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February 18, 1997

36th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

L164 - Tue 18 Feb 1997 / Mar 18 Fév 1997

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

HORMONE DE CROISSANCE

EDUCATION LEGISLATION

MARIPOSA SCHOOL OF SKATING

DAY CARE

EDUCATION LEGISLATION

HERITAGE WEEK

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

EDUCATION LEGISLATION

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING

ORAL QUESTIONS

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

HOSPITAL FINANCING

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

CHILD POVERTY

VISITOR

HOSPITAL FINANCING

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES CONTRACT

FEDERAL HEALTH SPENDING

CASINO GAMBLING

TRUCK SAFETY

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

ASSISTED HOUSING

CAPITAL FUNDING FOR SCHOOLS

PETITIONS

HOTEL DIEU HOSPITAL

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

SCHOOL BOARDS

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

COMMUNAUTÉ INTERGÉNÉRATION

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

FINANCEMENT DE L'ÉDUCATION

DRIVER EXAMINATION CENTRES

NORTH YORK BRANSON HOSPITAL

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR L'ÉDUCATION

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

ORDERS OF THE DAY

FAIR MUNICIPAL FINANCE ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LE FINANCEMENT ÉQUITABLE DES MUNICIPALITÉS

ADJOURNMENT DEBATE

VICTIMS OF CRIME

The House met at 1331.

Prayers.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

HORMONE DE CROISSANCE

M. Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott et Russell) : Je désire porter à l'attention du ministre de l'Agriculture et de tous les citoyens et citoyennes de l'Ontario les résultats d'une étude réalisée par le Cancer Prevention Coalition de Chicago concernant l'usage d'hormones de croissance sur les troupeaux laitiers. Cette étude, dont les résultats ont été publiés par l'International Journal of Health Services, démontre que l'usage de l'hormone somatotrophine, utilisée aux États-Unis pour augmenter la production laitière des troupeaux, augmente le risque de cancer chez les humains qui consomment du lait.

Nous avons au Canada le meilleur lait au monde. Les citoyens consomment du lait en toute quiétude, convaincus que le lait est un aliment qui contribue à leur bonne santé. Heureusement, l'usage de l'hormone de croissance n'est pas permis au Canada, mais je sais que le débat sur l'introduction de cette hormone sur le marché canadien est déjà lancé, et que nous aurons à prendre une décision tôt ou tard.

J'implore donc le ministre de l'Agriculture pour qu'il s'assure que des études poussées, comme celle réalisée aux États-Unis, seront effectuées en Ontario avant de permettre l'usage de cette hormone, afin de s'assurer que les producteurs laitiers de l'Ontario produiront toujours le meilleur lait au monde et que la qualité de cet aliment de première importance au sein de notre régime alimentaire ne sera jamais compromise au nom de la surproduction.

EDUCATION LEGISLATION

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I had the opportunity over the last number of weeks to work with a number of citizens within our community who are really concerned about what this government's agenda is vis-à-vis education. They look at Bill 104 and they wonder about bills that come after and really ask themselves: How will children and students fare in this new change that Mike Harris is trying to impose on education and children across this province?

They wonder, for example: How will students fare with the $1 billion being cut from education? How will children fare when class sizes become so large that the teacher doesn't have adequate time and resources to be able to properly address the concerns of the students to make sure they get a good-quality education?

They wonder how students will fare when the government starts deciding which of the programs will be taken away from the core curriculum. We know the government is musing that core curriculum should not include programs like phys ed and some of the reading programs we have through some of our libraries. They wonder how students will fare in that kind of atmosphere. They wonder how we as citizens and we as taxpayers and those supporters of school boards across Ontario will fare when the control of our school boards is taken away from our communities and put in the hands of Mike Harris and those at Queen's Park.

It seems to me that Harris ran in the last provincial election on the basis of creating government that is closer to the people and smaller government. People in our community look and see big, huge bureaucracies being controlled by school boards, and certainly not smaller government but larger.

MARIPOSA SCHOOL OF SKATING

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre): I rise to congratulate members of Barrie's Mariposa School of Skating for their excellent performances at the recent Canadian figure skating championships in Vancouver.

Skaters from across the country and around the globe train with Mariposa, including the likes of Elvis Stojko and Jennifer Robinson. But Mariposa also trains a number of gifted athletes who are from the Barrie area, up-and-comers who we will no doubt hear more about in the future.

