There are a number of those capital projects that have to be undertaken.

The concern we have, and I think one of the reasons the Treasurer has asked to have this tax implemented, and perhaps further taxes in a subsequent budget, is the fact that next year the projected deficit is approximately $9 billion, the year after approximately $9 billion and the year after approximately $8 billion.

A lot of people might say: "In their first full year of office, in very difficult economic times, my gosh, $9.7 billion is a lot of money, but okay, we understand the government doing that. We might not like it but we understand it." Where their concern comes in, I think with justification, is with the second, third and the fourth years, where we see huge deficit projections. If we could stimulate the economy appropriately, using appropriate fiscal and economic tools, then we would not require these kinds of tax increases, because when the economy is not functioning well and the government has to tax, it does not have the money it needs for even some of the services I am sure government members would consider essential. I think of the credit counselling services. If somebody said to me, "You've been an MPP for fourteen and a half years. Name five services in your community" --

Hon Ms Gigantes: How about the Golden Helmets?

Mr Bradley: I will come to the Golden Helmets in a little while.

Hon Ms Gigantes: I thought they were your priority.

Mr Bradley: They are significant. I know they would be significant to the member for Ottawa Centre because her leader is a great monarchist. I saw him with the royal couple. Someone in the press gallery -- I think it was Eric Dowd, the dean of the press gallery -- I do not know whether he said a blowtorch or a pneumatic drill, but he said it would take some instrument, I think a crowbar, to separate the Premier from the royal couple. I was pleased. I was pleased to see our Premier with the royal couple at the time, because I know that, first of all, he shies away from any photo opportunity with anybody who is popular. I can certainly understand that.

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Algoma, if you want to heckle, you should do so from your seat.

Mr Bradley: It is interesting. I should not answer heckling, I know that. I see the Sergeant at Arms is back. We thought we were going to need him a while ago and he was not in the House, but I assure him that I am not going to avail myself of his services, nor will the Speaker have to in this case.

What was interesting -- no, I will not get into that subject, because it is off topic and the last time the member for Quinte mentioned it there was a hubbub on the government benches that caused too much disruption.

Hon Mrs Grier: He was not here to honour the Lieutenant Governor either this morning.

Mr Bradley: He was with the Monarchist League.

Now, on the credit counselling services we have in the province, if I could pick out --

Mr Cousens: We used to have.

Mr Bradley: We used to have.

Hon Mrs Grier: Where was the member for Quinte when the Lieutenant Governor was being installed?

Mr Bradley: Okay, I am going to have to respond now, of course. What is ironic -- someone choose a better word for me. Is "hypocritical" allowed in the House?

No? The Speaker says it is not allowed, so I will not use it. I will not say how hypocritical it was to see the government benches full for a royal ceremony because that would be hypocritical and I would not want to say that.

What I want to get on to -- the Minister of the Environment is trying to distract me from this because I think she knows that all her members feel this is a useful service -- is talking about the credit counselling service. If somebody said, "Name five services in your community where you think an investment of government dollars, such as the dollars that would be derived from this tax increase, would be useful," I would say credit counselling services. I think the Speaker, in fact, has a personal, private bill that is related to this particular matter -- the Speaker who is in the Chair, the member for Carleton East.

I have had letters from people with a variety of backgrounds: business people, volunteers for the credit counselling services and people from the trade union movement, the unemployed help centre in my area and the Canadian Auto Workers in my area. These are people who are sincerely writing to the minister and to other local members, kindly providing a copy of the letter for me, looking for this to be raised.

Along with the member for Niagara Falls and the member for St Catharines-Brock, I met with the credit counselling service in the St Catharines area. It was agreed at that time -- I do not think I am giving away any secrets; I said it at the time, so I can repeat it. I said: "If the credit counselling service is gone, I will be up asking the question and talking about it. If it is going to be saved, you can get up with a statement and say how nice it is that the Minister of Community and Social Services saved it."

The fact is that it keeps a lot of people out of debt, it keeps a lot of people from going into bankruptcy. Mr Hamilton from the CAW in St Catharines, the recording secretary, mentioned -- I am not quoting him directly -- something I thought very appropriate. He said it was the best bang for the buck that a government could get out of its investment. He pointed out that, as a person in the trade union movement, he had referred a lot of people.

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I have referred a lot of people to the credit counselling services from my office, and they have really been helped. They have been able to maintain their self-esteem, they have avoided bankruptcy and they have been able to bring financial order back to themselves. In the midst of a recession, that is the kind of service that has to be retained.

I hope that before the session is out -- or, if they want to, immediately after the session is out -- the government members will persuade the Minister of Community and Social Services to provide that necessary funding. What happens when you are in such a financial hole is that good services like that tend to disappear. That is something people really require in a recession.

The other was the unemployed help centres themselves. In St Catharines the unemployed help centre was looking for some additional funding because it provides a lot of counselling for people. Not everybody in this world likes going to government offices. Our people in government and its various agencies try to provide a good service for people. They are usually friendly and open to them, but some people feel intimidated by government offices and prefer to go to a counselling service or at least to have a sympathetic ear at an unemployed help centre. In St Catharines they were unable to obtain what they felt would be an appropriate level of funding in the midst of a recession. That is unfortunate.

Something else I want to talk about, which I am going to just make a brief reference to, in terms of this tax and the kind of atmosphere it creates in the province of Ontario, is the very disturbing news today that came in on the wire from General Motors. When I talk later on, if we get to the bill, I want to talk about the tax on auto workers this government has implemented, modified a bit under pressure from the opposition and from some members of the trade union movement, who are on our side in this issue.

As members will recall, when I was asking the Premier and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology questions last week about the auto industry, I was not just pulling those out of midair. It was not just an exercise in futility or a chance to raise some false concerns about the province of Ontario. It was because of this. We have a situation in Oshawa where we could lose a tremendous number of jobs.

The Canadian Press story said: "'General Motors has lost a major contract, which could result in a car assembly plant employing 3,700 closing by 1995,' a union official said today. Tom Hoar, spokesman for the Canadian Auto Workers Union, said, 'The contract to build the Buick Regal in Oshawa has gone to a GM plant in the United States. No decision has been made, however,' said a GM spokesperson, 'It is simply one person's interpretation.' Another says: 'There has been on deadline set. On the other hand, the clock is ticking. The longer it takes, the weaker the position we're in.' Another GM spokesman, Stu Lowe, had said earlier that the decision on the plant's future would be made next year." I see a further statement. "'I do not rate our chances as good,' said the union plant chairman in this city just east of Toronto."

What concerns me about the automotive industry is that it is in an unprecedented time of competition. I know the Premier mentioned a couple of plants where he thought there was some additional work coming here. What I am concerned about, first of all, is that offshore competition is certainly increasing the pressure on General Motors and Ford and Chrysler. I think General Motors sales this year, compared to last year, are down about 35%. That was a matter of great concern on a provincial basis, but on a personal basis in St Catharines.

I mentioned in this House that I live in a neighbourhood where most of the people work in auto plants or in plants that supply auto plants. These people are concerned today about the future of their industry. They work either in General Motors or Hayes-Dana or TRW or one of the plants that service them. They express concern. When they hear this story on CP, they will really be concerned about the possible loss of 3,700 jobs.

In St Catharines we have a component for a plant. We have plants on both sides of the canal. There is a considerable concern about the future, as there always is, of the engine plant and the foundry in St Catharines and even some of the other operations. Why? The concern is because General Motors, as the article goes on to say, "is going through a scaling down. GM has been losing enormous amounts of money in its US car-making operations"; its business "$2.2 billion in the first nine months of this year. The Detroit statement said details of the plan would be released next Wednesday to employees."

What it was talking about was a plan to restructure. Those members who have worked in plants or those members who have been involved in the trade union movement or who understand it know what restructuring means. It means ordinarily that they are going to scale down the number of jobs. They never like to use the words "layoff" or "firing" or "diminishing" --

Interjection.

Mr Bradley: The Speaker is saying, "How does this relate?" It is because of this tax that I am worried. I am concerned about that, as I think the government should be concerned. When I got to the Premier and to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, I was genuinely worried that this was the kind of announcement we are going to be seeing over the next while.

So you ask, Mr Speaker, "What does this have to do with this tax?" This will keep me going for a little while. What it has to do with the tax is, as I said to the Premier in my question:

"Can you guarantee to the workers in St Catharines that at the end of your term as Premier, the end of the term of your government, that with your policies, with your legislation, with your regulations and with your rhetoric, four years from now those jobs are still going to be there for the workers in the plant and for the daughters and sons of those who reside in the community?"

That is my concern. I know the government is well-meaning. I do not think this government is malicious. Some people do. I do not think this government is out to get people, necessarily. They may want to even some scores from years gone by, but I do not think there is a malicious attempt to lose jobs in this province. To suggest so would be unfair, inaccurate and foolish.

However, I do think that some of the policies being implemented, some of the legislation suggested, some of the regulations being brought about and the rhetoric of some in government is scaring business away. This tax is yet another component. The taxes that are brought about in this province, first, have an effect of dampening the enthusiasm of those who are already here for staying in Ontario and, second, certainly discouraging new investment in this province. There is no one in this House who wants to see any jobs leave and there is no one in this House who does not want to see more investment. It is a matter of how to get it.

It may be that the government will have to forgo some of its policies, tone down some of its rhetoric, postpone or eliminate some of its legislation and regulations to ensure that we have jobs in this province. As I mentioned earlier, I am not one who believes that you hand everything to the company. I heard some suggestions on some companies that want to come here. I can recall when the Ghermezian brothers were coming to Ontario and they were announcing the building of a huge mall. In essence, as I recall, they wanted to build it with taxpayers' money, not with their own. That is not what we can entertain in this province, but we must of course make sure they are welcome to at least invest their own money.

There are a couple of other problems that arise from this tax. One is I suspect that part of the money from this tax is going to go to the CCC committee, that is, the Consultation Central Co-ordinating Committee. Members will recall the secret document, a memo in the name of the chief government whip, which talked about how some of the money that would be derived from the gasoline tax would be spent. This is a government document.

It says here, "We need to finalize which ministries' consultations will go in big type in the ad." It is talking about the full-page ads; we are going to see those yet with the taxpayers' money. "We are going to have to get our message out. This is an opportunity to establish new support bases across Ontario." That is with the money derived from this tax, because the Speaker is always wanting to know how I relate that to this. It says, "We should use these consultations to maximize the government's profile," with the money to be derived from this and other taxes.

Of course, we saw the list of people who would be on this committee -- so many of them. I did not mind the fact that they had non-partisan civil servants on it, people who ordinarily embark upon this consultation process, people who can be sure not to have the money there to favour any political party but rather the government as a whole, meaning the Legislature as a whole. Yet I saw originally Jill Marzetti, who sends out all kinds of letters to people for fund-raising and runs down business and so on, and there are a lot of other people on here who are NDP operatives. I do not mean that in a nasty way when I say "operatives." They are NDP assistants and so on who work for various ministers.

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Some would suggest that is a good patronage system. The member for Carleton said, for instance, that the person he ran against ended up at Queen's Park before he did, before he was sworn in as a member, and all that with the money derived from the province of Ontario.

This is rather interesting when we get these full-page ads --

Hon Ms Gigantes: That wasn't accurate.

Mr Bradley: The member for Ottawa Centre says it isn't accurate. As I once said, I have never met a more partisan person and a person who is more unwilling to concede anything can be wrong with her government or her party in all my years in the Ontario Legislature. This in fact is a government memo that she says is inaccurate. That is interesting to hear.

Hon Ms Gigantes: No, I said your comment on the member for Carleton wasn't accurate.

Mr Bradley: I see. The honourable member is saying the member for Carleton got it wrong. Did the person not actually arrive here before the member for Carleton did?

Hon Ms Gigantes: Absolutely not.

The Deputy Speaker: We will hear your questions and comments afterwards.

Mr Bradley: I have never heard the member for Carleton misinform the House in my life, at least not this week.

The Conservatives put a question on the order paper. I give the Conservatives credit. They asked an order paper question -- these are always interesting fishing trips: Would the Ministry of Energy provide a list of all consultants, commissions, etc, since the new government has been in power? One of the things I discovered in here was that it says: "Hill and Knowlton Canada Ltd (Decima) public opinion poll: $60,890."

But what disappointed me most when I saw this tax implemented was that I always understood philosophically, ethically and morally that NDP members were opposed to polling. They used to be with us on the opposition side criticizing the Conservatives under Bill Davis. When I was here it was always Bill Davis, and Frank Miller for a short period of time, but they were very critical of the Conservative Party for polling. They said it was cynical. They criticize Brian Mulroney because they say he rules by polls. I do not know if that is true, but they say he follows public opinion polls very carefully.

Then when the Liberal government commissioned public opinion polls, the NDP said: "That was awful. They shouldn't be wasting money. They should know what the people want and they shouldn't have to spend that money, and besides, they shouldn't keep them secret." I thought at the time -- I was sitting on the government side -- "The NDP has a good point and if it ever gets to power, I know that it will not be doing this."

But what happens? We have a tax that is going to go partially to pay for public opinion polls in the province of Ontario -- public opinion polls whose results are kept secret by the NDP government until they are out of date and then they are released to the Legislature. This a very cynical form of manipulation that I am sure most of the members who are elected on the other side would be opposed to. I hope they chastise the Premier, probably through a third party, because they do not want to be fired from their jobs. Perhaps they will go to the member for Welland-Thorold, who is not afraid of the Premier, and ask him to chastise the Premier at the appropriate provincial council, wherever it is held in the province.

Hon Mr Pouliot: Are people afraid of you?

Mr Bradley: No one.

We have the health care spending in Ontario and we are saying, "Will this tax go to help health care in this province?" I well remember the now government House leader and others on the other side who talked about the lack of adequate funding for health care services in the province. Was it not awful when there was one bed shut down anywhere in the province? The NDP members would troop in people who had medical problems, sit them in the gallery, orchestrate them outside to the scrum to confront the minister and there would be a hullabaloo in this House and the environs.

Mr Conway: I liked the families of the deceased who were brought in.

Mr Bradley: There were even families of the deceased brought in as a political touch. However, what is happening now is that we are seeing those cutbacks. Despite this tax, we are seeing beds being closed all over Ontario. We are seeing waiting lists to receive services. We are seeing certain services that are being cut back and we are seeing some services that people now have to pay for.

Members would say, "Well, the government's simply facing some kind of reality." I guess what galls a lot of people is there was never a mention of that when that party was on this side of the House.

The Minister of the Environment was here earlier. She is always interested in all the debates in the House. I have to wonder right now if at least some of that tax is not being applied to rescue the Ministry of the Environment. I know what happens when the Treasurer comes in and the Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet and the chair of now treasury board comes in and says: "Guess what? We are into a constraint." It is not a restraint; it is called a constraint. People in the civil service shudder because they know what is happening. They know that is freezing staff. They cannot buy equipment. They cannot proceed with this program and the minister of each department sits there and hopes the opposition does not know what is happening and will not ask questions.

One of the things that worries you on the government side is you always wonder if the opposition knows all of this. They usually do not, so you are off the hook in some cases.

The Minister of Transportation is here. I will touch on how the money derived from this tax perhaps is going to Transportation.

Hon Mr Pouliot: You wrote the book. You increased taxes 33 times when the going was good. They spent like drunken sailors, Mr Speaker, but at least drunken sailors spend their own money.

Mr Bradley: I have nothing against sailors. I think there are a number of sailors who previous to the remark by the member for Lake Nipigon used to support the New Democratic Party. I will not repeat what he called them, but a certain kind of sailors who spend a lot of money, because I do not want to be unkind. It was just an interjection that he hoped nobody would hear.

