role="main" class="main-container container js-quickedit-main-content" id="main-content">

September 24, 1991

35th Parliament, 1st Session

< Previous sitting day

Next sitting day >

Hansard Transcripts

The House met at 1332.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

MEALS ON WHEELS WEEK

Mr Miclash: The week of September 22 to September 28 is Meals on Wheels Week across Ontario. In the many communities across the Kenora riding, Meals on Wheels programs help to improve the quality of life for senior citizens and persons with special needs. It allows them to stay in their homes but still receive the care they need to enjoy a healthy lifestyle.

But Meals on Wheels is more than the delivery of meals. It is the visit of a friendly face for many who are unable to venture outside their homes or who do not experience the full enjoyment of town life because they live in the outlying areas of northwestern Ontario.

This Friday I look forward to helping the many Meals on Wheels volunteers of the Dryden Home Support Association who generously give of their time to ensure that seniors and people with special needs receive good lunches and warm dinners on a daily basis.

I would like all members of this House to recognize the most valuable contribution which the Meals on Wheels program and its many volunteers bring to the improvement of community life for our seniors and persons with special needs across the province.

NORTH YORK WOMEN'S CENTRE

Mr Harnick: Yesterday was National Women's Centres Day. I would like to recognize the dedicated staff and volunteers at North York Women's Centre. Women's centres provide a valuable service to our communities. The North York Women's Centre provides essential information, counselling, resources and support services to the women of North York. Too often we overlook the reality that women have distinct needs in society that can only be met through specialized centres such as the North York Women's Centre.

The theme of this year's campaign is Keep the Doors Open for Women. The theme is based upon the chronic funding problem faced by women's centres across the country. This lack of funding threatens the centre's ability to provide the essential services women so desperately need.

In highlighting the undisputed need for women's centres I would like to cite some statistics. The Canadian Centre for Justice statistics stated that in 1989, 119 women were killed within the context of a domestic relationship. One out of 10 women is battered. Violence against women is a terrifying symptom of problems within our society. We must all co-ordinate our efforts to combat this social evil, yet this is only one role of the North York Women's Centre. I trust the government will live up to its election promises of support for women's issues and for the North York Women's Centre.

EVENTS IN DURHAM-YORK

Mr O'Connor: It is with great pleasure and pride that I extend my congratulations to the town of Whitchurch-Stouffville in recognition of its honourable distinction as Music Town, Ontario.

The history of Whitchurch-Stouffville has long been intertwined with music. Music Mania is just one example of the town's affinity for music. Although the music show is termed amateur, it is only amateur in the traditional sense of the word: the performers are not paid; they do it for love. In all other ways the show is of a very high professional calibre.

There are many talented singers and musicians in Whitchurch-Stouffville, from seniors down into the schools. They are all contributing to the present and future in full harmony.

Uxbridge is another fine community filled with the spirit of the arts. This past weekend, the occasion of the fourth annual Uxbridge Celebration of the Arts, was a weekend filled with books, photography, music, film and the works of resident artists. This festival is indeed a wonderful celebration of the arts by the people of the Uxbridge area.

I would like to finish up with a few words about a truly amazing woman from my riding, Heather McAdam. She is one of 12 people chosen by the Ministry of Citizenship for its community action award. There were 140 applications for this award right across the province. It is directed towards people with disabilities who are involved in their communities. Our whole community shares this sense of pride we have that the ministry has recognized Mrs McAdam's efforts and contributions.

WILDLIFE PROTECTION

Mr Brown: I stand in the House to salute the World Wildlife Fund and draw attention to the Endangered Spaces Action Agenda which it has recently released.

The release begins with the statement, "Ontario's failure to protect any significant tracts of wilderness during the past year is jeopardizing the future of the province's wildlife and wild places." In the last year there has been no increase in the area of land receiving protected status.

Since the Premier endorsed the endangered spaces program in August 1990, it would not be unreasonable to expect an immediate statement from the Minister of Natural Resources on whether he intends to respond to the list of action items the WWF says are needed by May 1, 1992: renew funding for the Carolinian Canada program; initiate protection of the Madawaska Highlands; obtain final cabinet approval for the wetlands policy; identify candidate sites to represent at least five site districts; defer logging of identified old-growth forest until protection targets in the old-growth conservation strategy are met.

SCOTT ROSSITER

Mr Runciman: Members will know that last Thursday Ingersoll Police Constable Scott Rossiter was shot and killed in the line of duty.

Constable Rossiter's funeral is this afternoon in his home town of St Thomas, and on behalf of my party and, I am sure, all members of the Legislature, I wish to express our sincere condolences to his wife, Penny, and their two children, Joshua and Erin, other members of his family, and friends and colleagues in the Ingersoll Police Service.

Policing is a dangerous, high-risk occupation at the best of times, but in an environment where crime is escalating at a rapid rate, especially violent crime, Ontario's policemen and women are facing even greater risks and pressures on a daily basis.

This is a sad occasion, but I believe it is important, especially in this House and at this time, that we recognize the challenges facing our police officers in today's Ontario society, and also recognize that the vast majority of men and women in blue are dedicated, honest, conscientious and committed to their communities.

Scott Rossiter, who lost his life in the line of duty, was that kind of police officer.

LITERACY

Mr Dadamo: As the member of the Ontario Legislature representing the riding of Windsor-Sandwich, I am pleased to announce to the members of this House that the Ministry of Education has granted $99,660 to the Windsor-Essex County Literacy Steering Committee for a program to assist laid-off workers to upgrade their skills.

The funding is part of $4.8 million to help workers who need to improve communications, reading, writing, science and basic computer skills. As well, the funding will also allow the Windsor-Essex County Literacy Steering Committee to assess the literacy and basic skills needs of laid-off workers in the Windsor-Essex region and also to help co-ordinate the delivery of the most appropriate training to them.

In closing, literacy and basic skills training are often the first step for people preparing for new jobs or retraining, and it is the goal of this government to ensure that programs of this nature are available to all those who need them.

My congratulations to Pam Pons, who is the executive director of the Unemployed Help Centre, along with her staff, for continuing to assist the unemployed in the Windsor area.

LAND USE PLANNING

Mr Bradley: The NDP has always said that it wants to protect agricultural land from development. In Niagara this is an important issue, as fruit farmers experiencing financial difficulty are offered very high prices to sell their farms to developers.

In February 1991 the Minister of Agriculture and Food announced a task force to look at land use issues in the Niagara region. The task force included representatives of the Niagara agricultural community, a special adviser to the minister and ministry staff. The minister said: "I want to emphasize that this task force has responsibility to bring me action plans. It is not just another study." The task force report was released later in the spring and included the recommendation of establishing conservation easements to protect agricultural land by providing financial support to local farmers in return for a legal agreement not to develop the land.

The government has not yet acted on the recommendations of the task force. Area farmers are angry the task force has turned out to be just another study. In protest, a number of Niagara farmers have put large signs on their farms, advertising land for sale to developers. The regional government is considering relaxing severance restrictions to allow more farmers to sell land for development.

The government must take immediate action to save the valuable farm lands of the Niagara Peninsula. There are rumours that the minister may soon announce a tripartite committee of farmers, municipal representatives and provincial representatives to study the conservation easements proposal again.

Farmers always say that they would rather farm than be forced to sell out to developers. So far this government is forcing farmers to sell out to those same developers.

LIQUOR STORES

Mr J. Wilson: Residents in Beeton have been trying for several years to obtain an LCBO outlet in their village. Local merchants are suffering because there is a tremendous outflow of shoppers who are forced to purchase their alcoholic beverages out of town.

In response to my interventions, a market survey was commissioned by the LCBO, with the results suggesting that a regular LCBO outlet would not be profitable in Beeton. While I find the results of this survey contentious, to say the least, it is my understanding that Beeton would qualify for an LCBO agency store.

The problem is that this government is intoxicated with its unholy alliance with unions. The LCBO cannot offer Beeton an agency store because the former NDP Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who is sitting across the House from me today, placed a freeze on the LCBO's plans to expand its agency stores.

This freeze has been implemented solely because agency stores do not employ unionized workers though regular LCBO outlets do. This government has become drunk on its own ideology. There are several communities across Ontario which would like easier access to LCBO products, and unfortunately these communities do not qualify for a regular LCBO outlet and the minister has put a freeze on agency stores.

I would urge this government to stop playing politics with this issue and begin to govern with the interest of all Ontarians in mind.

OKTOBERFEST

Mr Cooper: I would like to extend to all members an invitation to join the twin cities of Kitchener-Waterloo in their celebration of Oktoberfest, the second-largest Bavarian festival in the world.

From a modest beginning in 1969, K-W Oktoberfest has grown to become one of the most successful events in Canada, thanks mainly to the great German heritage of the twin cities kept alive by Kitchener-Waterloo's German Canadian social clubs -- Schwaben, Alpine, Transylvania, Concordia and Hubertushhaus.

Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest is known throughout the country for its unique spirit of gemütlichkeit, a German word that means everything from good times to warm hospitality. This year in excess of 600,000 happy revellers are expected to visit the area's festhallen and cultural and general events. Last year Premier Bob Rae was a proud participant at the opening ceremonies and the tapping of the keg.

Revellers can sing and dance to the brassy strains of German oompah bands and be entertained by traditional dance groups at any one of the 22 fest halls set up around the twin cities. Patrons can also sample some of the best Bavarian fare this side of the Atlantic -- favourites like wiener schnitzel, ribs, roast pig tails and, of course, Oktoberfest sausage and sauerkraut.

Visitors to Oktoberfest will want to visit the famed Kitchener farmers' market and the thriving Waterloo farmers' market. Two special landmarks at speakers' corner in downtown Kitchener are also a must: the 65-foot festival maypole and the glockenspiel, an animated carillon featuring Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In uptown Waterloo the Oktoberfest heritage timeteller, a charming bandshell with a lively band of beer steins moving in time to an Oktoberfest polka, keeps visitors in a festive spirit. Willkommen.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

ONTARIO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

Hon Ms Ziemba: This government is committed to achieving equity and justice. As part of that commitment it is our responsibility to ensure that the systems and the institutions established for this purpose work.

Ontario was the first province to establish a Human Rights Code, and we must continue to lead the country in delivering protection against discrimination. To this end I am pleased to announce a comprehensive plan of action to address the difficulties which have plagued the Ontario Human Rights Commission. These issues range from the backlog and an inadequate case management system to staff morale. These concerns have triggered a crisis of confidence among the people it was set up to serve.

These are issues which have existed for some time. Past governments have ignored the reports of consultants, pleas of complainants and equity-seeking groups, as well as the advice of the staff of the OHRC. These are also problems which the Ombudsman, Roberta Jamieson, has brought to the public's attention. She made recommendations to address these difficulties.

The chief commissioner and I have spent a great deal of time in serious deliberations on the complexities of the issues and problems facing the commission. We have met many interested groups across the province and with their valuable input, along with the recommendations of the Ombudsman, we have developed a strategy that has vision, specific goals and definite timetables.