In the senior men's event, Barrie's very own Jeff Langdon brought home the silver medal and will go on to skate for Canada at the world championships. There was also gold in the junior dance for Barrie's Laura Currie and her partner Jeff Smith.

Several Barrie skaters had the honour of competing in the national championship, including Shaun Tilley, Kayla Gerritty, Tara and Jamie Schaack, Laura and Kim Currie and Megan Buttle.

Mariposa trains so many fine skaters that it is impossible for me to mention all of them today, but I would like to salute each and every one of them, including their parents who help make their dreams possible, their head coach Doug Leigh, and all the coaches and staff at the school. Simcoe Centre is proud to have them as part of our community.

DAY CARE

Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): On behalf of the children, staff and parents of Centretown Parents Daycare, I'm delivering these Valentine's hearts to the Minister of Community and Social Services. Minister, these hearts do not represent support for your government's actions; they are broken hearts which convey distress with the downloading and reduction of services taking place in Ontario. These hearts come to you from children aged two to five and come with a simple message: "Have a heart, invest in our children."

Families are justifiably concerned that your government's downloading exercise will jeopardize licensed child care programs throughout Ontario, and that the 50-50 municipal-provincial cost-sharing agreement will bring an end to the wage enhancement grant. The loss of this grant will lower the already substandard wages paid to service providers, thereby reducing the quality of service.

Overwhelming research tells us that if we can deliver quality programs to children in the early years, we reap the benefits in the later years through reduced social costs. Over the past 40 years, successive Ontario governments have understood this and have increased child care funding. Unfortunately, the current government has been blind to this fact. Parents and children who require child care services have yet to see any of the $200 million that was to have been reinvested in child care. Instead, all they have seen is the elimination of funds, lost subsidies, centre closures, resource centre closures and a lowering of quality of service.

Minister, please listen to what the Centretown Parents Daycare and other child care groups are saying --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you very much.

EDUCATION LEGISLATION

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): As members know, the government is holding hearings on Bill 104, the bill to amalgamate school boards across the province. Those hearings are being held in the social development committee of this assembly. Already over 1,050 people have contacted the clerk of the committee to indicate interest in making presentations on the implications of Bill 104 for the future education of children in this province.

Because the government decided unilaterally to close down debate on Bill 104 and to pass a time allocation motion, there are only four days of hearings in Toronto and six days of hearings outside Toronto. There is no way the committee can accommodate the over 1,000 people who want to make presentations to the committee unless the committee agrees and the government agrees to extend the hearings.

Just before lunch I moved a motion in the committee to request the government House leader to amend the time allocation motion to allow for more hearings on Bill 104. The Liberal opposition supported my motion. Unfortunately, the government members on the committee unanimously voted against the motion, to limit debate, to prevent people from being heard on Bill 104. It's obvious that this government doesn't want to know what people think about education --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you.

HERITAGE WEEK

Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea): It is my honour, as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, to announce that once again it's time to celebrate Ontario Heritage Week.

We're fortunate to live in a province whose identity is firmly rooted in its rich heritage and its strong cultural traditions. The purpose of Heritage Week is to remind all of us that Ontario's heritage comes in many forms, from the tangible -- our buildings and archaeological sites -- to the intangible: our rites and rituals and even our stories. During Ontario Heritage Week, we are also reminded and called upon to celebrate with pride the richness and profound importance of Ontario's contribution to the national identity and the world community.

We are pleased the Legislature is sitting at this time so we have the opportunity to publicly recognize this celebration and especially to acknowledge those individuals who dedicate themselves to conserving and promoting our heritage. I applaud their contribution, particularly those who freely volunteer their time and resources.

I urge all Ontarians to participate in the wide variety of heritage events being offered in every community across this great province during our Heritage Week.

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): Continuing frustration with the Conservative government is building across the province. In Kingston last Friday this frustration and anger bubbled over as more than 25 groups testified to the harm the Tory downloading of financial responsibility is doing to the taxpayers of our community.

The city of Kingston will be shortchanged $28.6 million annually. This translates into an average increase in residential taxes of over $540 per household and an average increase in commercial tax of 42%. It is clear that the transfer of education tax from the property tax roll and the dumping of social and health care on to municipalities will favour the province as, demographically, growth in the school-age population is much slower than the growth rate of the senior citizen population, which will require much larger expenditures in health care, long-term care and social services.