Mr Conway: What about Sheila Copps repeating what Brian Mulroney said?

Mr Bradley: I would be reluctant because I know what happened in the federal House of Commons today. Apparently there was a bad word used. Nobody would use it except one opposition member who came out and repeated it in the hallway. I was red-faced simply sitting at the television set listening to it. I immediately flicked to another channel. I went to CNN and then I found that was no better, so I came back to the parliamentary channel, where the language is always appropriate.

I am worried about the Minister of the Environment -- because I was Minister of the Environment -- and her ability to do all the things she would like within the constraints the government applies. I can bet those regional offices and those district offices are stretched to the limit right now. I hope the economy gets going again so that she will be able -- and the people of Ontario will benefit from it -- to derive more funds by using something other than taxes but rather by stimulating the economy.

There is the Solicitor General.

Mr Pilkey: Good evening.

Mr Bradley: A good, cheerful chap he is. I am worried about the OPP as he departs.

Hon Ms Gigantes: Oh, tell us again about the Golden Helmets.

Mr Bradley: The member for Ottawa Centre wants me to mention the Golden Helmets. I know this government which needs money would perhaps be putting up the tax to pay for Golden Helmets. These are the ceremonial motorcycle people in the province who made your heart flutter and made the hair on the back of your neck stand up when they came down the main street of St Catharines in the grape and wine festival parade.

I looked out the window when the Lieutenant Governor was coming down University Avenue, longingly hoping to see the Golden Helmets and hearing the pipes and drums of the OPP; the pipes and drums I could not hear and the hum of the motorcycles of the Golden Helmets I could not hear.

It has gone beyond that. That is why I wonder if they are raising the tax to meet the needs of the OPP. We know some of the OPP officers, at the behest of the Premier or whomever over there, have been busy investigating members of the opposition to see where they got leaked documents. This, of course, I consider -- the Premier does not agree -- to be harassment and intimidation of the opposition and, probably more important, harassment and intimidation of public servants who believe it is in the interests of the province to have this information made available.

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I know that is what is happening, that there is not quite so much money to provide the necessary services, the Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere program, investigations of crime and accidents, because this government has spent money on other things, because it will not get the economy going, because people will not invest, because of taxes like this tax.

I am very proud of the OPP in this province and the various local police forces. We see crime increasing and the need for their services but we see their budget diminishing. It is diminishing while the government has money to spend on polls to tell it what it thinks and for consultation committees which are designed to promote and enhance the profile of this government. That is exceedingly unfortunate and I think the people in the hinterlands understand that -- the hinterlands being somewhere other than Toronto.

I have another one: When this tax came about, I was wondering if they were going to spend the money on the orderly move of the Ministry of Transportation to St Catharines, as promised by the previous government, the promise confirmed by the honourable Minister of Health when she was Chairman of Management Board. Many people in St Catharines are afraid the NDP will renege on this promise, that because of pressure from a number of sources they are going to keep it in Toronto, that this promise will be broken, that if we see anybody coming to St Catharines it will be a third of the jobs.

I still hope -- and the Minister of Transportation is here -- they will see fit to transfer that to St Catharines, where we are losing jobs from other sectors, jobs that are subject to the ups and downs of the economy and to restructuring, and that we will have that in St Catharines, as so many people have worked for. Our mayor, in his statement to people welcoming them to St Catharines, refers to us as the transportation capital of the province. Just as I know Revenue was happy to go to Oshawa and OHIP was happy to go to Kingston and that has been beneficial to both communities, and Revenue Canada was happy to move to Sudbury on the federal scene, I think they will be welcome in St Catharines and it is important that we have it in St Catharines, hopefully in the downtown area.

I thought of something else this money might be spent for. That was the community college system. An interesting thing happened, and it is happening all over now; that is why I am quite amused at it. The chairman of the Council of Regents, the former member for Scarborough West, Richard Johnston, appeared before the standing committee on finance and economic affairs. In years gone by, when people appeared they always needed a 10%, 12%, 14% or 16% increase. Mr Johnston was a critic in the field of education previously, and lo and behold he came before the committee and suggested that they could make do with 2% this year. I would like to hear how many desks were rumbling right across the province. Our friend Paddy Musson would not be amused with this particular move on the part of Richard Johnston, coming forward to the committee and saying the community college system could make do with 2%.

How ironic that he would be saying that at this time, yet interestingly enough, where members opposite are fortunate is that a lot of the activists in various organizations that wanted tons of money out of Conservative and Liberal governments are now muted in their criticism. My plea to them is, "Will you represent your constituency first and your own political views second?" It is a little hard to take, when the same people who used to come before Liberal and Conservative governments with fire in their eyes now come with putty in their hands as they apologize for the NDP first instead of representing the organization they represented so well in the past.

Now, there are many who will not do that. I have faith that some of those people will say, "I'll check my NDP card at the door and I will represent the particular group in which I have an interest first and my NDP second." Notice I do not say "NDP party." Only when I want to annoy government members do I say it, because they hate that. But I know NDP stands for New Democratic Party, a party which I happen to believe in 1991 is neither new nor democratic. However, that is another speech.

I will be looking up into the gallery when the announcements are made for the transfer payments that will come from this tax. I see Malcolm Buchanan, my good friend, up there saying whether he is satisfied with the increase, and Jim Head of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, Fred Upshaw, Larry French, a number of people who over the years have made representations, and admirably, on behalf of the groups they were elected by. I will be pleased to see what the reaction is to what the government is prepared to offer, and compare that to the reaction of some 6%, 7% and 8% that was provided in years gone by. I will be looking forward to reading that in the publications I receive, because I have many friends in the teaching profession.

I wanted to leave some time for the members for Wellington and Dufferin-Peel and the member for Renfrew North, who I know will have a considerable intervention on this particular issue. I will let him discuss the price of gasoline overall. I could imagine this, as my windup. I could imagine the Minister of Energy in the good old days in the union halls of Kitchener-Waterloo. I could probably hear him from here yelling at the top of his voice and criticizing Liberal and Conservative governments for allowing the price of gasoline to go so high. But with the price of gasoline being so high in this province, with the gasoline companies having their own way completely, one of our members -- or I did; I forget which -- asked the member for Peterborough a question about gasoline prices and it was the same briefing notes as the last minister, the minister before, the minister before and the minister before.

I could remember in my last incarnation in this House in opposition asking the question and getting the same answer, "We are monitoring the prices and it is competitive pricing," and all the excuses. I would have thought, with all the rhetoric I heard over the years, that the NDP would not be in the pockets of the oil companies of this province, but I can draw no other conclusion because on civic holiday weekend the prices jump to 58 cents a litre. It is always 58.6, and there is real competition because across the street it will be 58.5. It appears there is price fixing. Together they raise the prices. They have them high in certain parts of the province -- the member for Renfrew North will talk about that -- yet this government says, "We're monitoring the situation and you have to understand that we have competitive pricing in this province."

This tax is only going to increase that price for people in Ontario, and I hope in the dying days of this House in December, with new and great thoughts of 1992 coming in the minds of government members, that there will be a collective revolt and they will persuade the Treasurer and the person who runs this province, the Premier, to withdraw this tax, which will be so detrimental to Ontario and its people.

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Mr Tilson: The member for St Catharines spent considerable time on the effect on the economy of this tax in relationship to the United States. It brings to mind the analogy of an American in a motor home travelling from the United States to Canada and the shock he must have when he arrives across the border, fills up his tank, buys a case of beer, buys a package of cigarettes. They will turn around and go back home again.

At the same time, I imagine a Canadian in a similar type of motor home going to the United States, across the border, filling up his tank, buying a case of beer, buying a package of cigarettes, and the effect this is going to have on him. This could be spread out to the transportation industry. We have heard all the effects of the previous tax bill with respect to the problems in the transportation industry, but it has an effect on this as well.

The member for St Catharines is quite correct about the effect it is having on tourism, the effect it is having on the entertainment business, the effect it is having on hotels, the effect it is having on restaurants, the effect it is having on business in general -- business closing down, business going bankrupt -- the effect it is having on loss of jobs and yes indeed, the effect it is having on the automotive industry in this province. The comments of the member for St Catharines should be noted by the government, because this tax bill does have a wide-ranging effect on all aspects of our economy and is certainly part of the cause of much of the unemployment, many of the bankruptcies and many of the other terrible things that have happened to our economy in this province.

Mr Drainville: It is a pleasure to stand in my place and speak to the comments of the honourable member for St Catharines and also those that have just been made by the member for Dufferin-Peel.

It seems to me there is no question that a decision has to be made on the part of any government that serves in this province or any other place in Canada as to the direction and the priorities it needs to set. It has been stated by people across the floor in this House that the tax increases that have been introduced by this government have been exorbitant, that they have been tax grabs, that they have been unfair, perhaps even punitive, to the people of Ontario.

What I want to say -- I believe they understood this when they were in the Treasury benches -- is that the reality of Ontario in this deep recession is that we have very hard decisions to make. One of the decisions we have to make is that we have to continue to support social assistance and education and hospitalization and all the other things we have in this country. It does cost tax money to keep those things going. If people say we have to cut taxes even more, then how are we going to maintain those services? I do not know how we are going to do that.

The honourable member for St Catharines extolled the virtues of the trickle-down theory. The trickle-down theory would be fine if it were not for the sponges at the top. That is precisely the problem we have. In the trickle-down theory, all too often it is the people at the top who end up benefiting, and not the people who happen to be low-income or poor.

What we are trying to do, in the budget we presented last spring, in these tax increases, in the very direction the government is taking, is to try to maintain some equality in these issues so we get the taxes to do the work we need to do, that the people of the province expect us to do.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): Further questions and/or comments? Seeing none, the honourable member for St Catharines has two minutes in response.

Mr Bradley: I appreciate those two minutes to first thank the member for Dufferin-Peel for his comments. I thought that was a good illustration, because a lot of people do travel and a lot of people do own those kinds of vehicles. The example he gave is an example of why people who go to the United States for tourist purposes will not come here and those considerable costs. If those costs were not there, we would have more people here spending more money.

To the member for Victoria-Haliburton, I think everybody recognizes that there are a number of services we want to maintain in the province of Ontario. Perhaps there are those who believe that the trickle-down theory does not work, and I would not want to suggest that the amount that starts at the top makes it to the bottom, but a considerable amount does make it to the bottom. In addition to that, the fact that we have lower taxes attracts more economic activity. In other words, more investment is retained, more investment comes in, you have more economic activity in the province and, as a result, we do not have to raise taxes as much.

I am not one -- he knows, he has listened in the House -- who recommends that the government slash essential services. I happen to believe they should have. They would not perhaps have needed this tax if, when they first came into power, they had gone ministry to ministry very toughly and asked what programs are needed, what programs are not needed, what can be postponed, and they had not done that, of course. If they are now doing that, I commend them, but almost $10 billion later we find out that the exercise was not embarked upon early enough.

Perhaps they will learn some lessons. Where there is life there is hope. By gosh, that is all we have in this province now.

Mr Tilson: I rise today on the subject of the gasoline tax. I look at it from a perspective specifically from my own riding, but I think that that perspective could be compared to other ridings around this province.

I took the trouble to call the two main municipalities of my riding -- one, the county of Dufferin, and the other the town of Caledon -- to talk to them about the number or people who commute from their respective municipalities to other areas of the province. The reason I did that, of course, was to talk about the reliance of these people on travelling for their jobs and for everything else, I suppose their entertainment, but mainly their jobs -- the way in which they make their money. And there are some interesting figures. I am going to refer to some of these figures that were given to me. I do not have specific details, only information that was given to me by a fax machine, but I think the facts are accurate. I was assured that they were reasonably accurate by the two municipalities, and I think that those types of figures could be compared to other municipalities around this province.

Taking specifically, first of all, the town of Caledon. The town of Caledon has an existing population of 33,726. I am not sure at what date this is, but for the sake of argument at least those are reasonably close figures. I am told by the town officials that approximately 45% of the town's labour force is employed outside the municipality. That is a substantial number of people that rely on the automobile and other means of transportation to move from the town of Caledon to their place of employment.

The report goes on: Given an estimated average occupancy of 1.15 persons per vehicle, the number of vehicles originating from Caledon is approximately 6,730 vehicles. That is a substantial number, realizing the magnitude of the impact this tax is going to have on all of these people specifically in the town of Caledon. Therefore, and I was assured that these are estimates only, 6,730 vehicles commute from Caledon to other destinations within the GTA for employment purposes, so that is the effect that this 3.4-cent-per-litre tax is going to have on the people of the town of Caledon.

Similarly, with respect to Dufferin county -- they were using the 1986 census figures, and I am sure it has increased somewhat since then -- I was informed by the county officials in the county of Dufferin that Dufferin county had over 17,000 over 15 years of age in the labour force when the county population, and this would be 1986 figures, was 34,000. So with a present county population of 38,776 in 1991, it would be reasonable to expect, at least from the county officials' perspective, that the labour force in 1991 would be about 19,000 people. They show different statistics, and I am sure these are available to anyone, on the distribution as to the type of employment and the distribution of the labour force by industry or trade. I am not going to get into that, but it does have similar figures.

The purpose of my raising this point is to illustrate the number of people who commute riding from my riding to Peel region, Metro Toronto or York region, for various reasons. Presumably that is where the jobs are, or it may be a little bit cheaper to live in these areas than in the high-priced real estate that is in the larger municipal areas. There are various reasons why people live in my riding. I will not get into that other than to emphasize that these people do require the automobile and other means of transportation such as that to commute.

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So the data given to me relating to commuting patterns show that 1,214 people live outside the county but travel to jobs inside the county. Caledon did not give me that information, but I am sure that exists as well, that people who are outside the county come into our county or into the town of Caledon to their place of employment. So that is another consideration, that every day this number of people are using the automobile. This is just in a riding such as mine, which is a semi-rural, semi-urban type of community, and many other members have a similar type of riding, but that happens all the time, that happens every day, in some cases seven days a week, as it appears, for the month of December at least.

The figures given to me were that 10,341 people live and work in the county of Dufferin. I am told that 5,328 people live inside the county but travel to jobs outside the county, so that where these people come from, of the 5,328 Dufferinites leaving the county for work, 2,493, or 47%, come from Orangeville, and 933, or 18%, come from Mono township. Where do they go? The statistics say that 61% of these people who leave Orangeville and Mono township work in Peel region, Metro Toronto or York region. So that is the pattern of the people who live in my riding and the necessity of transportation in travelling to and from work.

I am certain they use the motor vehicle or automobile for other purposes, as I have indicated, for transportation coming to Toronto or coming to other urban areas. This type of pattern goes on all across this province. So this is going to have a considerable effect on their way of life. There is no question it is a tax, but it is an indirect tax in that it is affecting their employment. It is affecting the overall paycheque that the workers are bringing home to pay for their homes and their food and everything else they require.

It is almost a discriminatory type of tax, specifically for people in areas outside Metro, who commute from outside Metro, because it affects these people in ridings such as mine perhaps more on a day-to-day basis than it does people living directly in the municipalities that may rely on the TTC or who drive for short periods of time. So I submit that the government has not considered that factor when it looks at imposing this tax, which has been analysed in every which way possible today and on previous days. So the second submission I make is that it is a discriminatory tax to people who live in my riding of Dufferin-Peel.