The principles of the strategies are: It will enhance the social justice agenda of the government, it will be financially responsible, it will be politically accountable, and most important, it will ensure that the fundamental human rights of all citizens of Ontario are effectively protected.

Moreover, the focus of the strategy is to clear the backlog to address the frustration and anxiety of complainants over the prolonged delay, to strengthen the commission and ensure the backlog does not recur, and to give a firm commitment to a review of the Human Rights Code.

Although there have been some results from the considerable efforts made by the commission to deal with the backlog, we feel that the reduction in the case load has not been fast enough. Therefore we are assigning a 33-person staff of experienced investigators and conciliators from the public service.

This team will be in place by December 1991 and will have one year to complete all unassigned cases over six months old. Priorities will be set so that the most urgent cases get immediate attention. I would like to emphasize that this team will deal specifically with the backlog, thus allowing the staff of the commission to concentrate more fully on the new complaints and assigned cases.

At the same time we are instituting some administrative changes which will improve the health and performance of the commission. A closing time frame for all new cases will be established, as well as an improved case review process that will facilitate fast-tracking of cases. A review will be initiated which will assess management planning functions and set up accountability systems. A more comprehensive manager and staff training program, especially as it relates to customer service, will be developed. We will monitor the progress made within the commission and require monthly reports to ensure accountability.

Implementing this special project will require a one-time funding of $6.4 million over three years: $2.3 million this year, $3.6 million next year, and $500,000 in 1993.

It is very important that this process work, and that is why we have built in the requirement of strict supervision and monitoring. This is a one-time specific infusion of funds aimed at ensuring that the equilibrium of the OHRC is restored.

There will be a special project director to oversee the administrative changes, implement the improved systems and monitor progress. The mandate of the project director will be to ensure that the goals are met within budget and on time. The project director will provide regular reports to me on the status of this project.

In addition we are also naming human rights commissioner Fran Endicott as commission vice-chair. Her valuable experience will assist the commission in resolving the backlog problem and strengthening the agency.

There will be a permanent part-time chief of panel of the board of inquiry. That office will have administrative support and will provide training to panelists. This will result in a more efficient process. I am pleased at this time to announce that I have appointed Ms Maryka Omatsu, a lawyer with extensive experience in human rights issues, to be the first chief of the panel for the board of inquiry.

Recruitment of new panelists will place more emphasis on regional representation and reflect our diverse communities. As well, members will have a commitment to and a knowledge of human rights issues.

The Human Rights Code was last amended in 1981. Our society continues to evolve and the code must reflect current needs of the people of Ontario. Therefore the code must ensure that there will be a system where people's complaints will be dealt with in a fair and an expeditious manner.

Many have voiced clearly the need for a comprehensive review. I share that view. I have initiated a serious dialogue with community representatives in exploring models of participation. I will continue to do so in order to determine what will be the most effective means for community input. I will report back to the Legislature on the details and timing of a code review.

What I have outlined here is the spirit of the continuing commitment of this government to equity and social justice.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission is one of our most important institutions, and it must receive our full support. This government has introduced an antiracism strategy, has introduced the Advocacy Act, and will soon introduce mandatory employment equity legislation. We are confident that this comprehensive strategy will strengthen the protection of human rights in Ontario, and we are determined to provide the leadership to make it work.

HEALTH CARE

Hon Ms Lankin: I am taking this, the earliest possible opportunity, to share with you, Mr Speaker, the Premier, and the members of this House some details of last week's conference of the federal, provincial and territorial ministers that was held in Winnipeg. Much was accomplished at that conference, and I was very encouraged by the commitment and co-operation displayed by all the delegates attending.

As a group the federal, provincial and territorial health ministers have committed to work together to manage Canada's health care system to its fullest potential so that it stands unique in the world at providing the best possible care and an equal standard of care for all our citizens.

To do that we pledged as health ministers to renew our health partnership across the nation. We mean to protect and maintain what we already have and to work toward sustaining and building an even better health system for the future. There is no question that the principles of medicare enshrined in our Canada Health Act must be maintained nationally and provincially, but that cannot be done overnight by a simple act of willpower. However, we do believe that we can begin to address certain aspects now, together.

We have identified three fundamental considerations for renewal: preservation of the principles in the Canada Health Act, assurances of adequate funding, and effective management of the system.

Provision of quality health care to Canadians depends on effective management of the health care system. Because the delivery of health care is a provincial and territorial responsibility, the provinces and territories are committed to provide effective management of the system. This morning I tabled with the office of the Clerk three communiqués that we issued at the conference. I also tabled the national nursing symposium report and a report called Toward Integrated Medical Resource Policies for Canada, informally known as the Barer-Stoddart report.

The national nursing symposium report arises from a national nursing conference held last November. The report was sponsored by the provincial health ministries and is a comprehensive document looking into a number of nursing issues. It offers health ministries, employers, unions, nursing organizations and nurses recommendations on such items as recruiting, education and leadership.

The Barer-Stoddart report, commissioned by the federal, provincial and territorial deputy ministers of health, is a major planning document for health human resources. It is being given wide distribution in a consultation exercise across Canada. Governments, medical schools, hospitals and other health service stakeholders have been invited to comment.

Let me also share, from a second communiqué, some of the steps the provincial and territorial health ministers believe to be essential to strengthen our health partnership. As recommended in the 1987 Future Directions for Health Care Services report, we believe the development of national health goals and objectives should be continued. Several jurisdictions have begun such development, and consensus on national goals is the next necessary step. A national initative would assist in creating an overall vision and framework.

Such a process is required in order to allow for a national readjustment of priorities and reallocation of resources, and it would provide opportunities for Canadians to participate and set important priorities.

The provincial and territorial ministers recommend a national strategy to support research into innovative and cost-effective ways of delivering high-quality health care services across Canada. This strategy would provide for demonstration projects on alternative delivery systems so that an evaluation could be made of their service and the value and the relative impact on costs.

As well, it would support a national health goals strategy, a total quality management strategy and studies to address cost drivers. We believe that quality assurance and total quality management strategies should be expedited throughout the overall health care system. Introduction of these techniques is essential to find out if health care services across the country are appropriate and effective.

In the area of supply and distribution of health care human resources, the health ministers believe that a co-ordinated federal, provincial and territorial effort must be undertaken.

We intend to follow up on the recommendations of both the National Nursing Symposium and the Barer-Stoddart report.

Finally the ministers believe there is a central role for the federal government in assessing new medical technologies. As well, we think efficiencies and cost-effectiveness could result from new strategies in centralized procurement of medical equipment, supplies and pharmaceuticals.

One of the highlights of the conference was that for the first time ever, federal, provincial and territorial health ministers were able to sit at the table with the leaders of four aboriginal organizations and hear their concerns.

I know that aboriginal health issues are, and have been for some time, a particular concern for the Premier and for this Legislature. I am sure all the members will be pleased to know that the health ministers intend to continue to consult on an ongoing basis with these leaders and that provincially I intend to carry on an active dialogue with Ontario's aboriginal groups.

In their presentations the aboriginal leaders pointed out that their understanding of health and determinants of health has always accorded with what we are just beginning to accept from reports of health councils and other organizations. I quote from the presentation on behalf of the Inuit Tapirisat Association: "Health care is tightly bound to issues of social and economic wellbeing. To consider health care as separate from the desperate need for decent housing, adequate sewage treatment, safe drinking water and meaningful employment is simply insufficient."

The presentation went on to highlight the need to establish truly equal partnerships that facilitate the Inuit people in taking control of their own health care. I quote further from the report:

"The transfer of authority over health care to Inuit is only the essential first step to achieving the larger goal of self-care. The medicalization of health care, as well-intentioned as it may be, has slowly eroded our confidence in our own ability to know what 'wellness' is.

"Self-determination in health care means more than a change of managers; it means a redefinition of 'health' -- an Inuit definition."

On behalf of this government and the people of Ontario, I am committed to the renewal process we began last week in Winnipeg.

RESPONSES

ONTARIO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

Mr Curling: I am very happy to address and comment on the statement the minister made here this afternoon. It seems to me the minister has come to her senses and knows there does exist a problem at the Ontario Human Rights Commission. I have raised the point here on many days in this House and she has ignored, as a matter of fact denied, that there is such a problem that exists here.

However, there is still some neglect. In her report the minister neglects to mention the poor morale within the commission and the racial discrimination that happens within the commission in many of the offices I visited. I wonder whether she will address that sooner or later.

The minister also denied the backlog that existed. I recall at one stage she said to us that throwing money at these issues would not resolve them. Today she announced she has more money to throw at them.

I remember when my colleague the Honourable Gerry Phillips, the minister of the day then, contributed $11 million to the commission through the ministry. What have they done with that? Will $3 million more thrown at it help it in any way? I do not think so. I think what she has done is quite inadequate.

Nothing has changed. These kinds of patchwork approach measures the minister is taking will not resolve the problem itself. I remembered again when the Ombudsman's report was leaked, and now she is fully agreeable to the things that are said there. I am not quite sure whether she is completely committed to making those changes.

We also told the minister that the code needed to be changed to reflect the diverse culture we have here in Ontario. Now that she has done so and has intended to do so, we hope it is not interfered with by political or party interference itself. We see a lof of ministry interference here; some hint of that nature. We hope it is an independent commission that looks at itself and makes sure to follow the direction of the Ombudsman and the criticism here.

We have been watching the minister very closely because her record and her government's record are extremely poor with regard to human rights. They talk a lot and do nothing. We will be watching very carefully.

HEALTH CARE

Mrs Sullivan: I would like to respond to the statement from the Minister of Health. In a time of constitutional uncertainty, and on this particular day when new constitutional proposals have been put forward, reassuring and underlining the value of the medicare programs and the commitment of the provinces, the territories and the federal government to that, I think is something that is valuable.

I note from the minister's statement that one of the messages all the ministers spoke about was that one of the fundamental considerations for renewal of health care is the assurance of adequate funding. In Ontario, with health care funding consuming more than a third of the provincial budget, it behooves us to participate in initiatives that lead to cost-effective management of the health care system. We are anxious to see what initiatives this minister will put forward in that area.

So far the initiatives we have seen include requiring all hospitals that have been waiting for computerized axial tomography scanners to resubmit their applications because the requirements for acquisition have been changed.

I also remind the minister that she and the Treasurer have just carried a very gloomy message to health care providers. It is rumoured that $700 million in her constraints will be put forward, but it is unclear, because the Minister of Health has made it unclear, whether the commitments that have been made to hospitals so far for operating expenses for this year will be cut back. Nor is it clear how hospitals will be able to meet the pressures of their nursing settlement, of the employer health tax, of occupational health and safety provisions, of the Ontario Medical Association decision and pay equity decisions.

That uncertainty must be cleared up immediately. The minister must do it right away.

