Legislative Assembly of Ontario

[Report continued from volume A]

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METROPOLITAN TORONTO REASSESSMENT STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES NOUVELLES ÉVALUATIONS DE LA COMMUNAUTÉ URBAINE DE TORONTO

Continuing the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 94, An Act to amend certain Acts to implement the interim reassessment plan of Metropolitan Toronto on a property class by property class basis and to permit all municipalities to provide for the pass through to tenants of tax decreases resulting from reassessment and to make incidental amendments related to financing in The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto / Loi modifiant certaines lois afin de mettre en oeuvre le programme provisoire de nouvelles évaluations de la communauté urbaine de Toronto à partir de chaque catégorie de biens, de permettre à toutes les municipalités de prévoir que les locataires profitent des réductions d'impôt occasionnées par les nouvelles évaluations et d'apporter des modifications corrélatives reliées au financement dans la municipalité de la communauté urbaine de Toronto.

Mr W. Donald Cousens (Markham): I'd like to comment on one or two points by the member for Oriole. First of all, I sympathize with the member that sometimes it's impossible to be here for a vote when it's scheduled at 9 o'clock. That certainly isn't your fault, and I hope the people who are watching this understand that. As one who lives in a neighbouring riding almost, I appreciate the fact that that's the very kind of problem many of us have when things are planned as poorly as they are by this government. I'll be talking about that, because I'll be speaking on it shortly.

That's a compliment for member for Oriole; now I get to the other side. As one who has served on council and has had the local touch for a long time, one would have thought there was something you could have done then to resolve some of the inequities that are now facing many people within the greater Toronto area, which has brought forward these recommendations that are before the House. So the fact is that you have had many opportunities in previous incarnations, one as a councillor and the second as a former member of the Peterson government, when there would have been an opportunity for you to do something right or better than what the New Democrats are doing.

I would like to have you, as one of the spokespeople of the past, give some kind of rationale for why it is that you didn't do anything specific to address these concerns when you had an opportunity in the Peterson government, and second, why it is that when you were a local councillor you didn't come forward with specific recommendations.

If you did, this is your opportunity to have a fine defence. I won't have a chance to react to your comment in an appropriate way here in the House, but at least it will go on the record so that we have a sense of where you stand. There have been so many attempts at market value reassessment and it would be interesting to know where this member, who can go back a little bit more in her history in this way and tell us more about herself and her involvement in this issue --

The Acting Speaker (Mr Dennis Drainville): Thank you. The honourable member for Downsview.

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): Thank you very much for this opportunity to respond, in the two minutes I have, to some of the points that were made by my colleague from North York.

We heard and we listened to the classic Liberal doubletalk on this issue. We've had nothing but doubletalk on this ever since I can remember, both as a local member and now as a member of this Legislature: doubletalk here, doubletalk out in the community, doubletalk in the media.

My Liberal friend comes here today and says: "I'm going to support this because this is going to be a small step towards some property tax reform in Metro. However, this government is misguided in its attempt. One of my local Metro councillors, Joan King, voted yes, and she should be rewarded. One of my local Metro councillors, Marie Labatte, voted against. I don't know what should happen to Marie Labatte." Maybe Marie Labatte isn't going to get the Hansard from the member for Oriole.

But I can tell you this: The member for Oriole talked about fairness on this issue and talked about justice on this issue. Justice and fairness? Where was justice and fairness when they played political ping-pong with market value? They pinged it here and they pinged it there. They pinged it all the way back to Metro and didn't make a decision -- no, no. Now we get criticized, but one of the inner cabinet ministers in the former Peterson government played ping-pong.

Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): I listened to the comments by the member for Oriole quite attentively. I want to congratulate her on her thoughtfulness, but at the same time I wish she had expanded a bit more on her presentation, especially the comment she made in regard to the minister, when the minister stood up in this House and said that on the one hand, "I think Metro should have the right to introduce market value assessment," and on the other hand he then stood up and in the next breath -- I hope the member for Downsview listens carefully, because this is doubletalk -- then said, "But I'm not sure we can trust Metro council with this specific issue."

If we want to talk about doubletalk here, that is the most classic example. But that's not what I want to address here.

Let me just get one more point in. All of you will remember, especially my friends from the Progressive Conservative Party, a former member here. His name was Bill Davis.

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): Who?

Mr Ruprecht: Bill Davis; you remember him. I want to tell you, my friends, what Bill Davis says about this issue. Bill Davis has no benefits from this whatsoever, at least that's what I think; I'm not sure, but that's what I think. Bill Davis comes from a place called Brampton. Brampton is not in Metro Toronto, and consequently we can expect that in his position he would be a somewhat impartial judge as to whether this is effective or not. And Bill Davis says, my friends: "Our association does not oppose the current market value assessment provided that the proposal is fair and equitable to all parties. However, in our opinion," he says, "the revised reassessment proposal approved last week by Metro is neither fair nor equitable." He says: "Why? The 10% solution for reassessment simply delays the inevitable consequences of higher taxes."

The Acting Speaker: Okay, thank you. The honourable member has used up his time.

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Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I want to use my two minutes to relay some of the concerns that have been raised by the member for Oriole and expound on them, because I think her remarks were very forthright. I'm glad to see that she stood up and committed herself in no uncertain terms on how she feels and how she would intend to vote if she had been here.

It's unfortunate that the vote is called at 9 tonight. Most of us didn't know it was at 9 tonight, so there will be a lot of members who won't be here for the vote who would have loved to have been here.

With her municipal experience she has put a little different light on than some of the other members in this House have done, and I think it's good. I've been through some 15, 16 years of municipal politics and I realized what happened with regard to market value assessment in small-town Ontario and in cities in Ontario.

When the member for Oriole speaks about the confusion that's in this bill, it is so true. In five years' time, when she's talking about, what may happen then? Are they going to vote then? Maybe there will be no vote then. With the confusion in the bill, it's a great concern to many of the people.

I think this has been handled so badly by Metro and many other councils. Here we are dealing with something today that should never be in this House at all, in my opinion. The right was given back in 1970, whereby the municipalities could have the vote and they could bring it forward, but to have this bill come back here to the House for us to vote on -- why should I, as a member from rural Ontario, be here voting on a Metro bill? I think it is really unfortunate that the bill is here, being that there was no -- as the member said -- impact analysis done with regard to the whole foundation of the basis for that bill to be here.

I just wanted to compliment the member on her remarks. She made it very clear where she stood and I compliment her for that.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. The honourable member for Oriole has two minutes to respond.

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): Just to put on the record in response to the questions from my colleagues, I have always been a proponent of tax reform on the basis of fairness and equity and I've been a proponent of that no matter where I served, whether as alderman in the city of North York, ward 13, from 1978 until 1985; as a member of the provincial government from 1985 until 1990.

I would also say to him and to my colleagues and to the government that any reform is extremely important, because I believe the people of this province, my constituents, the people of Oriole as well as the people of the province of Ontario, believe everyone should pay their fair share. A tax scheme should be based on fairness and equity.

However, whenever you look at a tax reform scheme, it's also reasonable to understand that how you feel about that is going to depend, (1) directly on what the impact is going to be on you; and (2) often that will relate, when you're talking about property tax, to where you live and what you're getting in the way of value for those dollars you are spending.

The concern people have today, in the middle of a recession, is that their taxes are high, and they are. Some believe they are too high, and under this NDP government we've seen them go even higher. They know the impact of reneging on transfer announcements to the municipalities, that it's going to mean higher property taxes at the municipal level, and so they're worried about: Will they be able to afford to keep their homes? Will they be able to afford to keep their businesses?

People are reasonable and they understand these important issues. On the record, I believe in and have always been supportive of Metropolitan Toronto and the local council having the ability to achieve that tax fairness.

I was pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate? The honourable member for Markham.

Mr Cousens: I'm glad to participate in the Bill 94 debate and I'll just read the title in, because I don't think anyone's taken the time to look at this stupid long title that the minister's put together for it: An Act to amend certain Acts to implement the interim reassessment plan of Metropolitan Toronto on a property class by property class basis and to permit all municipalities to provide for the pass through to tenants of tax decreases resulting from reassessment and to make incidental amendments related to financing in The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. That's one of the longest names of any act I've seen, but more than that, it raises just a spectre of questions and concerns that we want to touch on.

I think many things are unprecedented about this bill. The title is minor, but it sort of tells you how they put every word in there.

I can't remember when the Legislature was still in second-reading debate on a bill and a committee had already begun the hearings. The public hearings under the social development committee began this afternoon at 3:30, and yet this House has not even completed its second-reading exercise to refer it to the committee.

Mr Hope: It's called parallel justice.

Mr Cousens: My good friend calls it parallel justice. It just shows you that this government really doesn't care what we have to say on this side of the House. They've set their agenda. They're going to come along and they'll set things when they want, how they want, where they want, and it really doesn't matter what opposition members have to say.

The fact of the matter is, it is due to the efforts by our caucus that we are having public hearings. I'm satisfied to have that, but if this government had scheduled the debate on Bill 94 earlier so that there was a greater opportunity for people to participate in this debate, then I think it would have been far better for everybody, so that what is said in Hansard today would have been available for those people who are making presentations to the committee. It just makes sense that you have that kind of protocol.

Notwithstanding that, the legislation is before us now. We do have a minimal opportunity to respond to it, especially since the government has changed the rules, which only allow a member to speak for up to 30 minutes on a bill such as this. So I want to use my time well. I am so critical of this government on so many things. It's imperative that one take advantage of the opportunity in the Legislature to lay on the record some of those concerns, even although I know at this point that with the bill already going to committee, the government's already made up its mind to vote on it. It makes one wonder, why does one even want to speak on it now? But that's the lunacy of being in the Ontario Legislature when the NDP are in power, and that has an awful lot to do with it.

Mr Hope: That is called opportunity for the general public instead of the politicians to do their usual theatrics.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr Cousens: Well, I would just say this government is going to do its own thing. It's not unlike what they're doing with other issues where the government, instead of bringing it to the Legislature and having the Legislature vote on it, such as Sunday shopping -- we in this House have not yet had an opportunity to vote on Sunday shopping, and yet a decree comes out of the Premier's office or someone else's office over there, and now we've got wide-open Sunday shopping. It might well have passed in the Legislature at the time, but the government doesn't allow the Legislature to decide. They decide themselves. The Premier and the executive council of the province are the ones who are usurping the authority of the Legislature and then making these decisions on their own.

That's true of many other bills yet to be passed where in fact we're already paying the taxes that were brought in through the budget that the government brought in earlier, this May. The government is consistent in running its own agenda rather than using the Legislature as a forum for debate and for understanding the issues in the broader context of what it is that we have to do.

There are a number of issues that have to do with Bill 94 and this market value reassessment. Certainly one of the ones that many have touched upon has to do with the economic impact. I don't think there's any doubt that we have to face up to the need for reassessment, inasmuch as it's some 40 years since the mill rates, the assessments, have been assessed. So I can understand the urgency of dealing with this issue. Then I also question why at the same time there wasn't some kind of economic impact analysis that would tell us the net effect of the change to bring in MVA.

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Before going for a full market value assessment, one would have thought that Metro or the Ontario government, in all their haste to get something done -- it's obvious they're in a hurry to ram it through the Legislature right now. That's fine. I suffered that for the last seven years when the Liberals were in power and I can suffer it now when the New Democrats are in power. It's just a matter where they have an agenda and they're going to follow it.

The problem that really comes out is that there are so many elements that go into an economic study. The effect it's going to have on small businesses within Toronto: What is the impact going to be on them? What is the impact going to be on small home owners in the different areas? We have some sense of it, but is there going to be any impact on people? I have a sense that there's going to be. Is there going to be some way in which some people are affected more than others? Have all the economic consequences been weighed?

The issue I want to make is that this government sidesteps the economic issues, not only on Bill 94 but on every other bill that I've been involved with.

Bill 143 is the bill that is giving the government the power to bring landfill sites into York, Durham and Peel. It's the bill that's giving the government the power to shift Metro's garbage up to York region. It's the bill that excludes consideration of rail haul to Kirkland Lake or some other site out of the greater Toronto area. It is a bill that is afraid to look, and doesn't look, at the economic consequences of what they're doing. A number of political decisions have been made by the minister, the Honourable Ruth Grier, and those decisions are ones that exclude looking outside of the greater Toronto area. They exclude looking at the economic consequences of rail haul.

What I'm saying is that it's an example where the government failed miserably to look at economic consequences, and that's the issue in Bill 94. There is no economic impact analysis. You'll come along and make your decision on something based on the ideology of the New Democrats, but it does not, at the same time, balance off the economic considerations.

Another example of a bill in which this government has gone haywire is Bill 40, the new labour legislation. What we asked for and business asked for was some kind of economic impact analysis of the effects of Bill 40 when it's brought in on January 1, 1993. We never got it from the Honourable Bob Mackenzie, Minister of Labour. We don't know how bad it's going to be. We know it's going to be bad, but this government was gutless when it came time to do that kind of economic impact analysis.

That's the kind of thing that is causing people outside this place to become more and more angry and frustrated with government, because government should be able to balance all these things and understand the consequences of everything we're going to do.

It is not without a great sense of worry that every one of us calls upon the government, in this bill and in other bills, to look at the economic considerations. Don't just consider your ideology without also considering the cost. It is an ideology. It's a belief system the New Democrats have that everything they do is right and is therefore not subject to that kind of objective evaluation. That is what we're asking for. You get the data, you analyse them, you put them down and you can see that. This is a government that operates just by fiat, where decisions are made and then you end up having other members of its caucus who go along with them.

I have to say, as one who sits here and wonders about the economic impact, that I wonder about the impact on the Metropolitan Separate School Board. I'd like to know what impact it's really going to have. I ask the question, is it true that Metro's separate board will have a lower assessment because of MVA? Does it mean more taxes on separate school supporters? This I don't know. Does it mean more funding from the province to support the Metropolitan Separate School Board? What is the impact on the separate school board?

Then you ask the same questions on the public school boards. Are they going to be getting more money? If so, what's the effect of that? Does this mean the province is going to change its educational funding formulas for the public school boards in Metropolitan Toronto?

These are questions that need to be addressed and assessed in a total economic impact analysis, and that has not been done. As it stands now, there's hardly time to do it, is there? But it still causes me concern. I know these words are on deaf ears. I know the members of the New Democratic caucus have traditionally voted as a bloc. They vote with the government constantly. They are not allowed to think for themselves, or at least don't show it in the House.

Interjection.

Mr Cousens: I know there are a number of thinkers here, but we want to see evidence of it in the House. That's all I want to say. If we could see some evidence of your thought processes, then in the Legislature it would give us a sense that there's some wood burning somewhere.

One of the other issues that ties in to the economic impact analysis: In the Legislature last Thursday I introduced a private member's bill and it received first reading, Bill 104, An Act to amend the Municipal Act to provide for a Special Mill Rate for Condominium Units. I brought this in as a bill that again ties in to market value assessment and -- I know the Speaker sits there ready to jump on me; now I've got to stay on topic and I will. This ties in to the condominium owners who are in the greater Toronto area.

Condominium owners right now, as members will well know, have a different assessed value on their dwellings than do residential dwellings. I'm talking about residential condominiums. Residential condominium owners will often pay as much as 30% to 50% to 70% more in taxes because their properties are assessed differently and they pay taxes differently on those condominiums than do residential homes. What has happened is that the assessed value of condominiums is much higher than residential homes. As a result, those condominiums pay a much higher tax.

For a 2,200-square-foot condominium where the tax might be, certainly in some communities, $5,000 or $4,900, a residence that is, instead of 2,200 square feet, maybe 3,200 square feet, would pay $3,000 in taxes. So it is almost $2,000 less for a larger piece of property. When you now attach market value assessment on the residential condominium, how much more are they going to be paying?

Who has looked at the cost to condominium owners, many of whom are people on fixed incomes, many of whom are not able to really handle it as it is now? I ask the Speaker, in all the assessment that I have been able to do on this ad that's been circulated to me on Bill 94 and on market value assessment, I have seen nothing in a market analysis on the impact this is going to have on condominium owners.

First of all, I think it's wrong that condominium dwellings are not taxed at the same rate as residential dwellings. That is the intent of Bill 104, which received first reading last week. I want to see equity between condominiums and residential, not inequity. But the inequity that exists now in the law under the Municipal Act for condominium dwellings is going to be exacerbated because of the MVA-Bill 94 effect.

I ask the government, why haven't you taken the time to look at the impact it's going to have on condo dweller-owners, for residential? I realize there are a lot of questions to be asked. I don't have the answers to them, but I can ask the questions.

The questions are valid. Condominium owners right now are being treated differently than residential owners. They are being punitively treated and it's time the government had a reassessment of what their dwellings are going to be assessed at. Again, if that were tied in with this Bill 94, where there was consideration of all the ramifications of the bill, then we would begin to see some kind of building of trust. What's happened now is that there's just a constant deterioration of trust that people have in the government by virtue of the way in which the needs and concerns of people are generally ignored or overlooked.

Certainly with the New Democrats in power, they overlook consistently the economic considerations of the bills they are presenting to this House. They have done so, as I said earlier, in Bill 143; they have overlooked economic considerations in Bill 40; and now here again in this bill that we're analysing tonight, Bill 94, the government once again has sidestepped the issue of, "Let's look at the economics of what this bill has to do." I am calling on this government to have some economic impact analysis so that we can see the net impact of what this bill is going to do.

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I'm not satisfied on another issue, that the government has given ample opportunity to the public at large to comment on this deal, this deal between Mr Cooke, the Minister of Municipal Affairs, and Metro Toronto. Certainly many of the home owners in Toronto are not even aware now that hearings have already begun on this bill. There are many people busy just trying to survive in their businesses. They're just trying to keep their families together. They've got many other priorities.

If due process had been followed, then the people would have had a chance to know that this is coming before the House. They'd have ample opportunity to make written submissions, oral submissions and come to the House. Instead, there are going to be a couple of short weeks during which there will be some public hearings, but the fact is it isn't good consultation. It's not the kind of consultation that evokes trust from the public at large.

I think the fact is that the process has been flawed right from the beginning. In fact the government has a number of members in its midst who have campaigned against market value assessment. They stood up and, in running for election on September 6, 1990, when Mr Rae swept the province with his 37% and won a huge majority in this Legislature, many of those people who were elected at that time used as one of the issues that they would fight MVA.

I have not heard too much from Ms Churley, Zanana Akande and Mr Silipo, who certainly have major roles to play in the Rae government. Yet when they were running for election they used this as a ploy. What they should almost do now is to go back -- not almost; take the "almost" out -- they should go back to their electorate and say: "I have welshed on my election promise. When I was running back then, I said that I would campaign and continue the fight against MVA. Now I am coming to you and asking your forgiveness. Do you support me now, even though I won on the basis of misrepresentation of what it is I'm doing?"

They spun the issue out at that time. They allowed themselves the glory of saying, "We will fight against MVA," and now that they're in government and in power it doesn't matter what they said then. Well, I think it does matter, and the people of Metropolitan Toronto will hold them accountable for the way in which they have broken the trust they were elected on.

Certainly I know Mr Rae has done it enough times that maybe there's a precedent for people to say one thing before they're elected and then do another after they're elected. That's certainly the case when you deal with landfill, my favourite subject. When Mr Rae was out at Keele Valley -- I have to put it on the record again -- he said there would never be an expansion to the Keele Valley landfill without a full environmental assessment. What's happened? Hey, it's expanding. It's one thing if you say it before you're elected and it's another if you do something else after you're elected.

MVA is another example. There are key people in the Rae government who campaigned against it and now they're in a position where they're coming out for it.

I paused to comment on the Minister of Health, Frances Lankin, and I did not mention her name. Before she was elected she fought strenuously against MVA, and I heard her speak here in this House the other day. She will also be campaigning and fighting against MVA on a continuing basis. That consistency before you're elected and after you're elected certainly is worthy of mention. I don't want to tar every one of the New Democrats with the same dirty brush. I pause and give compliments to Frances Lankin for the way in which she articulated her position and why she's taking it.

What we have now is a situation where you talk about process, you talk about government being elected by the people for the people and it has a different position once it's elected. I ask why it is that you rushed through the bill when in fact the commission that was established to look into this, the Fair Tax Commission, the property tax panel, still has not made its recommendations known. It's still in study of this thing, yet here we are.

This government will pass Bill 94 tonight and then it goes back to the committee and then it's going to come in for third reading in a couple of weeks, but the Fair Tax Commission, which has something to say on this, which has been involved in the study of it, still hasn't had a chance to make its positions known.

I have concerns about market value assessment in a number of areas. I want to put on the record that we've been doing some consideration of the MVA from an environmental angle. I would just like to put on the table a number of the concerns that have come through our discussions in that regard. It raises a series of questions that go back to the New Democrats' Greening the Party, Greening the Province: A Vision for the Ontario New Democratic Party that was released in March, 1990. I want to point out the inconsistency of the MVA approach the government is now taking, the inconsistency with its own Greening the Party publication.

By raising taxes on downtown homes and businesses and lowering them in the suburban areas there will be a financial incentive for development to shift from the more compact central areas to the suburbs, where densities are lower and the automobile reigns supreme. This will push Toronto closer to the type of sprawling development that characterizes American cities like Houston and away from the more compact city form of European cities. A shift in development away from downtown out to the suburbs leads to more reliance on the automobile, loss of agricultural land and open spaces to urban sprawl, increased costs to transportation, water and sewer infrastructure because of the lower densities in the suburban areas.

Market value assessment appears to move us in the opposite direction of the goal of a more compact, intensified urban development, which has been supported by the Ontario Round Table on Environment and the Sewell commission. We believe that's the direction they're taking -- Toronto's city plan -- and especially it leads us away from the NDP's own document, Greening the Party, Greening the Province, which speaks of the need to "direct the growth of cities like Toronto in such a way as to encourage public transit and less dependence on automobiles."

The NDP document, Greening the Party, Greening the Province, also speaks of the need to "integrate environmental concerns into cabinet-wide decision-making." I challenge the government members and ask them: Have they taken the time to look back on the document they submitted to the public before they were elected, in which they came out with such pronouncements that would have encouraged public transit, discouraged urban sprawl and tried to keep a city in a more compact form?

In succinct words, what it really does -- when you change the tax structure as you are, you're in some way making it more difficult for people to establish themselves in the downtown city core and then making it easier for them to go to the outer areas and the suburban areas. Have they looked at the economic impact of this? Has this government looked at the environmental impact of this? These questions still need to be addressed.

Some of the other concerns that come into the whole Metro MVA plan are the uncertainty that is going to be around property within the greater Toronto area. What we're seeing is major tax shifts on property and the concern this is going to raise for people when they are buying property and selling property. For two thirds of commercial properties with tax increases there are increases implied by the new assessment beyond 25% which Metro's plan simply ignores. These increases will exceed 100% of the 1992 taxes for as many as 19,000 commercial-industrial units across Metro.

The transition to market value assessment, to these new taxes, will have barely gotten under way during the transition period, leaving a cloud of uncertainty hanging over 1998 and later when you get to the next stage. It is safe to say that no reassessment transition program in Canada has left so much uncharted territory re the phasing in of tax shifts. The resulting uncertainty would have negative impact on the investment climate and cause potential problems with mortgage financing.

The question I ask is, what about the future? Has this government got any view beyond 1998? Do they have any view beyond 1995 when we'll come for re-election? Have we got a complete transition schedule that will come along and bring taxes into line with the new assessments in five years or less? We're dealing with a precedent-setting level of uncertainty, which is again something that would have been assessed and analysed in the impact analysis for this government to look at.

I see the significant shift in tax burdens to commercial and industrial taxpayers. It's a shift that amounts to something like $58 million a year of the tax burden from residential to non-residential taxpayers. Has anyone taken the time to look at that? Is there any provision, if it turns out worse than we think, for Metro to reverse the shift of tax burdens? We are concerned about the reassessment program to date because it involves a permanent shift of tax burdens between residential and non-residential taxpayers.

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Start combining this with the tax shift that's taking place even within Metro on the issue I raised earlier in my Bill 104 for condominium owners and for residential owners. There are even shifts going on there that really have not been assessed to my satisfaction.