Mention has been made throughout this debate as to what this tax is. I would like to spend some time, just so that we are quite clear, on exactly what this tax is going to do. We know when the budget was put forward back in April there was an automatic 1.7-cent-a-litre tax increase. That was from 11.3 cents, which is the increase on unleaded gasoline tax to 13 cents, and that of course was effective April 30. It is another cute way of the government saying the first stage is only 1.7 cents, which is April 30. But the second stage, which is going to be in a few short weeks, January 1, will be another 1.7 cents, which will be a total of 3.4 cents per litre. That just adds to the recession, adds to the difficulties that people in my riding and in other ridings across this province are having in commuting to and from work. It affects the commuter very seriously and I think the government should consider that factor before it implements the latter stage of this tax. The increases in this tax rate on leaded gasoline, as I understand it, will push the rate to 16 cents and to 17.7 cents in January 1992.

As well, this tax bill will increase the aviation fuel tax by 0.3 cents a litre from 2.1 cents to 2.4 cents effective back in April and by an additional 0.3 cents a litre to 2.7 cents a litre effective January 2, 1992. So it is going to affect aviation and it is going to affect other means of transportation in this province. We heard the member for Ottawa East mentioning he had to catch a plane tonight. It is going to affect people like that who rely on the aeroplane to travel for whatever purpose, for business across this province and across this country. It is going to affect people in this House. It is going to affect the overall cost of corporations. It is going to affect the overall cost of just operating our economy.

I do plan to get in as to what we are going to do with this money. It is clearly a tax grab, contrary to one of the debates earlier from the members opposite. It is a tax grab because no logical reason has been given, other than to increase the coffers for the various programs being put forward by this government.

Clearly, this gasoline rate represents an increase of 56.6% relative to the gasoline rate of 8.3 cents a litre in effect when the Progressive Conservative government left office. That is a substantial increase in a fairly short period of time. That should be analysed. It is fine to say, "In the bad old days of the Tories," but that is what has happened since the Progressive Conservatives left office, a 56.6% increase with respect to gasoline.

That is a tremendous increase when we look at how our society operates, when we look at the fact that our society relies on the commuter way of life of travelling to and from vast distances, across the north, across the east, across the west. I have mentioned the statistics in my riding showing how people rely on commuter travelling. They rely on the automobile. They rely on the aeroplane.

The rate increases from April 30, as I indicated in one of my responses to one of the members, will raise an additional $205 million in this fiscal year, and once the additional 1.7 cents comes on in a few weeks will raise an additional $410 million in a full year. That is a substantial amount of money.

The question is, and I repeat as I have in the responses, I have made it several times in responses to various members: What is the government going to do with it? What is the government going to do with respect to finding alternative ways of transportation? We have talked of the problems of GO.

My riding, for example, does not have a GO system. I have been raising the issue in this House on a constant basis trying to encourage the Minister of Transportation, the present minister and his predecessor, to encourage GO to come to our riding. My riding is the Bermuda triangle of Ontario. All around my riding there is a GO system. Certainly, the statistics warrant a GO system coming to my riding. There is a small GO system that comes to the Bolton-Palgrave area, but there is none to the Caledon Village or the Orangeville area.

Yet, the government raises the taxes, it raises the cost to the commuter who has to travel substantial distances from my riding to other areas of Metro and Brampton to their place of employment, and it will not provide a GO system. The ministry says the figures do not warrant it for various reasons. Well, they do warrant it. The figures are there.

Aside from that, our highways are deteriorating. The highways in my riding are deteriorating. What is the $410 million going to do? Is the government going to repair the highways? Is it going to build new highways? Is it going to consider new alternative ways of transportation? There are all kinds of things that could be done in that area. But all the government is doing is raising taxes.

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Indeed, I challenge the member. I hope he does rise to the challenge again and challenge me on the issue of a tax grab, because I would like to hear specifics as to what the government is going to do with that money. It is going to put it in the pot to perform all its services, but it is not going to have anything to do with transportation -- very little, unless the government can give me some specifics. That is the problem that we have with the commuter, because the government is hurting the commuter of this province.

The other issue that is raised is that Ontario's current -- and I am going to repeat a comment that was made in one of my responses, but it is an important fact to repeat -- unleaded gasoline rate is the third-highest in Canada, ranking behind only Quebec's 14.0 cents and Newfoundland's 13.7 cents. In January, with the addition of the 1.7-cent tax, Ontario's unleaded gasoline tax rate will be the highest in Canada, astounding for a province that is supposed to lead this country in the economy of this country. That is what the government is doing. It is hurting the commuter and it is hurting people in Dufferin-Peel and it is hurting people and commuters in other areas of this great province.

The member for St Catharines did quite rightly say that we are trying to discourage the use of leaded gasoline because of the problems that it causes to our environment, but still, the comparison is there as far as the philosophy of this government is concerned that Ontario's unleaded gasoline rate is the highest in Canada -- the highest in Canada for leaded gasoline and the highest in Canada, as of January 1, for unleaded gasoline. That is what the commuter in the province of Ontario is going to have as a result.

Members of this House in this debate have spent considerable time on the great exodus of business from this province to the United States and outside the province. There is no question the heckles will come forward, "Oh, it's the GST and it's free trade" and it is all of that sort of business. But I can tell members the issue of the gasoline tax, the issue of transportation, is a major effect. This has been submitted by small business, by large business, by unions, by everyone involved in the commercial field in this province as to the effect that it is having. We have given a simple example of the tourist in the motor home going whichever way across the border and the effect that it has on the economy of this province.

I can tell you, Mr Speaker, the statistics have been presented fairly recently from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which did a survey. The government does appear to be into polls and surveys; there are other surveys that are going on. This survey was published in the Financial Post on October 4. It showed the various businesses that are thinking of moving out from across this province, moving to the United States. Manufacturing and transportation and communications are at the top of the list, a substantial difference from others. They go through the entire commercial sector, whether it be retail, finance, services, wholesale, construction, primary. But transportation is up there.

I submit to you, Mr Speaker, from the statistics that came forward in this survey, that this has an effect on the anticipated concern of the gasoline tax that we already have implemented as of April 30 and the new one that is going to continue on January 1, 1992.

It was reported in the Financial Post that more than a third of Ontario's small and mediium-sized businesses are thinking about leaving the province because of the policies of its New Democratic government. This is, of course, a survey that was commissioned by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. There is no question that this reason goes into other areas, and the survey admits that. But it certainly involves the gasoline tax.

The message was followed by the results of this federation survey that said that as many as 500,000 jobs could be in danger in this province. They talk about more than 85% of the 3,539 businesses surveyed saying that the Ontario business climate is unfavourable, with a majority citing taxes, the provincial budget and apparent government bias against business and the proposed labour legislation as major reasons.Those were the reasons this potential 500,000 job loss could result in this province.

So there is no question they are concerned with the proposed labour legislation, they are concerned with the anti-business bias that occurs with this government, but they are also concerned with the majority citing taxes. All of these tax bills that have been coming forward in this House in which the --

Interjection.

Mr Tilson: I know it annoys the government members for us to go on but it is our obligation to do that to show to them the effect it is having on the economy of this province.

The survey followed a report by the Association of Provincial Research Organizations that small and medium-sized enterprises have been the generators of almost all new net jobs in Canada in recent years, and small firms are being hit worst by the recession. The report recommended that the small business sector be targeted as a crucial part of a national strategy to reduce unemployment.

Unemployment is a consideration that develops from this tax, and I do not know whether the government considered that. I doubt if they did. In fact, from all indications, they did not; they simply said, well, we will tax booze, we will tax cigarettes, we will tax gasoline, all the different types of fuel taxes. That is where they are getting their funds which, in turn, when you consider the downturn of these businesses businesses going bankrupt or leaving the province, is one of the causes for the downturn in revenue, for the decline in revenue. If these businesses are performing less work, they are going to be providing less revenue for the government.

From this tax bill that is about to be put forward with respect to the gasoline tax, my guess is that the anticipated revenue will not count because of the downturn in the economy. If one adds up all of these factors, they are going to be out.

They said they were not accurate with respect to the transfer payments that were coming from the federal government. Of course they were not, because revenue is down all across this great country and revenue is down in this province, and part of it is because of the gasoline tax.

Catherine Swift, vice-president and chief economist of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said in this press release that even if we were to have 10 to 20 per cent who act on their intentions, what we are looking for is tens of thousands and potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs out of the province and that is not just small business.

I think that when the government is considering this series of tax bills, and I think it has to look at them as a package as to how they are going to affect the economy of this province, it should look at these surveys. They may have their own, and I suspect that they have, because obviously we are finding that they are spending a considerable amount of money, much of which is planning, and they are probably planning on using, as the member for St Catharines said -- I suspect that much of the funds to be paid to these consultants and surveyors and pollsters will come from this very tax. That is where it will come from to assist them, and we may never see the results of those polls.

At least this independent business group is providing one poll that says that 85% said that Ontario's political climate is unfavourable for business, and it is because of such taxes as the gasoline tax.

There are other areas that we need to address our concerns with, and one is the issue of bankruptcy. Why do firms go bankrupt? It is obviously a combination of reasons. Statistics seem to be coming forward that one of the reasons is because of our tax system and the lack of competitiveness that we are having in trying to keep up with the Americans. The Americans are able to do things cheaper. They are providing cheaper labour, they are providing cheaper transportation costs, they are providing a whole slew of cheaper ways of doing things. Yet this government, with its tax structure which includes the gasoline tax, is making it very difficult for businesses in this province to compete and, therefore, they are going bankrupt and the statistics are very alarming.

You can pick up newspaper reports at random that talk about the bankruptcies that are going on in this province. At random I did pick one, from the Toronto Sun on November 28, which listed the situation of bankruptcies. Now, I know you do not like me to read, Mr Speaker, but I am going to read some of these facts, because the article considers facts which I think we need to consider when we are looking at this bill.

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This is an article which came from the business editor of the Toronto Sun, Linda Leatherdale, who said, "Meanwhile, bankruptcies continue to climb to record highs with personal bankruptcies in Toronto soaring to 965 consumers last month" -- which would be October -- "compared to 737 during the same period last year, and 109 businesses throwing in the towel, unchanged from October 1990." That is a substantial number of businesses that are going bankrupt, and they are going to be tying into these tax structures because they are having difficulty operating.

The article by Ms Leatherdale continues, "In Ontario, consumer bankruptcies soared to 2,467 last month, up from 1,896 during October 1990, while business bankruptcies were down a bit to 315 from 334," although still a substantial number of bankruptcies. That is a total, according to this article at least, of 21,617 consumer bankruptcies and 3,007 business bankruptcies in Ontario so far this year. That is triple those of 1990. So something is wrong, something is wrong. Part of it is the tax structure and the policies of this government that are causing great unrest and fear in this province.

The article continues, "At the same time, the penny-pinching NDP cut its $2 million funding for the non-profit, free credit counselling service" -- and that, of course, was mentioned by the member for St Catharines -- "a last-ditch agency for desperate consumers who, in good faith, want to pay their bills and not declare bankruptcy." Is not that an amazing policy, that on the one hand we have people trying to avoid going bankrupt and the government cuts it.

The article continues: "Duke Stregger, executive director of the Credit Counselling Service of Metro Toronto, says to try to save this valuable service, the agency will now try to use a floating fee schedule, 'but if people can't pay, we'll still see them.' If the fee effort fails, the agency that operates province-wide could close its doors in March, throwing more beleaguered consumers into the mouths of loan brokers who charge hefty fees up front for only promising to present loan applications to lenders."

The whole system is grinding slower and slower, and this tax is part of the clog in the wheel that is making the wheel move slower and slower as far as our economy is concerned. We are not pulling out of this recession in the province of Ontario. There have been predictions that Ontario may be the last province to pull out of this recession, and part of it is because of tax policies that are being put forward such as the gasoline tax.

Some of the members may read a periodical that comes forward occasionally called the Fraser Forum. I glance at it periodically, and it did deal specifically with this tax. It talked about the budget and justifying the budget and it talked about a number of things.

There should be other alternatives if you are looking -- part of the strategy may be, "Well, maybe we'll be getting into something with respect to pollution, you know, and maybe we'll be stopping people from travelling." Well, you read articles such as this and I can tell members that people need to commute, they need to travel to their places of employment.

I would like to refer very briefly to a section in this article which talks about the budget and the concern that this article has here. This is from the Fraser Forum, and it is on page 7 with respect to the province of Ontario under the item "The Budget":

"Spending increased by 13.4%, to $52 billion and counting, and is projected to rise to $65 billion by 1995. Deficit of $9.7 billion, over 20% of revenue (about $43 billion), no awareness of necessity of tax increases to pay back borrowed money. It is based on clearly obsolete Keynesianism. Deficit is three times record level and deficits will continue through 1995 to dwarf all previous ones -- projected four-year total over $34 billion. Will lead to massive increase in provincial debt which in turn will consume tax revenues in future, limiting the ability of the government to pay for anything, let alone new programs.

They recommended a balanced budget.

Interestingly enough, they give grades through this of the various policies that are being put forward.

An hon member: What was the grade?

Mr Tilson: The member asked me what the grade was. The grade was an F.

That is what the Fraser Forum thinks of this government and its financial policies.

A couple of other items that I guess I would like to refer to very briefly have to do with the spending in this province -- the spending that has been raised by the member for Durham East. He simply asks: "We have all these programs that we are going to put forward. How are we going to pay for them?" I cannot believe he asked the question. My understanding is that we do not get into programs, particularly in times of recession, unless we can figure out a way of paying for them.

We saw what the Liberals did in the federal government. The Liberals in the federal government in the 1970s raised the debt in this country to such an extensive rate that interest on our dollar was somewhere between 33% and 34% on interest alone.

How in the world are we going to pay this deficit down? Is it going to be like the federal government? Are we going to get to the situation of the federal government? It was not created by the Conservatives, which is a favourite argument. It was created by the Liberal government in Ottawa. The fact is, it was created. It is the same type of policy that their government is putting forward. They are rasing the deficit. It is going up and up and up.

I would just like to refer to some statistics which which have been referred to previously in the House but should be emphasized. The deficit tripled to $9.7 billion as a result of this budget. That is an increase of 219%. That is the economic philosophy of their government. Again, when I am giving them these figures, they should remember to ask the question: How are we going to pay it off? Are we going to be like the Liberals and just let it go up until the interest payments get higher and higher and we do not know what to do? This is the largest provincial deficit in Canadian history that has ever been created. It will cost Ontario taxpayers $13,684,931.50 a day for interest payments. That is $507,205 an hour. That is what this deficit is going to cost. That is what they are doing to this province.

There is no question that the NDP's policy is certainly eroding Ontario's competitiveness. This tax bill is a typical example. People who want to invest in this province come here. They look at the type of labour laws we have. They look at the type of tax laws we have. They look at the labour costs we have. What are they going to do? I will tell them. They are afraid to come and invest because of the policies that seem to be developing in this province.

The NDP's budget economic outlook predicts unemployment levels will drop by 184,000 in 1991. The NDP budget boosts provincial spending 13.4% for government operating expenditures, and that has increased over $5 billion from last year. The NDP budget brings business tax rates up to 30% higher than those for similar companies in Quebec and in New York state. That is the competitiveness that they are creating. Their tax rates are higher than in any other jurisdictions in North America. Ontario has been losing $360 million a year in retail spending due to cross-border shopping and the NDP government's budget makes the situation even worse.

The $1-billion hike in tax rates which comes from their budget is something that is giving investors from outside this province a great deal of concern about whether they are going to come and invest in this province. Their government will be spending, as I understand it, $52.76 billion in its 1991-92 fiscal year. That is up, as I have indicated, 13.4%. At the same time, revenue is dropping. Statistics earlier in the year indicated that this would be dropping 1% to $43.03 billion from $43.47 billion in 1990-91. In other words, the revenue is dropping; there is a loss.