If the minister is interested in providing quality health care, I also want to call on her to withdraw the unworkable and ill-thought-out bill on consent, Bill 109, and begin at the beginning again with appropriate consultation in a process where providers and professionals have a say, and bring a new bill to the House. I suggest that the lack of consultation on Bill 109 is one the minister herself has noted as being one where the intent of the legislation was not met through the policy initiatives and the legislation that was put forward. I ask her to withdraw that bill and come back with a new bill.

ONTARIO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

Mr Cousens: The Liberals have done it again. They want to throw more money at the problem instead of solving it, and I am just surprised that the member for Scarborough North still has not learned a lesson since he got kicked out of power.

I sit around and look at this Minister of Citizenship and I say shame on her for what she is saying in her report today. She is saying, "Past governments and consultants have not been listened to." Whom has she been listening to? There was a press conference this summer when a human rights reform group came and said: "Let's overhaul the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Let's set up a task force to do something about it." The minister has not listened to anyone except herself. I am afraid she is not listening to enough people.

The fact of the matter is that something needs to be done and she is starting to say, "We're going to do it all." I do not think the minister has begun to address the real problem.

Shame on the minister as well when she says her program will be a responsible program financially. That is poppycock. Look at what happened earlier. A task force was set up in 1990 with 10 people to work on it. Their goal was 200 cases to be closed in the first six months and 200 in the next six months. They failed to meet that goal. In fact, they closed only 71 cases in the first six months, a third of the cases.

Here is the minister coming along and adding it up. It comes to about $10 million that this government will have spent in five years towards trying to solve the backlog in human rights. Come on, it is not just money she needs; she has to come along and look at a way of approaching the needs of people in this province and it takes a fresh approach, an overhaul and a royal commission on human rights. It is an issue and a problem, but the minister has come along and given us fancy words again.

She has had several months since this House broke off, and what has she come back with? I have to say shame on the Minister of Citizenship. She has failed to meet the need. She has failed the test. She is failing the people who need that help right now and on behalf of our party I say, why does the minister not get out and let someone else do it?

HEALTH CARE

Mr J. Wilson: In response to the Minister of Health's report to the Legislature today, the minister spoke of health partnership across this nation and a renewed commitment to co-operation and co-ordination among Canada's ministers of health, but I ask her to apply those same principles of partnership, co-ordination and co-operation in this province.

In Ontario today there is very little co-ordination among the myriad of programs administered by her Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Community and Social Services. The minister does not have to look much farther than outside her own office door to see gross examples of lack of co-ordination and co-operation in her own ministry. There are 10,000 children on waiting lists for mental health services in this province. That is a disgrace.

Her government seems to have an agenda of driving private nursing homes out of business in this province. She has not come up with the answer, the solution or the suggestion of how she is going to deal with the frail elderly, for instance, whom she very well may be putting out on the street. She is threatening to close Ontario's chronic care hospitals to save money, but there is no indication from her to this point what we are going to do with the people in those hospitals.

The minister has unco-ordinated government policies and they have resulted in the closure of hundreds of hospital beds. She has put untold numbers of people out of work. They are on the street and they have joined our unemployment lines. She has not co-operated or worked in partnership with the hospitals that have had to close hospital beds. She has simply squeezed their budgets so tight that the only option left for them after all the efficiency studies is to close hospital beds, and it is a disgrace.

Lack of human resource planning in the health care field has resulted in waiting lists for cancer patients, and the same applies in the areas of treatment for persons with head injuries and those waiting for drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

While it is commendable that the minister is working with other levels of government, with her colleagues across the provinces and at the federal level to maintain Canada's health care system, I do however recommend that she apply the same principles of co-ordination, partnership and co-operation in her dealings with health care providers and consumers in her own backyard. The minister should stay in the province for a while and look after the problems here before she goes around preaching to her colleagues across the nation and to the federal government.

ORAL QUESTIONS

BUDGET

Mr Elston: Yesterday the Treasurer of the province confirmed that his revenue flows were spot on his budgetary targets. He told us he was going to abide by his reckless $9.7-billion deficit and has indicated that he has everything under control but his expenditures. That being the case, he then went out of this House and told the media he was hundreds of millions of dollars over his budget in terms of expenditures. Can the Treasurer tell us exactly how many hundreds of millions of dollars his budget expenditures are beyond what his budget said?

Hon Mr Laughren: Perhaps I could clarify for the interim leader of the official opposition exactly the message I was attempting to convey. Perhaps it was not as clear as it could have been. What I was trying to convey was the fact that in this fiscal year, the revenues that Ontario gets from its own sources as opposed to revenues from the federal government were pretty close to what we had predicted in the budget in the spring.

Mr Elston: Not spot on.

Hon Mr Laughren: Well, spot on -- okay, I will use that figure if the member likes and if it makes him feel better, but very, very close. On the other hand, if we do not take action the expenditures will put us over the deficit number of $9.7 billion, which we do not want to do.

Interjection.

Hon Mr Laughren: There is nothing secretive about this. It is just the case that we are adding up all the numbers and we know there would be several hundreds of millions of dollars that we would be over what we anticipated the expenditures would be. I think the leader understands a couple of the problems with the welfare case loads and with the solvency numbers for the pension plans. There is nothing mysterious about it. We simply have to engage in some reallocations to make sure we come in with that $9.7 billion.

Mr Elston: I have just one very straightforward question for the Treasurer. Can he tell us how many hundreds of millions of dollars his expenditures are out of control at this particular time?

Hon Mr Laughren: Not a penny of our expenditures are out of control. Perhaps the interim leader does not understand, but I suspect every government and every Treasurer has had to deal with pressures on expenditures in-year. I doubt if there is anything new except that the pressures, I think, are tougher this year because of the recession that we are finding ourselves in and are very slowly coming out of.

I think it is not fair to depict the pressures on our expenditures as being out of control. If we were not going to take action to do something about them, yes, I would agree with him, but we have every intention of keeping those expenditures under control. That is what we will be doing, and it is my intention to make a more detailed statement in the House in the next week or so.

Mr Elston: It is a relatively straightforward question. Yesterday he told us he was abiding by his expenditure plan, which was of some $52 billion. He told us he was abiding by his deficit plan, which was of $9.7 billion. He told us that his revenue projections were spot on. Now can he tell us how many hundreds of millions of dollars beyond his budget's expenditure plan he is currently at, and how many hundreds of millions of dollars he will be required to cut from the current expenditure profile that he sees in his Treasury reports?

Hon Mr Laughren: To be precise, several. I think what members have to understand -- and the interim leader at one point in his illustrious political career was Chairman of Management Board, as I recall. I am sure he understands the process that all governments go through as they attempt to contain expenditure pressures, because those pressures will always be there.

There is no precise figure at this point. We are keeping a very close eye on the expenditures to make sure that whatever the expenditure pressures are, we do not allow those pressures to cause us to exceed the $52 billion in expenditures that were projected in the spring budget.

Mr Elston: I had expected the Treasurer to be much more candid about where we were going with their expenditure plan. I was prepared to have a question for some other minister at this point, but I am going back to the Treasurer until he comes clean with us about these numbers. There is no way that he can have an expenditure plan prepared for delivery next week if he does not know exactly how many dollars he is going to be putting to the knife under his budgetary plan. There is no way.

I only ask the Treasurer now to tell me how many does his word "several" equate to in numerical terms when he describes "hundreds of millions" of dollars.

Hon Mr Laughren: I tried to be as precise as I could to the interim Leader of the Opposition and I did say to the member that in the next week or so it is my intention to make a full report to the Legislature when all --

Mr Elston: Only on expenditures.

Hon Mr Laughren: No, on basically what action we are going to take to make sure that we have control of expenditures and they do not exceed what we predicted they would be. There is nothing mysterious about that, and I would put --

Interjections.

Hon Mr Laughren: I will wait for the supplementary.

Mr Elston: Now, having had the Treasurer tell us and confirm that he is abandoning the commitments of his April 1991 budget, will he tell us with whom he is consulting to construct the loser's list around the overexpenditures of hundreds of millions of dollars that he told the press about yesterday and only came to tell the House about today?

Hon Mr Laughren: First of all, we in this government do not make up lists of winners and losers. Let's get that on the record first of all.

I have been saying for at least a month now that there were expenditure pressures building in the province. I did not say anything yesterday that was new; it is what I have been saying for the last month. That is simply a fact. What I did say yesterday that was perhaps a little different was that our revenue projections seem to be spot on, from what we had predicted in the spring.

Mr Elston: Now they "seem to be." You were more categorical yesterday.

Hon Mr Laughren: I would put a word of caution in that the two big numbers that really hurt us fiscally in the last year were the corporate income tax and retail sales taxes. For retail sales taxes, the big numbers come clear in January, after the retail season in November and December. So first of all, it is premature to say that the numbers that appear to be spot on now will always be. I do not know that. And with corporation tax revenues, which are also way down in the last year, we do not get those numbers until about March. But from what we see now, our revenue projections now are the same as they were back in the spring.

There is nothing new in what I said yesterday, other than the fact that our revenues seem to be holding and that our expenditure pressures are building.

Mr Elston: We asked the Treasurer yesterday if he would bring in a new economic statement about the way the province was, and we asked in August if he would do that, since everything has changed, or at least it apparently has changed in some way that they were not able to anticipate last April.

But can the Treasurer today, since he is unable to give us a real view of the entire world, guarantee to us that he will not be asking transfer payment agencies like hospitals and municipalities to pay for the mismanagement of his expenditure program under his 1991 budget by being forced to take less than the amount of money that they need -- to quote him in terms of what he said about his last transfer payment announcement -- "to commit to the maintenance of current service levels in those transfer payment agencies"?

Hon Mr Laughren: First of all, we have not changed direction from the budget in the spring. We said in the spring what we thought our expenditures would be and what our revenues would be. We have not changed that. We are simply attempting to maintain that. I find it a bit hard to take for the interim leader to stand in his place, who was part of a government that experienced the greatest growth in this province in decades and still ended up with a deficit at the end of its term.

LANDFILL SITES

Mr Cousens: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment on a mounting crisis and one that just will not go away until we find a true solution to it. The minister will be aware that the region of Peel has defied her directive of August 16 ordering it to expand the Britannia Road landfill site. She will also be aware that a series of resolutions were passed by Peel clearly stating that unless the Premier meets with them and unless a number of conditions are met, they will not be proceeding with the proposed expansion.

Will the Minister of the Environment tell this House when the Premier will be meeting with Peel region and what measures are now under way to respond to Peel region's demands?

Hon Mrs Grier: As I am sure the member is aware, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and I had a meeting with the chairman of the region of Peel and the mayors of the area municipalities within Peel to discuss with them the emergency order I had issued with respect to the disposal of waste within Peel. I think what matters to the people of the region of Peel is what is going to happen to their waste in August 1992, when the Britannia site closes. I understand the reluctance of the council of the region of Peel to agree to the expansion of that site, but there is no other choice.