We are concerned about the degree to which this program is discriminatory. To address concerns with respect to the massive and sudden tax increases, Metro has extended the provisions to broader and broader groups of properties. Some 3,000 properties have been given the special category where property owners will not be protected by the cap, so there are many people who are going to be impacted immediately. Many people think, "Well, MVA is coming in, but the province is agreeing to a very gradual process." Not totally so: Some 3,000 properties are going to be impacted very, very quickly. They are being singled out, I believe somewhat unfairly, because no one has taken the time to see the impact this MVA is going to have on them, and they could be paying as much as $60 million a year in excess taxes.

The other question that comes into this whole MVA is the value of property after you've implemented this program. The question is going to be, who will benefit? You'll have the same kind of syndrome effective in Toronto, where they say, "Welcome, stranger," because the stranger who buys the house which hasn't had the full assessed value being charged in its taxes will suddenly be looking at a tax bill three, four times more than what had been. By virtue of the phased-in approach, as soon as the property is sold the full assessed value is impacting the property owner and he'll be paying the full new tax amount.

You're almost going to have to put on the sale of a property the fact that the taxes were this amount, but when you start seeing what they're going to be, it'll show generally the amount you're going to be charged.

It'll be an issue for the courts, because what'll happen is that properties adjoining one another, neighbouring lots, can pay dramatically different taxes, depending on the date of the most recent sale. With the "Welcome, stranger" concept, as it became known in the US, there would be no appeal mechanism for people to come in and fight the tax disparities that will be in effect here in Toronto.

This is serious stuff. Paying taxes is serious in the first place. The fact that this government is now opening up the door to more disparities is serious stuff. When you start putting the economic model on this whole tax system, it's going to change the dynamics of a city. I think we've got to come back and look at the whole subject in a more realistic and fair and honest way, instead of the piecemeal approach that this government said it would never fall into. All they're doing is falling into the trap they criticized every other government of doing before. They've had the chance to do it, and here they're coming forward making a recommendation based on Metropolitan Toronto, not having had a chance to look at all the impact of what they're doing.

I think you can tell that I'm opposed to this bill. I'm opposed to it because there has not been the full economic impact analysis of it. I'm opposed to it because of the environmental considerations. I'm opposed to it because of the process --

The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. Thank you very much. Questions and/or comments?

Mr McLean: I'd like to take the opportunity to comment briefly on the remarks made by the member for Markham. The previous speaker is voting for it. Now we have had a speaker who is voting agin it. It brings out the very reason this bill is being so hotly debated. They both brought out many of the same subjects when they looked at the impact it's going to have. The impact analysis has not been held, and why wasn't it?

We look at some of the remarks made by some of the members who have spoken and the fact that this is the first time ever, I guess, that there's been a bill in this Legislature which deals with market value assessment, other than the bill that was brought in in the 1970s which would allow the municipalities the right, under section 63, to proceed with market value assessment within the municipality.

Some 75% of the province of Ontario is under market value assessment. When it was done at the appropriate time it was right. Today, most of the municipalities in the province are under the 1984 market value assessment. Why has Metropolitan Toronto never, ever come under a market value assessment analysis? Why has there been no impact study done to see why it has not happened? Today, probably it should be on a 1991 market value assessment, or spring of 1992 would be possible. But to have this bill come forward, it's hard to believe that this Legislature should be voting on something that's happening in Metropolitan Toronto.

This bill doesn't only touch on the assessment just for the schools; it touches on many other aspects of education, rents -- there are at least four or five different areas this bill represents, and to hear the last two speakers certainly gives you an indication of the feeling that's out there with regard to MVA.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?

Mr George Mammoliti (Yorkview): I want to talk about reality here for a second. Reality is that the member who just finished speaking, the member for Markham, is opposed to everything we're doing. That's reality.

Reality is that most of the people in Metro are going to benefit from this plan. Reality is that the majority of the people in Metro are going to benefit from this plan. Reality is that out of the 350,000 tenants we have in Metro, 200,000 are going to benefit from this plan.

Reality is that this individual is never going to agree with this government. It's fundamental. He and his party believe in doing things their way, they did it for 42 years their way, and the minute we get a half-decent government that wants to be fair and implement something that perhaps will give the majority of the people in Metro a break, he's opposed to it.

When the Liberals get up you'll hear some of them opposed to this as well. Reality is that they're the ones who started this whole process with Metro. That's reality.

Reality is that we're implementing something that Metro wants us to implement. Reality is that this is a fair system. It's a compromise. Compromise is something that the Conservatives certainly wouldn't know the meaning of. Compromise is something that the Liberals certainly wouldn't know the meaning of. Compromise is a fair and just system.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Questions and/or comments? The honourable member for Parkdale.

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Mr Ruprecht: I appreciate the comments that were made by the member for Markham. Normally he's pretty persuasive, but I wish he had addressed himself more specifically to some of the points which concern most of us here; that is, when I raised the first question a few minutes ago about Bill Davis. What does this member say when Bill Davis --

The Acting Speaker: Might I say to the honourable member that you are to restrict your comments to what the honourable member for Markham has said.

Mr Ruprecht: Of course. We realize that, Mr Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: I just advise you.

Mr Ruprecht: Yes. I hope, Mr Speaker, you will add on those few seconds that it would take to explain all of this at this point. But if not, Mr Speaker, I appreciate your remarks.

I wish that the member, in his comments, would have expanded a bit on what the comments were previously; namely, what the situation was with the former Premier of this province when he had said that he doesn't approve of the current market value assessment, and, in addition, he gives a good reason for it. He says: "The 10% solution for reassessment simply delays the inevitable consequences of higher taxes. The increases, many of them substantial, will result in the closure of many dealerships." And that is the point.

Does the member for Markham -- and I wish he would expand on this -- realize what will happen, what the consequences will be of this bill when it is imposed upon the people of Metropolitan Toronto, and the economic rot that is going to set in when this bill is finalized? He certainly knows that in Markham, for the many people who travel from Markham to Toronto, in terms of the GO Transit, their share of the railway property taxes will increase by $11.2 million. This means that every time they take a trip to Toronto, it's going to cost them 45 cents more; in short, $240 per year in terms of the increases from Markham to Toronto alone.

The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired.

Mr Ruprecht: I wish he would say something about this in a minute.

The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. Further questions and/or comments?

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I just want to take a couple of seconds to respond to the issue of the economic impact. One of the things the member for Markham has called for, as well as other members, has been for the government of Ontario to put in place an economic impact study in order to study what the ramifications would be for the taxpayers of the city of Toronto.

I think two things have to be said, and quite honestly. First of all, it is clearly the responsibility of Metro council. It is a tax that they are imposing based on their own consensus, or lack of consensus in some cases, of what happened in Metro council around this whole issue.

The second thing is that all of a sudden this whole idea of economic impact is being raised every time a piece of legislation comes up from this side of the House. I never in five years saw the previous government or in 42 years saw their government put in place economic impacts on a number of pieces of legislation that they did.

The other thing that he raises is that he really wonders how members of this caucus, being the government side, will vote on this particular issue. I guess he's having a little bit of political fun there in regard to being able to see how this thing unfolds. But I remind the member -- I don't need to remind him, because he has been around here longer than I have, but to the people watching -- there is a process of caucus. When you're a government member, one of the things you do is you make a decision as a whole within that caucus. You make a decision as a caucus of the government; you vote en masse. The opposition has the luxury of being either one side or another on a particular issue, because their vote doesn't mean anything. Basically, this whole thing is a political football. I think you can argue on both sides of this issue depending on where you happen to be living. Is it a good thing or is it a bad thing? I think what the member clearly did is try to make this thing a political football, something that he is very good at doing, in trying to find a way to yet again get at the government and to criticize about a particular issue. I wish the member would actually stick to facts and try to be a little bit more civil in his responses when he's up in debate so that people can give the proper attention that he's deserved when he's debating.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Markham has two minutes to respond.

Mr Cousens: This place is always interesting. I thank the member for Simcoe East for his remarks, and I really thank all members for their participation and for having observed what's going on.

One of the comments made by the member for Yorkview that I take strong exception to is when he says that people in the opposition oppose everything that the government does.

If this government does anything that's good or right, I will support it. Certainly when I talk to the Minister of the Environment about her strategy to reduce the amount of garbage by the year 2000 to the 50% level, I support that. There are initiatives the government is doing in Transportation to build 407. I support that. There are initiatives they're making to build the loop for the subway up along Steeles and Keele to York University. I support that. So you can't come along and give a blanket statement that we're opposed to everything. But the advantage we have in the adversarial form of politics is that we can hold certain things up and discuss them and, hopefully, with the honesty and integrity of the House, analyse them and assess them properly and fairly.

In that process, I find the government lacking in having an economic analysis. I don't think you can separate economics from anything, and I believe there's a tremendous value in being able to look at things and say: "What's the cost attached to it? What does it really mean? Why are we doing it? What is the impact on most people?" If you can do that kind of economic analysis, which worked during 42 years, then that's something this government might learn from. Don't throw out all the past to try to handle the present. Try to build on the past. History is linear. It builds upon itself. We can learn from the past.

I refer to the honourable member for Parkdale. I happen to know that other governments have had a difficult time facing up to this issue of market value assessment and that no one has been able to come up with a perfect answer. But at least there was an attempt to try to find an economic answer to the way of bringing out equity and fairness.

What we're bringing forward today does not --

The Acting Speaker: Thank you very much.

Before I recognize another member to speak in the debate, just a couple of comments: One is that the debate is on Bill 94, and we need to restrict our comments to that bill. The second comment would be in terms of questions and/or comments. A number of members have been asking questions and making comments about many different things but not focusing on the speech that has been given, upon which there should be questions and/or comments. So I would ask the members of the House to please be more focused in their debate.

I recognize the honourable member for Scarborough West.

Ms Anne Swarbrick (Scarborough West): I believe there is one thing that everybody agrees with in this debate, and that is that there are serious problems with Metropolitan Toronto's present property tax system that assesses taxes based on apples and oranges. Some people pay taxes from assessments based on more recent, high property values; other pays taxes from assessments based on older, low property values. Consequently, taxes for similar homes vary by thousands of dollars.

In my riding of Scarborough West there are many properties which are representative of each of these versions of property assessment. People paying taxes on the first version, on assessments based on the more recent higher property values, are feeling fed up and are refusing to take it any more. But to suddenly move everybody to assessments based on full market value threatens many other people with such sudden high tax increases that the impact would be devastating to many home owners and businesses.

There are also very strong arguments that moving to full market value assessment would have serious impact beyond that affecting individual home owners and businesses, especially in the city of Toronto. There's a serious argument, supported by urban specialist Jane Jacobs, that full market value assessment would result in urban decay in Toronto such as that which we see in many American cities. There's also a serious argument that full market value assessment would penalize city dwellers who use municipal services more efficiently. This argument is based on the premise that the costs of services from garbage collection to public transit and roads are higher per person in the suburbs where people enjoy larger lot sizes. So where does this leave us? It leaves us in serious need of a compromise in the short term; it leaves us in serious need of a major overhaul of Metro's property tax system for the long term.

Metro council has grappled long and hard with the conflicting interests before it and developed a compromise for the 1993-97 assessment period. This compromise, I emphasize, is far from full market value assessment and, as a result of my government's bill, it will not trigger full market value assessment automatically in 1998. The compromise limits any residential property tax increases from this reassessment to a maximum of 10% over two years and limits any commercial and industrial increases from this reassessment to a maximum of 25% over three years.

Metro proposes phasing in property tax decreases, where they are warranted, at a rate of 50% over two years for residences, 25% over three years for commercial properties and 40% over three years for industrial properties.

1910

Increases for property taxes on rental units are limited by the same 5% annual ceiling in each of the following two years as are other residential units. Since property taxes usually represent about 20% of a tenant's rent, that means the most a tenant's rent can normally increase in buildings affected by increases will be by 1% of total rent. Tenants should remember that any such increase is also limited by this government's rent control legislation to the 4.9% guideline in 1993, with the landlord being able to apply for a maximum of a 3% increase if he can prove that his costs have risen by a greater amount.

In rental buildings of seven or more units, Bill 94 also allows Metro council to ask the provincial rent registry to automatically decrease the maximum rent for rental units so that tenants can benefit where their building is eligible for a property tax decrease. If Metro doesn't apply, or in buildings with less than six units, tenants themselves can apply to their local rent control office to ensure that their rent reduction is passed on to them.

As a compromise for the period of the immediate four years to come, I think this is a livable compromise, and I say this as somebody who would be affected by a 25% increase if full market value assessment were enacted.

I'm also sitting on the standing committee on social development right now, which is examining Bill 94, and I'd like to point out to some of the previous speakers -- first, in terms of the member for Markham, who was complaining so greatly about the fact that there are hearings already taking place while the bill is before the Legislature, I'd like to point out to any viewers watching that the fact that the hearings are already taking place is a consequence of an agreement between all three parties in this House.

Hon Frances Lankin (Minister of Health): Requested by his party.

Ms Swarbrick: Requested by his party, my sister the Minister of Health points out.

I'd also like to point out, in response to some of the Liberals, such as my colleague from the Liberal Party who is sitting on the committee at this point, and the member for Oriole who was speaking earlier, complaining about governments changing their minds, that in response to a question I put to two of the senior staff people from the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs who were appearing to brief the committee this afternoon -- those two staff people, one of whom has been working for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs since 1988; the other has 22 years' service in the Ministry of Revenue -- they have confirmed, in answer to my question, that the Liberal government before us was moving towards enabling legislation to allow the Metro level of government to reassess property taxes based on consideration of current market values. So I'd like to point out that with all the righteous comments coming from the other side accusing the NDP of changing its position, in fact the Liberals are very clearly changing their position and their song on this issue.

I'd like to point out that I don't believe we are changing our position on this issue. As I've indicated, this is not full market value assessment. This is a compromise that the autonomous Metro level of government has arrived at after hearing lengthy deputations from all parties concerned. Before I finish, I'll point out the number of things our government is doing to try and arrive at a truly fair system of property taxes before the 1998 assessment period begins.

I'd like to point out, however, that in terms of the compromise that Metro arrived at, my government does see two areas of problems.

We see, first, a concern with regard to Metro's plans to move to a full market value assessment for resale homes.

We also see a problem in terms of the impact of the move to full market value assessment on utility lands and some other public lands, particularly the railway lands and the Hydro lands where those properties are not being assessed based on their use as utility lands. They're instead being assessed for taxes based on the use of the properties that surround them, which are used for commercial and industrial purposes or residential purposes, totally different from the value or the assessment that should exist for land used for utility purposes.

As a consequence, our enabling legislation to introduce the Metro compromise position requires Metro council to debate and to pass bylaws before it can remove the caps on tax increases from resale homes, so that it can give it much more, further sober consideration.

Likewise, our enabling legislation allows Metro to change its mind with regard to the utility lands like the railroad lands and the Ontario Hydro lands to implement a system of caps such as those it developed for the other lands we are permitting it to go ahead and make some change on.

I said that I believe there's a serious need in the long term for a major overhaul to the property tax system, and for that reason we are not allowing Metro to go ahead and automatically move to full market value assessment in 1998. Instead, between now and 1997, we're committed to a number of things.

First, the province will be working with Metro and with other communities to do a full study of the social and economic impact any future changes would have within the Metro area.

Second, we'll be considering very clearly the report that's expected this December from the property tax working group of the Fair Tax Commission, which is examining this issue very fully, and that's a second area we'll be considering in terms of a move to future fair taxes.

Third, there's a report due to cabinet early in 1993 from the Minister of Education which is looking at possible ways to reform the way education is financed. For example, that would look at whether in fact we could begin as a province to allow a system that would allow education to be funded through the income tax system rather than through property taxes. That would allow for a great reduction in property taxes and instead allow education to be financed with consideration to the taxpayer's ability to pay. I'd like to say that I'm hoping that's a move this government could make to create much greater fairness in the system of property taxes.

Fourth, our government is also examining the impact that the present negotiations between the provincial government and the municipalities would have with regard to disentangling provincial and municipal cost-shared programs, including the possible removal of general welfare from the municipal property tax base.

Finally, as a result of all the controversy around the property tax reform, another controversy that's raised its head of late has been the issue as to whether or not the assessment system that results in property tax rates for tenants of three to four times greater than the property tax rate paid by home owners is one that needs to be changed. So that's again something that over these next few years, before the next assessment period begins in 1998, our government will be looking at very seriously, at working on to bring greater equity and greater fairness to tenants' property taxes as well.

In conclusion, my government's legislation, Bill 94, allows for the implementation of what I believe is a reasonable compromise presented by the Metro Toronto council for the coming assessment period, with a fair opportunity for Metro to reconsider the areas that we have trouble with. I also believe that the studies and reports that I've outlined that my government has under way, along with the proposals we'll be initiating in partnership with the municipalities, will allow us to work on a major overhaul that will result in a much more fair long-term system to everyone.

I personally hope this overhaul will allow us to remove the financing of education from the property tax system and to finance it from a progressive system of income tax based on people's ability to pay. In the meantime, I'll be voting in favour of Bill 94 and in support of the compromise that Metro arrived at after extremely lengthy consultations.

1920

The Acting Speaker: Any questions and/or comments?

Mr Joseph Cordiano (Lawrence): I just wanted to comment on several points that were made with respect to the issue regarding proposed changes that may take place at some future date under this administration. I would point out to members opposite and to the previous speaker that it is certainly within this government's mandate to do that at this time and obviously to prepare for changes that may come. But I think it's rather a marginalized argument when we sit here and have Metro go through this entire scheme, this entire exercise, coming up with this plan, and then at some point in the future say we're going to go with these other changes which will set us in a different direction.

I think that's probably what's going to happen once the Fair Tax Commission reports because obviously, and I think this is fundamental, the members opposite and the government that we have today do not believe fundamentally and in principle in this plan. Should you be the administration in power at some point in the future when this change may result, the system that you may move to will once again have the dislocating effects that we're seeing already.

Let's not fool ourselves, let's not kid ourselves with respect to the kinds of undertakings which would be brought forward by any administration in the future. Overhauling a tax system is not something you do every day and it's certainly not something that will be done in the foreseeable five years ahead of us.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments?

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): I'd just initially like to say, every time I hear somebody from this government tell me what he's going to do in 1997 or 1998, I've got to figure that everybody in the province who's watching just has to shudder. The thought of these people still governing in 1997 and 1998 on the basis of their record so far is enough to make a person very nervous.

But let's get --

Hon Ms Lankin: Charles.

Mr Cordiano: It keeps them awake.

Hon Ruth A. Grier (Minister of the Environment and Minister Responsible for the Greater Toronto Area): Of course, it depends what the alternative is.

Mr Harnick: I knew I could make them wake up. If I struck the right note, I knew they'd all wake up. Now that they're awake, I'd just like to tell them, I've listened to many of the speeches that have been given, and excellent speeches by the member for Downsview and the member for Scarborough, and the only thing that amazes me about the speeches is the conclusions, because when I get to the conclusion, after they stand up and for 20 minutes or 30 minutes discuss everything that's wrong with this proposal, they say at the end, "I'm going to vote for it." I just can't believe that's the logical conclusion that you come to after you listen to the remarks.

The member for Scarborough West, just a moment ago, spoke very eloquently about difficulties with tenants: Why are they paying 3% to 4% more than everyone else? Yet here we have a chance to correct that. Why are you voting for this if tenants are going to continue to be hurt? You're the people who support tenants.

You talk about education and you talk about taxation for education. Aren't you the government who said that the provincial government should fund 60% of education? I haven't seen that come across the floor of this Legislature.

Why are you doing this? All of these grand ideals that you had, all of these plans that you were going to put in place, and none of it is embodied in this, yet you're all going to vote for it.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments?

Mr Brad Ward (Brantford): I'd like to commend the member for Scarborough West for a very well-thought-out argument in debate of this bill. I'd like to thank her for pointing out some very important points, more so that it was the Conservative Party, in cooperation with all three parties I guess, that insisted on having hearings while the bill is being debated in the House.

She pointed out that the Liberal Party was considering introducing enabling legislation for Metro to introduce MVA during its short term as the government of Ontario and, most important, she pointed out that this is a Metro bill, that there has been consultation, that Metro has made a compromise that it feels is in the best interests of its constituents.

I would like to commend her because now listening to her argument, I know why the constituents of Scarborough West say Anne Swarbrick is the best representative they've had for many, many years.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments?

Mr Ruprecht: I listened very attentively to what the member for Scarborough West had to say. I find it somewhat incredible that the conclusions she has come to certainly do not correspond with the premises she raised.

First, she says there are some problems with this bill and I know we would agree with that. But if there are problems, why not rectify these problems before she is prepared and her government is prepared to vote for the whole package. For instance, what I'd like to know is why the member for Scarborough West would agree to a bill when she knows full well there are no protective caps over certain corridors.

What would she say, for instance, to the protective caps on development sites that are currently vacant? Who, we want to know, is going to build on these sites when the taxes have gone through the roof and companies and developers simply cannot hang on to the businesses? Would she not agree that even with caps of 10% to 25% some of the businesses right now are simply hanging on by the skin of their teeth, are unable to make a living and are consequently considering closing? The consequence of that also has obviously been bankruptcies. Why would she give us an argument for voting for these kinds of recommendations when she knows full well there are a great number of flaws and errors in this legislation?

She knows nobody can build. She knows full well that the electrical workers who have been also writing about this, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, have also stated that real jobs will be lost because of this tax scheme. Is she therefore prepared to stand up and vote against it? Is she prepared to go down to the committee and say to the committee members, "I, Anne Swarbrick, am going to vote against this bill unless you make these changes that I've identified"?

The Acting Speaker: Thank you.

Mr Ruprecht: Is she willing to do that? That's the question we want to know today.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. The honourable member for Scarborough West has two minutes to respond.

Ms Swarbrick: First, I'd like to respond to the member for Willowdale who was asking why I would vote for this bill if it's going to hurt tenants. I'd like to point out that, thanks to my government's rent control legislation, this change will not hurt tenants.

Second, I'd like to respond to the comments from the member for Parkdale who has referred to some of the flaws in the legislation that I've identified and who asked why I would then vote for it. I'd like to point out that the reason I'm willing to admit to flaws in the legislation is because I am not interested in being an MPP who simply works on a partisan basis.

I'm willing to openly admit what the flaws are in a piece of legislation; in fact my government is prepared to openly admit what the flaws are in Metro's proposal, and that's why in our enabling legislation we're referring back two particular items to Metro, clearly with our strong hint and urging and my strong recommendation that they relook at imposing caps on resale houses, not allowing them to go to full market value, and second --

Mr Ruprecht: Stand up in committee.

Ms Swarbrick: I will be and I am, and our bill says that, member for Parkdale.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Ms Swarbrick: Further, I certainly add to my government's encouragement to the Metro level of government to relook at the issue of the effects on public land of going to market value assessment, including -- I'd urge the Metro level of government to look at putting caps on the utility lands in particular and making a strong recommendation, in this work we'll be doing along with them, that there should be a utility class for assessment, a class for utility lands.

Finally, in terms of the comments made with regard to the quality of this government, there may be a few things the opposition likes to make great hay about that in fact are a very small tip of what this government does day to day. I'd be very proud to stand on a platform and debate the substantive, competent, quality things --

The Acting Speaker: Thank you.

Ms Swarbrick: -- that my government is doing to help the province of Ontario through this difficult economic time.

1930

The Acting Speaker: Further debate.

Mr Cordiano: I am glad to rise on this occasion to speak to this piece of legislation. I would like to start out by saying that it is indeed the great compromise we're seeing before us, in terms of the plan Metro has come up with. I think this government has recognized that in fact we do have a compromise to deal with, that's been proposed by Metro.

As the previous speaker leaves us, I say to her and her earlier remarks that, yes, it was the Liberal government plan to allow Metro to come forward with its proposal on this scheme with respect to property tax reassessment, entirely because we believed in the autonomy of Metro council. It's precisely because of that that we enabled Metro council to go to direct elections. It's for that very reason that Metro dealt with this matter in the way that would enable a local municipality or a local regional municipality to determine how it would deal with this very difficult question.

And it is a difficult question. I think very many people are reacting to this in the way they are because a number of schemes have been put forward and a number of proposals have been altered, and ultimately what we have before us is in fact a compromise.

When I first looked at this, I thought it would be very difficult to bring forward in its entirety because it is made up of a series of compromises. If you believe in the principle of market value -- I know members opposite have commented on the fact that they support this as a government and that they have not reversed their positions on this, because they have put in some provisos for the plan as it unfolds for 1998.