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The question that could be asked, of course, is how realistic it is for a government to expect its revenues to fall only 1% when the province has lost about 250,000 jobs across this province. Bankruptcies are running, as indicated in the article of Ms Leatherdale, at an all-time high and the overall economy is shrinking a lot more than 1%, so I have no idea where the Treasurer comes up with that type of calculation.

With the initial 1.7 cents already in place that came into place as a result of the budget, which will take place as of April 30 of this year, Ontario's motorists will be facing prices of nearly 60 cents a litre, and that is outside the price war areas. That is not much less than the peak prices encountered during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

In the United States, meanwhile, it is a different story. Gasoline has returned to about $1 a gallon in urban areas and it is expected we will read of price wars where they will be driving the cost down to 90 cents a gallon or less. Compare that to what is going on in Ontario, much of it because of the government's tax. It is difficult to translate the figures, of course, of gallons to litres in this country, but as I understand it a good rule of thumb is that a US gallon is slightly less than four litres. In other words, a pump price of $1 a gallon is roughly 26 cents a litre in US funds or about 30 Canadian cents. That is a substantial difference, so it is no wonder the motor home which travels from Canada to the United States is going to travel. They are not going to stay in Ontario; they are going to go down and spend their time in the United States. That is where they are going to spend their vacations.

This bill, as I have indicated in the response to the member for St Catharines and others, will certainly drive away American tourists while encouraging our own residents to spend their holidays south of the border. That is an issue that must be considered, because statistics are on the increase as to how the tourism industry is affected because of this bill.

The most annoying aspect of this budget is the absence of even a hint of concern on the government's part that the public may not be getting value for its money. That is a question that is asked by all of our constituents: "Our taxes are going up, every sort of tax. We are being taxed to the hilt. What are we getting for our money?" Members should ask themselves what we are getting for our money. Despite enormous tax increases over the last decade, our highways, our schools and health systems have all seemingly reached a state of maturity that in many instances borders on neglect. I get back to the issue of roads specifically and our health system. A third of our budget is for health. Shocking as to the value that we are getting for our money, for our tax dollar, which is on the increase.

So members opposite can see they need to get into new programs, but I would suggest this government consider whether it can afford it. How much can the taxpayer bear? Some member even had the gall to say that we enjoy paying taxes because of the services we are providing. I could not believe my ears. I could not believe it. The only area where we can see improvement is in the living standards of the provincial bureaucrats. There is no question if members look at the facts, specifically recently by this government, that is one area where we have improved as a result of our increase in taxes.

We should be looking for ways to shrink a bloated civil service at every level, but no, that is not what we are doing. Is there any reason why we should have as many government employees relative to the total population as we did 50 years ago? I believe we have at least 10 times as many in 1991. As one small case in point, what evidence is there that replacement of the complex and bureaucratic system of health insurance premiums by a simple payroll tax led to the overall reduction in staffing within the Ontario Ministry of Health? I know you are allowing me to vary substantially from the tax before us, Mr Speaker, but we have to look at the philosophy of why the government does things. Again, when we compare the philosophy of this government in putting forward such taxes as the payroll tax, we ask the same question with respect to the gasoline tax.

I have mentioned somewhat the issue of tourism. There have been statistics that talk specifically of how tourism is down 7% in 1991. There are statistics that came forward I believe it was a month ago. I have an article from the Toronto Star of November 21. It was by Donna Jean MacKinnon of the Toronto Star and it states, "Although tourism slumped this year, the province believes the industry is a powerful tool for economic renewal and job creation, Tourism Minister Peter North says."

Is that not an amazing statement when we have the Tourism minister talking about the $16-billion industry facing economic challenges in the 1990s, and look what is happening. The minister says one thing and yet just simply look at what is going on in the restaurants in this province. Restaurants that normally were full in the summer, particularly in the border areas, are no longer full. They are having difficulties operating. The hotels are having a great deal of difficulty operating because of either tourists not coming from the United States or tourists who are coming from Canada passing by these hotels and going on to the United States.

This article by Ms MacKinnon also states, "Pleasure travel has declined an estimated 7% in 1991, according to the Canadian Tourism Research Institute." That is in spite of the minister making his statements.

According to surveys, "Canadians are preferring to travel outside the country. Domestic travel increased 1.5% in Ontario between 1988 and 1990 while trips by Canadians to destinations outside Canada increased 24%."

Mr Speaker, you cannot tell me that is not because of this regressive gasoline tax. Certainly one of the reasons why people will travel outside this province is because it is too expensive to travel here. It is too expensive and it has other effects in other areas of our industry.

Hon Mr Wildman: If you keep talking that way, you'll scare away the tourists.

Mr Tilson: They are already scared. The minister says tourists are going to be scared away. They are scared now because of the government's economic policies.

There are other areas that have been raised by members in this House during the debate, and one is the cross-border problem. It is interesting as to what this government is not doing to many of the cross-border communities as a result of people who are travelling through their communities and on into the United States. There is no question, these communities are telling us -- the mayors, reeves, aldermen and councillors from across this province who live on the border -- that one of the things is the gas tax, the larger tax costs in this province as opposed to the United States.

It has been stated by several people; one is the mayor of Sarnia-Clearwater, who has talked on this whole subject. He stated that where there is a single-industry community like Elliot Lake or companies in distress like Algoma or de Havilland, there are brigades from all over to develop a rescue package. Why is the retail trade any different? There is no question that the retail trade is being affected by this tax. It is being affected because people are shopping more and more in the United States. That was a quote by, I believe it was, Mayor Mike Bradley of Sarnia-Clearwater.

The newspaper article I am referring to which makes this quote goes on and says, "While there are many factors behind the rapid growth of cross-border shopping" -- and this is referring to a speech made by Mr Bradley -- "the lower cost of gasoline in the United States is the main culprit." He attributes it to gasoline. That is why people are going down there. Obviously, there are other reasons, and I am sure the members will readily stand up and say it is also because of some of the federal policies, and that is probably quite correct.

What efforts are being made by this government to co-operate with the federal government in solving some of these problems? I do not think there are any. All they do is point fingers at the federal government and there is no attempt whatsoever to work out with the federal government its out-and-out criticism.

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I do not know whether the government has considered this, and I must confess I am not that knowledgeable on the subject, but it is a subject that was raised by Mr Bradley, the mayor of Sarnia-Clearwater. "He suggested that a graduated tax system that would lower prices in border communities would go a long way towards cutting down on cross-border trips." I do not know, but I have not heard any input from the government as to whether that is a good policy. Again, it gets back to my question. I believe this is simply a tax grab. It does not take into consideration the issues of cross-border shopping, transportation or the downturn in the tourism industry.

"'The provincial and federal governments say they cannot afford to give up the lost [tax] revenue,' he said. 'But the fact is that 100% of nothing is still nothing.'" That is what they are getting. Their business is an absolute disaster in these areas. "Bradley's claims were supported by a provincial survey done earlier this year." This article I am referring to is in the October 16 Financial Post. He did not say when that was but referred to "a provincial survey done earlier this year" -- I believe that has been referred to in this House previously -- "that indicated 80% of people going to the US did so to buy gasoline."

That is a poll, and of course the government can say it believes or does not believe in polls, but that is a poll. I do not think they can deny that is at least one of the reasons. This survey says 80%. It may be high, it may not be high, but it is a consideration that people take in going to the United States. "He added that a decade ago the situation was completely different as US shoppers came to Canada for lower-priced goods." They are not coming here. Why would they come to Canada? Because it costs so much more to travel and to purchase because of our tax system. "He said...that New York residents spend millions in bingo parlours, bars and restaurants in Ontario." They do not any more, and it is because of policies such as the gasoline tax.

Hon Mr Wildman: And the GST.

Mr Tilson: It may be because of the GST. The member can flippantly make that remark, but there is no question it is because of the gasoline tax. The member cannot deny that.

I will not pursue these issues any further. I believe my point is made. The major reason I stood was to express a concern, at least from individuals in my riding, and that is fear of the commuter. This tax is discriminating against the commuter, specifically my constituents in Dufferin-Peel, because I have given the statistics that a large number of them commute and how this tax is affecting them.

It is affecting them because salaries are not increasing, with the exception of those who work in the government. Those in private enterprise are either going out of business or their salaries are staying much the same. Meanwhile, the gasoline tax is going to rise by another 1.7 cents per litre. They are going to go to the pumps and suddenly see this after a New Year's Eve party. That is a tax.

Mrs Mathyssen: They shouldn't be driving after a New Year's Eve party.

Mr Tilson: Of course, I am not talking about that. The member should not make flippant remarks such as that. She knows perfectly well they are going to be very concerned. We are talking about the commuter because I do not think the member has ever considered that in her deliberations in this House. I challenge her to rise and tell us how this tax is possibly going to help this commuter in this province.

Mr Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity of allowing me to address the House on this subject. I hope particularly that the government members will reconsider their position after these comments and the comments raised by other members in this House and defeat this bill.

Mr Johnson: "Lies, damned lies and statistics." That is a very famous quote by Mark Twain. We use statistics to our advantage. If they are in our favour, we use them; if they are not in our favour, then we do not. I think this is the problem with the member for Dufferin-Peel. He has looked at some statistics that favour his arguments but has not looked at the broader statistics of all the problems we have to deal with when we look at the tax issue.

He calls it a tax grab. There is a need in the province of Ontario right now to raise revenue. We have a $9.7-billion deficit in our budget and we have to raise revenue. Why do we have to raise revenue? We have to raise revenue because there is a need to maintain the services in this province that the people of Ontario demand. They demand these services. They do not want them cut. We want to see our education maintained. We want to see our social services maintained. We want to see our hospitals and health care maintained.

How does the member for Dufferin-Peel expect these things to be maintained if we do not manage fiscally as well as we can in this very needy time in Ontario? Maybe the member for Dufferin-Peel would like us to lay off 10,000 government employees. We would save about the amount of money we are going to raise by implementing this tax. Maybe that is what the member opposite wants. Maybe he wants us to lay these people off. I do not know. Maybe he can answer me that question.

We have a Fair Tax Commission that is going to look into some of the broader questions of taxation. With regard to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and its poll, I would like to see exactly how the question was put; but with regard to the Fraser Institute, the Fraser Institute is no friend of the New Democratic Party.

Hon Mr Wildman: I listened with interest to the remarks of my friend across the way. He was talking about the tourism industry and he kept referring to my colleague the Minister of Tourism and Recreation as "Minister North." I did not want to impede the flow of his speech by getting up on a point of order, but I am sure the Speaker would agree that was quite out of order and most inappropriate.

Having said that, I am concerned about the comments of my friend in regard to the gasoline tax in isolation of the whole tax system. There is no question that an increase in the gasoline tax will affect the commuting public and tourism. I do not question that, but I really would prefer for him to have talked about the overall tax system and how this might play a part in regard to the whole tax system, particularly the increase in consumer costs related to a particular imposition of tax by the federal government, an invasion of what is normally a provincial area of taxation, the taxation on consumer products and services.

I would like to know if the member, in talking about taxation, would agree that the GST also affects tourism in this province and consumer spending, then what is his solution? Would he suggest that the federal government should vacate what is really a provincial area of tax or would he suggest perhaps that this province should in some way harmonize with the federal tax? It would be interesting if the Conservative Party, at one point or other, came clean as to what its view is with regard to harmonization or the invasion by the federal government into a provincial area of taxation.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): The honourable minister does make an excellent point. When honourable members are referring to other honourable members, it should be by their riding or the title of the portfolio they hold in cabinet.

Mrs MacKinnon: There is no way in the world that I will ever be as eloquent as those who have gone before me, but I guess I will never learn if I do not jump into the fray. I am proud to stand here this evening representing the riding of Lambton and speak briefly to Bill 86.

I heard the honourable member for Dufferin-Peel talking about how taxes are causing bankruptcy. Yes, taxes are causing bankruptcy. The honourable member who spoke ahead of me has referred to the very thing that has bothered me for lo this long time, and that is the GST, the goods and services tax. That has caused more bankruptcies in all of Canada, yea in the province of Ontario, than any other tax every created by any government.

The member for Dufferin-Peel spoke about surveys. Well, there are surveys around -- obviously I have not got them with me right now -- that will bear out what the goods and services tax has done to the provinces, including Ontario.

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I fail to understand how the increase in tax on gasoline would cause bankruptcy today. Bankruptcy started a long time ago. Indeed, the 1990s are going to be challenging years, as he has suggested. As a New Democrat, I am very proud to be part of that challenge. I have always loved a challenge. If my mother was alive, she would tell him that when I was one year old and they told me I could not walk, I said, "Yes, I can." We welcome a challenge and as a government we are rising to that challenge.

I would also like to clear up one fact for the honourable member for Dufferin-Peel: There is no more Sarnia-Clearwater. Doggone it, they voted it out. It is just Sarnia and they moved me into it. They moved the boundary and said, "Now you live in Sarnia." I live in the city now instead of a rural area.

You spoke about the federal government. We have tried on more than one occasion to work with the federal government.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): Thank you. Your time is up.

Mrs MacKinnon: Forgive me, Mr Speaker, I did not speak to you. I am sorry.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Villeneuve): Thank you. You will have the opportunity to participate in the debate. We are still in questions and/or comments. Further questions and/or comments? We can accommodate one more participant. Seeing none, the honourable member for Dufferin-Peel has two minutes in response.

Mr Tilson: The member for Durham-York indicated what I would do to deal with the economic problems that are occurring in this province. I can tell him one thing: I would not get into the programs the government is doing unless I felt this province could pay for them. There is a limit to what the taxpayer can pay for. There is a limit as to what debt this province can incur. I certainly would not triple the deficit to $9.7 billion. I certainly would not increase it by 219%, which is what the government is doing. I certainly would not make this deficit the largest in Canadian history.

With respect to the comment made by the member for Algoma, I certainly agree that it is unfair to isolate the gasoline tax from all the other aspects. To be fair to me, I did relate it to the other tax bills. I related it to the whole issue of tobacco, the whole issue of alcohol, the whole issue of the different types of taxes, and I think there are 11 of them, coming forward in this budget and how they are affecting the economy.

The purpose of my comments, I say to the member for Algoma, was specifically to deal with how it is affecting the commuter. In that respect I can isolate this tax and how it affects the commuters, specifically in my riding of Dufferin-Peel, who have to travel great distances on a regular daily basis. There is no question they will be looking at that, because each day they travel they are going to have to fill up their tanks with gas, which is going to cost more. They are going to look around at what they are getting. They are not getting a GO Transit system -- at least they have not to this date -- and I hope he will consider that. They will not get the repairs for the roads they are getting. At least, very few repairs have been occurring. It has to do with the value of money. For the value of their money they are not getting what they are being taxed as a result of this bill.

Mr Conway: I have enjoyed this resumed debate on Bill 86. I am sorry the member from Orono is not here. He started things off earlier this afternoon in a very spirited fashion. I thought he made quite a good and spirited defence of the government policy. Having been personally involved with the Ministry of Revenue, he brings a greater degree of commitment to some of these things than some of the rest of us. I really enjoyed his comments, though I did not find myself agreeing with quite everything he had to say.

A lot has been said about the gasoline tax, and I am going to try not to repeat some of what has been said. We are looking now at a 30% increase in this budget on the gasoline tax. I have enjoyed some of the comments from my friends in the third party. The member for York Mills and the member for Dufferin-Peel are very definite in their taxation policy. They make me feel somewhat inadequate because there is a consistency and an ideological fervour to their position. Not one that I share. But then if I were a true democratic representative of York Mills, I can imagine what they would think on Old Post Road. Their views on taxation, whether it is gas tax or retail sales tax --

Mr Carr: After you guys drove them out.