As Cathy Dunn, of the Providence Continuing Care Centre, stated, "Elderly and disabled individuals who require long-term-care services are affected not only by changes to the long-term-care service delivery sector, but also by fundamental changes to income assistance, social programs and public health."

Even the Greater Kingston Chamber of Commerce says, "Unless there are substantial changes made in the way commercial property is taxed, businesses stand to be the big losers from mega-week."

As so eloquently stated by Christine McMillan of the Council on Aging: "In our view Ontario is sitting on the wall, like Humpty-Dumpty. If these mega-week initiatives are not stopped, all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's" --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you. I'm sure it's a good quote, but it's not going to get recorded now.

EDUCATION LEGISLATION

Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): A few days ago, some parents from my riding tried once again to talk to the Minister of Education. They were immediately surrounded by police and once again kept from him.

In response to a media question about this, the minister said something like: The majority of people supported his reforms, and these few people who didn't support them and who supported the status quo had vested interests.

Yes, those parents do have vested interests, but I don't believe that's what the minister was trying to refer to. These parents do have a vested interest, and that vested interest is their children, their children's education and their children's future. I find it most alarming that the minister still believes -- what kind of cocoon is he in, that he still believes it's just a few school trustees and maybe a few teachers out there who are afraid, he seems to be implying, of losing their jobs and that's all they care about. That isn't the fact either.

Those teachers and trustees are also aware of the implications of these kinds of changes and the massive cuts that are going to hit the schools.

The minister clearly isn't listening. He has decided it's just a few vested interests who have concerns about this. This is not good enough. The minister has to start listening.

There is a meeting in my riding tonight at Withrow school. A lot of concerned parents who have vested interests will be there, and I invite the minister --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you.

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I welcome this opportunity to inform my colleagues about how a couple of people in my riding are taking an enthusiastic approach to the government's workfare.

In giving herself a hand up, Gloria Earl of Orillia has founded the Welfare Society Fashion Houses of Canada. She is encouraging welfare recipients to become involved and learn how to knit for a commercial market. Gloria Earl is keen on making Ontario a close-knit family.

Another constituent is approaching the training aspect of helping out welfare recipients. Next month, Patty Maheu of Penetanguishene will be handing out graduation certificates to 109 students of her Computer Training Wheels school. Maheu's school has upgraded the skills of many people on welfare, giving them greater employment opportunities.

Both of these citizens of Simcoe East represent the true spirit of this government's challenge to break the cycle of welfare dependency. They are using their entrepreneurial skills to help themselves and others. I congratulate these two women, who have the foresight to seize an opportunity for themselves and offer support to their community at large.

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): On a point of privilege, the member for Windsor-Sandwich.

Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I hope you'll indulge me on this issue regarding the $2.3-million ad campaign paid for by the taxpayers. I have two constituents who have submitted information to me that I'd like to pass on to you for your review. One is the response to the Premier talking to us in a classroom, clearly a government ad, and this is the response package, which was sent on PC Party letterhead, if you could review that for its appropriateness. The second is a request which has been documented on CBC media in Windsor, if you could review the tape.

It is the tape of the interview, which shows clearly the bias in terms of government taxpayers' ads and the response a constituent from Windsor-Sandwich received. If I could submit that to you, I'd like to have some ruling from you.

The Speaker: I'm looking for direction from the member for Windsor-Sandwich. I ruled on that ad yesterday in the Legislature.

Interjection.

The Speaker: I'm sure the member for Windsor-Sandwich is capable of answering the question, to the member for Kingston and The Islands.

I'm looking for direction from you as to what it is you're asking me to rule on and under what point of privilege.

Mrs Pupatello: The issue here is that the taxpayers of Ontario expect that the government would spend taxpayers' money on issues that would be clearly non-partisan. In response to a government ad paid for by taxpayers' money, the receipt to my constituent was something issued on PC Party letterhead. Clearly this is in contravention of some rule which, in your knowledge, you'd find exactly where it's appropriate or not. My own sense is that it's highly inappropriate and I guess I'd like you to rule the same.

The second is an issue that was brought up in the House, but because you didn't have the proof at the time -- I now have the package received, if you could please review that for a ruling.

Interjection.

The Speaker: Yes, thank you very much. That's extremely helpful. I will undertake to report back to the Legislature after reviewing the information.