To that, I say it's very clear that Metro council can pass a bylaw which would allow for the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto to go to full market value in 1998. The government of the day is suggesting that it can review those plans and it will conduct impact studies to ensure that irreparable damage isn't done to the local economy of Metro. I simply say that you can't look at it from one side and say, "On the one hand we have this, and on the other we're going to alter certain things we don't like."

In my earlier comments, I stated that if you have market value assessment, then you have market value assessment and you have to move forward with it, because to start a whole series of exclusions, exemptions and opting-out clauses etc that we're so fond of in the taxation system will lead us right back to the quagmire we're in today, the very reason this proposal has been brought forward. I would hasten to add that throughout the whole province of Ontario many municipalities have moved towards this scheme of evaluating properties on their market value.

So I say to the government that I think it's a somewhat false argument to say we can look at changing the basic foundations and structures of this scheme and altering it drastically to prevent the evening out, if you will, and therefore resulting in the dislocation we see from huge increases to both commercial properties and residential properties. This is difficult, and I know many of my constituents will have this kind of result.

I think what we're dealing with here is in fact the provincial role in respect to all of this. Is it this government's intention -- and it was our intention as a government -- to allow Metro to come forward with its own scheme, a scheme it decided on and which was entirely within the realm of Metro's jurisdiction, then for enabling legislation to be brought forward to bring that scheme into law? I think that's what we have before us. But for this government to suggest that somehow it's going to allow this part of the way, which is in effect a compromise -- and Metro understands it is; it brings us part of the way into the market value assessment scheme that is contemplated in its entirety some time down the road.

I think it has a number of difficulties, there is no doubt about that, but the arguments that have been made along the line that somehow the people in the city of Toronto use services much more efficiently and that therefore their property taxes should not be equal to people who are living in the suburbs, based on market value, I think are wrong in this sense: People living in the city of Toronto have a great many more amenities than people who live in the suburbs; they're much closer to cultural institutions, they're much closer to all kinds of entertainment, they're much closer to a variety of aspects of life the downtown core has to offer. Those are some of the amenities which I think somewhat offset the argument that's made with respect to services.

I know there has been an effort to spread the intensification throughout the city, and there will continue to be, so we must not look at things as they are today because I believe that in the future we will have greater intensification in North York, in Etobicoke and in Scarborough, resulting in greater efficiencies with respect to services.

If what we're implementing here is a new system which is based on a principle equal to all -- and I think some people on the other side of the House are contending that it's not -- then we shouldn't even move forward with this, if that's what you believe. I think it's far worse to come back at some time in the future with proposals that are put forward by the Fair Tax Commission and then revamp the entire system. If that's what you intend to do, in the time that you're still here as an administration, I would say that would be a colossal waste of time: to move forward with this plan, to move in that direction and then come back and try to re-alter the entire system, shake it at its very foundations. I think that's a road to disaster far worse than anything we're undertaking here.

There are no doubt people who will feel the brunt of the increases. That's understandable. There's a lot of resentment, perhaps, on the part of people who have to pay taxes that they feel are unfair. That's inevitable in the climate we're in; I understand that. And I understand the government's in a difficult position with respect to tax increases. But by the same token, I have to stand in my place and say it's not fair for the government then to suggest that somehow it's going to make things better by the Fair Tax Commission's proposals to revamp the whole system.

If that were the case, if we're going to move to a new era of taxation -- certainly the Fair Tax Commission had a great deal of time to deal with this; a sufficient amount of time -- I would have liked to have seen its proposals come forward before this matter was resolved with respect to market value reassessment in the municipality of Metro Toronto.

1940

You can't have it both ways. You can't go on the assumption: "Things will change. We'll make it better some time down the road. We'll make it more palatable for everyone. We don't really like market value, because we're not going to go with full market value. We've gone some steps towards that, but this isn't really market value."

It certainly does nothing for the constituents in my riding, who have been paying very high property taxes over the years, when this government then suggests that at some point in the future: "We're going to make it better. We're going to have a better, fairer system of taxation once we've undertaken this plan."

This plan is in motion. Once it's approved by this government, as it inevitably will be, I don't believe there's any turning back in terms of market value reassessment. As I said earlier, Metro Toronto has the power to pass a bylaw to bring about full market value reassessment in 1998.

I suggest to this government that either you have a regional municipality with the maturity that's been granted to it by our administration, yes, by the previous Liberal government, which enabled Metro to be directly elected, either you believe in that concept or you don't. If you don't, then I think and I suggest that you make that clear to the electors out there. Make it very clear that this government intends to deal with property assessment and the whole question of property taxation on its own. It's going to have direct say in how that's done. Make that very clear and then you can do what you want.

On the other hand, if you want Metro to move forward to be the kind of mature government that it has to be in these areas, then it's essential that it be given the opportunity to decide these questions. But you can't do it both ways, and this is what you're attempting to do. Not only is it misdirected, but I think it's not forthcoming of you to do this with respect to how electors will deal with it.

Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): It's not becoming.

Mr Cordiano: Well, it's not straightforwardness. Let's put it that way. I think it's a little less than straightforward, a little less than saying exactly what you intend to do, and this is a serious issue for the people of the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. It's serious in respect of its economic impact, short-term and long-term.

I think people fully expect to understand what they're dealing with. If the government wanted to do impact studies -- and it's been suggested by previous speakers that indeed impact studies are not appropriate at this time and that, on the other hand, the government intends to study the impact at some future date. I find it difficult to understand why impact studies are not appropriate at this time, given that this scheme has been altered from the original scheme that Metro had contemplated.

Perhaps I can even appreciate how some of my colleagues will in fact not support this, because it's really utterly confusing in its intention. The enabling legislation is not clear-cut. The enabling legislation is very confusing. We are considering this legislation in committee because of that very reason, and it's because of that reason that we've requested that hearings be held. I don't think members opposite expect members of the opposition to give this government carte blanche on something so important as this. You can expect us to give you a lot of other things, but not that.

On the other hand, the public hearings I think are meaningful and give people an opportunity to express their viewpoints with respect to the enabling legislation. Once again, there will be people who come forward to discuss the aspects of market value reassessment one way or the other, and that's entirely within their right.

But I think what we're dealing with here is the way in which the direction for the future is set by this government with respect to factors surrounding property tax reassessment, whether the province intends to fully deal with this on its own and, as well, the mandate and the authority that Metro council has with respect to this very serious issue.

I think --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr Cordiano: In the final analysis, I would be very concerned about this government's actions with respect to recommendations that are put forward by the Fair Tax Commission. If there are recommendations that are ready and waiting to be put forward to the public, then the Fair Tax Commission should have made those available publicly. But if you're going to plan to make major, fundamental changes, I think that's unacceptable with respect to this area in question. So I say to you, be clear as to your intentions, and this legislation is not clear.

It was my feeling at first that I would find it difficult to support this and I thought that I might oppose this legislation because you did not set a clear course of action, that the enabling legislation didn't go far enough, in my opinion.

On the other hand, I believe that market value reassessment is appropriate. I believe in the authority of Metro council to determine its own system of taxation within the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. As a result, I believe that it's appropriate that even this plan, with its various flaws, be given the consent of this Legislature and that market value reassessment be brought forward because it's a better scheme that what we had. It's a much fairer scheme than what we had, with its various flaws.

But I say to the government, I think it's not appropriate that we try to rejig that scheme and come up with an alternative system which moves us entirely away from this at some point nearer in the future. So I would be supporting this and look forward to the actual vote.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments? The honourable member for Parkdale.

Mr Ruprecht: I want to thank the member very much for his comments. One major point he's made that I think all of us will agree with, especially on this side of the House, is that this government is about to make a colossal mistake, if I quote him correctly, by introducing this legislation. Of course we know why.

How can this government introduce this legislation fully knowing that there are some major flaws in it? We've heard speaker after speaker indicate, for instance, just one example, that there were no caps on certain classes of property indicators. We know that there are major problems and yet the response this government is giving us is simple. They say: "Well, we cannot fix it. There's not much we can do about it. We can only make a recommendation." I would submit that recommendations at this specific time are not good enough. Action needs to be taken.

It reminds me of the former Soviet Union and its five-year plans: no relationship to reality out there. "Let's have a five-year plan in terms of taxation." "Let's have a five-year plan." You know what they used to do in the Soviet Union? They used to say --

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): You ought to be ashamed.

Interjections.

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Mr Ruprecht: Oh, I wish the audience could listen to this momentous demonstration of opposition.

Essentially they used to say, "We're going to have a five-year plan and our factories are going to produce 50 million lightbulbs," but no relationship to economic impacts. The glass companies could not deliver the glass to build the lightbulbs, the transportation infrastructure was not there to develop it, so it was clear, "Change it; we expect it."

The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. Thank you very much. Further questions and/or comments?

Hon Ms Lankin: I'm not sure what it was in the debater's comments that gave rise to the response with respect to five-year plans. I would point out that the Conservative government had a five-year plan for deinstitutionalization of psychiatric hospitals, in which no community services were in place. The Liberal government had a five-year plan for deinstitutionalization of community and social service facilities, in which there were no community services in place. It would appear to me that five-year plans have more to do with appropriate planning horizons than they do with ideology.

The Acting Speaker: The honorable member for Parkdale on a point of order.

Mr Ruprecht: I'm really delighted that the Minister of Health is making these comments, but as you know, they have (1) little relevance to what we're talking about here, and (2) we're talking about her five-year plans. I'd like to know what her plans are going to be in terms of treatment of addiction.

The Acting Speaker: Okay. The honourable member has no point of order. Please be seated. Further questions and/or comments?

Mr Sutherland: I'm just glad that the member for Parkdale has got up and indicated that his two minutes' worth of comments were irrelevant.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? If not, the honourable member for Lawrence has two minutes to respond.

Mr Cordiano: I'm glad my comments have sparked such outrageous behaviour on the part of all members.

Notwithstanding five-year plans, we have the three-year plan. I won't comment further on that, but the three-year plan involves what may happen in the 1995 election. As I understand it, we're going to have one in 1995, so from now on I'm going to speak about three-year plans and what this government's going to do with the next three years of its mandate.

Quite frankly, as I said earlier, I'm very interested to hear from the Fair Tax Commission and its initiatives to bring about fairness in taxation with regard to a whole host of areas: education, and taxation reform, which ties into the whole question of property taxation. It is of fundamental importance to Metropolitan Toronto as it is, I'm sure, throughout the whole province, yet we have not seen any of these proposals come forward with respect to those very fundamental and important questions.

I don't think we can talk about revamping the property tax system, as this government has indicated it intends to do or has some inclination towards doing, without understanding the kind of impact this proposal brings about. As I said earlier, it sets a course, I think, which will be difficult to veer from, or equally difficult, as we've seen a change result over this new scheme. I would say to members opposite that changes like this are not easy to bring about, so let's not kid ourselves about some new plan that you're going to bring about.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr McLean: When this bill came forward, I wanted to have the opportunity to say a few words on it, having been involved in market value assessment over many years. It is a subject that touches a lot of people, especially those who are getting an increase. I've always indicated that it's probably the ones who are getting a decrease who should be the most upset, rather than the ones who are getting an increase, because as somebody said in the remarks earlier on, that one municipality has been paying increased taxes for 40 years and now they're finally going to feel that they're going to get levelled off.

There's a lot more to this bill than what a lot of people have been talking about. In the explanatory notes it says:

"The principal purpose of the bill is to provide for the implementation of the interim reassessment plan of the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. To this end the bill amends the Municipality of Metro Toronto Act (sections 1 to 10) and the Education Act (sections 11 to 15) and repeals provisions in four private acts.

"The bill also amends the Rent Control Act, 1992, to provide for changes in the registry established under that act, where decreases in maximum rent result from area-wide reassessments in Metropolitan Toronto, a regional municipality, the county of Oxford or the district municipality of Muskoka."

I haven't heard that mentioned in any debate here that has taken place.

"The reassessment provisions are modelled on similar provisions related to regional municipalities contained in Bill 165 which received royal assent on June 25, 1992. The present bill provides for a uniform mill rate structure across Metropolitan Toronto for municipal and school purposes. It replaces the traditional cost-sharing and levy arrangements (section 8 of the bill, proposed section 241 to 241.15 of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act).

"The bill provides for the phased implementation of the interim reassessment plan through bylaws to be passed by the Metropolitan council. The bylaws will enable the council to limit increases and decreases on taxes and payments in lieu of taxes resulting from reassessment. The power to pass bylaws limiting increases will be subject to provincial regulations. An appeal mechanism is provided for ratepayers (section 8 of the bill, proposed sections 241.14 and 241.20 of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act).

"Revisions are made to various provisions related to school boards, to accommodate a change from an apportionment-based system to a mill rate system for raising money for their needs (sections 11 to 15)."

So there's a lot more to this bill than what really meets the eye, and this is the first time that I've known a bill to be dealt with in committee -- the time is now about almost 8 pm. I understand the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto is now before the committee making a presentation. I also understand the chairman is in favour of it and the mayor is opposed to it. As I said in my opening remarks, it's always been a controversial issue, market value assessment.

I welcome the opportunity to provide a few comments on this bill, the Metropolitan Toronto Reassessment Statute Law Amendment Act. The bill will enable Metro Toronto to implement, through bylaws, the compromise interim reassessment plan passed by Metro council on October 29, 1992. The bill amends Metro's own act, the Education Act, repeals four private acts and amends the Rent Control Act, which I previously stated, in the explanatory notes.

When an upper-tier municipality requests a region-wide reassessment such as the Muskokas, the regional municipalities act requires the adoption of a uniform mill rate structure. The bill proposes amendments to the education levy provisions in the Metropolitan Toronto Act and the Education Act to facilitate the adoption of uniform mill rates across Metro.

With reassessment, education finance will no longer be based on an apportionment of costs among the boards, but on mill rate estimates under which the Metro board will calculate a mill rate sufficient to cover its needs, and local boards will determine the mill rate necessary to raise its discretionary local level. The bill provides for the implementation of the mill rate estimates system. Aside from this change, the other amendments are technical in nature.

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The bill will enable Metro to implement its interim reassessment proposals by: passing a bylaw to limit tax increases and decreases in residential, commercial and industrial property classes as a result of reassessment; passing a bylaw to terminate the limit on a tax increase if a single-family dwelling is sold, and passing a bylaw to define the term "change of ownership."

It will also allow it to pass bylaws to limit the increase and, with the approval of the minister, to limit the decrease of business and real property taxes occurring as a result of the reassessment on units in the so-called excluded unit category, such as pipelines or railway rights of way.

If Metro fails to pass a bylaw to limit tax increases or decreases before June 1, in any year until 1998 that Minister of Municipal Affairs would exercise the power of Metro council and impose the limits as established in the regulation.

Prior to January 1, 1997, Metro Toronto must prepare and submit to the province a tax reassessment plan to be effective from 1998 to 2002, inclusive, and ratepayers who believe their taxes are excessive as a result of a bylaw being incorrectly applied may appeal to the local council of the municipality in which the property is located.

I want to speak briefly with regard to rent control. The bill amends the Rent Control Act to allow Metro or any upper-tier municipality which undertakes a reassessment to request that the rent register reflect rent decreases in the maximum rent for apartment units recorded in the rent registry. The municipality may be required to enter into an agreement with the province to cover these costs. Any tax decreases on apartment buildings are to be passed on to the tenants in the form of lower rents.

I have traditionally supported local initiatives in market value assessment. Many municipalities in Simcoe county have been operating under this system for years, and it is working. If I were living in Metro and my reassessment resulted in a decrease, I would be screaming, because if it drops now, it should have been lower a long time ago; in effect, I've been subsidizing others for years.

If I owned a business in Metro and my reassessment resulted in an increase of 300%, it would not be much of an incentive to stay in business or expand my existing business. This has been handled badly, and I can tell you, those business in downtown Metro Toronto that are looking at those increases are having a hard time as it is now without carrying on with large increases.

This is not the appropriate time to hit residences or businesses and industries with massive reassessment. The current economic climate created by the government does not warrant and cannot support such action.

I am pleased that the caucus I am part of has helped to secure the commitment with regard to public hearings into Bill 94. At least the public hearings will ensure some accountability in the process. This is a victory for every resident and every owner of a business or industry who has a stake in this very crucial undertaking.

In our caucus, there are members here who are split on their decision about how they feel they should vote. I'm sure most of them will be voting the way they feel their constituents want them to.

Over the years, no fewer than five region-wide reassessments have been been done by the province at the request of the region or the regional council. It has never acted to implement the reassessment. When we look at the recommendations in this legislation and see the fact that the regional councils can apply, we can certainly understand what's happening.

And we look at the impact on the Metropolitan Toronto proposal, where some 58% of Metro home owners will qualify for tax reductions. Its proponents maintain that the plan is revenue-neutral. However, it will result in a redistribution of the total tax burden so that in 1994 Toronto taxpayers will pay an additional $46 million into Metro, Scarborough $7 million less, North York $19 million less, York and East York $1.4 million less; and Etobicoke will only get -- $20,109 would be its payment.

Under earlier proposals, the city of Toronto taxpayers would have paid as much as $150 million in additional taxes. The city of Toronto will be the hardest hit of the number of properties facing increases: About three quarters of all properties in the city will experience a tax hike as a result of the reassessment. So I understand when I see those people out in the streets demonstrating, those businesses that are suffering in the economy we have today, trying to stay in business, dealing with this market value assessment proposal that would put many out of business if it was implemented.

There is no easy solution to the problem that Metropolitan Toronto has been going through for many years. But the key is, in some of the discussion that has taken place during this debate, it was certainly interesting to see some of the people who had been opposed to some of the very issues within this bill, and it was interesting to see a previous Minister of Municipal Affairs speaking on this when he talked about "the very sensitive issue, the very emotional issue," and it will happen again, and let's hope that this House won't be faced with the same problems as we're faced with today.

I've got to tell you, there are still some municipalities out there that are looking at market value assessment. There are not many municipal councils, I must say, that want to implement it. It's a tough decision for a lot of councillors. Really, under market value assessment the municipality doesn't get any more money. The fact is that some will pay more and some will pay less. It's based on the market value of the property.

Why Metropolitan Toronto is based on a 1940s valuation is totally beyond me. In most of the area I'm fully aware of, we have a 1984 assessment. I think that was the least that could have happened here, with the properties based on that assessment; better still, it could have been based on a 1991 assessment.

There's a comment I enjoy: "I realize what government is trying to do. It's trying to deal with a major problem by piecemeal, and I don't think it's going to be very successful. I believe this is a Metro decision, yes. It should be given the power other regions have to make their own decisions. But to put this House in this kind of a bind is unreasonable for this minister, and I'm glad we will have the opportunity to discuss and to meet people and organizations that are concerned about the present compromise plan."

The minister talked about the mess that existed in this province for a number of years because most of our municipalities were under section 63 or 70, and he's absolutely right. I think we should continue to provide that opportunity to every municipality, but to say that it's so unique in Metro that we will interfere, I don't think it's right to ask this House to do so.

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There have been many different thoughts presented during this debate. The debate that's in this House at the present time, also going on in committee, is going to affect an awful lot of home owners. In some municipalities, 80% will get a reduction, and it's going to be phased in. When you look at the aspect of the ones who are going to get the increase, those are the ones we're concerned about. I believe it is some 10% increase a year. That's a large increase for people to have to pay, especially the commercial assessment. The commercial assessment is the major part of Metropolitan Toronto's taxation revenues.

When you look at the whole avenue with regard to expenditures and the market value assessment we have, it's going to be interesting to see what the outcome of this vote will be. My understanding is that there are some cabinet ministers who have vigorously opposed market value assessment. My understanding also is that they will be voting agin it when it comes here to the Legislature. I think that's their right. They're representing their constituents and that's what their constituents are asking them to do.

I think it's really an issue that members are going to have to consider strongly, the points of view that have been put to them by their constituents. It may be the first time in my 11 years here that I've seen a cabinet minister -- if they do vote -- vote against a piece of legislation that has been brought to this Legislature. I think that's good. I'd be glad to see that, because I'm of the old school: I believe people should represent their constituents and speak for their constituents. Regardless of what position you hold in here, you should have that opportunity to vote what your constituents feel you should.

When we look at the industrial properties that will experience a tax increase as a result of reassessment, they'll have the increase limited to 25% non-compounded over three years based on 1992 taxes. The phase-in is the same as for commercial properties, which will be 10% in 1993, 10% in 1994 and 5% in 1995. So the industrial properties qualifying for a decrease will have the decrease phased in at a rate of 30% in 1993, 36% in 1994 and 40% in 1995 and subsequent years.

Other properties owned by non-profit groups will be subject to the same caps and phase-ins as other properties in that class. A full tax increase may apply to vacant lands, railway rights of way, hydro rights of way and the pipeline.

The article in the paper today about the TTC indicated that the increased cost to the ridership could be 45 cents per rider per trip. That extra cost is what this legislation could do.

In Metro, the mayor and all the councillors from the city of Toronto, one councillor from York, one from East York and three of the eight representatives from North York all voted against the motion. All the representatives of Etobicoke and Scarborough, five of the eight representatives from North York, two from York and one from East York voted in support of the motion, because the nature of the proposal of Metropolitan Toronto requires enabling legislation from the province to implement the very plan they voted on on October 29.

The residential properties I spoke about earlier, including apartments, which would experience tax increases as a result of reassessment would have the increase limited to 10% non-compounded over two years based on 1992 taxes; that is, tax increases linked to reassessment would be limited to 5% in 1993 and 5% in 1994. There would be no further increase until the property is sold or reassessed.

I also indicated earlier with regard to commercial properties; the same for industrial properties. If they face tax increases as a result of reassessment, they will have that increase limited to a total of 25% non-compounded over three years based on 1992 taxes; 10% in 1993; 10% in 1994 and 5% in 1995, with no further increase until the property is reassessed. Commercial properties qualifying for decreases will receive a cut equal to 12% of the total decrease in 1993, rising to 21% in 1994 and to 25% in 1995 and subsequent years.

When we look at the overall reaction of how the proposals are going to take effect, there's a consequence. Companies like CN, CP and Ontario Hydro are facing significant increases in their property taxes. The rail companies estimate that their taxes will increase by between $40 million and $45 million annually, or by 325%. The GO Transit share of that bill will jump $3.8 million, to $15 million annually.

It's easy to say these amounts of increase that I'm giving you are going to be levied against CP, CN and Ontario Hydro. The taxpayers are paying these increases. They're still coming from the taxpayers. We're asking them to pay more taxes on levies. Is this the way that the government is going to increase its taxes, another part of a scheme to raise more tax money?

When we look at the MVA proposal, it put the NDP government in something of a bind because the party has in the past opposed market value assessment very strongly. At its 1984 policy conference, the NDP adopted a resolution which said in part, "The NDP opposes any further introduction of market value assessment." Moreover, in the 1990 campaign, a number of NDP Metro members campaigned on the claim that they would vote against any legislative action that would enable Metro council to introduce market value reassessment in Metro.

Mr Harnick: Who might they be?

Mr McLean: Marilyn Churley, Tony Silipo, Margery Ward, Elaine Ziemba, Zanana Akande, Minister of Health Frances Lankin. It's also stated that she personally opposed MVA. She stated that in the Legislature. She made a speech to that effect. That's the way it's going to be. But we haven't heard from the others, how they're feeling towards the vote.

It's unfortunate that only late this afternoon did I know there was going to be a vote here tonight at 9 o'clock on this very issue. It would not surprise me if there were a lot of members away. I would anticipate that, not being aware of the vote, there are a lot of members who will not be here.

The government's strong response was dictated by the need to protect its own Metro members without rejecting the Metro proposal and thereby alienating a number of Metro leaders, including the wrath of taxpayers expecting a tax break -- implicitly taking responsibility for the Metro tax problem.

On November 5, the Minister of Municipal Affairs said that the government would introduce legislation to permit Metro Toronto council to implement the tax plan. There's been a lot of discussion since that day. I have seen demonstrations. Today we're seeing a full committee room. It's on TV in that room for those people who know how to get it, and the others who don't will have a problem, because when the Legislature's sitting you probably won't get room 151 that I'm speaking about. But you will be able to see it at another time.

On this whole issue of market value assessment, my colleague the member for Don Mills has been violently opposed to this legislation.

Mr Harnick: York Mills.

Mr McLean: York Mills. He has spoken strongly about it. His residents, his taxpayers, the people he represents must also feel the same way. We have the member for Willowdale, who feels the opposite.

Mr Harnick: No, no, no.