Mr Conway: And now we have the spokesman from Oakville and he is equally eloquent. I repeat that I suppose if I represented communities like Oakville and Post Road and Caledon I would have a view -- I cannot imagine getting here, quite frankly, and not having some of the views that are so --

Mr Carr: I have worked all my life. I represent people who are working class, too. Ford Motor Co is there.

Mr Conway: I am sure all of those things are true. I was thinking particularly of what the member for York Mills said, and he was very passionate, as he is on a lot of these subjects. I guess my only comment to the members from Caledon and Oakville and York Mills is --

Mr Carr: You don't want to insult the people of Oakville.

Mr Conway: I have certainly no intentions of insulting the people of Oakville. I have not been here for this many years and not learned that.

Mr Carr: They threw the Liberals out.

Mr Conway: Of course they threw the Liberals out. That is a perfect right in a democratic society. I do not know why people get so exercised about the reality of defeat. That is the excitement of politics -- you live on the edge.

It was good to see the former member from Oakville, somewhat more expansive than the current member for Oakville South, but I was delighted to see the 17-year veteran, former minister of highways, former chairman of the Civil Aviation Board in Ottawa, James Snow, now an author. If members have not seen the memoirs of James Snow, they are interesting reading.

Interjection.

Mr Conway: That is right. They are available at the Hornby general store, I think, for $15.95. But I believe Mr Snow represented Oakville, if I am not mistaken. At any rate, he used to throw the best party the Tory organization could ever imagine. I do not know whether he still does, but I was once invited. I could not quite get there.

At any rate, my point is that this budgetary measure raises the gasoline tax by 30% in two stages. I think that is the largest increase in the gasoline tax in recent memory. The good old gasoline tax: It is now 67 years old. It started out, I think, in 1925 at three cents a gallon and now it is 60 cents a gallon, so it has done not too badly over those years, and all governments have increased the gasoline tax. Despite what people said here earlier today, all future governments in my view will at some point adjust upwards the gasoline tax. I am not persuaded by anyone who argues the case, "Elect me and I will not raise the gasoline tax," because that defies the historical record on all sides.

However, this interests me because of the rationale advanced. I only know what I know, and I know what I read in the budgetary statement read by my friend the member for Nickel Belt a couple of months ago. This 30% increase in the gasoline tax is offered up as a conservation initiative, and that is interesting. It is not offered up as gasoline tax increases have been offered up in the past as part of the traditional function, which was to help the always beleaguered minister of highways with the cost of maintaining or expanding the provincial and municipal road system. I thought that was interesting, because the net increase as a result of this adjustment, according to the budgetary speech read by the Treasurer himself, is $250 million. That is not chicken feed. But there is no reference here to that money going to where I am sure some of it will go.

Interjection.

Mr Conway: I do not want to excite the increasingly excitable Minister of Transportation, who is travelling, I gather, across northern Ontario now as some kind of archbishop, I keep hearing. I keep hearing reports that make me wonder where the old populist Pouliot has gone. At any rate, it is gone, and ministeritis is not something that is unique to my friend from Manitouwadge.

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But I make the point that the budgetary speech of the Treasurer in April of this year suggested that this 30% increase in the gasoline tax was largely a measure to promote greater fuel conservation. That is the rationale, so I think we have to look at that increase on that basis.

Before getting into that in any great detail, I do want to share some observations about gasoline pricing, because of course it is not uniform across the province and I do not expect it ever will be. I always thought one of the harebrained offerings of the NDP in opposition was the notion that we should have equalized gasoline prices. Everyone from the Premier to the Treasurer used to make quite eloquent speeches. I think even the Minister of Natural Resources made them on occasion. It was almost as stupid, quite frankly, as the NDP and the Liberals offering up some commitment to 60% of funding in education. That is what happens when we let the special interests write our election manifesto. I hope we have all learned the stupidity of that. At least I have; I am sure others have as well.

At any rate, the NDP members used to make these speeches here and in Fort Frances, in Shining Tree and in Blind River, that what we really need is uniform gasoline prices -- manifestly idiotic, however ideal. Who could be opposed to it? But they kept saying it, and anyone who knew anything about it knew it was quite impractical, however desirable. But the good old NDP gets called to the Treasury bench and now, of course, these terrible Grits and Tories try to exact some accounting for that idiotic, harebrained scheme -- which has been jettisoned now as exactly that, and wisely so, though they cannot in some public act of contrition admit the error of their past ways.

Hon Mr Wildman: Are you congratulating us?

Mr Conway: I am simply observing that like in so many other areas, whether it is the regulation of retail store hours, the common pause day, public auto insurance, my goodness, even the payment of members of the Legislature, we have seen an about-face that is occasioned, to be sure, either by circumstances or by the cold shower of responsibility in government. I simply point out that the NDP has had to abandon its position that there should be uniform pricing.

I used to like that part of the speech: "You know, Mr Speaker" -- quoting the now Premier -- "in Fort Frances you can buy milk for this and in Ottawa you can buy milk for nearly the same." Beer was always thrown in there with a good, union-hall, democratic impulse. "Beer and milk are uniformly priced within a narrow band, so why can't we have the same with gasoline?"

Of course we now know that the NDP cannot deliver. I do not expect it to deliver. It was cute and quaint to make the offering but now in Rainy River and in Sarnia-Clearwater -- or, as we are told, it is Sarnia; I cannot wait for the big fight for that nomination next time around. I presume they are both now in the same riding. At any rate, that is unfair and it is irrelevant. I should not say that.

I simply make the point that the people across the province know that the NDP cannot deliver, will not deliver, and here's hoping that the three parties now represented in here will not repeat the mistake of offering something they cannot deliver. I presume this little promise has slipped off the stage for some time. The member for Cochrane North nods very negatively. He must know something I do not, so I will wait for his intervention in this debate.

My point is that with gasoline pricing, I have some experience. I do not profess to know very much about a lot of things but I doubt if there is anyone in this Legislature who spends as much time in an automobile as I do. In fact, I just noticed the other day my car turned exactly 12 months and it turned 74,800 kilometres.

Mr Carr: How is that Rolls running anyway?

Mr Conway: I do not know where a 1991 Chrysler Dynasty would be made but I hope it is made some place in Ontario. I used to drive Fords. Actually, the Ford Crown Victoria is a very good vehicle and I am proud to have had a number in my capacity as a minister of the crown.

Hon Mr Pouliot: How come you charged the Legislature for 120,000 kilometres?

Mr Conway: I am really happy to have that interjection because I am quite prepared to put my mileage account, large as it is, with anyone else, anyone over there. The member knows what a hateful old cuss I am on this subject. I have a long memory.

Hon Mr Pouliot: You never spent five cents when you were a minister; it was all under the ministry. Tell us about it.

Mr Conway: Does the member want to haul out my records? Any time. I would be quite happy to compare my records with your records.

At any rate, 75,000 kilometres I have driven over the past 12 months. I am not bragging but it is a lot of mileage. Typically, I leave Pembroke on a Sunday night and drive to Toronto and reverse that trip later in the week.

I was particularly struck by the campaign launched in the Ottawa Citizen this fall, I think in a quite timely way. The Citizen has observed, of course, that the gasoline prices in the national capital area are consistently among the highest in the province. I do not think the member for Cochrane South in his intervention, who I thought made quite a good speech, observed that the Ottawa Valley and Timmins have been competing in the last number of months for the consistently highest retail price of gasoline in the province, and the Ottawa Citizen observes this.

My point is that if you live in communities like Renfrew county, Ottawa or Cornwall, and apparently in Timmins and some parts of that Highway 11 corridor west of Timmins, I know in my area right now the price is typically around 58 cents or 59 cents for --

Hon Mr Pouliot: The guy's comical. Quite the northern part of the province.

Mr Conway: Listen, it is not too many weeks ago since I left Pembroke and drove to Hearst and back. I kept a log of the prices I saw on that trip. The prices in Renfrew county were higher than they were in a goodly number of parts of the north. They may not be that way now.

Mr Bisson: Did you go to Timmins?

Mr Conway: Is the member asking me to drive the northern part of the province? I have done that and done it fairly recently, and I kept a log of what the prices were. My point is simply this, that it is not at all unusual to leave home on a Sunday night and see gasoline priced at 58 cents to 60 cents and drive through Peterborough or Tweed and see the price at 53 cents or 54 cents and come to Toronto and see it at 49 cents or 50 cents. It is not at all unusual to see a five- to six-cent-a-litre difference between Pembroke and Peterborough or a 10-cent-a-litre difference between Pembroke and Toronto. That is not talking about gasoline corridor up Highway 11 around Oro township and Orillia where the prices tend to be among the most favourable of any place in southern Ontario.

I want to say on behalf of the people I represent, not so much to the government, because I admit it has very limited power in this, really, but I would say to the gas companies that like most people I represent I think I am being ripped off. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that in Renfrew county, in what I will call the Ottawa River frontier, we are being systematically and routinely ripped off, as the Ottawa Citizen has indicated with a series of very good editorials and consumer watch articles.

Mr Sterling: You should learn to drive slower and you wouldn't use so much gas.

Mr Conway: My friend says to drive slower. Actually, that is one of the things I did do on the trip to Hearst. I drove up without the benefit of cruise control and drove back with the benefit of cruise control, and my friend from Manotick is right, there is an appreciable difference.

Hon Mr Pouliot: You weren't speeding, were you?

Mr Conway: I do not want to engage that point, but I repeat that people in the Ottawa valley are being ripped off. We are being ripped off by the big oil companies and their various partners in this scheme.

I am glad to see the Ottawa Citizen focusing public attention and I am also glad to see that the non-governmental remedy that has developed in Ottawa, that old action developed in Ireland centuries ago, called the boycott, has actually had some effect. I do not want all the kind of intrusive things that a New Democrat would imagine, and boy, the literature is replete with those suggestions. I do not want any of those kinds of government panels, because they are not going to work. They have not worked where they have been tried, so members can spare me that.

I am encouraged to see that in Ottawa the citizenry has risen up and it is boycotting the majors and it is having an effect, not as dramatic perhaps as we would like, but I would encourage a boycott to the greatest extent possible and I would encourage people in my area as well to do what they can to bring the influence of the consumer upon these gouging oil companies that consistently charge the people I represent anywhere from 10% to 30% more than people are paying in communities like Peterborough and Toronto and Orillia, to name but three. There was one day last year when there was a 19-cent-a-litre differential between my home in Pembroke and London. What is that in gallons? That is obscene.

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Interjections.

Mr Conway: I think it is germane to this debate and I want, on behalf of my constituents, to complain about that. Bill 86 seems to be a very appropriate time in which to do that.

I want to come back to the rationale, because here my Celtic blood begins to really boil. This is the kind of bill where I really wish I were in Congress, because --

Interjections.

Mr Conway: I wish I were in Congress, because this is the kind of initiative that would not make it through Congress. The kind of people who are being screwed by this policy, as announced, would get together and --

The Speaker: I think particularly knowing the member for Renfrew North's extensive vocabulary and his way with words that he could find a slightly different phraseology that would express the same sentiments.

Mr Conway: I know the delicate sensibilities of my friends opposite and certainly I would not want to offend those sensibilities at such an hour and such a season as this. But what shall I say? I would not want to be indelicate, however accurate that indelicacy might be.

I look at this policy as announced, and I am not looking at anything else. This 30% increase is being announced to "promote greater fuel conservation." I say fair enough, if one of the principles in any kind of good taxation policy, namely equity, can be found to some reasonable extent.

Here I am of course driven to a rage because the people I represent, the people of Renfrew who have sent me here, are being ripped off disproportionately by this conservation initiative. I want to say that the people in Haliburton and in Lambton and in Cochrane and in Nipigon and the people in a variety of other rural communities without any public transport are being ripped off in a similar fashion.

I am upset and I am angry, and when I said I wish I were in Congress I meant only that this is the kind of initiative that probably would be stopped cold in Congress because the rural lobby would not let it off first base. If a member were from Manitouwadge or from Wyoming or from Pembroke, irrespective of whether he were Republican or Democrat, he would see this for what it is and he would make sure the majority leader and the minority leader and the Speaker and the White House bloody well understood that they were not going to be delicate and be disproportionately ripped off. That is my primary complaint.

Hon Mr Pouliot: What is wrong with our system?

Mr Conway: It is suggested, what is wrong with this bill? I tell the member, I do not know what is wrong with the member from Manitouwadge. He is very excited. I think some of his past is coming --

Hon Mr Pouliot: I know you guys; 33 times you increased taxes in five years. Get with it.

Mr Conway: Of course we raised taxes. We did raise tax and we did it generally at the behest of the New Democratic Party.

Interjections.

Mr Conway: No, I am talking about the five and a half years.

An hon member: You did that after 1987.

Mr Conway: We did what we did, and I have no regrets.

Mr Carr: The taxpayers did.

Mr Conway: We raised taxes; of course we raised taxes. As my friend from Oakville observes, the taxpayers ultimately had some objection. I have no problem with that. We were not the first government to be defeated. We are not the last government to be defeated. I just do not understand. Informing the attitude of a lot of these New Democrats seems to be an old Family Compact toryism: "God, we're now in our rightful spot and we can never or should never lose."

Interjection.

Mr Conway: I just want to say to the member for Halton North, who knows something about being bounced around, that we will all be bounced around in politics. That is the fun of the job. To win is to lose, and to lose is to hopefully win some day. I was listening the other night to the member for Willowdale about how he ran and lost. I think about my old friend Mel Swart. He ran more times than I can ever imagine. It is almost a Diefenbaker-like story. They ran and they lost, and in the end they won. It is the joy of politics.

To lose is no great embarrassment. I do not have any particular embarrassment about losing. I see my beleaguered friends in the Treasury bench as they sign their Christmas cards and their weighty correspondence. I have to tell them, I do not worry about having none of those responsibilities. In fact, I feel like old Stanley Baldwin. I was never happier than when I surrendered the seals of office. I do not know what would ever make me want to go back and do it again.

Interjections.

Mr Conway: I think I heard somebody from Sudbury say that for $20,000 it is not worth it. She may have a greater point than is sometimes realized. Of course, I am old-fashioned. As I said earlier today, I believe there is an element of public service and duty. I am glad to see my dutiful friends from the Beach and elsewhere doing their duty. It does my heart good to see that.

Hon Ms Lankin: It's "the Beaches."

Mr Conway: I do not want to embarrass the Minister of Health, but she said something in my presence earlier this evening that I think would be useful to throw into this debate.

Hon Ms Lankin: I know what you're talking about.

Mr Conway: No. I am talking about reports out of the regional municipality of Muskoka, where we have a new chairman. I was with him at a dinner not too long ago. I am absolutely delighted to know that Frank Miller is the new regional chair in Muskoka. But more important, the first thing Frank Miller is saying to the people of Muskoka is he is very hopeful this government does not unduly cut the health and hospital budget. He hopes there are other things --

Interjection.

Mr Conway: I say to my friend from Oakville, when he was stopping pucks in professional hockey, Frank Miller was in this Legislature and in communities like Durham and elsewhere in western Ontario doing his difficult duty as a minister of the crown. What is it they say? What goes around comes around. To be told now that Frank Miller, in his new responsibility, is concerned about cuts in health programs and worried about hospital funding in Muskoka is to tell me there are a variety of perspectives and different roles in the political process, and those who have not experienced all of those should be very careful about offering too much definitive advice.

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Back to Bill 86, I want to say very seriously that I appreciate this situation in which the government finds itself. They have had to raise revenues, they will continue to have to raise revenues, and it is going to get more and more difficult.

The arguments that have been put earlier tonight by the members for St Catharines and Dufferin-Peel, among others, about the impact of these measures on the province are ones that I share, and I think by springtime we are all going to find ourselves in an extremely difficult situation.