I certainly hope that as we discuss the issues, as we have been, we can arrive at some working agreement and arrangement and that I will have the full co-operation of the region of Peel, and I look forward to that happening.

Mr Cousens: It was obvious that the region of Peel wanted to meet with the Premier. They did not; the Premier did not meet with them. They wanted to have some measures to respond to the questions they had, and it is obvious that the ministry and the minister have no answer to the concerns that Peel has been raising.

The Minister of the Environment also made use of her emergency powers under the EPA with no regard to the impact these expansions and orders would have on the communities involved. There will be no environmental assessment, there will be no discussion, and there is still no long-term landfill site in place. She is now also ordering Durham region to construct a temporary transfer station at a cost of millions of dollars so that it can transport its waste to Keele Valley.

How can the minister stand here today in this House in good conscience and assure the people of the greater Toronto area that she is capable of handling this issue when, after millions of tax dollars have been spent, we are no better off than we were four years ago, either financially or environmentally?

Hon Mrs Grier: I am sure the member will allow me to disagree profoundly. We are a great deal better off than we were a year ago. We have in place within the greater Toronto area a system of waste reduction and reuse that is second to none anywhere in this province, one that is beginning to have a very real impact on the amount of waste that is generated and that is going to landfill sites. We have Metropolitan Toronto suggesting that perhaps Keele Valley will last until 1997 because of the efforts that are being made with waste reduction.

We have a government that has a very clear long-term plan and that has begun the search under its Interim Waste Authority for three long-term sites to accommodate the greater Toronto area, sites that will be found under the Environmental Assessment Act. That is a vast improvement over the situation a year ago.

Mr Cousens: We are not environmentally better off; we are not financially better off. The minister may think we are, and that is the dispute that we are going to be having in this House for a long time to come, until she begins to deal as minister with the issues that deal with the environment. We have a crisis on our hands and she and her ministry are just sidestepping it and hoping someone else is going to solve it for them.

Metro Toronto's waste reserve fund once stood at $250 million. It now stands at $100 million. They spent $25 million alone on the Kirkland Lake deal, which the minister vetoed. Durham region's waste reserve fund, which was once $20 million, is now almost broke -- $20 million to nothing. Millions of dollars have been spent to expand the Keele Valley landfill site so that Metro, York and Durham regions can transfer their waste there. How many more millions of taxpayers' money is going to be spent on wasted studies, wasted site locations and wasted government policy?

Will the minister commit today to remunerate the GTA municipalities for all the wasted dollars due to her flip-flop policies?

Hon Mrs Grier: Let me tell the member that we agree on one thing. We agree that there is a crisis. I am sure we could agree that that crisis has been around for five, six, seven years within the GTA, but to suggest that there is not an answer to that crisis is entirely wrong.

We have an answer. We have an answer in our policies to reduce the amount of waste. We have an answer in our search for long-term sites under the Environmental Assessment Act. We have a short-term answer, a painful short-term answer, a short-term answer which requires us to take the tough decision to extend the use of Britannia and to extend the use of Keele Valley. That was a hard choice to make. It was not shying away from the crisis. It is a solution to the crisis, and that solution will be successful.

RENT REGULATION

Mrs Marland: My question is to the Minister of Housing. Before I begin, I would like to congratulate her on her re-entry into the cabinet, and as our party's new critic for Housing, I look forward to working with her in her new portfolio.

The former Minister of Housing was very vocal, both in opposition and in government, about his views on landlords who charge what he considers to be excessive and gouging rents. My question to the minister is, as the new minister, would she tell us if she shares this view and what would she be prepared to do in situations where unlawful rents are being charged?

Hon Ms Gigantes: I would like to thank the member for Mississauga South, the Conservative critic for Housing, newly appointed, and give her our congratulations on her appointment.

I will answer her question by saying that I cannot imagine there is anybody who would approve of landlords' behaviour when that behaviour could be categorized as greedy, as gouging; I have forgotten all the adjectives she has suggested. It is very difficult, however, to answer a question in which she says, "What would you do about it?" We have set certain mechanisms in place to produce new rent control legislation, as she knows. I presume she has a follow-up question to that.

Mrs Marland: I have been given a specific example which seems to indicate that there is a landlord who is charging over 100% above the legal rent, and I would like to send this over to the minister so she has a copy of what we are talking about. A rental unit in Toronto was rented in 1982 for $420.22. Based on annual guideline increases, this unit should today be renting for $661.14. However, the tenants are paying $1,325 for this unit. To the best of my knowledge, no applications have been made for increases over and above the guidelines and thus the current rent appears to be 100.5% higher than legally allowable.

Will the minister investigate this situation and what action will she take?

Hon Ms Gigantes: I certainly will look into the situation. I will need a little more information, which I am sure the ministry and the member will help me get, which has to do with the age of the building and whether in fact there had been a notice to the landlord under the rent registry system and so on.

The rent registry system, as members will recall, was started back in 1987, but it was never put into action completely, because there developed a huge backlog under the existing Bill 51. Resources were totally devoted to trying to deal with that backlog. The rent registry system, however, will be in effective use for the large buildings in Ontario, I hope, by the end of this year. Certainly tenants will be in a position then to know what their legal rent is.

Mrs Marland: It is not going to be very difficult for the minister to pursue this particular case, because the brown envelope I received states that the landlord of this building sits with her at the cabinet table. This building, at 964 Avenue Road, is owned by the Minister of Community and Social Services. What action will the minister take now?

Hon Ms Gigantes: The action I will take on any complaint brought forward by this member or any other member will be the same as the action I will take in any other case.

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mr Kwinter: My question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. Before I ask him the question, I want to congratulate him on his new responsibilities and wish him well.

As members know, the state of business and manufacturing in this province is at crisis levels. Last year there were over 50,000 bankruptcies in Ontario. Last year there were over 250,000 job losses, two thirds of which were permanent manufacturing jobs. Many larger businesses, particularly in the resource sector, are being hard hit. In the Ontario pulp and paper industry, over 3,100 jobs have been lost so far.

Last fall, in a speech to Ontario business representatives, the Premier said, "The NDP believes very profoundly in building the partnership with business through negotiation and discussion." The Premier reiterated this yesterday in his economic renewal statement. Yet on August 7 of this year, the Minister of Labour approved a cabinet document which outlined numerous controversial changes to the Labour Relations Act. The communications plan of this document outlined a detailed strategy for squashing all business concerns, and the most telling passage of this document is where the minister states, "There must be a special effort made to neutralize all opposition from the business community."

I notice, Mr Speaker, you are getting a little anxious. I will tell you that my question to the minister is this: Does he condone these special efforts to neutralize the business community by his colleague the Minister of Labour, and does the minister feel that the neutralization of business is what the Premier had in mind when he spoke about renewed relationships and co-operation?

Hon Mr Philip: The way in which the Minister of Labour is neutralizing business is by listening to it. He has a discussion paper out there. The Minister of Labour has met with the members of the business community. The very fact that the Minister of Labour has amended and changed a number of the earlier proposals in the first draft of that discussion paper shows just how flexible he is and how intently the Minister of Labour is listening.

Let me respond to the former minister's comment that businesses are somehow leaving the province. Let me just say that since I became minister, the Ontario Development Corp alone has created some 1,291 jobs, and indeed since February, 43,000 new jobs have been created. I would be happy to outline just a few of the companies in his own area, if he would care to ask me a supplementary on that.

Mr Kwinter: The minister does not seem to understand the implications of his actions or his responsibilities in this matter.

Let me give him an example. In July of this year, the provincial secretary of the New Democratic Party, Jill Marzetti, sent out a province-wide fund-raising letter. This is what the envelope looked like. It said, "One year later, big business is out to stop us." This is the actual letter. It went out, and I would like to read some quotes from it. It says: "But in our haste to make Ontario a better province, we ran straight into a powerful lobby that does not want us to implement that agenda. The lobby is big business.

They are a loud, well-financed opponent of everything that we have done." She goes on to say, "Business is trying its best to stop us from doing the job we were elected to do." She concludes by implying that people must financially support the NDP if there is any hope of overcoming the Ontario business lobby.

Can the minister tell us, in his role -- he stated it himself when he was appointed that he would be the champion of business -- if in a competing jurisdiction, if we are competing with Buffalo or Quebec or Vancouver or Alberta and a businessman is shown this and it is said, "This is what the NDP thinks of business," what hope has he got of attracting anybody to this province, and what is he going to do about it?

Hon Mr Philip: The business community knows what this government thinks of the co-operation between business and this government.

The plastics industry just signed a memorandum of understanding with my ministry outlining clearly how that industry and this ministry and the workers and the local communities would work together in that industry. That is what the plastics industry thinks of this government.

Let me tell the member what some other people think of this government. The president of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce has said that he is not only willing to work with this government, but that he is willing to go with me to meet the major investors in the United States and tell them what a great place Ontario is to invest in.

Does the member want to know what Ford Canada thinks of this province? Ford Canada is in the process of spending $500 million on a new plant in Oakville. That is what Ford Canada thinks of this province and this government.

Does the member want to know what Chrysler thinks of this government? Chrysler has announced it is increasing its capacity at Bramalea. That is what Chrysler thinks of this government.

Does the member want to know what is happening in Windsor? There is an extra shift on in Windsor. That is what is happening. I will take him around this province and I will show him how this government is working with industry to create new high-tech jobs, high-paying jobs and new joint ventures with the business community in this province.

That is what this government thinks of this.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr Tilson: I have a question for the Minister of Financial Institutions. An Angus Reid survey conducted earlier this month and released today indicates that 75% of Ontarians want the NDP government to keep its promise to restore the right of innocent auto victims to sue. This government promised to allow them to sue for loss of past, present and future income, plus pain and suffering.

There is now evidence today to suggest that the minister and his government are leaning in a totally different direction, that they plan to lower the current threshold tests, but allow innocent victims to sue for pain and suffering only, and not for their loss of income, long-promised by this government. Will the minister confirm that his officials have indicated this direction, and if true, will this result in an even further loss of rights for those victims than has been witnessed under the previous Liberal administration?

Hon Mr Charlton: I welcome the member as my new critic and hope we have a long, enjoyable relationship.

Having said that, let me say first of all that my officials did not indicate anything. There was an announcement made by the Premier and by myself on September 6 of this year that very clearly set out the answer to the question the member is raising today. We made an announcement that we intended to proceed with significant reform of the auto insurance system, including major product reform, that included benefits reform, financial-loss benefits, indexing and removal of caps and tort for pain and suffering. That is what the announcement said on September 6.

That is what was discussed with the media at the scrum after September 6. That is what has been discussed on several major media outlet shows since that time. This question is three weeks old.

Mr Tilson: Is the minister telling us that he is going to allow for loss of income for economic loss? If that is the case, that is fine, because that is not what I understand his officials have been saying.