Mr McLean: He doesn't?

Mr Harnick: Half and half.

Mr McLean: He's half and half.

Mr Harnick: He's with the people.

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Mr McLean: Well, I'm going to tell you, he's going to have to make a decision in about an hour's time which part of the people he's going to be with, because --

Mr Harnick: You're making this real easy for me.

Mr McLean: I'm making it real easy for the member for Willowdale, but that is the way this bill has been.

At the start, I was looking at supporting this bill because of the fact that the majority on Metro council voted in favour of it. But the more I look at it, the more I've read the speeches that have been made and the more I see of the bill, I'm beginning to have a hard time voting yes. I really am, because of the implementations that have been on here.

At the start when I had indicated in the explanatory notes what this bill is all about when it refers to the Rent Control Act -- amending that, amending the Education Act -- we're talking about more here than just about market value assessment, and with regard to people getting decreases and people getting increases. This is a major piece of legislation affecting many properties, thousands and thousands of properties, that's going to affect people's lives for a long time.

As I indicated earlier, the reason I wanted to talk about this bill was to find out a little more about it so that I would have some in-depth knowledge for myself of how I should vote on this bill. I have always, in my 11-some years here as a provincial member, supported my local municipalities. I think when municipalities make a decision it's usually right, except there's one decision the county of Simcoe has made that I have not supported, and that happens to be county restructuring, because I believe that process had been flawed from the start. It was dictated from the ministry. County council made its decision based on that they thought they had to make it or the province would do it for them. I look at the London annexation and Middlesex annexation. There's a lot of dispute there with regard to county boundaries.

In this bill we're dealing with the region of Muskoka. It allows that region to come in to reassess. The bill also indicates that the county of Oxford, as a regional municipality, will have the opportunity to come in and to change the assessment.

When I look at all the implications within this bill, I have to stop and ask myself, do I support the metros or am I going to support the people who are getting a property tax decrease? When I look at the whole reaction of people who have spoken, there are very few people who want to stand up and say, "Yes, I'm 100% for it" or "I'm against it," because most of the people who have spoken on this bill have said it's flawed.

It's difficult here to vote for a piece of legislation that the majority of the members who have spoken have said is flawed. I'm finding myself in a position where it's hard to support that type of legislation. I'm sure there are many government members who feel the same way, but I also know they are committed to passing this piece of legislation before December 10 because their House leader has said he will have it passed by December 10. So it's going to pass.

We have the free thinkers on all sides of this Legislature who are going to vote the way they feel their constituents would like them to vote. Unfortunately, I guess that's the way the democratic system works if the government has a majority. This legislation came to this House from a majority of councillors, a majority of council. I presume they would be committed to trying to pass that in the best possible amended way that would suit the majority.

We have the hearings going on at the same time. They're going on now in this building. I am looking forward to seeing what amendments are made. This piece of legislation is over 30 pages -- 38 pages of legislation -- so it is a major bill, and it's not to be taken lightly. That's why I wanted the opportunity to speak, so I would have a better grasp of it to realize where my position would finally be, because I'm thinking now I may have to oppose it.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Are there any other members who wish to ask questions or make any comments?

Mr Ruprecht: Sometimes in the course of debates in this legislature there comes a time when a person stands out because of his courage and his reason. I would submit this is such a time, when the member for Simcoe East makes it clear why -- he being outside Metro Toronto -- he is voting against this bill. He says the current economic climate created by the NDP government makes it very hard for businesses to succeed.

I would submit to you today, looking at the article in the Globe and Mail where it says, "Proceed With Caution: Urban Rot Sets In," the person who writes the article, Mr Gary Gallon says:

"One of the biggest environmental problems in American cities is 'urban core rot.' It results when small businesses and middle-income residents escape the high taxes and pollution in the city centres, and move to the suburbs.

"With them, they take the tax base and balanced urban mix that is an essential part of a city. They leave behind crumbling sewage and transportation infrastructures that can't be paid for. And they leave behind the poor, who can neither pay for the city services nor escape to the suburbs.

"Rot sets in. Slum landlords perch on the decaying buildings like so many vultures. Dirty industries are allowed to remain and are not forced to clean up. Parks go to weed. Streets become unsafe," on and on.

The point being that here is a government like Hannibal: Up with the elephants across the Alps and a stampede sets in. Here they are, they're stampeding towards real destructive elements towards the city of Toronto. I would like to question today, who is the Hannibal of this NDP government? Who is the leader who starts this stampede of elephants coming down the Alps and, to some degree, creating havoc among our cities?

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. Your time has expired. The member for Willowdale.

Mr Harnick: I'd just like to comment very briefly on the member for Simcoe East's very considered comments, because as the member for Simcoe East, as a member who is not attached to Metropolitan Toronto, he can look at this issue in a very objective way, and I think he's done that. I think he's pointed out some of the difficulties that we're all having with this bill.

He's taken a look at the commercial impact, tax increases on the commercial sector in the city of Toronto. What's that going to do? What effect is that going to have on the motor that many people say runs this province? What about the impact of a tax increase on residential home owners? He's taken a look at that and he's said, "You know, it's pretty difficult to make people pay more tax now, especially those who can least afford to pay more."

I very much value the remarks of the member, particularly because after having an opportunity to study the bill in an objective way, his conclusion today is perhaps a little bit different, I believe, from the conclusion he was drawing one week or two weeks or three weeks ago.

I do think it's unfortunate -- and I'll be speaking about this very shortly -- that, whatever happens here, it's a foregone conclusion because the government House leader has said that in a week or a week and a half this bill will be law.

I think that when you take someone like the member for Simcoe East and the objective view that he takes of this, it's a shame to think that what we're now dealing with is a foregone conclusion. I would urge the members of this Legislature to take a hard look at this bill, as the member for Simcoe East has done, and consider whether this should be a foregone conclusion.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Beaches-Woodbine.

Hon Ms Lankin: I also appreciate the contribution that the member for Simcoe East has made. I think it's important to hear the points of views of those municipalities that have had different experiences with this issue or to see different issues to be considered with respect to the municipalities that they come from.

I would point out that it does underline the issue of municipal autonomy with respect to the decision-making around this, and that all other parts of the province have been able to move ahead and to do that kind of planning and decision-making in the democratic and most accountable forms of government that are closest to the people, those being municipal structures.

That, of course, has been a central dilemma for me with respect to this legislation, one that I'm very supportive of, the fact that municipal governments should have the decision-making power. They are elected, they are accountable with respect to property tax issues, and those decisions should be made at that level. I think the government bill is reflective of that basic principle.

I did want to make one comment. I was concerned. The member raised issues with respect to cabinet ministers on this side and the possibility of their voting against the bill and I actually don't know if he was picking up on comments earlier made by the member for Markham.

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I have stood in this House and made my position very clear with respect to the concept of market value assessment and my opposition to that as a method of property taxation. I have talked about my support for the principle of local autonomy and decision-making and the fact that this bill in fact is representative of Metro's request to implement a plan which is far from market value assessment and my support for ongoing property tax reform over the next number of years.

I've also indicated that as a member of cabinet I would not vote against a government bill which I in fact support as a compromise that has been reached between the disparate interests of those in the city of Toronto and those of Metro within our own caucus. So I wanted to make sure that was clear to the member.

And to the member who raised the issue of Hannibal, may I say I've heard now about the USSR and five-year plans and Hannibal. I'm not sure what any of this has to do with market value assessment.

The Deputy Speaker: Any further questions or comments? If not, the member for Simcoe East, you have two minutes.

Mr McLean: I'd like to thank the member for Parkdale for the brief comments that he made; also the member for Willowdale. I think that we will hear his remarks shortly, but I want to thank him for the comments that he related to me.

I want to thank the member for Beaches-Woodbine, the honourable Minister of Health. I heard her statement in the House and I enjoyed it thoroughly when she made it. I appreciate the straightforwardness that you showed with regard to that very major issue.

One thing that I didn't touch on -- and it hasn't been raised in the comments, but I have a minute and 20 seconds left -- during all this debate: The Fair Tax Commission has had no input whatsoever that I'm aware of to the government and any recommendations that may in the long run be looked at as part of re-evaluation of assessments in the province. I'm wondering if there's anything forthcoming from the government with regard to the Fair Tax Commission when we're going to be looking at education, health and many other issues related to it.

When we look at the confusion that has taken place among some of the members here with regard to this very issue, I'm glad I had the opportunity to get up and to put some things on the record that I felt very strongly about, as many other members have. So I just thank the members for their comments and I'll listen to the rest of the debate.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate?

Mr Harnick: It is an important debate and I'm pleased to be able to take part in it. A member like myself, whose riding sits virtually right up the Yonge Street corridor, has a very difficult time -- and I wish to be very frank about this -- dealing with market value assessment; a difficult time because you have certain beliefs and you also have certain duties and obligations to your constituents to do what's right for them.

This is a debate that unfortunately has pitted neighbourhood against neighbourhood, community against community. It is a policy that has developed that I think has been very divisive, and because of the way this policy has developed and because of the divisiveness that has arisen within our community, I think that right off the bat a warning sign goes up, at least for me, a warning sign that says: "Is this the way we have to develop legislation? Is this the way we have to make our tax system a fair and equitable tax system?" I just don't think that is the way we have to proceed in terms of reforming property tax.

In my neighbourhood, Yonge Street runs virtually right up the centre of my riding. On either side of Yonge Street is probably the oldest section of the city of North York, the original North York community bordering Yonge Street on either side. Those properties, because there's a subway and because they are so accessible to the core of the city of Toronto, have escalated greatly in value.

But let me tell you who lives in those homes. I have in that section of my riding, the original core of North York, a great many seniors and I have a great many young families with children. Those people have seen the value of their homes escalate drastically, and at the same time, and that's through no fault of their own, the rules of the tax game are changing, and the impact on my constituents who border that core is going to be very significant.

Add to that the fact that a lot of those houses are small, bungalow-type houses. They have been very ripe for redevelopment, and a great many of them have been knocked down. The lots are probably 50- to 75-foot frontages and they're relatively deep lots, and on those lots, after the small bungalows have been knocked down, there have been developed large, very expensive homes. When you drive up and down the streets you'll see a neighbourhood that has a lot of new homes and a neighbourhood that still has a lot of the old, traditional bungalows, those affordable homes the young people have purchased, those homes that seniors who purchased them 30 and 40 years ago are now living in.

Those homes, because of their ability to be redeveloped and because of the lot sizes, have escalated greatly in value. Because of that escalation in value, when we go to a market value system, the people who are living in those neighbourhoods are going to see their taxes going up through no fault of their own.

You come down to the proposition that under market value assessment two families of the same size, with the same earned income, living in equivalent houses in different parts of the city could end up receiving very different tax bills. If you're on the Yonge Street corridor in a small bungalow, where you've been for 30 or 40 years, on a fixed income now because you've retired, you may end up having a tax bill that's considerably more than someone in an equivalent home in a different part of the city. So there's a basic inconsistency here.

I think when I hear the buzzwords "fairness" and "equity," when we have two families living in equal housing and one family is paying more tax because of his home being in the Yonge Street corridor in the traditional area of North York, is that fairness and is that equity? The services they're receiving are the same services, but I don't think it's fairness and equity when the tax bills are grossly different. That's what's happening to a great many of my constituents.

Even more than that, we're now embarking on a program that is not going to answer the long-term question of fairness and equity in property tax once we go down the slippery slope. What I see, now that the compromise has been reached, is a tax system that is really very much maintaining the status quo but with a little bit of pain to those whose taxes are going up and with very little benefit to those whose taxes are going down, because generally, at least in my riding, they're not going down by a great deal. There are some exceptions, but they're not going down by a great deal.

Once we embark upon this tax scheme, I suspect we could come back to this place 10 years from now and there's not going to be anything very different about the property tax system in Metropolitan Toronto.

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I think what we're doing in many respects is perpetuating the status quo with a very marginal adjustment. Those who have been overpaying, or perceive that they've been overpaying for many years, are feeling a little better because that disparity has been reduced, but a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, the disparity will continue to exist. Those whose taxes went up, at least in my riding, are those who can least afford to have their taxes go up and they're going to hurt because of this. Those who are looking for a tax system that was going to create fairness and equity are not going to find it in this scheme.

So I don't know why we're embarking on this particular approach. I don't know why, because we have the Fair Tax Commission. I understand they're reporting as early as next week about their proposals for definitive tax reform in Ontario and within the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto.

Why are we going ahead and doing this now? If we do this now, I put it to you that we're going to be perpetuating a system that is not fair and not equitable and is going to be with us for a long, long time.

Another aspect I want to touch on here is the process that has been involved in developing this scheme. It's interesting that when the market value scheme was announced, all of a sudden throughout September and October we started to have within the city of Toronto all these demonstrations, people stopping traffic, people expressing how badly hurt they were going to be when market value assessment came along. The Metro chairman said: "You know, we never thought of all those problems. We never thought of what would happen if those massive tax increases were implemented. We never thought of that. We never did any impact studies. We'd better step back and see if we can find some other method to correct this."

Then we hear the story of a few Metro councillors going out for dinner, working out a compromise and selling it to their confrères on the Metro council. To me, that is not a process conducive to fair and equitable tax reform, not for the people who live in the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, not for the people seeing their taxes decrease, and not for the people seeing their taxes increase. All this scheme is doing is perpetuating the status quo with some marginal adjustments that are not answering the issues of fairness and equity.

There are some other areas that I think are somewhat disturbing about this plan, in addition to what I've already pointed out. We hear so much about how much the city of Toronto has received by way of advantage. I suppose that when they say "the city of Toronto" they're also lumping in with that the centre of my riding. But the city of Toronto ratepayers, I understand, provide 42% of Metropolitan Toronto's education revenues and 38% of Metropolitan Toronto's general revenues, yet that section of Metropolitan Toronto comprises only 32% of the population.

It seems to me that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand it's because there is so much commerce in that section of the city that it's able to carry a disproportionate load. But when you go ahead and do something that's going to affect that commercial base; when you go ahead and tamper with the amount of tax that that commercial base is going to be paying in what the Premier daily tells us is the deepest recession this province has gone through since the days of the Depression; when you go and tamper with that economic base that so many experts have said is the driving motor not just for Metropolitan Toronto but perhaps for the whole province, when you go and tamper with that fine balance, I shudder to think what would happen if that commercial base, because of these increased taxes, were no longer able to produce the kind of numbers that Metropolitan Toronto needs: 42% of Metro's education revenues from that section of Metropolitan Toronto; 38% of Metro's general revenue from that section of Metropolitan Toronto, which only comprises, I tell you again, 32% of the population. If you tamper with that and you don't know what the outcome is going to be, you may be playing Russian roulette.

I just can't conceive of going ahead and really going about a very half-assed scheme of reforming property tax without performing an economic impact study. I can't conceive that Metropolitan Toronto didn't do that. I can't conceive that the New Democratic government will not take the time to do that. What they want is to get this done quickly. Even if it's wrong, even if it perpetuates unfairness and inequity, the answer has been, "We've got to get this done and we've got to get it done by the 10th of December, because that's when the Legislature rises."

So what are we doing? We're not going to have any impact studies. We're not going to find out what the impact on that commercial base is going to be. What we're going to do is we're going to start the public hearings at Queen's Park even before we're finished second reading debate. I know that most of the people here have been in this place longer than I have, but I defy any of them to tell me that they've ever been here when public hearings on a bill started before second reading debate was finished.

I can't conceive that this is logical. It just boggles my mind to think that we're still up here debating this issue, and downstairs there are people coming before a committee trying to change the mind of the government in terms of whether this is good or whether this is bad or how to make it better. We're up here still debating the bill and we honestly want people to go in there and think that this is not a farce? I can't conceive of it. I can't conceive of the fact that this government didn't even want public hearings. They didn't want public hearings.

Mr White: Well, don't dignify it with your comments, Charles. Just sit down.

Mr Harnick: It wasn't until the opposition, my party in particular, impressed upon them the importance of letting everyone be heard --

Mr White: Of course.

Mr Harnick: In the face of that, the government House leader said today, before the hearings had even started, before second reading debate was finished, that this bill will be law on the 10th of December. What message are you conveying? The member for Durham is shouting at me, but I ask him, what message are you conveying to the people who come here in good faith to discuss this piece of legislation? What message are you conveying to them? You're conveying to them that you're going through the motions and that you're not proceeding in an honest way, in a forthright way, and that you're not listening to what they have to tell you. I don't care whether you're in favour of this proposal or you're opposed to it; the fact is, in this procedure, the process smells awful.

If I were a member of the public who had to come here and pour my guts out in front of a committee and I knew, on the day that I was there, that the House leader had said the bill is going to be law a week from virtually today and that we're going to have it done and that the hearings are going on in spite of second reading debate not being completed, I don't know what I'd think, but I sure would be disappointed. I sure would be disappointed in this government. I sure would be disappointed that there hasn't been an impact study. I would be disappointed because nobody is taking this seriously; nobody is putting his or her best foot forward to provide a fair and equitable system of property taxation.

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A couple of other matters: vacant land. If you have a piece of vacant land you're going to get killed, because there's no cap on it. Your property tax is going to go up 200%, 300% or 400% on a piece of property that you bought and it's not producing anything for you. It has probably gone down in value and your tax base is going to go up 200%, 300% or 400%.

CP rail and CN rail say this is going to cost them $40 million to $50 million. Well, when those companies that offer services to the consumer -- you and I -- have a bill of an extra $40 million or $50 million, they're going to pass it on to the public. For all those people who live in my riding who are going to get marginal decreases -- well, they're going to pay it all back when they get on the GO train and have to spend $20 more every month. That's what it is going to cost them, because that's the way Canadian Pacific is going to get its money back. I can't blame them.

This is the government that professes to look after tenants. They portray all the rest of us as evil, but tenants are not getting any break here. Their taxes are going to be 3% or 4% higher than everybody else's. I don't see the government doing anything to rectify that. They've got an opportunity, but they're not doing anything.

What about hydro? In my riding we had hydro go up 11%, 9% and 8%, and North York Hydro is not going to be protected by these caps. They're going to pass that increase on to my constituents, many of whom are going to have 10% increases in their property taxes. They're going to have 8% increases in their hydro rates. How are people on fixed incomes going to continue to live in a home that they bought 30 years ago and now you're changing the rules in midstream? That's going to hurt people who live in the riding of Willowdale and I fear for those people.

I heard from a gentleman today in my riding who in fact was receiving a significant tax decrease and he's going to get that tax decrease once this bill becomes law. I know this bill will become law, probably in a week. But at the same time, he said to me: "What's going to happen with the separate schools? I understand separate schools are going to face a tax loss here of about $13 million." He said: "The Brébeuf school in our riding already has 60% of the school in portables, because there isn't enough money to put a proper addition on the school. Now the separate school board that looks after the Brébeuf school is going to have a deficit of a further $13 million." My constituent said to me: "It's great that I'm getting a decrease, but that's not going to help because I'm a separate school supporter. What are we going to do about that $13 million?"

So what I point out to you is, this bill is fundamentally flawed. The bill is nothing more than maintaining the status quo, maintaining the inequities that already exist, and once this bill becomes law it's going to be here for a long, long time, because it's going to be a long time before a government brings back a proper, all-encompassing property tax reform scheme once this is finished in this Legislature.

So I don't think this is going to be beneficial in the long run for my constituents. I don't think this is going to be beneficial in the long run for people in the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. I think it's going to affect the tax base and the ability of businesses to be successful, and that will be very important for the sustained growth of Metropolitan Toronto.

I'm pleased to have had an opportunity to speak on this bill. I'm pleased there are members here who have come in, as my friend from Simcoe East came in, and indicated that after having an opportunity to study this bill, to reflect upon it, he's gone from being a person in favour of it to a person who may very well vote against it now. I hope other members of this Legislature will have that same opportunity of reflection and I hope they'll be able to vote in a way that is going to best reflect what their constituents want, as opposed to the way the government, the whip and the House leader have dictated they should vote.

I am pleased to have been able to take part in this debate and I hope we can all vote in a way that's going to benefit our constituents.

The Deputy Speaker: Questions or comments? The member for Parkdale.

Mr Ruprecht: I listened to the member for Willowdale, who had a number of good points to make. First of all, he said there are those who look for fairness and equity, and the question he raised was, will they find it? Of course, the conclusion here is obvious: There will be no fairness and there will be no equity. He obviously makes a very good point and I want to congratulate him on it.

The reason why there cannot be any fairness and equity is simply because when you base a whole new tax scheme on 1988 values, which were at the height of the real estate market, how can you find fairness and equity? You simply aren't able to do that.

In addition, how can it be fair that this scheme specifically will exclude vacant lands, which obviously generate no business tax, from any protection from extreme tax increases? Obviously, we have a number of specific instances. In this case, as a result of this discriminatory action, the vacant land holdings of one company alone will experience tax increases under this reassessment plan of $4.2 million. That will be an increase in taxes of 363%. The member for Willowdale points out these facts and says, "How can there be fairness and equity if one company's vacant land taxes will increase by 363%?"

If this scheme is fundamentally flawed, should the question not be raised: Why is this government trying to bulldoze or trying to elephant, trying to stampede this into acceptance? It's obvious it needs a full re-examination.

The Deputy Speaker: Any further questions or comments?

Mr Remo Mancini (Essex South): I have enjoyed listening to the debate that has taken place over the last number of days concerning this very sensitive matter. I've especially enjoyed the arguments made by my colleagues in the Liberal caucus.

I want to say that I agree with many of the points the member for Willowdale made tonight, especially the point about the way the government has handled this whole issue. I frankly don't like the way the government has handled it. I don't like the way they decided to have public hearings. I don't think it's appropriate on a matter as important as this, which affects the number of people this legislation will affect, to have hearings the way you've planned them.

To have public hearings and full committee hearings while the Legislature is in session is wrong. To have public hearings and full committee hearings on weekends and on occasions when it will be difficult for many people from all parts of the region to participate, to watch or to follow is wrong.

What you're doing is finding the most convenient way for the NDP government to do what the NDP government wants to do. You're not looking for the most convenient, the most practical, the most democratic way of doing something that is in the best interests of the three million people who live in the metropolitan region. For that reason alone, the bill needs to be voted against.

I'm surprised that this government has not learned anything through its trials and tribulations. It doesn't matter what problems they seem to run into; they don't learn any lessons whatsoever.

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The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. Any further questions or comments? If not, the member for Willowdale, you have two minutes.

Mr Harnick: I appreciate the comments of the member for Parkdale and the member for Windsor.

Interjection: Windsor?

Mr Harnick: Essex South, I'm sorry. I know it's close to Windsor.

I think it's interesting to note in the comments, and having listened to a number of speeches on all sides of this House, that even those who are in favour of this bill recognize that it has significant weaknesses. It creates very significant problems, and I think, because of that, it's incumbent upon all of us to reflect whether this hastily put-together piece of legislation in this disjointed process that we've gone through to get to this stage is really beneficial to the people of Metropolitan Toronto. I tell you, Mr Speaker, that if people think this is going to create fairness and equity in property tax reform, they are sadly mistaken.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate?

Seeing none, Mr Cooke moves second reading of Bill 94, An Act to amend certain Acts to implement the interim reassessment plan of Metropolitan Toronto on a property class by property class basis and to permit all municipalities to provide for the pass through to tenants of tax decreases resulting from reassessment and to make incidental amendments related to financing in The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members. This will be a 30-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 2103 to 2104.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I have a note here, a request that the vote on the motion for second reading of Bill 94, MVA, be deferred until after routine proceedings on December 1, 1992. Signed Dianne Cunningham, chief whip, PC caucus. Therefore, the vote is accordingly deferred.

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Minister of Financial Institutions and Minister of Energy): I understand that there's an all-party agreement to consider orders 58 through 69, inclusive, concurrently.

The Deputy Speaker: Is there consent? Agreed.

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY

Mr Charlton moved concurrence in supply for the following ministries:

Ministry of Agriculture and Food

Ministry of Health

Ministry of Education

Ministry of Housing

Ministry of Transportation

Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology

Ministry of Community and Social Services

Ministry of Natural Resources

Ministry of the Environment

Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations

Ministry of the Solicitor General

Ministry of Tourism and Recreation.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): Minister?

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Minister of Financial Institutions and Minister of Energy): I have no comments, Mr Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to participate in this debate? The member for Lawrence.