The worry I have is that this is now a very high-priced economy, and government is a part of that. I accept our responsibility as a government that levied its share of taxes, a lot of taxes, and we paid for them largely out of growth. We paid for a lot of our spending, I should say, out of growth. But when I go to places like Cornwall and Brockville and Kingston and listen to what people in the community are telling me about, for example cross-border shopping, it could not be clearer to me that people are voting with their feet.

Somebody got up in the House the other day and asked the Minister of Agriculture and Food a good question about milk prices in the Sault Ste Marie area, and I said to somebody sitting beside me, "I know probably a big part of the cure for that would be closing the International Bridge," because I am stunned in my part of the province at how many people are going across the border and buying not just gasoline, but it seems to be gasoline, tobacco and alcohol, and dairy products are showing very high.

I know all the reasons why that should not happen, but I know the one reason why it will probably continue to happen. We can beat our breast, we can complain, but people are voting with their feet. We are already seeing it, but I think we are going to see a very, very sharp increase after Christmas in what the voting with the feet means to the retail trade. It is not going to be pretty. I really hope I am wrong, but everything I see and hear makes me think it is going to get worse before it gets better, so government is going to be caught in that horrible bind of declining revenue and increasing demand on the expenditure side.

So I come back to this bill, and I want to relate this bill, the gas tax policy, to what I call the hydro tax policy, because I think both of these are particularly targeted at people like the ones I represent.

Why am I angry about this bill? Not because the government has increased the rate. Of course they have to raise taxes if we are going to enjoy the services that we have. If they are going to balance the budget, as some of the Thatcherites to my left want, then clearly they are going to have to take a bludgeon to three budgets, quite frankly: Health, Education and Community and Social Services. That is two thirds to three quarters of the budget. If they are going to really restrain expenditures in a dramatic way, then they have to take a very big knife to those budgets. I am certainly not going to be advocating that, although I suspect before these next 18 months are out we will have seen a knife or a scalpel searching around some of those sacred trusts.

Mr Bradley: Richard Johnston says the colleges only need 2%, so they will not need that much.

Mr Conway: I think the member is just a caterwauling oppositionist. He does not understand Richard Johnston's new responsibilities. He does not believe Richard Johnston, of his own free will, came on behalf of the Paddy Mussons of the world and offered up, "Oh, take some away from us." I cannot believe the man who worked out such a balanced deal at Ward's Island would have anything other than -- I just think it is a very cruel thing of the member to even suggest --

Mr Bradley: Do you know that Ward's Island is the postal address of Alpha Consultants?

Mr Conway: No kidding. I tell you, Alpha Consultants can certainly pay any increased taxes on the basis of revenues these days.

My point about the gas tax is 30% in one whack. That is going to mean for the people of Renfrew county, on average, about a $100 annual increase. In Renfrew county, as in Haliburton county, the car and the automobile are absolute essentials. I bet it is the car and the half-ton truck that are absolute essentials.

I do not want to start throwing things but I could start throwing things when I read this: "Mr Speaker," the Treasurer said, "to promote fuel conservation and to do environmental things, we are going to raise this tax by 30%." It was the Treasurer in December 1988 who said in this place, "Any politician who would seriously argue that there was an environmental ingredient in a gasoline tax hike was misleading this Legislature with hogwash." That is what the Treasurer said two years ago. He said any politician who would seek to argue that there could be an environmental ingredient to a gasoline tax increase that was well below the 30% rate would be misleading the Legislature.

Hon Mr Wildman: Does that apply to the tire tax too?

Mr Conway: They are fighting back. They talk about the tire tax. What is the tire tax? It is five bucks a tire. I repeat that 30% gasoline tax increase will mean to the people of Renfrew county who are wholly dependent on the car and the half-ton truck 100 bucks -- 20 times the tire tax. Of course there was an argument against the tire tax. Of course there was an argument. Members will make it and will continue to make it, and one of these days they will make it with such passion as to stand up here and say proudly, "The tire tax is an abomination that Bob Rae will not tolerate and it is ended."

If they are so passionately concerned about it, let them do it. I am making the point that the people I represent -- and I was interested in what the member from Caledon talked about and I know a little bit about Dufferin and that part of north Peel, but Renfrew county is the largest county in the province, 3,000 square miles with population scattered throughout its entirety.

Hon Mr Pouliot: Whoop-de-do.

Mr Conway: The Minister of Transportation sings a happy little song. I want to say that daily --

Hon Mr Pouliot: Three thousand square miles.

Mr Conway: Yes, and I know very well a lot of those northern communities. I know them very well. It is a very different kind of settlement that you have in many of those, and I will be the first to admit, and I used to be the proudest defender of the member for Nipigon at the Board of Internal Economy. I tell you, I know well the kind of communities that he represents.

But I am going to tell you that in my county, it is not at all -- I know people who tomorrow morning will get up in Quadeville and Palmer Rapids and drive 55 miles to work and another 55 miles back. That is 110 miles a day. People will drive from Douglas to Deep River. A good friend of mine is a principal in Barry's Bay and he lives in Pembroke. All of those are routine 100-mile, 150-kilometre daily trips.

In the last two or three weekends in my weekend constituency duties, I have racked up, on average -- I am embarrassed to admit this -- over 500 kilometres, running around a wonderful county. The member for Algoma, proud son of Carleton county, with good relatives in south Renfrew, knows well how far a drive it is from Arnprior to Deux-Rivières and from Renfrew up to Whitney which is in the south Nipissing part of my constituency. It is a tyranny of distance that bedevils daily life in Renfrew county.

I say to my friends, they have the nerve to stand up and say, in these communities, with no public transit of any kind outside of the city of Pembroke, "Oh well, we are going to raise by 30% the gasoline tax because we think it's the environmental thing to do." If I were in my Wallabees with my patched Harris tweed jacket, running around some urban community with my public sector job and belonging to some environmental rights organization, of course I would be happy with this. Who would not be? I would take the TTC, I would take OC Transpo, both of which are heavily subsidized, as I understand it, by the provincial taxpayer.

Hon Mr Pouliot: You have gone for glory.

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Mr Conway: I am telling the minister the unvarnished truth. There was a time, I say to my friend the former mayor of Manitouwadge, that his populism would have forced him to his feet and to have joined in this argument, but now, of course, in a kind of poor man's Faustian way, he has -- I do not want to take this too far, because I will probably be thrown out for it.

The Speaker: You got that one right.

Mr Conway: He has traded his populism for the government car and the Beechcraft. These are now matters that do not press upon his daily attention. I am here to tell him that I represent 75,000 people who would look at this and say: "Explain this to me, Minister. So we get to pay this 30% irrespective of the fact that we have no choice. We have no TTC, we have no OC Transpo, we have no GO system. We have the half-ton truck and we've got the car and that's it." These social democrats have the nerve to tell me, "It's good for your soul, it's good for your environmental consciousness to pay this tax that your cousin in Ottawa and in Toronto and in Hamilton and in Windsor will pay to a much lesser extent."

If a Tory were doing this or if some old-line Grit were doing this, I suppose we could say, "That's part of their baggage." But who is doing this? This is the New Democratic Party. And for how many years have I listened to the New Democratic Party pour out with great passion and frequency its views on an appropriate tax policy. You could hear it in the chirping earlier tonight. How many New Democrats said: "That hated GST. That GST is awful"?

Mr Klopp: It is.

Mr Conway: The member for Huron wisely observes that it is. Why would a New Democrat who knew anything about his philosophy say that? He or she would probably say that because the New Democratic Party has for decades argued that taxation ought to be progressive and it ought to be based on the principles of fairness and equity and it certainly ought not to be as regressive as these consumption taxes. What is the GST? It is a consumption tax. I expect a New Democrat to be opposed to the GST. What have we got here? Where is the equity and fairness in this consumption tax? And that hydro tax is another one. Where the -- I am telling members --

Mr Bradley: "Heck" is the word you are looking for.

Hon Mr Pouliot: He cannot change it to "fuddle-duddle." I heard it.

Mr Conway: Thank you, Sheila Copps. I just want to say, shame on the NDP members. Shame on them with a capital S. Because there is a case for this tax, but it is not an NDP case. There is a want of equity and fairness in this, because the single mother living in Tory Hill in north Haliburton who has to go in to see the member in Gooderham or in Lindsay --

Mr Perruzza: Have you ever been there?

Mr Conway: The member better believe I have been there. I want to tell him that there are not too many places that a car can go that I have not been to in this province. I would even be prepared to take my friend the member for Downsview to a selected number of those venues.

I want to say to my friends in the NDP and particularly learned ones like the member for Hamilton West, when they look at this gas tax and when they think about their hydro tax, where is the equity and fairness in those taxes and in particular where is the equity and fairness in those taxes for people living in rural Ontario with no alternative? If we had the TTC in north Haliburton or in north Renfrew, then my case would be discounted very substantially, but it does not exist, for reasons that we all know about.

We have a government that twice in this year has embarked upon tax policies that are extremely injurious to the people I represent, and I want to say that when they look at this tax, imposing an additional burden of $100 on average on a person with a car or a half-ton truck in Renfrew, what possible rationale have they got in the environmental area for that?

Interjection.

Mr Conway: Mr Speaker, I ask you to restrain the enthusiasms of the Minister of Transportation.

I hope the NDP is shamed by what it has done here. I do not expect it to be a public shame, although the bill, this Bill 86, and the hydro policy stand as testaments to their abandonment of the principles of equity and fairness. They should think about what they have done on that hydro policy. They have said to a farmer living in Stafford township, in Renfrew county -- and I was out the other day with my friend who runs the dairy herd, and he has a bill that is now $1,000 a month, the hydro bill, thanks to the policy of this government, which seeks to incorporate in the hydro rate a series of regional development initiatives and other things that are going to be borne disproportionately by citizens in this province.

Hon Mr Pouliot: What has this to do with Bill 86?

Mr Conway: I say to the member from Manitouwadge that if he would stop talking long enough he might understand that what I am saying is that there is a direct connection between the principle of Bill 86 and the hydro policy, in that in both cases the government has framed public policy in such a way as to unfairly single out and injure people in rural communities, who in the case of gasoline are wholly dependent on the car and the half-ton truck, and in the case of energy sources are almost wholly dependent on hydro electricity. There is a fundamental flaw in that policy, and I think it ought to concern social democrats. I do not expect Thatcherites from York Mills to be concerned, but I do expect New Democrats to be concerned, because, all partisanship aside, they cannot, I think, respond effectively to that argument -- and if they can, I am very anxious to hear it.

I repeat, I do not quarrel with their right to raise the tax. I do not think anybody here could say they will not raise that tax. But I do quarrel with the fact that they have advanced the argument that it will be done in the name of environmental policy, when the man who made the speech said two years ago that if anybody said that, he would be misleading this Legislature, but moreover and more important, that the policy is so inequitable and unfair because it falls so unevenly across the citizens of the province -- and that is my same charge against their hydro policy.

I accept all of the ideological fervour that the NDP brings to the energy debate. I do not agree with it, but they have won the right to move forward. But how they cannot understand that doing what they are doing to the hydro rate, recognizing that if you live in Sarnia, you probably have natural gas available and you are probably using it, but if you live out in the rural community near Brigden -- well, no, the member probably does. That is a bad analogy. I should stick to my own territory, because certainly in rural Renfrew, if you do not live along the Ottawa River corridor, you have no natural gas. You have electricity and that is what you are going to depend on --

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Mr Huget: Time to pay for Darlington.

Mr Conway: Fair ball. Listen, I have seen the Ontario Energy Board and they have costed out the various factors. I am talking only about paying for the Elliot Lake arrangement.

Hon Mr Wildman: You want to forget about Darlington.

Mr Conway: I accept our responsibility to Darlington.

Mr Bradley: I read the CUPE newspaper on this and they said --

The Speaker: Order.

Mr Conway: I am prepared to accept the charge. I say to my friend the member for Algoma that he might want to look at the costing that has been done by the OEB. I will take Darlington and I will take all the responsibility for it. I am not complaining about Darlington; that is on our ledger. I am talking about what the government has done. And the government has done at Elliot Lake and Kapuskasing some things it feels it had to do, and that is fair ball. I am just saying they are asking people to pay for that on a very unfair and inequitable basis. That is demonstrably true, as it is demonstrably true that this gasoline tax is inequitable and unfair because not all citizens will bear it with the same degree of capacity, ability or need. I would have thought those were touchstones that would excite New Democrats to rethinking this kind of policy and might even make them rethink the bill that is before us tonight.

Mr Bradley: From each according to his ability; to each according to his need. Is that gone?

Mr Conway: How many times have you heard it from the labour council in St Catharines?

Interjection.

The Speaker: I realize that an open microphone nearby is a temptation. Perhaps the member could resist the temptation.

Mr Conway: My friend the member for St Catharines did it beautifully, because he, like me -- we have heard this over and over again. It is part of the enduring charm of the CCF/NDP tradition. It is one thing to abandon the same-price gasoline across the province. That I understand, and I am quite prepared to excuse that. That was childlike irresponsibility, but this is something much more fundamental. This is core taxation policy, and as the member for St Catharines has observed, it violates a long-standing principle of the New Democratic Party. For that reason alone it should be rejected by this assembly.

I will certainly vote against this bill, not because they have raised the gas tax but because they have done it in a way to really hammer people I represent who have no choice but the car and the half-ton truck, and who would say of the Treasurer's April 29, 1991, budget speech in this connection that anyone who would seriously argue that there is an environmental ingredient in a gasoline tax act is truly misleading not just the Legislature, but the people of Ontario.

The Speaker: Questions and/or comments.

Hon Mr Pouliot: A renewed pleasure indeed, I think: the opportunities afforded the House to listen to and watch a master work in his craft. No doubt in the minds of many, if not most, he is among the most eloquent speakers. A lot of us are somewhat envious of that talent, although that talent should afford itself the opportunity of mentioning 33 tax increases by the very same people during good times. I have heard it said that they raise taxes and spend money like drunken sailors, with the difference that drunken sailors at least have the capacity and the honesty of spending their own money.

I have heard it said that the members across who have placed us in this dilemma were not your ordinary pickpockets. They were the kind of people who would go to extremes and shake the ordinary citizens of this province by their ankles until every nickel, dime and penny had been taken away -- 33 times during good times. The personal income tax, the most insidious fashion of picking the pockets of people systematically, deliberately, with the less fortunate, from 48% to 52% of the federal tax base, under the cover of darkness. That is what happened, systematically, deliberately. There is no comparison in terms of comparing the needs of this government to what was done for five and a half years during good times. They should all be judged very harshly. If anyone has to carry the guilt, it is the people across.

Let's look at the books. They go to bed one evening telling the people of Ontario that they have a $23-million surplus; they wake up the next day with a $700-million deficit. If no one cooked the books, I should find the magician, and if someone did, I think it is time to fire the cook, which the people of Ontario did.

Mr Sterling: I think, with deference, the minister has missed totally the point of the member for Renfrew North's debate today. I think his point was that if you are going to increase the taxes, you do not hit the poor, the people who do not have choices, the people who are reeling under this recession. You do not go after these people, the people out in the country who are going to have to soak up a higher proportion of the charges that are going to be put on by Hydro, because people in rural Ontario pay higher Hydro rates than those in urban areas.

We have another tax, the gasoline tax, which is going to be borne unfairly by people in a less advantageous position than those in urban areas. That is the point I think the member for Renfrew North is making, and that is the point that I made in my initial remarks as well.

Do members know what is such a paradox? It is that we hear so much whining and complaining by these people about the GST. I do not like the GST, but one thing about the GST is that it does not tax the poor people, because the poor people do not pay GST. They are reimbursed for their payments on it. So the paradox is that we hear these people whine about federal policies, and theirs are much meaner, much crueler to the poor of this province.