Certainly part of the uncertainty and confusion resulting from this issue is created by his government's own process since its luxury resort deliberations. The minister was told today by representatives from the Committee for Fair Action in Insurance that the only non-governmental representatives to his working group, a group working to create his new plan, are from the insurance industry. That is all. Victims' rights, medical rehabilitation and advocacy groups are only to be consulted some time in the future. He is not consulting them up to this point.

This is from a government that makes hollow commitments to the consultative process. Once again, the government seems to have made a decision before its so-called consultations have begun. The government's process is a sham. It is worse than the Liberals ever were. I expect its new bill is already at the printers. Why does the minister not open up his working group to include participants from the other interest groups and not just from the insurance companies, which have probably drafted the bill for him?

Hon Mr Charlton: The member is incorrect on all counts, and the group which held the press conference this morning was in fact ill-informed. There are several working groups which have been set up with industry. They are not drafting anybody's plan; they are consultation groups. My ministry, myself and my staff started consultations in the middle of last week with the very groups the member is referring to. The group which had the press conference this morning happens to be meeting with the minister this Friday afternoon. The consultations are ongoing.

No decisions have been made about the precise definition of the threshold or any of the other parts of the package, because it is a package that has to be worked out in pieces that fit together. When the consultations are finished, this minister will take responsibility for making an announcement on behalf of the government once it has been approved by the cabinet, not by working groups set up in the industry.

LANDFILL SITE

Mr Duignan: My question today is to the Minister of the Environment. Last May 15 in this House, I asked the minister about a proposal by Reclamation Systems Inc to create a private landfill in the Acton quarry site, a site which most people in my riding oppose and which they pay 3% of their local taxes to fight in the courts. At that time, I also asked the minister whether she would ensure that no environmental assessment hearing would take place if the site is found to be environmentally unacceptable. Could the minister please update this House on where these proposals are?

Hon Mrs Grier: I am glad to have an opportunity to do that because I certainly am aware of the honourable member's interest in this particular proposal and the interest of his constituents. I think he had a petition with 12,000 names on it that he presented to this House in the spring. As members will be aware, Reclamation Systems Inc has applied to create a landfill site in the Acton quarry. The application has now been reviewed by the various ministries and that review is almost completed within my ministry. I am glad to be able to tell the member that.

Mr Duignan: The minister has spoken in response about a government review on this landfill proposal. Will she please tell the House when she plans to release this document and whether she can ensure this House that no hearing takes place if the site is found to be unacceptable for a landfill site?

Hon Mrs Grier: The next phase after the document has been reviewed by the various ministries and by my ministry is for it to be released for public comment. I hope that can happen very shortly.

With respect to the second part of the member's question, as to whether or not I can declare the site unacceptable for a waste disposal site, I think the member is aware, as are other members of this House, that the company has a right, under the Environmental Assessment Act, to proceed to a hearing if that is its wish.

TIMBER MANAGEMENT

Mr Ramsay: As the Minister of the Environment knows full well, the Ontario Environmental Assessment Advisory Committee submitted a report to her in June that we still have not seen. This is a report that included hearings on three timber management plans in northeastern Ontario in the Ranger Lake area. The minister knows for sure whereof I speak. We have not seen the results of this report yet.

I would like to remind the minister of, and just read back to the minister, a commitment the Minister of Natural Resources made to this House on 7 May. He said: "I have made assurances to the tourist operator who is interested in the particular outcome of this EAAC hearing that we will put things on hold. At this particular time I do not see any reason why we should change that assurance."

I was wondering if the minister stands by this assurance today in this House.

Hon Mrs Grier: I am not prepared to comment on the details of what the Minister of Natural Resources has said, but I am certainly familiar with the report from the environmental assessment advisory committee to which the member refers. I have had discussions with respect to the recommendations of that report with my colleague the Minister of Natural Resources and I hope to be able to release some decisions on that very shortly.

Mr Ramsay: We have a problem here, because we have an advisory committee to the Minister of the Environment and we have not seen this. This is under wraps, so we do not know what those recommendations are. But in the members' gallery today we have George Nixon, who is the tourist operator who asked that this be examined. According to Mr Nixon, logging roads have penetrated this area and harvesting commenced in this area last summer. Yet we have not seen the report and we have not seen those recommendations.

The Minister of Natural Resources has given us assurance that this would not happen. Is this an environmental-assessment-sensitive government or not? What is the recommendation of the ministry and what is going to be the future of the harvesting in this area?

Hon Mrs Grier: This is indeed an environmentally sensitive government and, contrary to other governments, it is a government in which all ministers take the environment into account when they make their decisions. My colleague the Minister of Natural Resources has discussed with Mr Nixon the particular situation with respect to that request for a full environmental assessment.

Interjection.

The Speaker: Order.

Hon Mrs Grier: As I am sure the member is aware, the reports of the environmental assessment advisory committee are made public at the time the minister's decision is rendered. I assure him I intend to follow that practice.

Mr Scott: There goes your credibility. Timber!

The Speaker: Order.

Mr Scott: The member for St George-St David?

The Speaker: The member for St George-St David.

Mr Scott: I just wanted to know, Mr Speaker.

The Speaker: We know you are here.

MARKETING BOARDS

Mr Villeneuve: My question is to the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Yesterday he made remarks in committee during the emergency debate on the farm income crisis. We do have a major crisis on our hands. He told us he fully supports

article XI of the GATT and his two parliamentary assistants also said he and his government support that.

The minister knows the marketing board system works because the boards are allowed to determine a fair price based on the cost of production, the true and real and proven cost of production. Now, if he really supports marketing boards, can the minister explain why he threw out and overturned the price determined by the broiler chicken marketing board and imposed a reduction of 12 cents per kilo? How can he substantiate both issues?

Hon Mr Buchanan: The member, if he was to look at the facts a little more closely, would find that I did not overturn the price. It was the tribunal that upheld a 12-cents-per-kilo reduction in the price of chicken. It was not the minister. There was an appeal to me to do something about that. That appeal is pending in my office.

Mr Villeneuve: The Farm Products Appeal Tribunal is under the minister's direction. He appoints them, and if they do have the power to set the price, then forget about marketing boards. The minister is supposed to be supporting them. If they have that power, let's forget about boards.

John Core of the Ontario Milk Marketing Board said yesterday: "Unless marketing boards have effective border controls, restricted production and cost-of-production-based pricing, forget about the boards. Any one of those components destroys them."

It is under the minister's direction. What does he intend to do about what his appeal tribunal did?

Hon Mr Buchanan: Clearly with supply management the intent is to control the supply from the producers' side so they have a sense they are producing the required amount of any given product for the market. That is one side of the marketing board concept. The other side is they have some sense of control over pricing. The different commodities have different systems depending on whether it is milk, eggs, chicken, etc.

The member across has identified a problem in terms of a rollback using a process that has been in place that we helped to reinforce recently. In August, we came up with a new way of working with an agreement to price. The tribunal, which is part of that process, upheld the processors' request for a rollback. That is unfortunate. It indicates, perhaps, that the board does not have enough clout, if you will, to set the price. That is something there is room to look at and examine to support and enhance the chicken producers' right to set prices.

M. Bisson : Ma question est pour le ministre des Collèges et Universités. Comme on le sait, le gouvernement a annoncé dernièrement la création possible de collèges francophones ici en Ontario. J'aimerais savoir à quel point on se trouve dans les négociations avec le gouvernement fédéral.

L'hon. M. Allen : Comme le député de Cochrane-Sud le sait, un des faits saillants à l'égard du niveau de participation de la communauté francophone dans l'éducation postsecondaire est que c'est en général de 50 % relative à la population générale non francophone.

En comparaison, aux niveaux élémentaire et secondaire, depuis qu'on a développé un réseau d'écoles francophones, on a trouvé un niveau de participation presque égal au reste de la population. Donc, pour le relancement de l'économie et aussi pour l'équité sociale pour la communauté francophone, j'ai suggéré le commencement de pourparlers avec le gouvernement fédéral visant le financement de l'expansion d'un réseau collégial pour les francophones ici en Ontario.

M. Bisson : On connaît un peu la situation du gouvernement fédéral qui se trouve avec son système de finance et aussi un peu l'attitude qu'il a prise envers les provinces et envers ses responsabilités. Est-ce que le ministre a une idée à quoi s'attendre des négociations avec le gouvernement fédéral ?

L'hon. M. Allen : Comme le sait le député, nos circonstances fiscales sont assez difficiles. Donc, il faut avoir des pourparlers avec le fédéral concernant le partage du financement d'une telle initiative. Quant à nous, il est très important que ce soit une initiative conjointe, provinciale et fédérale, pour le bon succès de cette initiative collégiale ici en Ontario.

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

Mr Mancini: My question is for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Yesterday, during the agricultural hearings at the standing committee on resources development, the minister confirmed that he would be meeting on September 30 with the Essex county drought committee, which is made up of local Essex county farm leaders. I am sure he has been fully and properly briefed as to the severity of the financial crisis facing Essex county farmers due to the worst drought in over 40 years. Is the minister making plans to free up resources within the Ministry of Agriculture and Food to help drought-stricken farmers survive for the next farming season?

Hon Mr Buchanan: I was in Essex county last weekend to personally have a look at the severity of the situation. I recognize that it is severe and there will be assistance required. I think I mentioned yesterday, in response to a question, that we are looking at a package we are putting together which will address the needs of people in agriculture, grains and oilseeds as well as the drought situation in Essex.

Mr Mancini: I want the minister to be very clear to the House and to the farmers of Essex county, parts of Kent county and other portions of southwestern Ontario that have been severely affected by the drought. He is working on a plan to provide assistance, I assume, to all farmers in Ontario because of their high input costs and low commodity prices. But the problem I speak of is different from the one I just described and I want to make sure we are talking about the same things.

The farmers who are coming to the meeting on September 30 are going to want more than public relations, a coffee and a handshake when they leave. They want to know whether or not the plans the minister is working on are going to be separate and over and above the other assistance he is promising farmers in Ontario. I want to bring to his attention the fact that his parliamentary assistant has already promised such assistance over and above the regular assistance the minister is now working on. Can we be clear on what the minister is going to do, please?

Hon Mr Buchanan: I have tried to make it clear for the member that we are interested in addressing the situation in general, and specifically the drought situation in Essex-Kent, which I might add also touches other counties. It is most severe in Essex-Kent, but it does touch on other counties in southwestern Ontario and southeastern Ontario as well.

The challenge we face -- and I put this question to the producers and the farmers I met last weekend down in Essex county -- is if I had X million dollars, how would I distribute that to the people who are affected? In other words, we need a mechanism to know, given a certain amount of money, how we might distribute it to those people who need it most. At first the producers said, "That's a silly question," and after we discussed it for a while, they realized that there was a difference of opinion, at least three or four different ideas, as to how that money might be distributed.

I would ask the honourable member if he has ideas, because we have not yet determined how that might be done. It is very complicated and I do not want to take up the time of the House to talk about the different options, but I would be interested in talking to the member about his preferred option for assistance for people in the drought situation across the province.