Mr Joseph Cordiano (Lawrence): It gives me great pleasure indeed to rise on this occasion to speak to the motion on concurrence in supply. Of course, what we're dealing with is obviously consent by the government to move forward with provisions to allow for expenditures to take place in a variety of ministries.

I think it's important at this point that we review just what's taken place with respect to this administration's conduct as a government, and it's my contention that we have as a province not been well served by this administration at all. It's also obviously the view of many, many people out there in the province of Ontario, who are at this very time shaking their heads with not only regret, I suppose, but in great dismay and sorrow about what they have seen unfold before their eyes in the last couple of years, and in fact the situation hasn't gotten any better. The fact of the matter is that we have seen in the trials and tribulations of this government a whole series of misadventures, a whole series of follies with respect to misguided, misdirected initiatives and greatly missed opportunities.

This government has failed to realize that it is in fact setting the absolutely wrong course for the economy of this province with respect to the sense of purposefulness, the frustration that people feel out there, the lack of understanding, the lack of appreciation for points of view that are different, points of view that really speak for the need to have that real conciliatory attempt made by the government to bring people together.

It was this administration and this Premier, after having taken office in October 1990, that said: "We want to bring people together. We want to work with people from all walks of life, people who have different points of view, people who do not always agree with us. But we're willing to listen to what you have to say," that fundamental concept about listening to different points of view, consulting with the wide variety of groups so as not to miss what is really at stake, so as not to miss out on opportunities for bringing us forward into the future, which means working with people, which means sitting down with them and understanding what their difficulties are.

Time and again I have heard from a variety of groups and a variety of individuals across the province that they're simply not getting these opportunities from this government whose doors have recently been closed. Oh, there may have been attempts in the beginning to listen to others, and then there was a process whereby certain people felt that there was a great deal of opposition in one area or another.

Bill 40 is a perfect example of that. The minister has claimed that 300 groups were consulted, numerous hours were spent listening to alternative points of view. In fact, what resulted from this exercise was completely diametrically opposed, a polarization of interests in a very difficult and a very dangerous environment for this economy of this great province to flourish, to turn itself around.

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On a number of occasions I have stood in this House -- my colleagues have as well, members of the opposition -- to point out to the government this very basic and fundamental flaw in its thinking. You cannot say on the one hand, "We're going to bring people together; we're going to be conciliatory," spend hour after hour, hundreds of hours, talking to hundreds of groups of people who have all said basically the same thing, and then not even remotely consider some of the difficulties and concerns that have been expressed. That is simply not the measure of conciliation.

That simply doesn't live up to the kind of rhetoric that was heard from this Premier, Bob Rae, who sounded a conciliatory note, who sounded as though he really and truly wanted to be a great leader, because he was willing to listen to diverse opinions, diverse points of view, and accommodate those views to create the kind of positive environment that would have seen the economy turn itself around in the not-too-distant future. That's in serious jeopardy, my friends.

The fact remains that the economy will turn around at some point. Whether we participate in that world economic turnaround, which is inevitable and which will come some time in the near future -- predictions are being made as I speak that 1993 will be a much more positive year. In other places in the world, we're going to see a full turnaround by the end of 1993 and into 1994.

I believe it's appropriate for us in the opposition, as we point out day after day in this assembly the shortcomings, the shortsightedness, the oversight, if you will, of this government with respect to its initiatives, to say to the government: Of course you're experiencing difficult times. We understand that on this side of the House. We understand that some very difficult decisions have to be made with respect to budgeting, with respect to transfer payments. I think the recipients of those transfer payments understand that, as all members of this House understand that fundamentally.

I think people are willing to work with this government. In fact, once again we heard the language of conciliation, that the government would work with transfer payment recipients who would work with the government to ensure that efficiencies were gained in the budgetary process.

People understand that we're facing difficult times; of course they do. The environment is such that no one expects unrealistically to receive the kinds of increases we were seeing three, four and five years ago. What's at issue here is not that. I think that point has been made repeatedly by both the Treasurer and other observers. The world has changed. We live in a very difficult period of time economically. People out there understand that.

They understand also that as we all have to undertake restraint, so too does the government. Once again, the government must lead by example. What irritates me is the use of symbols. If you're going to use that, that's fine. Freezing salaries for top civil servants, members of Parliament and cabinet ministers etc is all understandable, but I think by the same token, the government has to say to itself, "We have to abide by this process of restraint or this imposition of restraint."

It's difficult to stand here and understand how the government is going to allow, for example, the Workers' Compensation Board to move ahead with its plans to build a new edifice at a price tag of $200 million at a time when there's enormous excess waste in the city of Toronto. There are millions upon millions of empty square feet and the Workers' Compensation Board has indicated, and its board of directors I understand made this decision, that it is going to build this new complex. Seventy per cent of it will be occupied by the Workers' Compensation Board for its uses and the other 30% will be leased out.

Well, isn't that the height of ridiculousness? How absurd. How can you lease out the other 30% of the unoccupied space in this building when no one else wants the other 27 million square feet that's already empty? There's just no use for it. So I see that there's a flaw in the plan with respect to what the Workers' Compensation Board has already decided to move forward with.

There are numerous examples of misdirected and misguided initiatives. The government has decided in its recent announcements on the budget for transfer payment recipients -- in effect, it's using the 2% solution. We know that, in fact, it's not 2% and in many cases it could be minus 2%. There's a range there of payments to the transfer recipients which could ultimately lead to a reduction in transfers and a reduction in the amount that's actually been paid over last year of 2%, and the wholesale removal of some programs.

The community living people were here to visit us last week and the depth of concern, in fact, the almost desperate situation that a lot of people find themselves is unbearable. I heard from parents of autistic children who had a great deal of difficulty. The special needs program is being cut.

A lot of this kind of funding was really cost-efficient and in fact the kind of initiatives we had undertaken as a government when we were in power with respect to community-based care, respite care which served an incredibly useful purpose for parents who found themselves in that very difficult situation and who had disabled children who were challenged and found respite care was the only solution for them, the kinds of special needs funding that enabled these parents to carry on in some normal fashion resembling our daily lives that we take for granted. I say to the government, when you're going to make these kinds of cuts occur for the neediest people in our society, I can't accept that. And that's not saying that we want it both ways.

Interjection.

Mr Cordiano: No, it's not because there are enough areas or examples of other kinds of cuts that can be made.

Hon Bud Wildman (Minister of Natural Resources and Minister Responsible for Native Affairs): Just give us one.

Mr Cordiano: Oh, there are lots. You know, to allow for all the increases -- the member says, "Give us examples." Well, when they took office, immediately there was $500 million that went out in the form of additional pay in wages and salaries to a variety of interest groups which had supported this government, friends of the government who received those dramatic increases, and then they turned around and said: "Well, it was the fault of the Liberals who had this deficit. This was pre-programmed spending from a variety of sources. The Liberals were at fault. They allowed this deficit to occur."

2120

In the meantime, however, they spent an additional $600 million on one thing or another: increases in the OHIP fee schedule for doctors; increases in the pay scale for nurses. They rescinded the promise with respect to teachers' pension plans. They did a variety of things which they got in at the beginning and blamed the Liberals for -- misguided expenditures which are now coming home to roost, which are beginning to be felt in the most serious of ways. What do we get from this government? Cutbacks to the most needy -- special needs funding which has been eliminated.

I just say to this government that that's is not acceptable, not even for your party, not even for a party around here that's been in government. Opposition parties can't stomach that. Not even the Tories can stomach that. I just say to you that once again I think it comes down to misguided priorities, not having a sense of direction, not having a sense of where this government wants to be, where this government is taking the economy. This government fails to realize that yes, we're in a difficult situation. We all understand that, as I said earlier, but the point is, it's how you deal with a difficult situation, it's how you move forward, it's how you deal with a difficult economy.

No one is going to judge this government on the basis that expenditures have not increased. Expenditures haven't been made in new areas. People realize that that can't be possible now. People realize that what we have to do is maintain essential services. This government has talked about maintaining essential services, but in the meantime they've spent on a whole bunch of other things which were not, in my opinion, of the highest priority. To talk about 2% increases and wages which some of the contracts that have been negotiated over the last year or so -- 2% and 3% increases are, I think, irresponsible.

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): Compared to what?

Mr Cordiano: It's irresponsible in the context of this economy.

The government has indicated that it wants to work with people, wants to try to limit increases, wages, wage settlements, and then it allows 2% wage increases. Two per cent does not sound like a lot compared to the world of 1988. But 2% is a lot of money today. A 2% increase is a considerable increase in today's environment when inflation is running at only 1.6% right across the country. In fact, in Metro Toronto we have deflation. So, I'd say that these things are measured against the backdrop of today's economic situation. In that regard, this government is failing in a whole host of areas.

I will want to deal with the initiative of the government to bring about casino gambling. In my area of critic's responsibility I have on many occasions talked about this issue, and I want to make mention of some important facts which are coming to light at the present time with respect to the government's decision to move ahead with a pilot project for casino gambling in the city of Windsor. On numerous occasions I've said to the government, "Look, it's understandable that the citizens of Windsor and the city of Windsor want to move forward with this proposal." On this side of the House we recognize that Windsor and border communities like it face very serious circumstances, have had irreparable damage done to their economies -- Windsor and Sault Ste Marie, Niagara Falls, Fort Erie and a variety of other border communities. The negative effects of cross-border shopping and, prior to this, the lack of Sunday shopping, I think, contributed negatively to the fortunes of the retailers in those border communities.

It is no wonder that the people in the city of Windsor are embracing the concept of casino gambling with open arms. They are desperate. They are desperate to find a solution to their problems. I say to this government, it's fine to move forward with this initiative, because the people of Windsor need this initiative to work for them. They need something positive. They need to get their economy going in the city of Windsor. But by the same token, I say to you, Mr Speaker, they've held out this carrot to the city of Windsor, but what they failed in and what the minister has failed to point out -- and I think the minister has some time ago recognized -- is the fact of revenue-sharing.

At first she said, "Yes, well, we're going to look at the possibility of sharing revenues from the casino with the citizens and the local municipality of Windsor," some time ago in the spring, and then in the fall, after having conferred with the Treasurer and the rest of her colleagues in the cabinet, came back to us and said: "No, there's absolutely no way that we can share revenues. All the revenues that will be generated from the casino in Windsor will go into the provincial treasury, and what the city of Windsor will get are the incredible spinoff benefits."

Well, I'm not convinced that the spinoff benefits will be so incredible. I've a great deal of concern with respect to the so-called spinoff benefits. It remains to be seen whether in fact the spinoff benefits will accrue to the city of Windsor as has been pointed out by the minister and by this government. I think it would have been much appropriate for the government of the day to allow for a sharing of the revenues generated from the casino in Windsor, because it would have recognized some very essential factors about casino gambling and the kind of casino economy that's created.

It is a casino economy. We hear rumblings about the city of Detroit looking to have a casino. There will be, potentially, competition from across the border at various points along that border. There's already a casino across the border from Sault Ste Marie, which draws like a magnet from Sault Ste Marie. I believe that the competition is inevitable for these cities. I think the spinoff benefits will be lessened, diminished by the competition that's created, and that in fact these cities will be hard pressed to meet the demands and the needs that evolve from a casino-type economy. I hope that's not the case, and will be looking at this very closely to ensure that the city of Windsor is not shortchanged by this government.

Additional services will have to be provided in the form of policing, and additional social services will have to be provided. I believe that those will be formidable costs for the city of Windsor, and I do not think this government has recognized that to the extent that it should, so I'll be looking to see that this government makes good on its promise to enable the city of Windsor to have the kind of economic spinoffs which it should have from this decision.

This government talks about having attracted some foreign investment, the Premier's latest trip to Asia. He talked about meetings with various corporations, Toyota being one of them, and the possibility of a plant being located in Ontario.

It was my colleague the member for Wilson Heights who pointed out today that that's probably an unlikely scenario, that he would be very surprised indeed if Toyota moved ahead with this decision for additional investment in the province of Ontario.

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We are, on this side of the House, extremely concerned, and it's not because we are being partisan about this. If there was enough good news, we wouldn't be able to say this. We wouldn't have to say this. We wouldn't have to stand up and point out the seriousness of the situation with respect to a lack of investment. You know, the old argument is that people around the world will look at what we're saying and its being negative. The fact is, I don't think that by pointing out the concerns we have, the people around the world are especially going to look at exactly what the opposition is saying. I think it's far more important what the government is saying, or not doing or not saying. I think that's what people are assessing. People are looking at this government, around the world, and they get negative signals. They don't get positive signals.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): Only from the opposition.

Mr Cordiano: Oh, they're very negative signals. Bill 40 is one example, as I've pointed out. The insurance industry, for example, looking at the provisions that have been brought forward for winding down business and restrictions and costs of doing that; that's in the new bill the minister has brought forward with respect to auto insurance. That's devastating stuff. People around in the insurance business have looked at that and said that will destroy any possibility of any new investment coming to this province. It's an absolute, unmitigated disaster.

We have seen a tremendous dropoff in investment dollars in this province -- tremendous. In fact, we are continuing to lose jobs, as my leader has pointed out on numerous occasions, at an alarming rate, just an appalling rate, and this government has blamed Ottawa.

Interjection.

Mr Cordiano: Well, you've done that. You've blamed Brian Mulroney. That's fine.

Hon Mr Wildman: Do you think he's blameless?

Mr Cordiano: No, I don't think he's blameless, but I think you're as culpable as he is in a lot of areas.

The fact is, you've blamed free trade. You know, the effects of free trade can and should be blamed to some extent but, quite frankly, I think there are a lot of gains that have been made as a result of the free trade agreement and we should work on those positive aspects of the agreement which enable us to move forward, instead of continuing to fight -- at least that's what the rhetoric is, that they've blamed free trade, they've blamed the federal government, they've blamed the federal government for the lack of transfer payments. They've blamed just everybody else but themselves, and I think it's appropriate for this government to start looking at just exactly who is to blame. All of these problems are not the result of somebody else's doing alone.

For all the Premier's efforts to sound conciliatory -- and he does this in a very apt way; he's quite good at it -- I say to him, "Look, once in a while, sit back and say, 'Maybe we haven't done all the right things with respect to the economy and perhaps we've made some mistakes.'"

No, instead, he comes up with an apology for his bungling ministers and their misadventures, and he says, "We've been more scrutinized than any other administration in the history of this province." Nonsense; utter nonsense. You know that's not the case. The fact is that there are enough things to look at and that's simply the reason people are examining, in a critical way, as they should, what this administration is all about.

It's one series of events after another, and it's not somebody else's fault that there are these foibles in your caucus, that things don't go properly, the way you think they should. It's your own fault.

People are human -- the Premier points this out -- they make mistakes. We all understand they make mistakes. I don't think anyone on this side of the House or anyone looking at this would not say to the government: "Yes, you can make mistakes. We're all human, we're not perfect." But it's not somebody else's fault. If you make mistakes, that's fine, but you have to live up to them. You have to be able to say straightforwardly: "Look, we've made mistakes but we're going to correct them. We're going to work with all interested parties to make sure these mistakes do not become a recurring theme."

That's just exactly what concerns us on this side of the House. It's no wonder we're led to believe there is a theme running through all of this, that in fact this is the way the government operates and these mistakes are symptomatic of what's wrong in that administration. It's no wonder we sit here with a great deal of alarm, trying to comprehend just what is taking place over there. When you have the kinds of incidents that occur in the Premier's office, the highest office in the land --

Mr Bisson: Land?

Mr Cordiano: This land, the province of Ontario. It's land; it's not sea. It's not what you think right now. You're on the ocean and you're losing your way. We have our feet on the land. This is precisely why I'm pointing this out to you, because you don't.

What's taking place over there is, we believe, a systematic approach to handling these problems. The Premier stands up time and time again and says: "I'm taking action to correct these problems. I've called in the police to investigate this or investigate that."

My friends, I say to you, it's time to examine the ethos of this government, to examine the way in which you're operating. That's what we've called for. We've called for an examination of the Premier's office, not to ascertain criminal wrongdoing -- we understand there's a police investigation. At the very least, we've said to the Premier, "Allow the investigation to be carried on and, once it's concluded, then allow a committee of this Legislature to examine the operations of your office to ensure and reassure the people of the province that there isn't a systematic approach to handling these problems in the way that's been exemplified by this administration."

We are deeply concerned that in your efforts to silence people who are critics of this government -- this is why I pointed out that in the beginning the government sounded conciliatory, sounded as though it wanted to work with all parties, sounded as though it wanted to work with people who were opposed to it, both on ideological grounds and for practical reasons. I think it's appropriate to point out at this time that our concerns are not unfounded. They stem from the fact that what we heard in the beginning and what we're seeing now are completely incongruous. It's no wonder that we sit here flabbergasted.

The opposition, being what it is, is going to question these things. You can't expect people on this side of the House not to question these matters in as critical a way as we are. What we're talking about is the fundamental integrity of this administration, of any government. If we do not have that in place and if there is a question about the integrity of this government, don't you think it's wise to clear it up as soon as we can so we can put that behind us? We would like to do that because, as the Premier has pointed out, he wants to deal with the substantive matters of the day. I say to you, members of this government, that it's difficult to do that when we have hovering around us these very fundamental questions of integrity. If it's not the case that there's a systematic effort on the part of some people, perhaps, or some branch of this administration and parts of the Premier's office -- I don't know -- then let's get it straight.

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Yes, we're going to have a police investigation. Yes, it's under way. The Premier could simply allude to that. Yes, he can do that, and he has done that. He has done that, according to his obligation and duty to do that. His office calls him to do that. I think it's also appropriate for him, at this point, to have indicated that he's not unwilling to allow us to examine all members of this House and of this assembly to satisfy ourselves that his office is operating in a way that can reassure the citizens of this great province that they will not be attacked in the kind of way we have seen occur, in the method, in the systematic way that it's been conducted against Judi Harris.

I think that's fundamental. I think that's fundamental, and I stand here today and say to you that it's difficult to discuss these matters with respect to the conduct and the integrity and the fundamental right of a government to govern. It's difficult to raise these matters day after day. It's difficult for members of the opposition and all members of this House to have to deal with this question. I think it's a complete waste of time if the government insists on hiding behind the police investigation for all time. I think it would have been very appropriate for the Premier of this province to have indicated in questions we've asked that he would not be averse to a legislative committee examining this entire question, to clear the air once and for all and, if there were serious wrongdoing, for him to say very clearly that the wrongdoers would be punished. That has to be maintained; the integrity has to be maintained at all costs.

So I say to you that it is difficult for not only members of the opposition but, I think, all citizens to not sit bewildered as to the appropriateness of the operations of this government when they have some serious questions that need to be answered. Yes, the Premier has pointed out that other incidents of a serious nature have occurred at other times in other administrations.

You know, it's not the incidents; it's how you handle them. Yes, this is a different world today, and calling inquiries is a difficult matter. We understand that. But what we've suggested is an examination to be undertaken by a legislative committee of this House. Well, the Premier sits there and says, and his colleagues will say, "It's a highly charged partisan committee and you would never get an unbiased examination of the facts." I say that's wrong. I say that's entirely wrong because it is a public forum. It's open for all the interested parties to be present, to follow the proceedings of this legislative committee. I think that would be appropriate, and I don't think that anyone would doubt, in the end, the facts. What we're interested in are the facts. Yes, there will be a lot of rhetoric, but we know that the good citizens of this province will examine the facts and will come to their own assumptions. They always do, whether it's now or at the next election. We know that they come to their own assumptions. Let no one be mistaken about that. It's been proven time and again and it was proven in the last election, as we all witnessed.

The government is no doubt facing difficult times, but I believe that things will improve. The economy of this province is in difficult, dire straits, but things will improve around the world in the following 12 months. Things already seem to be improving in the US; consumer spending is up. There are some positive signals elsewhere in the world that the world economy may indeed pick up. Projections are that somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3.9% growth can be expected for this country, and there are other parts of the world where that may even be higher.

I think the government has its own forecasters who are making certain assumptions and I think those assumptions can be questioned at times. But I think there's a growing consensus that we are in an upturn economy, that things will improve over the next 12 months. As a result of that, we have to examine what this jurisdiction intends to do to take full advantage of any possible upturn in the economy so that we do not miss opportunities, as we have been missing them, even in a recession.

There are jurisdictions in the world that have undertaken initiatives which are strengthening their economy, even at times of recession. I'm not suggesting that the government undertake these massive expenditures for this or for that. I would say this, however: that the capital works projects that the government has lauded as being the answer to the critics who say that the government hasn't done anything on the economy -- if you examine a lot of these initiatives, they aren't happening quickly enough, particularly with some of the plans around Metro for rapid transit expansion and road expansion. We saw delays with respect to the plans being put forward, the subway loop in the north of the city up to Keele.

I would like to see that speeded up because that could provide immediate work for the countless thousands of construction workers in my riding and elsewhere who actually do not need to be trained, who are sitting on the sidelines, who are sitting at home perhaps collecting unemployment insurance and in some cases now desperate enough to have to go on social assistance. These are thousands of people, thousands of workers, who do not need to be trained and can become very useful to the economy and very productive almost immediately.

The plans call for five to 11 years for completion of these projects. I honestly believe that these things can be speeded up so that we would have expenditures at double the rates. That would create significant numbers of jobs which would provide the kind of stimulus that's so essential at this present time.

The government has failed to do this with respect to its capital works and it has missed a glorious opportunity to turn around, at least in Metro Toronto, the savaged economy of this municipality. There are a number of initiatives that are required. The government cannot do it alone, but certainly the kinds of expenditures on infrastructures that can be made aren't being made. That, I say to you, would create meaningful work, productive work and it would have an impact on this jurisdiction, the municipality of Metro Toronto. I'm sure there are capital works in other parts of the province that can be speeded up.

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Members of the governing party would say, "Well, where is this money going to come from?" It's a question of priorities, I say to you. In fact, it's a mere pittance, what they've planned to spend in terms of capital works. The kinds of expenditures we've seen to date are the kinds of expenditures that used to occur every year when we were the government. The increases are not significant. In fact, in some areas there are no increases at all on capital expenditures. So I would say to the government, there's a lot more that you can do in this regard to get people back to work, and that's the best way in which the government can be involved.

It all comes back, once again, to the whole question of attracting investment. There is investment going on in the world. People are getting ready for a turnaround in the economy. That's taking place right now in other jurisdictions around the world. I think to just simply say we have a world recession, that it's the federal government, Brian Mulroney, free trade -- you name it -- only goes so far, my friends. At some point you have to do certain things against which backdrop, in the context of governing in this province, people would measure your accomplishments.

I think reasonable, objective observers would say, "Look, the government can only do so much." I agree with that proposition. The government can't be the answer to everything. We on this side of the House understand that -- fundamentally. We're not asking the government to do a lot of things in a lot of areas. Of course, where they shouldn't be involved they are getting more involved and at a very inappropriate time.

But in the final analysis it would be wise for this administration to look at, once again, propositions and initiatives which would seek to attract investment. We need investment in this jurisdiction. We have seen over the years that the economy of this province, in fact of this whole country, depends a great deal on the flow of investment dollars for its success. The whole history of this country has involved foreign investment and from time to time it has come under question.

But we now live in an age where the economy is global, where investment can go anywhere in the world and in fact countries around the world seek to attract investment. Foreign investment is not such a dirty thing. It leads to the creation of jobs. It leads to the standard of living to which we have become accustomed. It leads to increases in the kinds of meaningful work. We have no choice in today's economic environment. We should do everything to attract that investment and we're simply not doing it in this province.

Investors do look at policies and initiatives. Once again I will reference my colleagues' remarks today. The member for Wilson Heights has pointed out that people around the world have suggested that it is not the referendum that failed, it's not a variety of other issues like free trade or the NAFTA agreement; it is the very fact that the policies of this administration do not look attractive and in fact do not look at all positive to people who are attempting to invest in plants and equipment, looking to set up new factories around the world.

This jurisdiction does not look as attractive as it used to for those reasons and you have to share some of the blame for that. You have to be willing to admit that certain of these policies have become questionable.

I don't think the members on the other side can sit there and say to themselves honestly that the controversy surrounding Bill 40 and the controversy surrounding the changes in the auto insurance bill that was put forward -- that investors have not looked at that and that those initiatives have not had a negative impact. They most certainly have. I don't think there's a member on that side who can honestly say that. You may wish to suggest, "We understand that, but we're moving forward because we have to, for a variety of reasons, because we promised this," and once in a while you do what you said you were going to do.