Mr Mancini: I would like to take this short opportunity that I have to congratulate my colleague the member for Renfrew North for making such an eloquent speech this evening and for bringing forward so many important facts that many members of the Legislature in fact support. At one time, my colleagues across the floor supported the exact same things that my colleague from Renfrew North enunciated this evening.

I rise more particularly to point out to the Minister of Transportation, who is here this evening, that when he was in opposition, he wanted a uniform price for gasoline across the north. The members will remember that it was only a few weeks ago that we had seven or eight or nine hours of discussion in the standing committee on estimates about issues affecting transportation. This very matter came forward, and I begged the minister at the time, on behalf of northerners, to find out whether or not we were going to have uniform prices for gasoline in the north. I begged the minister to give us that information. I begged the minister to tell us what the effect of these gas tax increases would be on the northerners. We still have not had answers from that minister.

The Speaker: You are directing your comments to the member for Renfrew North.

Mr Mancini: We have not had answers from that minister. As a matter of fact, not only do we not have uniform prices in the north, we do not have them in the south either.

Mr Mancini: As the member for Essex South, I use the 401 regularly to drive between Amherstburg and Toronto. I can tell the minister, and he knows it full well --

Hon Mr Cooke: Just warn us ahead of time.

Mr Mancini: The member for Windsor-Riverside is yapping and interjecting. He does not care that in the price of gas from one gas station to the next on the 401 there is an eight- or 10-cent-a-litre difference. What does that do for tourism? It makes the tourists laugh at Ontario citizens, at Ontario businesses and at the policy of the Ontario government. That is what it does.

Hon Mr Cooke: Remo, you buy your gas in Detroit.

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Mr Mancini: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The member for Windsor-Riverside, who is not in his seat and who is the government House leader, has made a very serious allegation. It is on the record. I am going to ask the member to withdraw those remarks.

The Speaker: I am not sure you want the Speaker to determine where people purchase their gasoline.

Mr Mancini: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: It is very important to the member for Essex South. The member opposite has made an allegation --

Interjections.

The Speaker: Would the member take his seat.

Mr Mancini: The member is not going to take his seat until the government House leader --

The Speaker: I respectfully request the member to take his seat now, please. There is clearly a point of disagreement. It is not a point of order, but I recognize the government House leader.

Hon Mr Cooke: If the member for Essex South cannot take a joke at 10 after 11, I would be glad to withdraw it. I know he does not buy his gas in Detroit. I was only trying to be humorous.

The Speaker: Would you reset the clock.

Mr Bisson: I listen with great interest every time the member for Renfrew North gets up. He has a way, obviously, of putting into words many of the thoughts that a lot of people think -- in a very eloquent way, I must add.

I think it is interesting, a couple of things he said, one of them very quickly. He talked about a hydro tax. There is no hydro tax. I think what we have seen with Ontario Hydro is the necessity on the part of the utility to recoup the costs in order to operate that utility -- largely, I may say, because of some of the policies in the past.

This year we are seeing an increase of possibly above 10% in hydro rates. This is not something that I think anybody wants to see, but it is basically because of policies taken on the part of Ontario Hydro over the past years of going heavily into nuclear energy. We are seeing that cost. Clearly, about half of that cost is just one of those nuclear generating stations itself. I think the member is inaccurate when talking about it as a tax. It is not that at all, and it is not controlled by this government. It is something by Ontario Hydro as an arm's-length agency of this government.

The other thing that he talked about, at great length, was in regard to this being an environmental tax. I do not think the member was here a little while ago -- I am not sure -- when I got up and spoke about it. It is a question very simply put. We find ourselves in a situation where the people of this province demand services such as health care, education and all the other services delivered by the province, and we need the money to be able to provide those programs. We do that through taxation.

I think it would be remiss on the part of this government or any other not to take its responsibility in making sure it has the fiscal base necessary in order to pay for those programs. Obviously that is difficult in the economic times that we find ourselves in. We have a difficult time, because of the recession, in making sure we have the money to pay for those programs, but we need to find the revenue somewhere. That is one of the reasons the tax is there, and not the only one.

With that, I see the time on the clock has run out. I had another point to make but it is late at night and I will sit down.

Mr Conway: I have three quick responses. I was very interested in what the member for Lake Nipigon said. I will only say this in response. Six or eight months from now, I am going to want to have a debate in this Legislature with my friend the Minister of Transportation, the member for Nipigon, and we are going to do one thing. We are going to look at the performance of the last Nixon budget as compared to the actual performance of the first Laughren budget.

Interjections.

Mr Conway: No, listen, and I do not want to be interrupted, because I only have two minutes. My friends say they will be happy to do it. I do not hold up that last budget as a paragon of perfection -- clearly it was not -- but it is very interesting to see how, seven months into the first NDP budget cycle, we have had, for I think good reason, two significant midcourse corrections. I think there is going to be at least one more even more significant adjustment before we get to the end of the fiscal year.

So I simply say that some time late in the calendar year 1992, I am going to come back to this place and we are going to have a look at the actuals, the actual budgetary plan of the Nixon last year and the Laughren first year. We shall see what we shall see. But I am very encouraged by the now two or three midcourse corrections that this is an argument I am going to be able to win quite easily.

I thank my friend opposite, the member for Carleton, for making my main point again, and I say it in summary: The people of Renfrew county are angry at the Hydro policy and the Hydro tax contained in that and at the gasoline tax, not because they do not understand some of the NDP thinking around some of these subjects, but because they see clearly and feel painfully the disproportionate burden they will pay as citizens of rural Ontario for these policies. It is that lack of equity, that lack of fairness that they are surprised to see coming from the NDP on such vital services as hydro and gasoline.

Mr Villeneuve: I will not speak for a long time at this late hour. However, I do want to put some things on the record. I come from a community and represent an area that is very much affected by cross-border shopping. We did have the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology come to Cornwall about 10 days ago and he presented the mayor of Cornwall with a $52,000 cheque to promote staying in Ontario.

I will tell the members that is but very small consolation when indeed the price of gasoline on Akwesasne in Massena in New York state is about 40% to 50% less than the price of gasoline in downtown Cornwall and in the riding that I represent. I hear some of the members of the government stating that indeed people are not going to the US for cheaper gas. That is the catalyst that is bringing them to the US and when they are there, then they fill up their trunks with dairy products, poultry products, liquor, cigarettes and, for all I know, maybe furniture. However, gasoline is bringing them there.

We did speak on a previous tax bill which increased the cost of diesel fuel for the trucking industry. I know some people who have the big semitrucks that roll up and down the 401. They will save $225 per fill-up. They will bobtail over to Akwesasne and save $225 per fill-up. If that is not enough to bring them over for cross-border shopping on petroleum, I do not know what is, and I do not think advertising will assist that at all.

I read in the Ottawa Citizen on the weekend that the OPP is being hit very hard with budget cuts. Indeed, do members know what one of their biggest costs are? It is the cost of gas. The tax increase will cost them several millions dollars this year. The same government that is funding the OPP is not even replacing the added tax burden that has been placed on that force, and that is why they are limiting them to 100 kilometres.

Basically, they are telling the OPP, "Go down the 401." I travel the 401 as much as anyone. My colleague the member for Renfrew North has a one-year-old car with 74,000 kilometres; I have a five-year-old car that has 300,000-plus kilometres on it. I know where the OPP stops on the 401 and where it sets up the radar traps and I probably offend as much as anyone by going over the speed limit, because it is a four-and-a-half-hour drive from my home to this place.

Interjections.

Mr Villeneuve: I do have tickets and when I get them, I pay them and I am probably fortunate that I do not get caught every time I speed. However, those are the facts of life. I really sympathize with the OPP, because one of their problems is indeed what we are discussing in this place tonight, the higher taxes on fuel.

One other area of great concern to me is when this government tells me it is raising the tax on gasoline for environmental reasons. I can accept that on the surface. What have they done for environmental reasons? We do know that 10% ethanol in the gasoline we burn would considerably reduce carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Where are the government's ethanol production plans? I am still waiting for them. Along with this increase in taxation on gas there should have been an ethanol plan, one that would reduce pollution and that we know would reduce pollution. The Americans have gotten rid of MMT in their gas. Why? Because it is a known carcinogen. What do we do here in Ontario? Our octane enhancer is MMT, a known carcinogen.

Mr Klopp: It is federal jurisdiction.

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Mr Villeneuve: Yes, my colleague the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture and Food tells me it is federal jurisdiction. Well, the federal government happened to make the statement that ethanol as an octane enhancer is the environmental choice, that is their policy, and therefore the federal government is very much on my side. We have western provinces here in Canada that do produce ethanol, providing for a cleaner environment, providing for less greenhouse effect, which we know is caused by the petroleum as we now use it.

I have to question very, very seriously when this government tells me: "It's for your own good. It is for the good of the environment that we are increasing the tax on gas." Well, I cannot believe them, because they have done nothing to reduce the pollution, and for that very reason I have to say that there is some demagoguery when they tell us that indeed they are doing it to protect the environment.

Another area of concern in the large rural riding that I represent, and my colleague the member for Renfrew North articulated it very well, is the dairy farmers, whose cost of production, cost of manufacturing and cost of transportation will be very much increased. Does this government think that will reduce cross-border shopping? It will indeed enhance the consuming public that will be going to the United States, not only to purchase petroleum but to purchase whatever other groceries and items of daily purchasing that should be occurring here in Ontario.

In economic terms, this government tells us that it needs to increase revenue. Well, do members know what they have reached? They have reached the point of diminishing return. No one has mentioned that. The more this government increases those taxes, the less the consuming public will use. Therefore it will not be enhancing the Treasurer's receipts but will actually be reducing them in the long run. Think of it from a positive way that the point of diminishing return has been reached. We will simply be enhancing cross-border shopping and making our own domestic Ontario products more expensive, not only to produce but to transport. Therefore I cannot in any way, shape or form support this tax increase when indeed this government is doing nothing to correct the problem. It will simply enhance the problem.

Mr Bradley: I always appreciate hearing the member for S-D-G & East Grenville because I think he handles himself in as least partisan a fashion as possible. He has been passionate on a number of the issues that he has brought to the attention of the House. I want to give him credit for one issue, because he used to ask about this when we were in power, and that is that certain kinds of fuels are less damaging to the environment. I think he would feel at least more comfortable with this tax if he thought that it had something to do with the promotion of the kinds of fuels which would, in his view as he has expressed it so well on many occasions, have a double benefit: first of all, an environmental benefit of producing a cleaner fuel and, second, helping the farming community in the province of Ontario by being able to use the material it produces as a raw material for that fuel.

He is once again a person who faces cross-border shopping. People do not realize that. They always think of Niagara Falls and Fort Erie and Sault Ste Marie. They think of the larger centres that are immediately adjacent to the border. He recognizes Massena as another good example right across a border.

He recognizes what is happening with this gasoline tax. I should report to him what this tax is doing and the big decisions that are being made. I was just watching the 11 o'clock news for a moment and watching the bad news coming out in an official form from General Motors in Oshawa and the difficult decisions it is going to be making in the next week or so, following my questions to the Premier and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

So I know the member for S-D-G & East Grenville would be concerned about that as well. I hope the government reconsiders this tax and its other tax, the tax on auto workers, very carefully and withdraws them before the end of this session.

Mr Klopp: I would like to take a couple of seconds to address the issue of alternative fuels. I too want them. I do have a strong feeling we also need taxes to help industry to promote those kind of fuels. We are working on them, but we can never go fast enough. I agree with my colleague and I appreciate his keeping the fire burning, because I can assure him his name comes up many times when we are discussing this in closed rooms.

But we also need income, and we also need to help promote the idea that fuels need to be alternative fuels. One of the things that has been said is that if gasoline is too cheap these things do not make self-sufficient alternative fuels. I do believe that has some bearing on it. I would like to see fuel cost nothing, but that does not happen. We also need money so we can help subsidize and start programs up. I hope that is where some of this money will go.

Mr Carr: I am pleased to add a few comments to my colleague and some of his fine comments, in particular with regard to the cross-border shopping issue, which I think he addressed very eloquently.

It was interesting that as we spent a little bit of time in the summer dealing with the Sunday shopping issue, this issue of cross-border shopping came up. I guess it was one of the chaps from Tip Top Tailors who came in and he said, "You know, we can compete with the suits versus the United States," but he also said, "What we can't compete with is the taxes on the booze, the cigarettes and the gasoline." He said: "That is what is doing it to us. It isn't the suits. It's the gasoline tax that is driving people across the border." I think my colleague said it very eloquently when he said, "That's why people are going over."

This chap from Tip Top Tailors said: "We can compete. They go over there and then they pick up a sweat shirt or they pick up a suit, but they are going over for three things: for the booze, the cigarettes and the gasoline." All of which were increased in the last budget by this government in the taxes. That is why they are leaving, that is why people are going across in droves. He is saying very clearly, "We can compete in the other areas."

What is driving people across the border is not because they cannot produce a suit cheaper than the people in the United States. He said we can. They are going across for the three commodities, and what is the biggest factor in those commodities? Tax -- tax on the cigarettes, the gasoline and the booze. This member hit the nail right on the head. I would like to say that this is exactly why people are going across, and we are going to fight this.

Mr Conway: I just simply want to say that the member from Glengarry made some very good points. I, like the member for Carleton, had a very pleasant visit with the member from Glengarry a couple of months ago after what I think can only be described as mind-numbing budget hearings in Cornwall -- I repeat, mind-numbing budget hearings in Cornwall. Members had to have been there to have experienced it. There is no penance or purgatory in another creation that would be the match of that experience, thanks to publicly funded Alpha Communications and their splendid works.

At any rate, after that mind-numbing day in Cornwall, the member from Glengarry1took us for a bit of a tour, the member for Carleton and me, through the farm district of that great and historic dairy county of Glengarry. I have to tell members that in talking to a number of farmers in that county, they made the point on the energy question particularly. Because, as the member for Oakville South mentioned, it is this cost structure that is causing difficulty for this economy right across the board.

In Cornwall that day we heard about the number of people going across the border in southeastern Ontario to buy dairy products and a variety of other things because they are cheaper. These farmers said, "You've got to do something about costs, you've got to do something about government-imposed costs, particularly for farmers who are competing in this kind of international market." So what have we got to say to the Glengarry farmers? We have, in the space of a few months, a 45% increase over three years announced for electricity -- which is vital in terms of their operations -- and a 30% one-year increase on the gasoline tax. These members opposite are going to drive these farmers out of business, and their customers across the border in greater numbers to Massena to buy dairy products and a lot more.

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Mr Villeneuve: I want to thank my colleagues for commenting. I will try, in the short time I have, to address first the member for St Catharines. He understands very well, because he represents a very similar situation to what I represent, a border town. I think our situation in eastern Ontario is a little worse because we have the Akwesasne Indian Reserve, where there are no fuel taxes, and when a truck bobtails over there and saves $225 on one fill-up, I do not blame them for going. That is why we have reached the point of diminishing returns.

To my colleague the parliamentary assistant, I wish he would talk about ethanol without having closed doors. It is time we opened the doors and said, "We are going to it now." Get out from behind those closed doors. We have to tackle with a renewable resource the environmental problems we know we are facing.

We are building cars in Ontario with California standards and shipping them to California. Why can we not build those cars and burn clean fuel right here, based partly on a renewable resource, grain. It has never been cheaper than now. The economics are right -- let's get at it. If government means what it says, that it is going to assist the environmental situation, it is time we got down to brass tacks and made it happen.