HEALTH LEGISLATION

Mr J. Wilson: My question is to the Minister of Health. The minister should be aware that many legitimate concerns have been raised recently regarding her government's consent-to-treatment legislation. While we would agree, and I think all members would agree, that a degree of advocacy on behalf of patients is good and necessary, it is clear that her bill as it is worded will cause more problems than it can ever hope to resolve.

I want to know how the government can justify spending an additional $30 million to implement this legislation, if it were to pass -- this legislation that is so riddled with holes -- at a time when tax dollars are very scarce indeed.

Hon Ms Lankin: I will address the member's question particularly with respect to the consent legislation itself. I think he is at this point mixing two issues with respect to the advocacy legislation that the Minister of Citizenship has brought forward and the consent legislation that the Ministry of Health has responsibility for, although there is a very clear interrelationship between the two pieces of legislation.

You will know, I am sure, Mr Speaker, that in reports in the newspaper there have been some concerns raised with respect to the provisions of the legislation in terms of the drafting. Some of the things that have been suggested by some critics of the legislation as concerns are areas that would give rise to concern on the part of any government. It certainly is not the intent of the legislation. I have asked people within the ministry in the legal drafting branch to take a look at it, and they feel the concerns are not factual in terms of the basis of the actual wording of the legislation. But I am more than willing to take a look at that.

As the member knows, we are going to committee hearings on this and we are certainly open to hearing those kinds of comments and criticisms. In the meantime, I will take a look at that even before we get to committee and if I can offer any assistance or amendments or advance notice of that to the committee, I will do that.

Mr J. Wilson: The minister knows very well I am referring to her piece of legislation, Bill 109. She should be aware that this legislation is going to create another incredibly large layer of bureaucracy, another pile of government red tape, and it is going to serve as an impediment to health care professionals in carrying out their present duties.

Dr Moran, a dentist who performs facial construction at the Hugh MacMillan Rehabilitation Centre, which is a centre that caters to the needs of disabled children, maintains that the legislation will result in treatment delays, which in turn will mean even longer lineups for the people of Ontario who need health care services.

The Premier speaks so very often, and often eloquently, about social justice. But where is the justice when we know that the minister's legislation will hurt the very people it is intended to help? Is the minister prepared, as she should be, to withdraw her consent-to-treatment legislation and replace it with a bill that addresses the real need we all know is out there?

Hon Ms Lankin: Again I have to say to the member that he is wrong to lump the two pieces of legislation and to say to me that I know very well he is talking about my legislation. I know very well that he is talking about the Minister of Citizenship's legislation with respect to the advocacy function and with respect to what he calls creating a structure and a group of people to deal with that.

With respect to the consent legislation, I take very seriously the concerns that have been raised. The government has no intent of bringing forward legislation that would cause further delays that would cause those sorts of problems. I am not sure in fact that the legislation does that, but I have heard the concerns that have been raised. I spoke this weekend with the author of a report who was quoted in the newspaper

article that was in the paper yesterday. I take very seriously those concerns. I have asked for that to be reviewed and I will be moving on that. If there need to be amendments, if there needs to be restructuring, we will do that.

SEXUAL ASSAULT

Ms Poole: My question is for the Attorney General. Last month the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the rape shield provision of the Criminal Code, which restricted the right of defence lawyers to question women about their sexual history. The ground was that this provision infringed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The federal government has indicated that it plans to enact new legislation, but so far we have seen nothing in this regard. Just last week the Toronto Star reported that a new trial has been granted to a man previously convicted of sexual assault because he was prevented from questioning one of the victims about her claim of previous sexual assault.

Already the fallout from the Supreme Court decision is becoming apparent. I would like to ask the Attorney General what he is prepared to do to protect victims of sexual assault from undergoing further ordeals because of the ruling.

Hon Mr Hampton: I thank the member for the question. She perhaps does not know that earlier this summer the Minister without Portfolio responsible for women's issues and I met with a number of women's organizations from around the province.

I attended a justice ministers' conference in Yellowknife, where I spoke directly to the Honourable Kim Campbell, the federal Minister of Justice, and gave her our advice and the advice of several women's organizations in Ontario as to what kinds of amendments to the Criminal Code might be advisable and as to what other measures the federal government might undertake with respect, for example, to judicial appointments and judicial education. So to this point we have acted as directly as we can with respect to dealing with the root of the problem, which is fundamentally the

section of the Criminal Code which was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada decision.

Ms Poole: Certainly we recognize that it is the duty and responsibility of the federal government to deal with changes to the Criminal Code in order to effect protections for women in this regard. However, on August 27, the Attorney General and the minister responsible for women's issues held a press conference at Queen's Park in which they stated unequivocally that the NDP government is prepared to act to lessen the effects of the Supreme Court decision.

I believe the Attorney General made two statements: one, that he was prepared to take steps to train and sensitize crown attorneys, for instance, and two, that he also proposed that experts on sexual stereotyping testify in every serious sexual offence trial to ensure that judges understand what is expected of them and understand what women are up against in the justice system.

While I recognize that the federal government has a part to play, so does the Ontario government. What I would like to ask the Attorney General is why he has not acted on these two recommendations he had put forward. When are we going to have action and when is he prepared to protect the women of this province?

Hon Mr Hampton: I can inform the House that the Ministry of the Attorney General has already hired the services of a consultant who is at this time designing a program to sensitize and deal with issues of sexual stereotyping as they relate to crown attorneys and their work. We have also under way discussions with the provincially appointed judiciary with respect to courses for them dealing with sexual stereotyping and other sexist issues in the court system.

Finally I can advise the House that on a case-by-case basis, we will call expert evidence to deal with some of the sexist issues we find in the court system. I want to point out to the member, however, that fundamentally this is an issue which the federal government can and must deal with legislatively. Once we see what they are doing legislatively, we will be better able to tailor our response to deal with what they have not been able or have been unwilling to deal with.

COURT SYSTEM

Mr Harnick: My question is to the Attorney General. In the month of February 199l, 2,000 claims were issued in the Toronto Small Claims Court. The Attorney General has expressed the opinion that this is the most important court we have, yet we have a court, which normally has a complement of 13 full-time judges, for the last year only having eight full-time judges in place. There are five vacancies and there are no appointments on the horizon.

The court also runs with the anomaly of having a $1,000 jurisdiction outside of Metropolitan Toronto and a $3,000 jurisdiction in Metropolitan Toronto. The court is the people's court. When is the Attorney General going to provide us with the necessary changes to make that court work?

Hon Mr Hampton: I thank the member for his question. First, he inquires as to when appointments can be made to the Small Claims Court. I want to inform him that as a result of changes made in the legislation by my immediate predecessor in the office of the Attorney General, the province can no longer make those appointments. The Small Claims Court is now a court to which federal judges must be appointed, and we are not in a position to make those appointments at this time.

The member indicates that there is a problem with respect to divergent jurisdictions within the Small Claims Court, that it is $3,000 within the city of Toronto and $1,000 outside of the city of Toronto. I agree with him that this is a serious problem. I can say to him that is a problem that has existed for some time, that existed throughout his government which originally created that problem and that existed through the former government's reign. As soon as we have the opportunity to finish our review of the Small Claims Court, we will be doing something about it.

Mr Harnick: I beg to differ with the Attorney General that he cannot make those appointments. The Small Claims Court judges are not

section 96 judges, although they are in the General Division. They have been lumped into the General Division of the court, and it is interesting to note that

section 96 judges are protected by judicial immunity. Small Claims Court judges do not have that immunity. The provincial court criminal judges have judicial immunity under the Courts of Justice Act. They were grandfathered; the Small Claims Court judges were not. We now have eight full-time Small Claims Court judges and numerous part-time judges who are sitting in courts without statutory immunity. I beg to differ with the Attorney General that he cannot appoint judges. He can because he is not appointing

section 96 court judges.

The Speaker: And your question?

Mr Harnick: When is the Attorney General going to protect the judges who are now out there who do not have statutory immunity? When is he going to make the necessary amendments to this court that has over 2,000 cases a month coming in to one court alone in the city of Toronto?

Hon Mr Hampton: Again I would ask the member to read the legislation carefully. As the legislation now stands, we can no longer appoint provincially appointed judges to the Small Claims Court. We can appoint deputy judges. However, I am sure the member knows that around the province there is some controversy as to the extent to which we should utilize deputy judges. We would prefer to proceed in an orderly manner when we are prepared, which I hope will be some time later on this fall. I think we will be able to respond to all of these issues as indeed former governments should have done.

MOTIONS

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

Mr Cooke moved that Mr Sola and Mr Mancini exchange places in the order of precedence for private members' public business.

Motion agreed to.

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTIONS

Mr Cooke moved that the following substitutions be made to the membership of the committees of the House:

On the select committee on Ontario in Confederation, Ms Carter for Ms Gigantes; Mr Drainville, who shall be Chair, for Mr Silipo;

On the standing committee on administration of justice, Ms Carter for Ms Gigantes; Mr Cooper for Mr White;

On the standing committee on estimates, Mr O'Connor for Mr Ferguson; Mr Farnan for Mrs Haslam;

On the standing committee on general government, Mr Marchese for Mr Duignan;

On the standing committee on government agencies, Ms Carter for Mrs Haslam; Mr Marchese for Mr Silipo;

On the standing committee on the Ombudsman, Ms Haeck for Mr White;

On the standing committee on public accounts, Mr White for Mr Cooper;

On the standing committee on regulations and private bills, Mr Farnan for Mr Ferguson; Mr White for Mr O'Connor;

On the standing committee on social development, Mr Wessenger for Mr Silipo.

Motion agreed to.

PETITIONS

FRENCH-LANGUAGE SERVICES

Mr H. O'Neil: I have a petition which I would like to read and also have presented to the Lieutenant Governor. It is a petition from approximately 400 people from my riding. It talks about Bill 8, and I present it, not that I agree with what is said within the petition but because I believe that those people within my riding would like to be heard. Therefore I do it for that reason.

The petition reads:

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the Parliament of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas it is the duty of a free people to constantly guard and, if necessary, defend those freedoms; and

"Whereas the French Language Services Act elevates one linguistic group into lawful but unjust privilege over 95% of all Ontarians; and

"Whereas the French Language Services Act had since November 18, 1986, been implemented in secret without the public being aware of its implementation, in which access has been denied to the public and even to the elected members of this assembly; and

"Whereas such implementation is plunging forward at enormous cost while health care, police and fire protection, municipal grants, education and the environment are experiencing cutbacks in funding; and

"Whereas no minority can expect for long to enjoy the advantages of a law that shows such reckless disregard for majority sensitivities; and

"Whereas the views of the majority of the citizens of Ontario were not represented on November 8, 1986, as only 55 of the 125 elected members of the Legislative Assembly were present to vote,

"Therefore, to preserve patience and goodwill, in the name of justice and for the love of harmony, we implore this House to repeal the French Language Services Act, Bill 8, at the earliest moment."

As I say, I present this on behalf of those people, but I certainly do not agree with the contents of this petition.