Of course, there are countless examples of reversals which, I think, in the long run serve this province well. The fact that the government did not move ahead with public auto insurance is a positive thing and I think most people who were giving opinions on this matter were satisfied with the system as it was and did not want to see a public auto insurance system imposed on the people of this province. The government, in that case, listened to the vast majority of Ontarians and decided not to move forward with that election promise.

I think you need to examine a variety of other initiatives or policies. I think it's important that we be careful in terms of the kinds of long-term impact that will have on the economy. I know the government has attempted to make a number of corrections -- restraint is the order of the day -- but I say it has not really come clean with respect to the way in which it's moving forward, as I pointed out earlier.

As I said, people can live with parameters, with limitations, if they understand what they are. After a significant process of consultation, I think they would be able to live with those things because they understand we live in a difficult world, a difficult economy. But you need to make people truly your partner in order to do that and at that you have failed, and failed miserably.

I think it's important for this government to understand that in order to have some success in the future, in order for this economy of this province to turn around, it needs to do a lot better with respect to the private sector. The perceptions are all wrong. If someone were even to agree with the fact that you've stated time and again that people are being unfair about the criticism which they've levelled against this government -- and I know, as I said earlier, the Premier in his speech the other day to his own party said, "We are being examined in the most critical of ways, in a way that has never been seen by any administration."

Those are the standards that he himself set and he has no one to blame but himself. Those are the high standards that he said he would live up to. Those are the standards that he said were better than any other administration. "We can live up to those very high standards because we are better. We will prove to the people of this province that we're going to earn their trust and their respect because our standards are better."

I say to you those are lofty words, Mr Speaker, lofty words indeed.

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It's one thing to say, "Look, we're going to approach this thing, with respect to governance, as a serious business." Yes, that's fine, understandable. People in the province want that to go forward. Anybody would. But by the same token, it's another thing to make pronouncements at the start of this administration's life not only about what this government intended to do but to look back and say: "Those people who were here before us, we're not like them. We're better. We're far better, in fact. Our standards are much higher and the people of this province will come to realize that, not because of our words but because of our actions. They will realize that we have what it takes."

You know, I must say that we in the opposition in the first year of this administration's life, I think, gave it an opportunity to demonstrate that. The fact that we are now so critical is only as a result of the series of incidents that we've seen, that we have witnessed in this assembly repeatedly, and there is no question that we have to raise these matters. For members of the government to say now, "You're being unfair; you're being highly critical and highly partisan," is completely irresponsible on their part, because we are the opposition and we must be critical when it's deemed to be necessary.

I ask you, Mr Speaker, at what time is it more appropriate than now to be very critical, when the very integrity of a government is at stake? This issue will not simply die away. It will not.

As I said earlier in my remarks, the Premier would go a long away towards accomplishing that if he simply recognized that in order to clear the slate we need to get to the bottom of this. We would be willing to wait until the police investigation is concluded, but at that time we would want to ensure and reassure the people of this province that there is not a systematic approach to dealing with these incidents, that there is not a hint of a coverup.

I don't want to believe that. I don't think any member of this assembly wants to believe that. In fact, I do not believe that, but I want you to prove that, if not for me, then for the people of the province. I want there not to be a shadow of a doubt.

I don't have the words of the throne speech that brought this administration into power, into being, but if I can recall, those were lofty words indeed, and I am paraphrasing from that: "There must not be even the perception of inappropriate deeds and actions."

But it's difficult. It's much more difficult today to stand in our place as opposition and to simply allow the government to proceed, without questioning these very extremely fundamental questions of integrity. It is difficult to accommodate the government's view that we have to get on with other business, to steer away from questions surrounding the Piper affair. It is very difficult indeed for us because we really believe that the Premier has not cleared this matter up in its entirety. We are not convinced, and I think that thousands of other people in the province are not convinced, and it's precisely because of that that we need further examination of the facts. We need further enlightenment on just what took place.

It's not good enough to simply suggest that no other person was involved. We find that incredible. Is it possible that one person, no doubt of deputy minister status, had acted entirely on his own, entirely on his own initiative, and conducted his affairs without the knowledge of other people around him? Communications is what Mr Piper was charged with the responsibility of conducting, and by the very definition of "communications," I would say to you that it would be very difficult for me to understand how someone in his capacity would have not spoken to his colleagues, the media, talked to other people in the Premier's office at his level, would have acted without someone else there recognizing and understanding the full extent of these very, I would say, despicable deeds.

To undertake that kind of initiative, I think -- and it's been pointed out by other members -- calls into question the safety and security of people's private and personal matters. When a government can do that, when a government can undermine someone's privacy, someone's confidential documents, privileged information, if that is indeed what we're dealing with here -- I understand that the police investigation will get to the bottom of that, but if that's what we're dealing with, then we on this side of the House find it very difficult indeed to accept that this would have taken place in complete isolation, singlehandedly, by one individual.

If that's the case, then we've got to question how the Premier's office operates in its entirety. If there was no wrongdoing, then we want to question how it is that this could have been undertaken in complete isolation and that at this high level there wasn't someone else to whom Mr Piper would have conferred this information.

To get to the bottom of it, we would clear up these questions, and I think all of us would be satisfied once we have that assurance that the Premier's office was not being systematically conducted in a fashion that we find very inappropriate, and I think most citizens of this province would. We want to clear that up. We want to do it for all of us in this assembly, get to the bottom of that matter.

As I said, we have to continue to ask questions about this because it strikes at the very heart of what constitutes the fundamental right of any government to govern, and that is to have the confidence of the people it governs. Without that confidence, it is very difficult indeed to proceed. It is very difficult for a government to move forward with its plans and its initiatives when the people who are being governed do not have any confidence in the institutions that are governing them. So I say to you, Mr Speaker, the best thing this Premier could do at this time would be to clear the air and get this entirely behind us.

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There are just too many areas to cover and I think it would be appropriate for me to allow one of my colleagues to carry on this debate, but in conclusion, I would like to say that this government has to refocus its efforts with respect to the economy, understanding that there will be some positive economic news in the new year, that there will be an upturn that will occur around the world.

You will be judged against that. If this jurisdiction does not see any positive gains when economic recovery is occurring throughout the world and we see gains in other jurisdictions, then it is exactly as we say when we point out time and again to this government that this jurisdiction is suffering as a result of the policies and initiatives that have been undertaken by this administration. We will find that the test will be when the economy turns around, if we do not see a similar turnaround in the economy of this province as will be occurring in other jurisdictions in proximity to us. We see already that it's not encouraging, because Ontario is lagging behind the rest of the country with respect to its performance economically. It's not an encouraging sign.

I say to the members opposite on the government benches, let's not prejudge. Let's give you an opportunity next year to see what happens with the economy in this province. I know it's worrisome for a great number of people, because these policies and initiatives that have been undertaken by this administration are in place now and are having the kinds of negative consequences that we have been talking about repeatedly.

Hon Mr Wildman: "Repeatedly" is right.

Mr Cordiano: Yes, and we will continue to repeat our concerns because it takes repetition to get this through. You have to revisit your approaches when there simply haven't been the initiatives, the directions. The Premier, going over to Asia, talks about business in Ontario as not having pulled up its socks and not able to compete on a level footing with other jurisdictions. Quite frankly, it's not encouraging. We've got to start hearing positive signals from this government. We've got to start hearing initiatives that speak to the kinds of concerns all of us have heard around this province. Let's see some initiatives that do not just say, "Look, we're going to spend this money or that amount of money in that area," without recognizing the kind of impact that will have.

I realize and all of us realize that discretionary revenue simply isn't there for the kinds of expenditures that would be required to stimulate the economy, but the Treasurer of this province, back in 1991, was warned that he alone could not take us out of this recession by spending at the rate of a 13% increase over the previous budget. That simply would not result in economic spinoffs. Spending of a certain kind results in a multiplier effect. Certain kinds of spending in certain sectors will result in that multiplier effect in some cases being five or six times the expenditure, and in other cases, being far less than that. I think that's what this government has failed to realize, that the kind of expenditure on capital works -- I think they've realized that a little too late, and they did not spend as much money as I would have liked to see in expenditures on capital projects, capital works.

That's the kind of thing that should have been undertaken by this government initially, back in 1991, in its first budget: to increase capital expenditures, to keep the construction industry operating at a far more significant level than it is today. I think the climate for investment would have been much more positive than it is today, not even considering the kind of legislation that has been brought forward by this government. But we're talking about a situation now where if the government increases expenditures, it's not going to be able to do it significantly enough.

What I think needs to be done at this point is to look at some serious cuts in some areas which have to be made. Yes, the time has come to look at some areas, and we have to be straightforward about it. But I think you need to get your priorities straight, and it's going to be the case in this House that you're going to get questions that will be critical when you bring forward idiotic initiatives of the kind that we see coming out of the WCB. That's simply an unjustifiable expenditure because it's not, in our opinion, economically viable at this time. Expenditures on building office towers are not something that I would call infrastructure spending that's going to have the kind of impact that I'm talking about; expenditures on rapid transit and transportation in general are. Any way you look at it, whether it's WCB funding for that project -- and obviously that will have to come -- it's taking money out of the economy. So you can't deny the fact that that's the kind of expenditure which I think, in terms of its multiplier effect, yes, will create construction work, but in the long term is not justifiable.

So I say we have to look at cuts in areas where there is a lot of waste, where that multiplier effect is not so significant. You have to do that, because there simply isn't going to be the revenue generation that existed there before. You have to look at doing that with respect to a number of areas. It's difficult to cut any area, but you're going to have to do that. That's the environment we live in.

We're going to measure and be critical of your actions in that regard: more focused spending which will have that multiplier effect. That's what we're going to measure it against. So as we look to the future which will unfold in the next fiscal year of this government, as the Treasurer prepares for a new budget in the spring, we're going to be looking at those critical questions. I for one will be looking at expenditures in capital works, expenditures that will have that multiplier effect which will lead to long-term jobs in the construction industry, and at expenditure cuts in those areas which will not have that kind of impact. Essentially, it's going to have to come down to that.

In the end, people will judge this government on questions of integrity, questions of its ability to correct its inadequacies, and this Premier's action or lack of action with regard to those areas. Ultimately, the people will judge. People will make those kinds of judgements one way or another, at election time or sooner. The Premier could take the initiative, as I said, to clear the air, and if he wants to show true leadership, that's exactly what he should do.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Further debate on concurrences.

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Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the concurrences in supply for the various ministries. We're dealing with them all, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Ministry of Health, Education, the Ministry of Housing, Transportation, concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Community and Social Services, concurrence in supply for the Ministry of the Environment, Consumer and Commercial Relations, Natural Resources, the Solicitor General, and Tourism and Recreation, and I plan on touching on every one of those subjects.

I know that you'll be delighted to hear my remarks and I will spend the first part mainly on the Ministry of Natural Resources, for which I'm our spokesperson. I am sure that the minister will have some interjections along the way. I'm very positive of what I'm about to say. However, the government may not think they are as positive as I do.

For those people who are in Thunder Bay, Timmins and North Bay who are sitting there tonight, I will assure you that I will be finished by 11 o'clock so that you'll have the opportunity to watch the local news. I just want to let you know that if you listen, you will hear many different things about the concurrences and how this government is operated.

Hon Mr Wildman: Speak to the people in Fort Frances. You get an extra hour.

Mr McLean: I also want to talk to them in Wawa too, Minister of Natural Resources, so that they will hear my comments. It's nice to see the Speaker back in the chair and I welcome this opportunity to provide a few comments on the motion for concurrence in supply.

I have some very real concerns about the policies coming from this Minister of Natural Resources. I sincerely believe that he is jeopardizing the future of Ontario's forest industry, putting our natural resources at risk, implementing a series of tax grabs and threatening the role of our provincial park system in providing a wide range of recreational opportunities and in its contribution to the social and economic life of the regions in which parks are located and the protection of the unique historical and natural values associated with our parks.

The minister's policies are threatening Ontario's forest management and jobs. The minister has little regard for the long-term consequences of his actions. During the 1980s there was a vision and a plan with respect to forest management renewal and sustainability. Sadly, that is not the case today. Somewhere along the way, driven in large part, I suspect, by quick fixes, narrow issues and vested interests, this government has lost sight of any form of commitment to our forest industry. This government has closed its eyes to the vision and set aside the plan.

There has been a series of policy decisions on the part of the minister and this government that runs counter to any semblance of responsible resource management whatsoever. On February 12 of this year the minister announced Operation Tree Plant, which was really a stunning retreat in terms of the province's commitment to tree planting. The so-called Operation Tree Plant really means the government is actually planting 35 million fewer trees this year than it did previously. Clearly, this is not responsible or professional forest management.

On March 24 the minister dropped the other shoe when he announced that four of Ontario's 10 tree nurseries will be closing: the Chapleau and the Gogama facilities this year and the Thunder Bay and Midhurst sites next year. The Midhurst site, one with better-quality trees grown and with a productivity of approximately 85%, is being closed. We have received letters and resolutions from county council condemning that closing of the Midhurst tree nursery, which I am well aware of. It's approximately three miles from the farm that I have on Highway 93 north of Barrie so I'm very familiar with that area. The Midhurst tree nursery, as I said, has underground water sprinklers; it's one of the most up-to-date and one of the best and to see it closed is a sorry state of affairs in many, many people's opinion.

This decision was not based on any long-term forest management considerations, vision or planning but because of fiscal desperation. What this minister is doing seriously threatens forestry regeneration and the future of our province's forest product industry. The minister's current budget allocations -- approximately $130 million to forestry over the next three years -- he plans to chop by $100 million, $40 million to be slashed in the first year alone, going totally counterproductive to what the minister had indicated he wanted to go.

So obviously the minister's commitment to Ontario's forest is dead and, to add insult to injury, the minister's misguided decisions are all made at the height of a recession when we need this kind of investment the very most.

The Ontario Silviculture Association estimates that 2,000 to 3,000 jobs, mostly for students, were eliminated in forestry and in their industry by the minister this summer. The ministry itself estimates that the closing of the four tree nurseries will cost 50 permanent jobs and 180 temporary positions.

Interestingly, Thunder Bay city council has endorsed a report from the local Tree Seedling Growers' Association which called on the NDP to ensure that 165 million trees are planted annually. In the Thunder Bay region alone, the minister's cutbacks are costing an estimated 770 jobs, but the impact is being felt right across the province.

The cuts in the forest regeneration program seriously jeopardize the future of our provincial forests and the products in that industry, as well as an industry that supplies about 160,000 jobs in 40 communities.

Another area of concern is that the minister has cut the budget for conservation officers by as much as 50%. The ability to react to serious after-hours complaints from the public about natural resources abuses has been thwarted almost entirely. Officers will not be paid to respond to these complaints and in some areas they are being denied even time off as compensation in lieu of payment. The minister has failed to recognize that commercial poaching is a serious threat to wildlife. He is merely paying lipservice to this very real threat and is doing nothing to protect our natural resources.

Ontario at one time used to be the leader in Canada in the field of special investigations to combat commercial poaching, but this year the special investigations unit was disbanded and its members reassigned, all in the name of this minister's misguided reorganization. This minister fails to realize that Ontario's wildlife is a priority that deserves better protection and that the taxpayers in this province deserve a level of service that is not just a shell of what it was in previous years.

It wasn't long ago that I made a statement in this Legislature with regard to Presqu'ile park. The conservation officers had been in touch with me complaining about intimidation and harassment with regard to charges that were laid but not followed through and were withdrawn. I asked the minister to reply to me in writing and I would hope that he would do that because these people want to know the result of that.

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The Minister of Natural Resources and his government continue to find new routes into the wallets of Ontario's taxpayers. Well, he didn't get into mine today, but I went over to the ministry to buy my new Outdoors Card and found out that I couldn't pay for it in cash, that I had to send a cheque or use a VISA card.

So I put it in the mail and sent it and I find out that it's not even the Ministry of Natural Resources that's looking after it; it's farmed out to some group to look after it. Not only that, we've no idea what the cost is, we've no idea whether it was tendered, we've no idea who is looking after this new card that we're talking about. Anyhow, I had to write a cheque and it will be a few days' more time and then I'll receive my new Outdoors Card, I hope.

So these extra tax grabs are having an effect on all our hunters, anglers and people who are concerned with regard to the cottages and residences that they own within parks or that they lease.

In the first case, the Minister of Natural Resources has already imposed his own form of market value assessment -- we were talking about that earlier here tonight -- when he announced the rent increases for recreational lots and crown land, including recreation camps for fishing and hunting, summer resort leases and cottage leases in provincial parks. They're all getting an increase. It could be $100 or 10% or 15%, I believe; I'm not sure what it is. He hopes to have the market value achieved within five years, so Algonquin and Rondeau provincial parks' cottage leases will virtually double from the current average of $1,200 to $2,450 by the end of the five-year period.

This annual 15% tax grab is completely unacceptable and unwarranted, especially at a time when the annual rate of inflation is approximately 3%. These increases will have an injurious impact on leaseholders, our senior citizens and many others who are struggling to survive on fixed incomes. So the minister should reconsider his 15% tax grab and implement a more moderate policy that truly reflects and responds to the troubled economic times facing the people of Ontario.

In the second case, the minister announced a new Outdoors Card that he claimed would make life easier for anglers. He conveniently forgot to tell anyone that it will also mean a 50% hike in the cost of going fishing next year. So the cost of the minister's new magnetic-stripe Outdoors Card will be charged on top of the $12 fee for a fishing licence. Hunters must also pay the additional card fee on top of hunting licences, which range from $20 to $30; that's annually and that's depending on the type of weapon used and the game to be hunted.

The new card system, which will affect approximately 1.5 million anglers and hunters, is more tax grab for the province, more revenue for the province. The whole upsetting part of it all is that when it was first initiated, the licensing and fees were to go back in for conservation officers and restocking our lakes and, from what we gather, the amount of money goes into general revenue so therefore it is not totally going back in for the use that we thought it was supposed to be there for.

Many people are concerned about the lack of direction the minister is exhibiting with respect to our natural resources and speculate that he simply cannot balance his responsibilities in terms of both resources and native affairs. That has been a great contention right from the very beginning with regard to our OMAF people. Many people have raised that very issue, that they feel the two portfolios should not be together. They feel there's a conflict of interest. They feel that they're at odds with one another when the one minister, the Minister of Natural Resources, has to make the decision with regard to protecting our conservation lands in both portfolios.

On October 19, the minister announced that the 1992-93 interim hunting agreement had been signed between Ontario and the Algonquins of Golden Lake. Many third parties, such as the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, are appalled at the short notice given by the minister to have their comments on the draft agreement. Everybody is wondering why a full public consultation process was not conducted, although the minister indicates that it was.

Interested third parties were denied the opportunity to present their views before the first interim agreement was negotiated, and those same interested parties were once again denied the opportunity to provide constructive comments when the agreement was renewed. So this minister and this government continue to make a mockery of the concept of public participation and consultation.

The government, with regard to the agreement with the Algonquins of Golden Lake first nation, signed a second interim hunting agreement from October 1991 to August 1992. Land-claim negotiations between Ontario and the Algonquins of Golden Lake first nation began on June 15, 1991. As part of the negotiation process, the parties agreed to put in effect interim arrangements regarding aboriginal food harvesting.

Ontario found that the first interim hunting agreement was effective in conserving wildlife, preserving the values of Algonquin Park, protecting public safety and respecting private property rights. There was no conflict with the public's ability to enjoy hunting, camping, canoeing, fishing, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in the park.

This is a news release in part from the Ministry of Natural Resources which indicated that this is what took place.

The second interim hunting agreement contained several changes that reflect public input. These changes provide the public with some measure of insurance regarding public safety, wildlife conservation and protection of park values.

Other changes are designed to make the agreement more efficient to administer, and there are some changes in the 1992-93 agreement. The agreement covers hunting by the Algonquins of Golden Lake throughout the land-claim area. Hunting in Algonquin Park by members of the first nation under the terms of the agreement is restricted to the area north and east of Shirley Lake Road. The harvest was set at 100 moose and 175 deer throughout the land-claim area, which is a small percentage of the total number hunted annually in the area and well within the level to sustain the limits.

The news release from the ministry for the 1992-93 agreement changed from last year's agreement. The hunting season for mature female moose will be shorter than the season for other moose and will end on December 6, 1992.

Another change that was made with regard to hunting inside the section of the park designed for this began on October 13, which I believe was later than in the previous year. So there have been some changes made with regard to the Algonquins hunting in a designated area of the park.

Ontario will fund the first nation's cost for hiring and supporting an official who will ensure that the agreement is enforced.

The 1992-93 agreement is in place and we hope there will not be any problems. When an agreement comes to be looked at for 1993-94, I hope the minister would involve more of the people who have been sending him letters and concerns about not being contacted. I hope he would see fit to contact those people for another time.

I'd like to move on to some of the other concurrences in supply that I wanted to speak about. I have the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

Last Thursday, Bill 105, An Act to provide Stable Funding for Farm Organizations that provide Education and Analysis of Farming Issues on behalf of Farmers, was given first reading in the Legislature. I haven't seen a copy of that bill yet, but I know there has been some concern raised from farm groups with regard to that bill. The indications are that it could be used for many different reasons. They feel that some of the people who will benefit certainly will be bureaucrats within the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

I have a long-outstanding question that I've never had answered yet. That very issue is with regard to the $150 fee that is being paid. What is the money going to be used for? That is a question I've asked. I have not gotten an answer from anyone yet on that.

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There are many people who are opposed to this very bill. There's a committee out there that is very much opposed to it. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, the farmers' union, of course -- those organizations are very supportive of this bill.

I know the minister has some concerns. He would like to get it through in this session. But I have had phone calls, and there are many people who want to have hearings. They want to have public hearings if it's going through. Many people want to have a vote. So there's a lot to be discussed yet with regard to that very issue.

But we all must not forget that the farming community is hurting. One of the first ones to have been hurt, the farming community is the one that supplies us with what we have on our table every day. I don't think we should forget those hardworking people out there. I know my son and his wife, who run my dairy farm, or our dairy farm, work seven days a week. It's just got to be done when you have a dairy farm. So I think that farming has a priority in this province, and we all should make sure that it is a priority.

One of the recommendations with regard to the issue is the expansion of staff that some of the people want to anticipate. The Christian Farmers want a willingness to coordinate and build coalitions in the farm community. These people really think that this is going to help, and I hope they're right. They're really putting an effort in to get this type of legislation through, because they feel they will have more say. The farming community needs more say. The farming community needs more input into policies of government that affect the lives of the people in this province.

I hope the minister will listen to the concerns that are being raised out there. These are not people raising these concerns who are really opposed to it, but they want to know what they're spending their money on. Farmers are not people who throw their money away, and if they're spending it, they would like to make sure that it's being spent in a proper way.

Last April, the Minister of Health announced her commitment to allocating $29.55 million for the redevelopment of the Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital. The project was supposed to result in the redevelopment of the hospital on the existing site, including diagnostic and treatment facilities. I would hope, Madam Minister, that those funds are still available, and that once the planning is done, they will be proceeding.

I would hope that the Barrie hospital would be proceeding in the same form as what already has been indicated. She's not shaking her head yet, but I would hope that it's not in her plans to put those facilities on hold. She's well aware, as anybody is, of the area. It's a growth area. There needs to be a major regional hospital in that area, and the allocation that has been made to the Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital to do the addition is so important that the community has raised close to $7 million of its own just for this addition to be put on. So I hope the minister will make sure that those projects proceed, which I'm sure she will. The people of the community are wondering, and I would hope that has not changed.

One of the other major concerns that I have is with regard to our nursing homes and our homes for the aged. I have over the years on many occasions spoken here with regard to the Huronia Regional Centre in Orillia, which is an ideal location where the mentally handicapped are housed. It's a large facility, and part of it now is being used by the OPP relocation team that's there. It's an ideal spot for people who are in the chronic care units in the hospitals who are able and available to be out in a more homey setting.

There are those who do have to be in facilities. We know that. We know our aim is to keep them in their own homes as long as we can. I agree with that. But there is a cutoff point where if you have round-the-clock nursing in one home, it couldn't be more costly if you had them in a facility where you've got three or four or half a dozen being looked after.

The county of Simcoe has taken over the Hillcrest home in the city of Orillia. It was run by the United Church of Canada, which was finding difficulty in maintaining that home. Some years ago, the county took over the Trillium home in Orillia, and they're both very close by. I have great faith in the county operations. They have a home in Beeton; they also have one in Collingwood and one in Penetanguishene. Those homes have a waiting list, as most do.