ORAL QUESTIONS

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Leader of the Opposition): My first question is for the Premier. On Saturday past I had the opportunity to join several thousands of people marching down Yonge Street protesting your megacity. I met along the way people from all walks of life and, in frankness, people from all political stripes. They came out on a cold February day and they left the warmth of their homes because they believe very strongly in something. They believe that your plans for reorganizing their communities are the wrong plans.

They believe your plans are going to lead to an increase in taxes, they believe they're going to lead to a reduction in services, and they believe you're going to make government for them more distant, more remote.

Premier, this is an extremely important issue and I'm sure you recognize that. You are about to impose changes that will affect the way people in Metropolitan Toronto live for the next 50 years.

Several weeks ago the city of Scarborough invited the three party leaders to a debate tonight in front of 2,000 people. I'll be there and Mr Hampton will be there. Premier, why won't you be there?

Hon Michael D. Harris (Premier): We are listening very carefully to all those people that you referenced on Saturday as well. Let me say that those you referenced on Saturday who are concerned about an increase in taxes, that's our concern too. We hear them and we're responding. We're concerned that property taxes have doubled over the last 10 years under the Liberals and the NDP.

Those who are concerned about a decrease in services, we're with them, we're responding. Those services that have declined over the last 10 years -- the young boy yesterday was concerned about a class size of 37 -- those are the kinds of changes that indeed we want to make.

Local governments want some decision-making close to them. We're listening to those concerns as well. That's why we have the local member speaking to Scarborough tonight, at the invitation of Scarborough council, I think.

Mr McGuinty: The Premier is clearly ducking this one. In some ways I don't blame him. If he attended he'd have to explain why he used to call local government "the best and most efficient government" and now he's killing it. If he attended, he'd have to tell the people of Scarborough how it is that their city, which runs the most efficient operation in Metropolitan Toronto -- he'd have to tell them how his megacity can possibly benefit them. He'd have to tell them how a city of some 500,000 in size is going to benefit when it joins up with a city that's going to have, in total, 2.3 million people altogether.

You'd have to tell the people of Scarborough why it is that you said, when you attended before the Scarborough Metro East Chamber of Commerce on October 17, 1994 -- this is what you said then, Premier; you'll recall, I'm sure -- "Scarborough's fiscal efficiency is a model that should be followed by other levels of government." Now I didn't say "swallowed," I said "followed" by other levels of government.

Premier, you said Scarborough wasn't --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you. Premier.

Hon Mr Harris: I'm not sure whether that date was before Frank Faubert took over as mayor or not -- I think it was, as I recall; you've gone back a few years. I think since I made that we have a new mayor, one who when he was a Liberal MPP, as correctly pointed out by one of my colleagues, supported the commercial concentration tax that cut the heart and soul right out of Toronto, and 33 other tax increases that were there. I might say that had the voters -- they probably regret it now -- voted for his opponent at that time, one Marilyn Mushinski, it probably would be a better-run municipality today than it is.

Having said all that, I might say that the people of Scarborough wanted a local representative to talk to them, so the Liberals are sending somebody from Ottawa, the NDP is sending somebody from Rainy River and we're sending that champion of local democracy, one of the local members from Scarborough.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members for Kingston and The Islands, Ottawa Centre and Sudbury, please come to order. Final supplementary.

Mr McGuinty: Premier, I am attending the debate because I was invited to attend, and I think as a matter of courtesy and respect, I ought to attend. You were invited to attend and you're ducking it.

Let's be honest about this. You're losing the megacity battle and you know it. In fact one of the few people so far supporting the megacity at the public hearings was the Premier's former chauffeur. Apparently he's still taking directions from the Premier.

The pro-megacity group that has been haphazardly cobbled together -- we've heard something about this -- consists of real, grass-roots, non-aligned, impartial and objective types like, get this: Leslie Noble, former campaign manager; Tony Clement, parliamentary assistant; and Bob Harris, the party's former executive director.

Premier, let's call off the debate tonight. Let's, you and I, walk out of here right now, arm in arm, and we'll go out there and tell them you've made a mistake, you're withdrawing the bill, and that'll be the end of it. What do you say?

Hon Mr Harris: Obviously I would not agree with the member's assessment of the past 10 years under the Liberals and the NDP, that 1985 to 1995 record, versus the responsible government that the people all across the province are getting today.