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

Mr Carr: I have a petition signed by approximately 250 residents from the Oakville and Burlington area.

"To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas the Queen of Canada has long been a symbol of national unity for Canadians from all walks of life and from all ethnic backgrounds; and

"Whereas the people of Canada are currently facing a constitutional crisis which could potentially result in the breakup of the federation and are in need of unifying symbols;

"We, the undersigned, respectfully petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to restore the oath to the Queen for the Metro Toronto police officers."

ORDERS OF THE DAY

INCOME TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT LA LOI DE L'IMPOT SUR LE REVENU

Ms Wark-Martyn moved second reading of Bill 83,

An Act to amend the Income Tax Act.

Mme Wark-Martyn propose la deuxième lecture du projet de loi 83, Loi portant modification de la Loi de l'impôt sur le revenu.

Hon Ms Wark-Martyn: This bill,

An Act to amend the Income Tax Act, implements the Treasurer's budget proposal of April 29, 1991, to increase the personal income surtax rate. The surtax rate will change from 10% to 12% of Ontario income tax in excess of $10,000 for the 1991 taxation year. This increase will add $60 million in revenue for 1991-92. The surtax rate for the 1992 and subsequent taxation years will be 14%. The tax system is now more progressive because it ensures that people with higher incomes pay a greater and more equitable share. Taxpayers with taxable incomes of more than $84,000 will be affected.

I would like to add that an amendment made to a regulation under this act will implement the Treasurer's announcement to enrich the Ontario tax reduction program. This program greatly benefits people with lower incomes. Effective for 1991, the $200 supplement provided for each dependent child age 18 or under and each dependent with a disability will be raised to $350. This means that a single parent with two dependent children earning up to $22,500 will no longer pay any personal income tax, as the tax reduction will eliminate the Ontario tax payable.

This change will result in the reduction or elimination of Ontario income tax for approximately 700,000 low-income taxpayers. This is the largest enrichment made in the history of the Ontario tax reduction program. These measures are a clear demonstration of this government's commitment to a fairer tax system.

Mrs Y. O'Neill: I am pleased to rise this afternoon to discuss Bill 83, the Income Tax Amendment Act. This legislation implements the NDP's announcement in its 1991 budget of increasing the provincial income tax surcharge. This amendment to the Income Tax Act is part of a package of 11 tax increases contained in this budget to engender $1 billion in new revenues.

In its April 29 budget the government announced that effective July 1, 1991, the income surtax rate in Ontario will be increased from 10% to 14% of Ontario income tax in excess of $10,000. This increased tax will affect Ontario taxpayers who earn more than $84,000 per year and will generate $60 million in additional revenue this year and $90 million in subsequent years.

There are some fundamental questions that we must ask ourselves and this government about the direction of taxation policies. Are some measures to redistribute taxes which will provide revenue income for the government, such as those being contained in Bill 83, different? They are being made now. Other tax incentives, called fair tax incentives, are being put off until some unknown time in the future after the report of the NDP commission.

This government seems to have put comprehensive tax reform so far back on the burner that it has completely lost sight of the promises made to Ontario taxpayers during election 1990 and many times since. All we hear about the NDP tax commission is that this and that have been referred to it.

The most devastating aspect of the taxation and spending policies of the 1991 budget, of which Bill 83 is part, is the legacy of high debt and higher future taxes which will have to be borne by the governments which follow this one and, more important, by each and every Ontarian and Ontarians yet to be born. I do not have to remind anyone in this chamber that the Treasurer has projected three more years of consolidated deficit in excess of this year's deficit. Lord only knows what that is going to turn up after the questioning we had in this House today.

The budgetary plan of which this bill is part will require at least $5 billion in new taxes over the next three years. It leaves us to wonder whether it is an intention of this government to raise the rate of the surtax or to lower the taxation level at which such a surtax would kick in in future budgets, thus forcing a larger and larger number of Ontarians to pay the debts incurred by this government's policies.

As members know, we in the Liberal caucus conducted our own budget review tour last spring. During that most interesting process, of which I was a part, we heard a number of Ontarians voice their concerns regarding the tax increase contained in this budget. Day after day, city after city, delegation after delegation had the same message. In fact in the minister's own riding, Jack Masters, the mayor of Thunder Bay, shared with our committee his concerns about the provincial debt and the loss of Ontario's top credit rating.

Mr Masters stated that the loss of the credit rating increases borrowing costs for all municipalities, including Thunder Bay, and drives up their costs, which municipalities cannot control. Is this an example of the municipal-provincial partnership this government says it is trying so hard to foster and is indeed setting up bureaucratic structures to support?

The recognition that high deficits must eventually be paid through higher taxes is something that was brought forward to our budget tour over and over again. The people of Ontario, the people who walk the streets and run the businesses and pay the bills in this province, understand that.

Every person in Ontario knows why taxes such as the income surtax are going up. This government has announced that it will be looking at another $700 million, at least, in spending cuts. We can only conclude the taxes are not going up because we are going to get new services; they are going up to pay for mismanagement and policy decisions that this government is wrongly pursuing.

The conclusion we are left with is that taxes are going up for really no reason, with no focus. This bill would not be necessary if the NDP were better able to manage Ontario's economy. This bill is before us today because the NDP government has allowed the province's unemployment rate to go up to 10%, putting it above British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The unemployment rate in this province has increased by 60% since the NDP took office, indeed a large drain on this province's revenue. Perhaps the Minister of Revenue will tell us that unemployment is not the NDP's fault, indeed not her government's fault. She would like us all to believe that the recession is to blame or that the federal government is the most convenient scapegoat. But I would ask the minister to justify the tax increase we are debating here today not in terms of whom she can pass along the blame to, but in terms of the economy and the province's revenue requirements.

When every other province in Canada posted a decline in unemployment rates between April and June 1991, Ontario was the exception. When the number of Ontario's unemployed not only does not decline, but in fact is still increasing in those two months I have mentioned, how does the Minister of Revenue explain the need for revenue initiatives such as Bill 83 unless she will admit that her government has fallen short of the expectations of the people of Ontario?

The Premier is right when he goes to the first ministers' conference in Whistler and slams his fist on the table and says Ontario is a have-not province. A have-not province indeed: The NDP has seen to it that in a very short time Ontario has become an NDP province, a have-not province. That is why it needs to raise new revenue to pay the bills and that is why this legislation is before us today.

I could go on to list other economic statistics: bankruptcy rates up over 66% from last year; over 95,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared in Ontario between January and June of this year, according to Statistics Canada; the number of layoffs that are due to plant closures, 66%, has more than tripled the numbers we experienced in the recession of 1982. But the recitation of the fiscal failures of this NDP government are too long for me to detail at this time.

However, it is clear the Minister of Revenue has been given her marching orders to find some fast cash. Indeed, revenue collection is a priority of this government and she is following those orders in this bill. In the meantime, other important structural issues in her ministry which would stimulate the economy, thus reducing the need for new taxes, have been put on the back burner.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the NDP tax policy, except that it is making easy decisions today and putting off the hard decisions until tomorrow and beyond. Revenue is a top priority, but is it well placed by this government, I ask, and so do most Ontarians?

Mr Sterling: I want to say at the outset that my party will be opposing this bill, as it will be opposing all the tax legislation which has been introduced by this minister, including Bills 83, 84, 85, 86 and 130, which we will be debating over the next few weeks.

We are opposing this legislation because we believe the citizens of Ontario have been taxed and taxed and taxed. This was started primarily by the former Liberal government when we saw some 33 tax increases, which increased revenues by some 123% or 130% over a period of five years. You would think the new government would have learned from the defeat of the former government that you cannot go on taxing for ever without some political consequence.

This income tax increase follows a precedent that was set by the former government. I believe that when the former government took over in 1985 the personal income tax rate was about five or six points less than it now stands in terms of the Ontario tax rate. It was down, I believe, at that time around 47% or 48% of the federal tax. Over the past five years it has risen about a point a year, going from 48% to about 53%. So those people who are earning in the high income bracket, whom this particular amendment affects, are now paying 5% more of their income than they were back around 1985-86.

In addition, the Liberal government in 1985 started to charge a surtax. It started at 3% on federal tax over $5,000. It then jumped to 10% provincial tax over $10,000, so it did not affect those people who were paying federal income tax between a $5,000 and $10,000 rate. These figures, when you start throwing them all together and you do not have a piece of paper in front of you explaining what they do, are somewhat confusing, and I realize that.

But the bottom line now is that those very high income earners who are earning taxable income around $84,000 are now paying about 49% of the $84,000 in taxes, either to the provincial government or to the federal government, but the total package is costing them 49% of their taxable income.

The problem with this is that one can argue that the rich should pay more -- I do not disagree with that particular philosophy -- but there comes a breaking point in every person's desire to earn more income. There used to be a story before Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative government took over in Britain, I believe in the late 1970s or early 1980s. In socialist Britain at that time, there was a very marked difference in how people looked at people who were more fortunate in society.

The story went that in the United States if a person saw another person driving by in a Cadillac, the American would say: "I'm going to get a Cadillac some day. I'm going to work hard enough. I'm going to be able to get a Cadillac." The story went that in Britain a person standing on the street in London who saw a Rolls-Royce go by would say, "I'm going to bring the person who's driving that Rolls-Royce down to my level." That is the problem with continuing to increase income tax rates over a period of time, which we have experienced in this province in particular.

The experience, I believe, of many of the European jurisdictions has been that they no longer can raise personal income taxes without damaging their ability to compete in the European common market.

I understand that very socialist countries like Sweden have dropped their personal income tax rates dramatically in the last four or five years, because what they found was happening to them in Sweden was that the engineers, the scientific people, the mathematicians, the people who generate the basic wealth in their country were saying, "I don't need to work in Sweden; I can go to Germany," or, "I can go to France," or, "I can go to another country where the personal income tax rates are lower than in my country." Part of the decision of people who are in the work world, of course, is related to the financial remuneration for what they put out at work.

People who are in the legal profession or in the civil service or perhaps teachers, perhaps certain other kinds of professions, do not have the ability to go from one jurisdiction to the other without changing their qualifications in order to take up their profession somewhere else.

But generally speaking, those professionals are people who are, I admit, very important to society, but are people who receive, either directly or indirectly, payment through tax revenues and are not generators of primary wealth like the engineers, the scientists, the young and bright entrepreneurs who can sell their services and their skills not only in their own jurisdiction but can sell them in any jurisdiction they might choose.

This is happening not only in Europe, but in our very own jurisdiction. I can remember well meeting a constituent in the small town of Greely in the township of Osgoode, which is just south of Ottawa, during the last election, talking to a highly skilled technician who was involved with equipment that was used in terms of control of airports. He was able to sell his skills either in Ontario. He could sell his skills in any part of the United States, and people in the United States wanted him to go there.

He said to me that he liked living in Ontario and Canada, but the fact of the matter was that enough was enough and that he could get the same quality of life in a state of the United States and have more after-tax income for him and his family to spend on what they desired.