But I think the emphasis also should be on establishing more nursing home beds or homes for the aged. I think you can certainly keep a person in a nursing home for $300 a day less than what we're keeping them for in our chronic care units in the hospitals, and I really have a problem with that. So I would hope the Ministry of Health, while it is restructuring within the ministry, can have another look at that.

It wasn't long ago that the spokesperson for our party on the Ministry of Health talked about long-term care announcements and the user fees in order to reform Ontario's health care system. In introducing the Long Term Care Statute Law Amendment Act, the government confirmed its plan to charge seniors $300 a month more for nursing home care. The government is expected to raise $150 million through this user fee increase.

"'While the government rants against user fees, the Health minister continues to apply these fees in a covert fashion,' said the member for Simcoe East." I don't know whether he's right or not, but I have to think that there are a lot of things in here, that we're talking about the financial commitment to long-term care. There is a financial commitment to long-term care, and I'm sure the minister is looking at this very issue, because when we're talking about the frail and the elderly, there's no one here who would not want to see them looked after properly, and I'm sure the minister feels the same way.

Last month, the member for Nipissing unveiled New Directions, Vol. II: A Blueprint for Learning in Ontario. The document focuses on three distinct principles: opportunity, excellence and accountability. That forms the core of my party's education skills training blueprint. This government must realize that if we are to provide career choices and varied opportunities for the next generation, we must first provide excellence in our educational system, and all students should graduate from secondary school with advanced language and mathematical skills and the ability to learn the marketplace skills of their choice.

I urge the Minister of Education and this government to take a non-partisan approach to excellence in education by giving serious consideration to New Directions: A Blueprint for Learning in Ontario. It really is a book that allows the people in this province, if they're that interested in education, to make their views known. It's a book, it's a challenge, and the more we can talk about it and the more input we can get from people, probably the better the educational system that can be developed by everyone.

I think that's really what this is all about. I know there are other members here who are interested in and have read that book and who know that it's a challenge out there that we have to put before the people to make sure this government will implement some of these three Rs that we've been looking for for some time.

The government, in our estimation and my opinion, should give serious consideration to phasing out some of the rent controls that have been in place. I want to tell you, there are those who are struggling to survive on fixed incomes, who are renting accommodations and are finding it difficult to put a roof over their heads under our current rent control system. Those with higher incomes, over $40,000, don't need rent controls as much as those on fixed incomes. I've seen it in my community and I've spoken on it time and time again that help from governments should be going to the individuals who are in need. Those are the ones we should be helping, not putting it on to the building in the form of rent controls, but giving it to the person who wants to rent his or her own place. I think that would be a step in the right direction.

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So there are subsidized homes. The other interesting thing is that we have the co-op housing. We have seven one-bedroom apartments, we will have 12 two-bedroom apartments, and we will have 20 three-bedroom apartments. The one-bedroom apartments are usually subsidized by the government to help those people maintain a standard of living they would enjoy. The three-bedroom apartment rents for about $800 a month. You can rent a private apartment from somebody else down the street, without going into subsidized housing, for less than $800 a month. So we have three-bedroom apartments all over this province that are sitting there not being rented.

Why don't we change our policy? Why don't we build far more one-bedroom apartments in those buildings instead of so many twos and threes? The one-bedrooms are gone as soon as they are built, and other people, who don't qualify for a two-bedroom apartment, are sitting on a waiting list.

A road system is a vital social and economic link for the people of Ontario. I've watched and I've agreed with many of the policies and initiatives that have been taken with regard to improving our road system. For years I have said that we've built all these miles of road and we have administration and government that cannot maintain what's been built. So to see the improvements that have been done has been great. But when we spent, I don't know, $15 million to put bilingual signs across this province, it didn't seem to make much sense to me, in the form of dollars.

It's interesting to note that I got the greatest complaints from the people in Penetanguishene about that very issue. Asking people what they thought were some of the important issues of the day, that was the very issue they raised. That's francophones. I couldn't believe it, but it's true. They're as interested in saving a dollar as anybody is, and that was one of the issues they were looking at. So we say that money was misdirected and should have been put into more paving and upgrading of our infrastructure of roads.

One thing I would like to see the Ministry of Transportation bringing forward is a graduated licence program. There are a lot of people in this province who get licences, about whom I often wonder, did they go through the safe driving course? Did they go through the same process as many other people have done in order to get that licence? I'm not so sure, but I think a graduated licence program, with restrictions on young people or anybody who's getting a licence -- I just happen to believe that it needs to be upgraded.

The other issue I wanted to raise with regard to transportation is the issue that the Treasurer raised on many, many occasions when he was on this side of the Legislature. That was the very issue of gasoline tax. I remember distinctly in this Legislature how he used to say that it should be the same price across the province, that the northerners were always getting ripped off. Since the Treasurer has been sitting on the governments' side, I haven't seen that being put into action yet. So are the people of the north still being ripped off by the increase on what they're paying for their gasoline tax?

I was also pleased that companies like Hunter Enterprises in Orillia and many other small industries were able to avail themselves of financial assistance from the government. This enables them to stay and operate here in Canada and to keep people working in this province. Perhaps it's time for the government to take a serious look at assisting companies like TRW in Penetanguishene, which recently announced that some of its staff was moving to Mexico. At one time there were 800 employees there; there are now about 260 employees. The employees of that plant are in a conflict now with the company, which wants to cut back.

I would predict that in two years' time, Mexico will not be the climate to locate in that everybody thinks it is today. They seem to think that the low wage scale is the greatest thing, the greatest attraction there. But there's one thing you don't want to forget, and that is quality. I hope that in two years' time a lot of people will change their minds about that.

I had a constituent from Lafontaine who was building airplanes and he was wanting to find out where he could get some help with regard to furthering his aircraft business. He's been getting the runaround from the municipality and from government and he sent me a fax. He was going to the States for one week and he said, "If you can do anything, phone me, and if you can't, don't phone me back."

I availed myself of the opportunity to phone the individual back, and I do hope that Mr Martin, the facilitator who is appointed here, will be of some assistance to that individual. That's Dale Martin, the facilitator of the Ministry of Natural Resources, by the way, and I hope that he will be able to facilitate some of the problems that this individual has had. He doesn't want to leave the country. He wants to stay in Lafontaine and I want to help him do that. So I did have a discussion with him and I hope that what we had talked about and the direction that he's going in now will indicate to him that we are supportive of his staying here.

The climate with regard to people wanting to invest here, though, has always been a concern and a concern for the last two years. Look at the billboards: "Bob Rae, Buffalo Booster Man of the Year." We look at the billboards today and it shows a picture of him with a golf club, saying that he's driving business out of the province.

I've got to say that I guess Bill 40 was probably, in hindsight, one of the major pieces of legislation that this province has brought in which has had a very detrimental effect with regard to people wanting to locate in Ontario. The government will not agree to that, but you could ask any business, any company and it certainly will relay those very feelings to you.

I want to move on to the Ministry of Community and Social Services and talk about some of the cutbacks that have been going on here and the demonstration that was here a week ago, some 4,000 people. I never thought we'd ever hear of the day that the sheltered workshops like ARC Industries in Orillia, Midland, Collingwood -- all over the province -- are being cut back in their funding.

I just can't believe what I've seen, because they forget who set up all these great facilities in the first place. They have been the greatest thing for the developmentally handicapped people we have and I don't know where they're going to go if they don't have these facilities to go to. So when we look at the demonstration that was out here, I would never have dreamt that I would ever see that type of demonstration here at Queen's Park.

It's interesting how the NDP government has indicated that it wants to help those who are less fortunate -- and they're helping them. They're helping them out; they're helping them out of the facilities. So I just can't believe what I see. There were 145 residents from Collingwood and Wasaga Beach. There was a busload from Orillia who were here the other day. When you see a $5-million cut in the budget for sheltered workshops -- the government also plans to cut the triministry funding, it's my understanding, in April 1993, leaving children and adults with developmental disabilities guessing as to what move will be next

I've had calls and letters in my office with regard to people who are involved in those facilities; not only that, but with the parents of those children who are going to ARC Industries, and they are now wondering what they're going to do. I never, ever thought that we would see the day when we would see 4,000 people from across this province gather at Queen's Park to protest these cuts. It was a deplorable situation to see, in my way of thinking, for those people who are so much less fortunate than we are.

The other area I want to touch on is the area of the environment. I am deeply troubled by the Minister of the Environment's ongoing search for new landfill sites for Metropolitan Toronto garbage. It is my personal belief that the minister should be initiating new alternatives for the disposal of garbage. I believe landfill sites have gone the way of the dinosaur and it is incumbent upon all levels of government, industry and the public to devise new and environmentally sound methods for handling municipal waste management in the province of Ontario.

I have not seen an initiative yet to cut down on the packaging. This has been a major concern for years, and every time you go into a store you see more packaging. I don't know how you're going to do it, but there's got to be initiative somewhere that these companies are penalized somehow to cut back.

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When I look at the reuse and recycling methods that we've got -- I mean, we had experiments with putting tires in asphalt and putting them on the roads. We have many experiments that could take place with regard to using up all those tires. Where's the $5 tire tax? Nobody has seen that.

So we look at the Ministry of the Environment with regard to packaging. We have not got a direct answer from the Minister of Natural Resources yet -- he says it's coming by the end of December -- with regard to the two landfill sites proposed near the Rouge, and we want him to extend that park so that it will not be in part of the garbage system.

We look at some other aspects of garbage. We can look at some other jurisdictions in Europe, and there are pictures in the Ministry of the Environment of this -- for any member who wants to see it, it's there to be seen -- of how they dispose of their garbage on 38 acres for a complete waste management facility. Why are we not looking at that? Why is it not being expounded here as a good way, perhaps, of getting rid of some of the garbage?

So when you talk about landfill sites, I have seen so many in my day that there's got to be more recycling. I'd like to see some pilot projects, and I've spoken for one for Penetang-Midland, that whole area, all those municipalities, where we'd get a pilot project for total recycling and reusing.

I don't know how it's going to happen, but for goodness' sake, we can put a man on the moon and we can't get rid of our garbage. There's got to be somebody with scientific knowledge who will be able to recycle and reuse 80% to 90% of what we're doing. It's got to come some day. I think a greater effort put into that would be what I would like to see.

I'm pleased that the Solicitor General is going ahead with plans to move his OPP general headquarters to Orillia. There's been a lot of discussion with regard to that, and I think that issue came several years ago. I think that use of that facility is great. It's in the middle of the province; it's got all access to the DEW line for their communication system, and I think that the new general headquarters will be a masterpiece, something for this province to be proud of.

I'm proud of our police force. I'm proud of the way they work and what they do, and I think most people would commend them on any of the efforts that they have. There's got to be a better way to work with them, to help them, because they work shift work. Most police do that. A lot of people don't like working shift work, but they do.

I think there's got to be a better way of communicating with them than what has been going on. I hated to see the demonstration that took place out here. I don't think anybody would be very proud, but I've got to look at it from the policeman's aspect and point of view. I mean, when somebody in Metro indicates to me that a constable will pull his revolver twice in the daytime, every day, average, and at night it can be a lot more, to arm them with a report that they have to make every time they draw their weapon, there's got to be a sawoff there somehow whereby they are not being intimidated to say that they can't use their firearm.

Now a lot of people say, "Well, we're not telling them that," but you certainly give them the indication that you're not wanting them to use the firearm because of the controls that you're putting on them.

We have had many questions in this House with regard to the integrity and the cutbacks in the budgets. There have been so many cutbacks, it's hard to understand them all. We had a 50% cutback in the conservation officers, some of the very important people who are looking after the wildlife in this province.

The rate of crime is increasing drastically and here we are, government fighting with the police officers of this province, and it's totally unacceptable. When you say, "I won't meet with you" -- the door should be open at any time in the Premier's office to meet with the commissioner of the OPP. I would think if that had been done, we wouldn't be in the state that we're in today.

You cannot indicate to people that you're willing to listen to one group and not another. That's the issue. Everybody should be heard and should be heard fairly, and that has not been the case.

The Ministry of Tourism is one of the prime sources of jobs in Ontario, and yet this government fails to give this industry the support and assistance it deserves. Gas prices continue to rise and fall -- mostly rise -- which deters out-of-province visitors to Ontario. The government continues to overtax alcoholic beverages, which hinders the hospitality industry. With this government's misguided policies, there is no doubt in my mind that the tourism industry's new motto will be "Ontario -- Yours to Recover."

Mr Speaker, if you want to travel to Ontario from the States, you'll fill your car up with gas, you'll go and buy your alcohol, you'll go and buy your cigarettes, and that will be the first and the last time that you'll buy them in Ontario. When you look at the difference, it's tremendous.

Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): It's 11 o'clock, Allan.

Mr McLean: For those people who want to watch the 11 o'clock news, it's all right, you can carry on, but I just wanted to briefly mention the importance of tourism in this province, because in Orillia, Simcoe East, with the Ste-Marie-Among-the-Hurons military establishment in Penetanguishene, we know the value of tourism. The Thirty Thousand Islands cruises that go out of Midland, the Georgian Queen that goes out of Penetanguishene, the boat that cruises in Lake Couchiching, all are tourism oriented, and they all attract tourism.

I think it's great that this is happening. I commend those people who are promoting it. The Huronia Tourist Association, which for many years has been supported by business and people who are involved in the tourism industry, has supported it dramatically, and I commend them for that. Tourism is still one of the key industries.

The funding that was put aside by the ministry, some $14 million, for recreation and tourism with regard to our snowmobiling, with regard to our trails, I think, is a very important initiative that Mr North announced at the time. I think it's important that we not forget that, because our snowmobile industry is one of the major tourist attractions. All the snowmobilers that I know of have sold out of machines this year, and they have a waiting list. So when we look at what's happening in tourism, I think it's important that we don't forget that.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon David Warner): Order.

Mr McLean: Now I want to read this: "Casino Gambling Sought for Detroit.

"Two Detroit developers and a tribe of American Indians from northern Michigan are moving ahead with a plan to bring casino gambling downtown. The developers have asked for federal approval to donate a parcel of land to the Sault Ste Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians, it was reported yesterday. Detroit voters rejected casino gambling in 1976, 1981 and 1988 in the referendums, but they would have no voice this time, because the property would be in trust of an Indian tribe, which is a sovereign nation."

What this is telling me is that there's going to be casino gambling in Detroit.

Mr White: They're watching Total News from Barrie now. It's too late.

Mr McLean: The province of Ontario initiating a casino in Windsor will be too late. They'll all be gambling in Detroit, and that's where Ontario had indicated that it wanted to get its funding from, through the gambling people from Detroit who were going to come to Windsor to gamble.

It's all pain and no gain: the 1993 transfer payments and fiscal lookout. Does anybody realize what's happening with regard to the transfer payments? They said one, two and two; Now it's one, two, and the third year it's the two, less two. So in mind of that, it's going to be like 4% less in two years rather than in one. So when you look at really what's going on with regard to the transfer payments in this province, they'll be rolled back in 1994, and the taxpayers will be fleeced in the spring.

The statement is further proof that the Treasurer is making it up as he goes along. "'Laughren's budget plan has regressed from deficit du jour to panic du jour, as crisis management has become the order of the day,' said Norm Sterling."

Interjections.

Mr McLean: The Treasurer has admitted to us that he's facing a $4.2-billion revenue shortfall in 1993-94. Can you imagine? He predicted a $9.7-billion deficit. Now he's adding another $4.2 billion to it. I fail to understand the budgetary policies of this government. It's unbelievable. The outlook is not good.

I wanted to talk briefly, with regard to Bill 164, about the fact sheet with regard to auto insurance. To me, it's really overdue to have a further discussion on this because I think that the regulatory powers section, the accident benefits schedule and income replacement are certainly not what I would like to see.

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I think I'll wrap up there because there are others who probably would like to say a few words. I have probably gone almost half an hour, a little better, I think. I really wanted to get into the NDP Agenda for People, but I'll have to leave that, That'll be a speech in itself, another time. Because of the commitments and promises that have been made, I would like to be able to elaborate on this because I think it's important that we get these facts on the record.

Mr Bisson: It's with pleasure that I have an opportunity to get up finally, some couple of hours after we started this debate, in order to talk about concurrence in supply. This is one of the rare times in the House when members have somewhat of a latitude in order to speak about a number of issues and concerns of people of Ontario in regard to the ministries that are listed under the concurrence in supply.

I'd like to say just a couple of things before getting started. The first thing is that in all fairness and in all honesty, as much as possible, all of us in this House at one time or another have been in opposition except for new members like myself. Everybody has had an opportunity within all three political parties to be in opposition. One of the things, either fortunately or unfortunately because of the political system we have, is that one of the jobs, obviously, of the opposition parties is to try to get on this side of the House.

Unfortunately, the only mechanism we have in this system is to attack the government, and that's understandable. It's not a question of argument. But I just want to point out a couple of things. A lot has been said in this House over the past couple of weeks, just listening to some of the debates about some of the difficulties that we're having here in Ontario, in regard to the recession and what that means to the hardships endured by the people of Ontario, who unfortunately at this time are not working and are in dire straits, to put it mildly, and as well as what it means to Ontario when it comes to being able to hold the line on the budget, on the spending and being able to put the province in a financial position that in the long run has some objectiveness that's able to be met.

The point is that I've listened to the opposition, and I really would have liked to give them credit where credit is due, but unfortunately there are a lot of mixed messages that are coming forward, when I hear the members opposite making comments either during question period or during debate such as we just had right now.

I just heard the previous member, when speaking about the Ministry of Community and Social Services, when speaking about the Ministry of Education and a few other ministries, talk about how much of a shame it was that the government wasn't spending as much money as it should on a number of initiatives, such as the sheltered workshop program, such as a number of other programs that he mentioned.

The reality is that in a time of fiscal constraint, such as we find ourselves in, as to the amount of revenue that is being collected by a government, because there are less people working, less people paying taxes, less people spending because there's less money to go around, you collect less retail sales tax and you have depleting revenues at the same time you have a real strain on the government purse in regard to the programs that governments deliver, because in a time of a recession, clearly, people access government services much more than they would otherwise.

People access those services, such as the ones that were mentioned by the two previous speakers, and other things that other members have spoken about during question period and on other occasions. What that means to say is that the government finds itself in a position where it has an imbalance.

I think the fundamental question we all have to ask ourselves, not only members in this House but I think all the population of Ontario is, up to just what point can the province afford to pay for some of the services that we have? Now some, looking at this debate, would say, "My God, that's a New Democrat saying that." But it's no big secret that New Democrats have always recognized that you have to be fiscally responsible when it comes to managing the purse, because in the end it's us, you and me, Mr Speaker, and other people out there who pay the taxes that pay for these services.

The decision governments have to make is clearly, what has priority? Unfortunately, when you make those decisions, through public consultation, through work you do within your ministries, and finally, work you do in this assembly and within your caucuses, there are some people who end up on the positive side and some people who end up on the negative side.

No politician in this Legislature, I don't care if it be a Liberal, a Conservative or a New Democrat, likes to make decisions that take things away from people in Ontario that they've been used to having. The unfortunate part is that sometimes we do need to make those difficult decisions. I don't like making them and neither does anybody else on this side of the House. As far as we're concerned, we wish there were a barrel of money there. We wish, as the opposition would put it, we were able to spend money on a whole bunch of different programs to give the services to the people of this province, but clearly you can't do that. What you have to do is prioritize where you spend your money. You have to prioritize who comes before whom, who's who in the lineup.

That is a very difficult balancing act. I think if you take a look at the record of the government over the past two years, we've managed to hold the line on spending in such a way that people have not noticed a very big difference in the delivery of service. Where people have noticed a difference is in the people administering the programs within Ontario, people who have had to make the very tough budget decisions, at hospitals, at school boards, at municipalities, at various agencies around the province of Ontario, and yes, within government ministries.

Those are the people who have noticed how difficult it has been because it's been a real challenge for those people to sit down and start to take a look at things like they've never had to take a look at them before. Traditionally, if you look at just one issue, at the question of health care, for years in this province, for at least 10 years if you look at the books, the costs of health care have increased by over 10% every year. That's in times when inflation was running at 2% and 5%; we still had inflationary costs within the health care system of well over 10%.

Why? Because what used to happen in health care was that a hospital or a particular service would say: "We need a service. We need a particular piece of equipment. We have to deliver whatever to our patients." They would come to the government after running a deficit and they would say to the government, "Underwrite my deficit." Governments, because they didn't want to argue, because it wasn't politically wise to argue over the health care system, would just fund that deficit. Unfortunately, what ended up happening is that you had a spiralling cost just within that one particular budget, within health care.

Clearly, over a third of the amount of money that we spend in the province of Ontario goes to health care, just in that one ministry. Close to $20 billion that we spend out of a $50-billion budget goes to health care. What this government did and was able to do in two years -- in less than two years -- was that we managed to cut the whole cost of inflation within the health care system to within 2% to 3%. That is a major significant step in the right direction.

It has been challenging to hospitals. I know. I've had to work with them the same way as every other member in this Legislature, with our community hospitals, the Timmins District Hospital in Timmins, Sensenbrenner, other hospitals in my riding. We had to sit down together. We had to make some tough decisions. I'll speak particularly to the Timmins District Hospital. They had to go out and try to find a way to offset some of the deficits they had within their budget.

They worked hard. They worked with the boards, with the administration, and yes, the workers. For the first time in the history of the province of Ontario the hospital boards had to go to the workers within the hospital and say, "Before we put forward our deficit recovery plan, we need to consult with you, the people who deliver the services on a day-to-day basis within the hospitals." That had never been done before.

It was difficult. Workers were not used to being consulted. They saw it with a little bit of misgiving, but they participated. Administration and boards were not used to it either, but they participated. With a lot of give and take, and yes, with a lot of difficulty, they managed to find ways to reduce their overall costs. We still have problems in that particular hospital. We still have a way to go, but clearly we've reduced the cost of health care within that one institution. If you look around other hospitals around Ontario, it's been much the same story.

Now, in some areas, hospital boards have decided to take a different approach. They decided that rather than working with workers, because there wasn't anybody there to monitor what was going on and they didn't have the luxury of having a government member at times, to go out and pick on the workers like they normally do to balance their deficit. What they did is they laid off workers like they always had before.

But there are partnerships being created in this province that have never been created in the history of this province and I would almost say in the history of this country, the way they are in the province of Ontario.

The difficulty we have as a government, and this is not being negative towards anybody, is that we're doing these kinds of things in the open. We're going in the open and we're showing the numbers to the people of Ontario. We're sitting down with boards and commissions and administrators of hospitals and various groups out there and saying: "Here are the hard facts. Here are some of the decisions we have to make and let's have some public discussion about them."

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The difficulty, when you make those decisions out in public, is that you're much more open to criticism because there will always be people out there, not only from the opposition but people out in the general public, who don't want you to make the decisions that have to be made because they want to protect their particular interest, be it the worker, be it the management person, be it whoever, the person who gets the service.

They'll come out and they have avenue within the media, and that's the job of the media, to report the negativity in the media the way they do, and I don't believe it's a question of the media picking on the government. I just believe it's because times have changed and people are now being asked to take part in decisions that they've never had to take part in before.

Because of that, because of the process being so much open to the public, what ends up happening is that we're more open to criticism as a government because we're exposing more of ourselves as a government to the people of Ontario. Some people say to me that at times that's a weakness. I hear that inside the Legislature. I see it as a strength. I see it as a strength that this government has the courage to stand up before the people of this province and say: "Let's do this together. Here are the numbers, here are the decisions that we have to make. Let's work together, all of the people of Ontario, and make the best decision possible so at the end we can afford to pay for these services." People are rising to the challenge.

The province of Ontario will never return back to the system we had under previous governments. We won't allow it to happen. If you look under boards and commissions, there is a process that has been widely opened, where people have an opportunity to see what positions are open on those boards, so that if they make the decision that they want to serve, they can serve on those particular boards.

Before, the way it used to work is that as a government member you would appoint all the people on your boards within your local riding, and on provincial boards if you had enough clout within government. Other people who were interested, because they didn't have your political stripe, didn't have a chance of getting in. Oh, yes, past Liberal and Conservative governments appointed their token New Democrats and token whoever, but by and large those boards were filled with people from their party ranks. That's how the Big Blue Machine was built over the years and that's how the Liberals tried to build their Big Red Machine. We said: "No, we cannot afford to do that in Ontario. We need to make it an open process."