I certainly thank my colleague the member for Oakville South as well, because he understands the situation quite readily, and of course my colleague the member for Renfrew North. We had a very good evening on the Dyer Road, between Moose Creek and Maxwell, just off Highway 138. The member for Carleton was there, the member for Renfrew North and yours truly at my house. I was amazed that the member for Renfrew North knew more about the Tories than either the member for Carleton or I, so I give him credit for that.

Mr Miclash: It gives me great pleasure to contribute to this debate as well. I also happen to see two northern ministers here with us today, the Minister of Revenue, who of course is responsible for this debate, and the Minister of Natural Resources. I am looking for the archbishop, alias the Minister of Transportation. I am sure he is in the wings somewhere here.

As a member for the north, I have to say that when this government was elected, there were a lot of great headlines across the north saying, "We have six northern ministers in cabinet." Mr Speaker, I would hate to tell you what the headlines read today, but they are not quite that good.

Actually, the people of the north were expecting a lot from this government, but take a look at this tax increase and what it is going to do to people in the north. A lot of people have talked about great distances. I challenge any of them to go throughout their riding and find distances such as those in the ridings of the member for Lake Nipigon or myself, the largest and second-largest ridings in the province. These distances we face every day. As I said, some people from other large ridings have indicated that as well. For me to drive from one section of my riding to another, from one community to another, it takes four and a half or five hours, and that is driving I must do in my own vehicle, driving a lot of other people do throughout the north.

As has been indicated earlier as well, we do not have the mass transportation systems, the GO systems, the tube, as they call it, they have here in southern Ontario, so we do depend a lot on our vehicles, whether it be our cars or our half-ton trucks, and we do travel great distances.

Of course, those distances also play a great part in our industries. As you will know, the north is dependent on its resource industries, resource development, and a lot of those resources must be taken either to the mills or to the plants by vehicles. I said last time on the Fuel Tax Amendment Act that the fuel tax was going to create problems for these people involved in that trucking industry. Now we are on to a gasoline tax, a gasoline tax that is also going to play havoc with the vehicles that are needed for the northern industries we have.

I often think of the time the government said it was going to give the northern drivers their registration fees back, but what it did not tell them was that at the same time it was going to cost them an average of $110 per driver, per vehicle, for gasoline with this next increase. I received many calls in my riding office or here at Queen's Park saying, "How can we stop the next addition of gasoline tax to us here in the north or across the province?" When they hear about the extra $110 a year it is going to cost them to drive their vehicles, people want to know how that can be stopped.

Maybe this government can take another look at what it is doing to our resource industry up there and to our personal drivers. I tell them we have six northern ministers around that cabinet table, who should know the issues of the north, who should know the things I am talking about this evening; I tell them that people such as the Minister of Transportation -- who has joined us again -- are there and can relay these things around that cabinet table, that maybe we should expect a little more from this government, this government that promised so much to the northern people. Unfortunately, I do not think it is going to happen. I feel they have already made up their minds. We are looking at this additional tax, and we are going to see it.

I also have a good number of people who talk to me about how their child will turn 16. It is a relief when a child in northern Ontario turns 16, because all of a sudden the parents no longer have to get up at 5 or 6 in the morning to drive their child to hockey or to swimming or to various events which take place before school. If you were living in Toronto, you could get on the subway and it would take you pretty well anywhere you want to go. In northern Ontario, that is not the case. When a child turns 16, there is a sigh of relief, because now the parents are relieved of an extra duty. They do have another driver to contribute to the transportation, but a costly contribution. Again, these distances are fairly significant, for somebody to go from Red Lake to Balmertown, for example, to go to the arena in the morning, or to the swimming pool over in Cochenour. That is approximately seven or eight miles, a good distance for that, a distance that a lot of people here in southern Ontario just do not think about.

I often say we have two reasons in the north to sigh with relief, and I have indicated one of them. Of course, the other one we have often heard about is when this government changes its mind and reverses its direction. I am indicating to the cabinet ministers here this evening, to the party across the way, that we are looking for that second sigh of relief. We would like them to take a good look at what they are going to do to the northern industries, the northern drivers, come January 1, when this extra burden will be added.

I spoke about the tourist industry a few weeks ago, when we were speaking on Bill 85, the fuel tax. We must take a look at what this will also do to that industry. This amendment of the gasoline tax is going to increase the costs of the tourist operator. We have heard a lot about travel throughout Ontario, travel into the north, but it is going to be an additional cost to that particular operator for a number of things he depends on. As we know, the outboard motor is very important to the tourist operator. The aircraft is very important to getting his guests into remote operations and around the north. That tourist operator is going to be faced with a 30% increase in that cost, so one can only guess what that is going to do for his operations.

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We see throughout the northwest -- at least we did -- a good amount of tourism and a good amount of the northwest relying on that tourism. But as we have heard other members indicate in the House this evening, that tourist is not going to be there. When the tourist comes across the border with his Winnebago or whatever vehicle it may be and is faced with the extra high cost of gas as he travels our long distances throughout the northwest, he is going to be very discouraged, discouraged to the point where he may not consider it an option the following years to travel throughout our beautiful part of the province.

What I think it does, and I have seen this quite often, is draw the people from northwestern and northern Ontario out of that part of the province and into the United States. We often hear of people driving from the northern part of the province to the southern part of the province by way of the United States. Whether they cross at Fort Frances, Rainy River or Sault Ste Marie, the main idea is to get into the United States to where the cheaper gas prices are. I must say to the Minister of Transportation that a lot of them feel there are better highway systems down there as well, much easier highway systems to drive, and they will actually take that route through the United States forgetting about the north shore drive altogether. When I ask them they often say, "It's the gasoline tax that took me there."

When we talk about the increase in the taxation we are also talking about aviation fuels. I touched briefly on aviation fuels when I talked about the tourist operator. Many people feel that aviation fuels will mainly pertain to people who are flying back and forth from the north to the south or flying long distances. I think we have to take a look at what this addition to the aviation fuel is going to do to these smaller operations and to the recreational pilot -- a personal interest for myself. It is something which is going to hit the tourist operators and those wishing to fly their guests into their operations.

The tourist operator is relying on a good number of vehicles, their four-wheel drives, which some people consider to be a gas guzzler -- we will be talking a little more about the gas guzzler tax later in the debate -- but we must look at that as a vehicle which is actually necessary to the operator and to many people throughout the northwest who are faced with a good number of weather conditions we do not see here in southern Ontario.

I also think of the great number of people in the north who depend on our natural resources industries and what this increase in the gasoline is going to do in terms of our natural resources bases in northern Ontario.

A lot of people have spoken about cross-border shopping. I think of the things that take people across the border. In many of the surveys that have been brought forth already, some of them conducted by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology of the present government, we find that most people cross that border for a particular item; that item, of course, is gasoline. But it was mentioned earlier by a number of speakers that they do not only pick up gasoline when they go across the border; they are now down there looking for other items which cost much less. The government has to realize that one of the main factors taking people across the border, whether it be to do their cross-border shopping or, as I indicated earlier, to drive that route from northern Ontario to southern Ontario, is the gas prices. From what I hear, a good number of people are there to partake in that.

I mentioned the research done by the present Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology. They did a survey of 800 people living in seven border communities in Ontario and found that one third of the people interviewed shopped in the US in the month of April 1990. The average amount spent per trip was $86. Getting back to some of the things I am talking about, some of the things they would go across the border to shop for, as I indicated earlier, 80% of the cross-border shoppers regularly bought gasoline when they crossed into the United States, something very important to the people of our border communities and a drawing factor which not only takes people out of Canada but also prevents them from coming in when they see the atrocious difference in the gasoline prices between our neighbours to the south and ourselves.

In wrapping up, I think what has to happen here is that the ministers, in particular the ministers from the north, must consider some of these very important factors and how this 30% increase in gasoline tax is going to affect us in terms of northern industries, and not only those industries relying on our natural resources but the tourist industry, and how it will actually affect each individual driver throughout the north.

Mr Brown: I would first like to congratulate my colleague the member for Kenora for bringing some northern concerns before this House. I have a few questions I would like to ask the member about his comments. We in the north are quite amazed at an NDP government which, if you read its election promises and understood what it had to say to the people of Ontario, would have led everyone in this province to believe that the north would be a parking lot shortly after its election and that gas prices would be equalized, and gas prices being equalized was code for gas prices going down. To increase gas prices after the promises this government made in the last election is, I think, seen by most northerners as a betrayal of its mandate.

But more than that, I would like to ask the member for Kenora if he would consider the fact that with this 30% increase in gasoline taxes we should be looking at a 30% increase in the amount of work done on our roads. Traditionally, members around here know that there has been a balance between the amount of money raised by fuel taxes and the amount of road work done. It has not been perfect, but it has traditionally been fairly close. With this we are seeing that the 30% increases in gasoline taxes in northern Ontario have resulted in a zero increase in the amount of money spent on northern roads. I find that most offensive. My constituents find that most offensive.

I have a riding much like those of most northern members. I represent a lot of people who have no public transit. They have no alternative. They drive great distances to work, to shop, to live a normal life. Having the Minister of Transportation, who is looking quite exercised at this moment and certainly will get into this, come before this House and do what is being done by six NDP cabinet ministers from the north is just unconscionable.

Mr Villeneuve: I too want to congratulate my colleague the member for Kenora. I have travelled on committees with him. He has told me that from time to time he takes his aircraft to go to town and I certainly appreciate that. I noticed that during his presentation he talked about the aircraft industry and the tourist industry, which is very dependent on aircraft, and I certainly can appreciate what he was speaking of.

Also, on cross-border shopping I neglected to mention that when we were at the hearing in Cornwall there was a service station close to the International Bridge. The owner of this station told us that on a number of occasions he will have a car stop, take one dollar of gas just to make sure there is enough gas in the tank to get across the bridge to Akwesasne where he indeed fills up, does some shopping and then, I can assure members, refills on the way back home to make sure he has a full tank of gas.

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The province of Quebec has recognized that problem. At many of their border crossings they have an escalating price of petroleum, whereas within five kilometres of the border crossing there is set a very low price. As you get away from the border crossing, the cost per litre increases from five to 10 kilometres till, when you are 20 kilometres away, you are back to the normal price.

I live not only on the New York-Ontario border but also on the Ontario-Quebec border. There was a time when we had Quebec people coming to Ontario to fill up because they were getting an advantageous price. Right now the price of petroleum in Ontario is basically the same as in the province of Quebec. It is slightly higher in Quebec right now, but once the second increase comes in on January 1, our prices will likely be higher than those in Quebec -- an unheard-of situation before.

Hon Mr Pouliot: I too wish to congratulate the member for Kenora. We have listened to each and every word.

Mr Speaker, if you will allow me to set the record straight, the member for Algoma-Manitoulin has chosen to be rather lenient and most economical with the truth -- yes, it has to be said -- by mentioning that no money, nothing, had been spent on roads in the north. I just want to reassure the member. I know he has been particularly busy outside of his riding in the last while. The reality is $1.1 billion on capital expenditures throughout Ontario, a record number, $800 million on transfer payments for resurfacing and to help maintenance. That is the reality.

Let's not suspend reality. Let's deal with real figures, in record numbers to help the people all across Ontario and certainly the people of the north. I am from the north. I know, for it is my job, what I am talking about. I wish other people -- they are all welcome -- would spend as much time and include in their mandate telling their constituents, the people who are paying their wages, the truth.

Mr Miclash: I would like to first of all respond to the comments made by the member for Lake Nipigon, the Minister of Transportation. He indicated that there was no increase of money being spent on roads in the north. I think that is actually the point the member for Algoma-Manitoulin was trying to make. We are talking about a 30% increase in gas taxation but no increase in the money going back to northern highways.

I must remind the minister that I have seen very little improvement in the area in terms of secondary highways going across the north. I am looking for that 30% improvement, the four-laning that his members had no problem talking about during the campaign. I remember very well, during many debates, the NDP candidate saying, "We're going to four-lane the entire north." I would like to ask the minister at this time, how much of that has actually been four-laned so far?

As well, I would like to thank the member for S-D-G & East Grenville for his comments. He brought forth a story of people buying gasoline close to the border, a dollar's worth of gasoline to get them back across the border. I can tell members a lot of stories of people coming up from the States, bringing enough gasoline in five-gallon jerrycans to get them up to their destination, back to the border and to make sure they get across the border.

The member for Algoma-Manitoulin brought up a very interesting point, one which I neglected to mention, the equalization of gas prices across Ontario. That was a campaign promise by a northern member, now the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, a promise that the people of Ontario, especially northern Ontario, looked forward to. We were looking towards that plan. We are still looking. We have seen nothing.

Mr Mancini: I would like to take a few moments to add my comments to the debate on Bill 86. I want to get right to the point. I want to read right from the bill itself. On the first page, under "Explanatory Notes," it says very clearly what the intentions of this legislation happen to be. It says that the amendments in subsections 2(1) and (2) "implement the Treasurer's 1991 budget." Those measures are very clear and very damaging. They are to "increase the tax on unleaded gasoline, effective the 30th day of April, 1991 by 1.7 cents to 13.0 cents per litre," and another 1.7 cents on January 1, 1992. Well, happy new year. That is the new year's gift from the NDP government to Ontario citizens, another tax to take place on the first day of 1992.

Why are we concerned and why do we object most strenuously to this tax initiative by the NDP socialist government? We object because it flies in the face of everything New Democrats had said up until about 15 months ago. We object because they continually break their campaign promises. We object because this is going to further encourage cross-border shopping. We object because the economy is in a tailspin. As I read earlier today, one of the leading bankers in Canada has said that Canada has now entered into a double-dip recession, 17 months of recession, the longest continuous recession since the Great Depression. We see no end in sight yet.

What do we see from the New Democratic Party? Do we see measures to encourage tourists to come to our province? No, not a one. Do we see measures to increase the ability of small business to compete and survive in this province? Not a one. Do we see measures to equalize gas prices in the north? Not a one.

The NDP socialist government has in its cabinet the member for Port Arthur, who is the Minister of Revenue; the member for Rainy River, who is the Attorney General; the member for Sudbury East, who is the Minister of Northern Development and Mines; the member for Algoma, who is the Minister of Natural Resources; the member for Lake Nipigon, who is the Minister of Transportation, and the member for Nickel Belt, who is the Treasurer and Minister of Economics, six powerful portfolios given to northern New Democratic Party members of the government.

One would think that the north would be well served by having six ministers representing large and significant portfolios in the cabinet. The people in the north would think that the views of the northerners would be front and centre as far as issues affecting the north are concerned.

What do we get? We get six ministers who have nothing to say, though they fly into Toronto all right and their government limousines pick them up at the airport, most of them most of the time, and they have one or two aides each carrying their briefcases as quickly as possible, saying, "Yes, Minister, the door to the office is this way and there are letters to sign and also legislation to pass."

But what do the northerners get? That is what we want to know from these six ministers. They are too embarrassed to tell the northerners what they are going to get. But we are going to have to tell the northerners what they are getting. We are going to tell the northerners that they are getting the same tax increase, the same 30% that everybody else is getting. That is on top of the unfair prices they face.

Mr Bradley: In Moonbeam.

Mr Mancini: In Moonbeam. That is on top of the unfair prices, I say to the Minister of Transportation, who made a promise that he would equalize gas prices in the north. He made that promise. He is the Minister of Transportation, a senior member of the cabinet along with his five colleagues. They conveniently set that promise aside. So if they pay eight to 10 cents more a litre, 80 cents more a gallon, in the north than in London, Ontario, that is the way --

The Speaker: Order. Will the member for Essex South take his seat for a moment. It being 12 o'clock, this House stands adjourned.

The House adjourned at 2400.