I also have a personal story that is involved in this. I have a sister who lives in Minneapolis, and my sister and her husband were very successful in their own right. Her husband was the vice-president of a very large food processing company -- Pillsbury -- and was in charge of all the production facilities for Pillsbury in the United States. At one point he was in charge of all their research and development.

But my sister Jackie and her husband John had five children. Some of them were born in Canada as he moved around to various places during his career. All of those children have gone through university at this stage, some of them obtaining post-graduate degrees, two from Harvard. None of them, unfortunately, is back here in Ontario, although they have a great affinity for Ontario and Canada. The options for them are so much greater in the United States, not only in terms of what they can receive for the services they can render, and I think there are three engineers in that family, but their after-tax income is so much greater.

What will be thrown back at me by the socialists will be, "Yeah, but they don't have health care, they don't have the education programs that we have here." I say to them, it is a lot of hogwash for these kinds of young people, because they can buy better health care down there than we have in Ontario, because the health care that they have down there they can gain access to when they need it, because young people who are skilled, people who are entrepreneurial, who are bright, can get the same benefits because they are recompensed or they are given enough money to go out and buy those kinds of things.

You might say, "Well, that's fine and dandy, but you know, we have to tax the people who are doing well much more than the people who are doing not so well." But you have to remember that even though we are taxing the income of these people at 49%, almost 50% now, of what they are earning in their next dollar, they also pay a great many other taxes in addition to their income tax. They are paying provincial sales tax, they are paying GST, they are paying any number of other kinds of taxes that they are going to get hit with if they buy anything larger than a very small car.

I think a Sprint is the only car that does not have a gas guzzler tax on it. They are going to get caught with that as well.

The problem here, in terms of our opposition to this tax, is that we are not objecting to a 2% or 4% increase on a surtax, which will only add a very small amount to the total tax bill of these individuals who are doing quite well in our society; it is the cumulative effect of the former Liberal government, of raising provincial incomes taxes over the last five years by a percentage each year that is bringing us to a situation where the cumulative effect of all the taxes on the very bright young people and the very bright technical people is for them to say: "Maybe I should look at another option.

Maybe I should look south and take my skills south because I can go there and the tax load on me will be much less. I can buy the social services the Ontario government provides to me because I'll have more income to purchase those services and overall my family will be better off in a financial sense." In many cases they will be as well off as here in terms of quality of life.

I think another point that is extremely important to point out is that the federal government recognized this problem with rising income taxes. When they put forward their tax reform proposals, which included the GST, they dropped the level of income tax the federal government was collecting, in order to give more incentive to people at all levels of taxation rates to work harder and earn even more, in order to drive them to be more productive in our society, in our province and in our country so that we could all enjoy the benefits of that hard work, even including the person who had put out the effort.

Part of that tax reform proposal was supposed to be, "We're going to put a general sales tax up" -- the GST, which was very unpopular, as you know -- "but we're going to give you this break on income tax." That was supposed to be the tradeoff. Unfortunately the federal government gave the break about two years before the GST, the provinces raced in and scooped up those income tax points and by the time the GST was introduced, everybody was paying what they formerly paid in income tax, and the federal government got blamed both ways even though it was the provinces who added the points. All members have to do is to look at what actually happened.

Interjection.

Mr Sterling: If members get the facts, they can see that is the truth and that is what happened. When we talk about the overall tax percentage any individual has to pay, a greater portion of that now is a provincial bite versus a federal bite than was the case five years ago. This continual increase in personal income tax has got to stop in terms of what is happening within our province and in our country. We have heard anecdotal evidence that many people are moving to the United States.

Only two weeks ago when you, Mr Speaker, as part of the caucus of the Progressive Conservative Party, and all my colleagues went down to Brantford and stayed at a local Best Western hotel, not like a resort at Honey Harbour, where the New Democratic Party stayed, but in a modest hotel in Brantford where we had our caucus meeting --

Interjections.

Mr Sterling: We, being a party that is concerned about the expenses we pay --

Interjections.

Mr Sterling: I thought that would wake them up. One morning Mr Harris, myself and several members of my caucus went out to meet a most interesting business near Paris, Ontario, which just happens to be in the riding of Brant-Haldimand. The fellow who was running that business was a civil engineer who had come from Alberta about five or six years ago and set up a company on the banks of the Grand River. He employs 35 people, half of whom are professionals. They have developed a machine and system in which they have world leadership. I believe the name of this firm is Highway Products International. This machine is contained in a truck and sells for between $500,000 and $750,000.

It takes a $15,000 truck, puts computers inside this truck, puts television cameras inside this truck, and an operator can drive it 90 kilometres an hour down the road and that truck will measure the contour of that road within 1.5 millimetres. It will record every inch of the surface of that road on a TV camera. This is important in terms of the maintenance of the road surfaces of developed countries. Ontario has actually bought two of these trucks. They have sold about 23 or 24 trucks. Sweden is the only competitor to this individual and has sold about six machines.

The people working there are very, very skilled and highly technical. The president, Don Kobi, and his wife run the firm. They pour just about all the profits back into research and development; therefore, every cent that is taken out in tax from that very successful operation basically prevents them from putting more money back into their business in terms of research and development. He told a group of us, with a reporter present, that he was going to open a sales office in Buffalo, New York. His interest in opening this office in Buffalo was in order to obtain a better sales presence in the United States. He made no bones about it.

He said if the NDP government of Ontario continues to spend and tax as it now has done in this budget, he was going to have no option but to move. He said: "I love Ontario. I'm a Canadian; I've always been a Canadian. I think Ontario is a terrific province but it's going to chase me, my company and my employees out of this province and out of this country because I can't compete, I can't keep my research and development at the level I need to be able to keep it at. I need to pay my people very well because they're very skilled people.

I won't be able to pay them and have the government taking half their paycheques or nearly half their paycheques when they can look across the border and get a job with any number of employers in the United States, which has lower tax rates than here. I won't be able to compete."

I think that is a sad reflection on this government in terms of its continued policies of spending more and requiring greater tax increases, not only the one we are facing today, which is relatively minor in relation to the kinds of taxes we are going to face in this province over the next four years, as has been indicated by the Treasurer of this province.

I want to conclude by saying that we strenuously oppose any tax increase within this budget. We hoped that a year ago this new government would have come in with a very cautious approach to spending. This government did not take our advice. It went out and said it was going to spend more money even though we were in a recessionary period, and now we have heard over the last two, three or four weeks it is in deep trouble. Now it is going to have to slash expenditures. It is going to have to cut spending when we told it a year ago it should have started at that time.

This government has given to the civil service of Ontario a 14.3% rise in its salary operating budgets. That means while the rest of Ontario has been suffering, the government has raised the numbers within its ranks, expanded the number of people it has hired and increased their salaries while other people are losing their jobs. We only wish the government had taken our advice a year ago and it would not have found itself in the tight spot it is in at the present time.

We expect this will not be the last increase to income tax for people in Ontario, but we suggest to the government that if it continues to raise income taxes and other taxes, it will force people who have the mobility to move out of this province to sell their professional services in other parts of North America, Europe and other countries. We believe very strongly that penalizing any levels of income by raising income tax levels is no longer an accepted method of dealing with raising of revenue.

Other countries which are looking to the global market and which understand that the most valuable resources within their country are their best engineers, their best technicians and their best scientists, who can sell their assets other ways, have said, "We're going to drop income tax rates and gather our revenues in some other ways."

I would not have made that argument five, six or seven years ago, but the economy of the world has changed dramatically in the last four or five years, and those who do not compete in the global economy in terms of their tax structures and their productivity are going to end up with a population with a much lower standard of living because they will have lost the people who are creating the wealth. Last week I travelled to Cuba with a number of my friends in the Legislature.

Interjections.

Mr Sterling: Yes, I did, and I was proud to go and I was proud to pay my own way there and back. I paid my own way, as three other members of the Conservative caucus did and four members of the Liberal caucus did. The Cuban government paid for our hotel and our meals, which cost about $300. Our plane ticket cost about $500.

It was a tremendous experience. I was only saddened by the fact that there were six New Democratic Party members who had signed up for the trip who were told at the very last moment, "You can't go even though you put your money out for a ticket." They were told this at the last moment. Even though during all the negotiations the Premier knew that all parties had agreed to go and were willing to pay our way -- it was not going to cost the Ontario taxpayer one red cent -- the Premier insulted the country of Cuba by pulling his people back off this trip at the very last moment.

I think that was a terrible insult to the hospitality of the people of Cuba and I do not think he should have done that.

Quite frankly, I was hoping they would come to see the disastrous effects of a socialist country. I really wish the NDP members had been there, because the people of Cuba are suffering from the effects of a socialist government that has been in power for 32 years. I know the people of Ontario would never give the socialists a 42-year mandate, as they did the former Progressive Conservative government, because there would not be anything left of the province if it ever went the way of Cuba.

Basically what has happened over the last 32 years, in terms of my judgement, having been there and having met with many of their officials and in talking to many of the people on the street -- who are willing to talk with people quite freely, which was a little bit unexpected by me -- is that the government has provided better education and a better health care system for the people of Cuba than they had prior to the revolution. But what has also happened over those 32 years is that there has been no wealth creation. Nothing has worked that has been run by the state, where it has been able to create real wealth for the country.

Fidel Castro finds himself in the position now of having cash reserves of about $100 million. That is what it costs to run our health care system for one day. That is what his total cash reserves are at this moment. It does not leave much in terms of dealing with the situation with the Soviet withdrawal from Cuba.

Over that period of time, the Cuban government let the infrastructure of the country fall down. People cannot get water; they get water for six hours a week. They get gas for one day a week. When you drive through the streets of Havana, you smell charcoal. People are cooking with charcoal because there is no gas or energy to heat their food. Several times during our meetings with officials, the lights went out. Blackouts were quite common.

What this government has to learn is that you cannot continue to provide social programs without paying attention to the creation of wealth within your country. That was driven home so graphically, in a desperate way, in the country of Cuba. Even though I quite frankly believe that Fidel Castro and those who were in the revolution -- we met some of them in Cuba -- were quite genuine in wanting to improve the lot of the people of Cuba, what they have done now, in effect, is to take the people almost back to their position before the revolution.

They have increased or improved some of the services which the people are now receiving. You have to line up for an hour to get a loaf of bread, and each individual is entitled to one loaf of bread per month. You have to line up for an hour to get a litre bag of milk, if you are lucky enough to get one. If you have lots of pesos, and you get paid about 200 pesos per month which is the average salary, the pesos do not buy anything. There is nothing in the stores, absolutely nothing, except in the tourist hotels where they take, ironically, American cash.

What has happened in Cuba should be a good lesson for these people. I really do wish the six NDP members who had signed up for the trip had come, because I think they would have come back here as raving capitalists. I think they would have come back here and said to the Premier: "Hey, you've got to stop this socialist spending. You