The joke, to a certain extent, with the riding association I come from, the riding of Cochrane South, is that they say, "God, Gilles, you can't get people appointed to your own God-darned committees and your own appointments to your own boards. You're a government member. Why can't you do it? They were able to do it in the past," and I say, "Because it's a public process."

It is not the job of the member for Cochrane South to go out and start to appoint political hacks to boards in order to build myself a party machine. My responsibility is to make sure that if people put their names forward and they have the capability and the competence for serving on those boards, those names go forward. Many people in my riding have been appointed who are not of my political stripe, but I recognize that they have the ability, the same way that there have been some New Democrats who have been appointed.

The point is that it's a much more open process now with the system of government in Ontario, and if people criticize it's because of that. It's because there are more of us exposed to the people of the province of Ontario because this is an open government, and with open government you expose more of yourself and people have more targets to shoot at. I don't see that as a negativity; I see that as something positive.

I had an opportunity last week, on Friday I believe it was -- it might have been Thursday; actually, it was Thursday -- where some 80 or 85 people in the riding of Cochrane South came to my constituency office. I wished to sit down to have tea and crumpets, but no, they were protesting. Why were they protesting? They were protesting about proposed, or I would say not even proposed, I would say somewhat exaggerated cuts that were going to happen in the Ministry of Community and Social Services. They were concerned. They were going to go and protest in front of the the Community and Social Services office in Timmins.

I had my staff contact the organizers and said: "Don't go and protest at Community and Social Services. Come and protest at my office. I'm the provincial member and if you have something you want to discuss, we'll get into a discussion about that." So they came over, the 85 of them, and found out that it wasn't easy trying to move wheelchairs up our streets because we don't have barrier-free access within our communities; that is as a side issue, and something we should be trying to do more about.

We invited them into the office and I said, "Tell me what your issues are, tell me what your problems are, so that I can hear, so that I can better represent the views of what you have to say."

The point is that what they were explaining as being their fears about what these proposed cuts were going to be were nowhere near what the government was contemplating and doing. What ends up happening a lot of the time on these issues is that a minister like the capable minister that we have, Mrs Marion Boyd, turns around and talks openly about how we are going to pay for the service. We have to establish a target so that over a period of years we can cut the expenditures of the Ministry of Community and Social Services. We need to make some decisions.

If we have programs that were set up at one point and we're changing those programs over to another mode, such as what happened with the depopulating of institutions that were started by the previous Conservative government, and we're still paying for that at the same time we're paying for the system in the community, we have to start making some choices about how to make that happen so that we're not paying for two systems, because we can't afford to do that.

When we're talking about sheltered workshops, such as what it is with the ARC Industries in my community, they lost somewhere around $8,000 or $10,000 in their particular budget because more money has to be put into the budget-assisted workplace programs. Those are some of the decisions that you have to make, and we had that discussion at the constituency office.

I have confidence in the people of Ontario, because the people of Ontario are very smart and they understand the tough decisions that have to be made. All they want is a government that makes the decisions in the open, in as fair a manner as possible and that we do that in the open, and, yes, we'll be open to some criticism, there's no question.

At the end of that meeting people turned around and said: "We recognize that you have difficult decisions to make. All that we ask you is that you do that in a way that we, as agencies, can start gearing ourselves towards the change. We accept that change has to be made, and we want to work towards it, but we want to have the transitional time to get there." What the Treasurer announced on the transfer payments last week is exactly that.

The kinds of things that we have to start talking about, quite out in the open, are how we administer our particular programs within agencies in our communities. For example, in my riding I have three to four different agencies that all deliver services to the child. Out of those four agencies, all four of them have their own rental space, they all have their own administration people, they have all their own custodians, they have their own service deliverers, they have all the materials, photocopiers, computers etc.

What's started to happen in my riding, as it has happened in others already, is that those people are coming together and saying, "What would happen if we were to co-locate, if we were to take all of our agencies and go underneath one roof?" Never mind just the savings to the taxpayers of Ontario, but imagine the difference that would make to the people trying to access the service.

The problem we have now is that when people first come into the system looking for the help, the way it's set up now they see a fragmented service; very good individual agencies out there doing the job they have to do, but it seems somewhat fragmented. One of the things that they talk about is that if we can come together, we can present much clearer access as to what services are available.

But imagine, you get those four agencies together, you save on the rent, maybe you share the administration costs such as payroll, maybe you share in the purchasing of material and get a bit of a better price because you buy in bulk, maybe you save a little bit on the custodial work that has to be done in your building, maybe you can share with people doing reception. Putting all of those things together, it comes up that you can save some money.

Let's just do a little bit of quick math. If we were to do that in each community across Ontario, and there are some 800 communities, and let's be very conservative, say we only can save $100,000 in agencies by doing that: $100,000 times 800 communities. That is a lot of money, and that is just by finding ways of being able to work together and cooperate better and administer our services better.

What's happened over the years and what people from the opposition parties need to recognize -- and they should know that; they were in government -- is that people came to the province of Ontario like they did in every other province in Canada and they said: "I want a service. There's a service out there that I need for my sick child or my sick grandmother" or whoever it might be, to access a particular service. The government of the day, because it had money, did the right thing. They said, "Yes, we recognize you need that service and we will set up a program to fit your needs."

Then government would go off with cabinet and make some decisions through the cabinet committee process and policy and priorities board and would say, "Well, we'll put that under the Ministry of Community and Social Services or, hang on, maybe we'll put it under Health," and it would end up underneath one of the ministries.

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Then a couple of years later somebody would come up with somewhat of a similar program that they wanted but targeted at another particular group that wasn't quite the same as the first one and you'd set up yet a second program and maybe this time instead of putting it in Health you'd put it in Community and Social Services.

So what you end up with is a lot of good services out there, but they're not very well administered. That's not to be negative towards the people that administer them, that's not their fault, they're administering what government has set up. I think that's the responsibility of governments: our own as New Democrats, and the Liberals before us and the Conservatives, to make sure those kinds of things don't happen.

Those are the kinds of things that we're talking about on this side of the House as New Democrats when we talk about restraint within government and finding ways of saving money. You go out and you save on the administration of those programs. That's how you're able to do it.

When members of the opposition get up and point out the negativity towards this side of the House, towards government, and talk about on the one hand we've got a $10-billion deficit and everybody's going to be paying for that in the future, and in the next breath they're telling us they want to spend more money and after that they're telling us we're spending too much, it's quite confusing to listen to that message.

I just want people to realize that they are tough decisions to be made and I think people are smart enough to realize that what happens in this Legislature, unfortunately, is very detached from mainstream Ontario and what the reality is in the province of Ontario when it comes to issues. Issues are debated here but in a much more political context. The discussions I have in my riding are much different than the discussions I hear around here, because what people in my riding are talking about are the same issues but without the partisanship. But that's the system that we have and we accept that.

I want to also just go through quickly on another issue, one of the things that was talked about by a couple of other members, and I just wanted an opportunity to raise that. It was a question about how this government approaches the business of being able to form partnerships within the private sector when we're talking about the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology and also the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, because we're somewhat related in the aspects of what we do.

We had to face a lot of very difficult situations -- and I'll speak about northern Ontario because that's where I come from -- at the early term of this government. Some real pressing issues that we had to deal with in communities such as Kapuskasing and communities such as Elliot Lake, Atikokan, Virginiatown, whole communities that were really in jeopardy because of what was happening within the economy.

The problem we're faced with in regard to those particular industries is, yes, there is a global recession out there. I'd like to be able to say that we have all the levers here in government to fix the economy of Ontario. God, I'd love to be able to do that. But the reality is, no, we only have some of the levers. Unfortunately, the majority of the levers are sitting in Ottawa, and I would say a vast majority more of the levers are sitting outside of Canada. It's a question that if we do something and the feds do something, it's that much better. But here in the province of Ontario, I'll give you a couple of examples of the types of things we had to do, and the province of Ontario had to do it alone. There was nobody else there.

If you take a look at Kapuskasing, when that particular paper mill was going down, it was going down to some 300 employees because Kimberly-Clark of Texas decided they were going to go down to what was called the Amos plan and throw over 1,200 people out of work. The federal government was asked to intervene and to cooperate with us in order to find a solution. No, they didn't.

Who ended up fixing the problem was the province of Ontario under the leadership of people like Shelley Martel, Bud Wildman, Premier Rae -- those are the people -- Mr Wood, myself to a certain extent. We were the ones that had to go out there and sit down with Darren Smith from Kimberly-Clark and sit down with Ontario Hydro and Mayor Jewell and the people from the union and Tembec.

We're the ones that sat down with them and built the partnerships in order to build the company. A year after this employee-ownership program that we set up where there's employees that own 55% of the company, with Tembec as the other one, they're making money. People said it would never happen. They're making money a year after. That's partnerships. Who did it? It wasn't Ottawa, it wasn't the United States, it wasn't anybody; it was the province of Ontario and it was the New Democratic government that did it.

When you look the tough decisions that we've had to make in Elliot Lake, who was there in order to try to offset the hardships in that community? Was it the federal government? No. Who was it? Common names: Shelley Martel, Bob Rae, New Democrats again. Algoma Steel and Sault Ste Marie: Look at the difficulties that we had there. Sure, the federal government tried in some way to react to that one because they were starting to get embarrassed.

We were going out trying to save plants in northern Ontario, and I speak about the north because that's where I come from and, God, we had to chase them out from behind the Parliament buildings because we couldn't get them near. Who were the ones who were able to find solutions? Who were they again? Ed Philip, Shelley Martel, Bud Wildman, Tony Martin, Bob Rae. Again New Democrats, who went out and found solutions when nobody else could get those partners together.

They got workers involved with the private sector within the company itself, the municipalities, some government money, the banks themselves with regard to their liability to this whole thing, and we put together a deal that was able to save a number of jobs within the community of Sault Ste Marie, very important. Atikokan, when it comes to the parole board -- the list goes on and on.

I can keep on talking, community after community, but in the end who is it that's going out and doing these things? It's not Brian Mulroney. If it was Peterson here, they wouldn't do it; their track record is not very good when you look at the Adams mine, when you look at Temagami in regard to the Sherman mine. I was there when they were doing the closure negotiations and there wasn't a government member to be found.

Who was it that went in and put workplace programs to train workers how to read and write so they can read an application form when they go out to try to find a job after 20 or 25 years of being employed in one mine? They were the people from this side, people like me, people that worked in the literacy movement, trade union people, the party, the New Democratic Party that was involved in lobbying the provincial government to put together a program called BEST.

We've always gone out and tried to find those solutions, because we recognize that you just can't leave it up to the old boys' club, because the old boys' club will serve itself. That's the way the system is. I have no difficulty standing here and saying I'm a New Democrat, because I say that with pride and I say it with conviction. I have no doubt in my mind that if in 1992 there wasn't a New Democratic government in Ontario, the things that I talked about would have never happened.

It would have been those people, the Conservatives under the leadership of Mike Harris, and they would have had the slash-and-cut-type philosophy. It would have been, "Go and get 10% or 15% from each ministry." A little secret for those people: If you go into a small ministry and you take 15% it's not like taking 15% out of a large ministry. The same thing when it comes to agencies: If you have an agency with a $100,000 budget and an agency with a budget of $2 million and you say, "Give me 10%," I can tell you what's going to happen to the small agencies.

That's their voodoo economics. The trickle-down theory of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party doesn't work. That's why we're in the mess that we're in now, because we tried the trickle-down theory. We moved from a time in this country, in this province, where we had a system by which we had ownership within our economy as Canadians.

Under the leadership of Mr Mulroney, for whatever reason -- he thought it was right -- and people like Mr Peterson and Mr Davis before, they moved further and further to trickle-down economics and we've seen what that got us. A whole American election was fought on that and they turfed Mr Bush out on his ear. I think that's a sign of things to come. People are fed up. They're saying: "We want to be part of it. If this is a democracy, we must be partners in this democracy and we must be real partners."

The difficulty with that is, like I said in the beginning, when you start involving people in the process and you start opening up the process, you become much more exposed, and when you become more exposed, you're more open to criticism because there's a lot more there to see, a lot more to pick at. The opposition party, that's a role, I accept that -- that is the role of the opposition. I only wish they would be somewhat more constructive in their opposition because I'll tell you, sitting here every day listening to that stuff on the other side of the House is very difficult to take, because we know and they know as well that there are people out there hurting and there are people who want us to deal with real issues.

The media, well, they have papers to sell, that's a business, and you don't sell papers by reporting good news. I learned that a long time ago; I used to work in advertising. You sell papers by having something like a car crash, an economic turndown, a 2,000-person layoff somewhere in a plant. That's what sells papers. It's not to say those things aren't happening -- they are happening -- but if we're going to come out of this recession, one of the things that's key to it is the attitude that we take as government members, as members of this assembly both in opposition and in government, and as people in the private sector, the trade union movement, and the average citizen out in the province of Ontario.

We have to say to ourselves, "Yes, we have problems." The glass is not half empty, it's half full, and the only way we have to go is up. If we start taking an attitude like that, we can turn this recession around on its ear a heck of a lot quicker than we can the other way. But if they don't want to cooperate on the other side, we will keep on trudging, we will keep on being an open government, we will do those things that we've done because we believe those are the right things to do. That's what's important and key to the province of Ontario.

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You talk about partnerships. Under Minister Shelley Martel, with the Ministry of Mines, we opened up a partnership with the private sector, because we have a lot of problems in mining. The high dollar -- at one point; now it's come down -- took its toll on the gold mining and copper mining industry. The price of base metals and precious metals went down drastically. There were a number of things in regard to regulatory questions within the province and within the country itself over a period of years. A whole bunch of things happened within the mining industry in order to turn the tables somewhat: Where we were one of the strongest mining economies in the world, we're no longer the strongest. We're not the weakest, we're still doing pretty good, but we're not where we were five or 10 years ago.

The problem we have in the mining industry today wasn't caused by Bill 40, as the members of the opposition would make you believe. My God, give me a break. They're all unionized; they've never scabbed their operations. When you talk to people in the mining sector, they recognize that. Sure, the rhetoric goes on, but what caused the problem within the mining industry was all of the things that happened for a number of years. It took time to get where it is.

This government, under the leadership of people like Bob Rae and Shelley Martel and myself, went out and we met with the private sector; we met with the PDAC and people like Steve Perry, the various people in the mining industry. We sat down and said: "Listen, let's build a partnership. It's to our mutual interest if the mining industry does well." They identified a number of things they wanted us to do, so we acted on those.

We set up a geoscience database, from $24 million to $26 million, so we can put on the geoscience database the information prospectors need to go out into the northern area -- and hopefully one of these days in the south if we're able to find more minerals there -- and do a better job of prospecting and surveying our area so we can find more mines.

We went out and we created a one-window approach to permitting, because the mining industry, especially the prospectors, had identified that as being a very big problem. Every time they wanted a permit, they had to go to three ministries. We said, "We agree with you; that's foolishness," so we signed a memorandum of understanding between three ministries that were responsible and made it a one-window approach, where people would come to one ministry, the Ministry of Mines, and get their permits.

One of the things they talked about is the whole attitudinal question we talked about a little while ago, that people in southern Ontario, for a number of reasons -- because of education, ad campaigns and a number of other things -- have never seen northern Ontario for what it really is, particularly the mining industry. So we put together an ad campaign through the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines in order to try to educate people in southern Ontario, to explain that mining is a high-tech industry, very high-tech, probably one of the most high-tech industries in Ontario, probably more than a car plant.

People don't realize the technology in mining; that mining is a safe industry compared to a number of other industries out there; that it's a good way of life for workers, for the communities that have mines in them and for the people who work there; that they pay their fair share of taxes; that the total amount of money generated within the mining industry in the province of Ontario is extremely important to this economy.

It's unfortunate that we had to go out and advertise that. God, you would think people would know these things. But one of the challenges I sent to the mining industry, and I've said it a number of times, is that it is our responsibility in the mining industry to make sure that people understand that and that we brag about some of the things we do well. We talk about how we are the strongest and one of the best countries in the world when it comes to mining. We have the best technologies, the best mining methods, we have the best mineral deposit areas in the world right around Timmins, the Porcupine fault, and we have to talk about those things. We have to go out there and shake the bush and let people know, because we've always been a very secretive industry, for some reason.

The other thing we did was to put together one of the things they had asked for. Because the federal government had withdrawn from something called flow-through shares and had not put anything in its place in order to pick up the slack, the province of Ontario, the New Democratic government under the leadership of Shelley Martel and Bob Rae and other people such as that, went out and said, "Listen, we recognize that there's a problem." We worked with them in order to develop a number of different options in regard to incentives within the province of Ontario for mining. We put those into a document and some of our own ideas, and now we're working with the mining industry to say, "Let's pick the one that's going to have the most net benefit for the economy of Ontario."

Why should we, as the province of Ontario and the government, strictly the government, make that decision? The people in the mining industry know best. They know the tools they need, so let's work together. Sure, there'll be a process by which the mining industry will want this much and we'll only be able to give that much, but they recognize that. We recognize that we can't give everything and they recognize that they can't get everything, but by working together we'll come up with an option that makes some sense.

Now there are some really good discussions around success-based incentives, by which the more successful you are in the mining industry, the higher the incentive return on your dollar investment. That was a good idea that was formulated between both of those parties, but again it's a question of forming partnerships, and that's what this is all about.

I notice the member on the other side is getting ready to speak and looks somewhat bored, but that's the reality. The province of Ontario, because of society the way it is, has to be able to --

Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): Excuse me.

Mr Bisson: I see I woke him up. The problem is that we have to open up this process. If we live in something that's called a democracy, it means to say that people have to participate; and if people participate, it means to say that you have to open the system; if you open the system, that means to say that we have to listen as a government, but there has to be some give and take between the public and its government, and we have to find better ways of working together.

Rather than sitting there, all of us, and banging each other over the head with a stick over who's going to come out on top -- I don't think that's a very useful exercise for anybody. We need to put our differences aside and sit down as partners, and we have to work together at finding some solutions to some very difficult problems.

I'm confident, because of the experiences I've seen over the past two years in some of the things I talked about earlier, the Kapuskasings, the Elliot Lakes, the Atikokans, the Sault Ste Maries of this world, that by sitting down together we can find some solutions that are to the mutual benefit of all.

If we do the same thing within our MUSH transfer agencies and we work with them in finding the same kinds of partnerships such as we started, I'm sure we're going to be able to do the kinds of things that need to be done that will save money for the taxpayers of the province of Ontario, that will put the province of Ontario in a better fiscal position and that in the end will still deliver the services to the people of the province.

With that, I'd like to thank you very much for having this opportunity to have a few words in this debate.

The Speaker: I thank the honourable member for Cochrane South for his contribution to the debate, and recognize the honourable member for Algoma-Manitoulin.

Mr Brown: Gilles, I was really quite excited by what you were saying. I was really quite enthralled with the member for Cochrane South's apology, rationalization, of a government policy that has resulted in 18% unemployment in northern Ontario. For anybody to stand up and talk about partnerships and talk about doing things right with 18% unemployment in the north -- it questions anybody's credibility.

The fact that this government is reinventing history also somewhat disturbs me. I would like to take the House back to 1989-90.

Mr Brad Ward (Brantford): Boom times.

Mr Brown: The member says "Boom times," and he's right. That fiscal year there was a surplus in the province of Ontario, the first surplus in the province in some 20 years. There was a surplus in 1989-90 of $400 million, I believe, a $400-million surplus.

What has happened in the intervening years is that we now have deficits of $10 billion, $11 billion, $12 billion, and there's a recession. Yes, there's a recession; yes, there are problems. The question we have to ask ourselves is, why is Ontario's economy performing at such a low level, performing worse than virtually any of the provinces in this great country? We are doing worse. We're the province that has historically led Canada, we're the province that has proudly paid the bills in this nation, and we're the province that is performing badly.

As I listened to the member for Cochrane South, he didn't mention one key word. The word he didn't mention was "jobs." He didn't say one word about jobs. He talked about the rationalizations that are going on in northern Ontario and in this province as a whole, but not one word about jobs. The reality in northern Ontario is 18% unemployment. I'll tell you, in my riding 18% would be considered good.

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My riding has experienced probably as difficult times as any riding in Ontario. In the Elliot Lake-North Shore area, we have lost 3,400 good jobs in the mines. This government can take credit for laying off directly 1,100 of those miners, and in 1995 it's going to get the next 600. It was a government decision. It was a policy of this government, a direction of this government to Ontario Hydro. They laid those men and women off.

They said before the election that those jobs would all be saved, that Ontario Hydro would have to buy all its uranium from Elliot Lake, I guess in perpetuity. That's what the government said. But one of the first acts of this government was to lay those people off. I don't think the people of Elliot Lake are going to be particularly impressed with the way this government keeps its promises.

I also want to raise the issue of Ontario Hydro in general. As people would know, northern Ontario uses 13% of the electricity in this province. It does that because in northern Ontario we have resource industries and heavy industry. It produces only 9% of the electricity in this province, meaning it's a net importer of electricity, meaning that we in northern Ontario are particularly affected by policies relating to Ontario Hydro. We are feeling the impact of the rates.

The people in the mining industry, the people in the forestry industry, the people in retirement living in Elliot Lake, the people on the farms in Mindemoya, cannot stand the kind of increases we are seeing from Ontario Hydro. They drive jobs out of this province and they take money out of people's pockets who just can't afford it.

In addition, this government does not seem to want to move on Hydro projects in northern Ontario to balance what is an imbalance. This government does not want to do that. They promised. The Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Northern Development and Mines and the then chair of Ontario Hydro came to my riding and proudly announced that Patten Post, a large hydro-electric project, would be fast-tracked. They promised that the jobs from Patten Post would come to the area as quickly as possible. Some two weeks ago they deferred Patten Post. They said that's not going to happen for at least 10 years. I'll tell you, that is not going to help the people in the area now.

They also promised there would be a cogeneration plant on the North Shore. They promised there would be a cogeneration plant at Algoma Mills. It was on the short list. It was approved in principle. It is now deferred.

There's probably at least 50% unemployment in the area -- 50% unemployment and the people in my area are having Hydro projects put off and deferred when Ontario Hydro was at one time, although indirectly, the largest employer in the area.

I'm the critic for the Ministry of Natural Resources and I want to indicate something about that ministry just because I think it's indicative probably of all ministries of this government. Members have talked about priorities, they've talked about the difficult spending situation we're in. I would be the last to be telling you as a government that you should be spending more. As a matter of fact, I think you're spending too much. I think you've got your priorities all wrong. The Ministry of Natural Resources demonstrates that about as clearly as any ministry in this province. The Ministry of Natural Resources was cut by 1% to 1.5% in its total budget.

Hon Mr Wildman: It was 8%.

Mr Brown: The minister says 8%. I don't think it's quite 8%, but that's okay. They were cut, but what did they choose to spend their remaining dollars on? They chose to increase their spending on policy information and research by 23%, a 23% increase in people planning things, researching things and sending information out around the province. What did they do in operations? They cut operations by 6%, so money to conservation authorities, money to the forests of Ontario, money to actually do things was cut by 6%. But those people who got the job as consultants, they're doing fine, thank you very much.

Now, that might not be all that bad if in fact we did not see an increase in payroll costs of the Ministry of Natural Resources in excess of 11%. The inflation in this province was about 1.5%. The increase in the wages and benefits in the Ministry of Natural resources was 11%, actually slightly more. That left considerably less money to pay for important things that I believe all the people in Ontario believe are important.

One of the things that employs people is the tree seedling program, where we plant trees in our forests. It makes a lot of sense. The minister agrees with me, but he's got no money to do it because he's spending money on research, information and an 11% increase in the payroll.

I asked the minister about what he's going to do in the forest this year, because last year he reduced the number of trees planted on crown land by about 30 million. We don't even know. I've asked him what he's going to do for the tree seedling growers, if he's going to let contracts so we can bring Ontario's sustainable forestry up to a reasonable level, and he doesn't know. But he's going to tell us. But he's already months late. We're looking for a good increase in both the tending budget and the number of trees to be planted in our forests. It's very critical, both environmentally and from the forest products industry's point of view.

I recognize that it's getting very close to 12 of the clock. I shall pick up my remarks at the next opportunity. Thank you.

The Speaker: I thank the honourable member for Algoma-Manitoulin. It being 12 of the clock, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock tomorrow afternoon.

The House adjourned at 2400.