But I would say this: We are listening very carefully to those who are making representations on one unified city, serving the same number of 2.2 million people but with fewer politicians and less bureaucracy but the same size. Some are expressing their viewpoints on how we can do things more efficiently and effectively under Who Does What in the future, and we take that very seriously.

For the people of Scarborough, Mr Gilchrist, who is a local Scarborough member, I think will quite ably handle himself in Scarborough versus somebody from Rainy River and somebody from Ottawa.

HOSPITAL FINANCING

Mr Dalton McGuinty (Leader of the Opposition): My next question is for the Minister of Health. Last week I raised the very disturbing story of a dying man's last days in a Sault Ste Marie hospital. His experience made it clear to me, and I hope to you, that your $1.3 billion of cuts to Ontario hospitals are hurting patients.

Today I have a letter from a Mr Zukowski, who tells us of how he visited his uncle at an Ontario hospital here in Toronto a short while ago. His uncle was in hospital because he had to have eye surgery. He is 89 years of age. This is what he writes:

"Imagine our shock when we arrived that morning to see my uncle sitting naked in a chair, tied with a bedsheet, alone and shaking violently, his untouched breakfast, by now over an hour and a half old, sitting on the bed tray nearby. Medication was yet to be given and it was nearly 10 o'clock in the morning."

Minister, I want you to tell me again, I want you to tell Mr Zukowski and I want you to tell his uncle how it is that your cuts are not affecting patient care.

Hon David Johnson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet, Minister of Health, Government House Leader): I guess the member opposite knows I can't comment on any particular case other than when cases are raised to me directly, either outside the House or inside the House, cases which involve the people of Ontario. Obviously it causes me considerable concern and I am here to say on behalf of the government, on behalf of the Ministry of Health, that there are many health care professionals out there doing their best to provide excellent health care to the people of Ontario, and I take each individual case seriously.

What I will say again to the member opposite is this government has a plan, has a vision, to put the patients first in Ontario, to put the money where the patients need the services, in the front-line services. The plan that was initiated over a year ago was to focus on taking out the administrative costs, realizing savings and putting front-line services back into health care in Ontario.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, your vision for health care in Ontario tomorrow is doing nothing for patients who presently find themselves in our hospitals and in need of basic nursing care. Let's understand what we're talking about here. We have an 89-year-old man, naked, strapped to a chair, who is unfed, sitting exposed to the world, a man for whom we have a very special responsibility, a man who is entitled to quality health care, the kind that respects his dignity as a human being. He didn't get that in Ontario in 1997.

Nurses confirmed to us this morning that cases of patients being restrained -- that means tied up -- are on the increase and that's because of staff shortages, for no other reason.

You talked about the importance of delivering care and that the staff are doing their best. Yes, but you're tying their hands. There are not enough of them. Minister, do you really think it's appropriate that frail, elderly patients --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you. Minister.

Hon David Johnson: I am affected by each and every one of the stories that appear in the media and stories that are brought to my attention, and most concerned. But I will say that Ontario has a vision to reinvest back into front-line services. In fact we have announced reinvestment in long-term-care services, kidney dialysis, cardiac services and diabetes services across Ontario.

That view is not only shared by myself, but on the radio the other day there was a quote from a gentleman who said: "The Ontario government, from what I have seen, is committed to the principles of the Canada Health Act. They are trying to provide top-quality care to their citizens." The author of that quote was the Liberal federal Minister of Health, David Dingwall.

Mr McGuinty: Minister, you and your government have hacked $1.3 billion out of Ontario hospitals. How can that not help but have some deleterious effects? How can it not help but hurt the quality of patient care?

Mr Zukowski's uncle has seen at first hand, experienced at first hand what this means. There was no one there to attend him because your cuts thus far have resulted in 3,400 registered nurses losing their jobs. When you're done, your plans are to lay off 15,000 nurses in Ontario -- 15,000 fewer nurses for patient care. We're talking about people being tied to their chairs, we're talking about others not being fed or others not having their diapers changed or others being discharged too early.

I've asked you before and I'm going to ask you again: How many more people, how many more patients in Ontario are going to have to suffer in our hospitals, not because of their illness but because of your cuts, before you realize that your cuts are hurting patient care?

Hon David Johnson: I think, first of all, we should get our facts straight. There is no plan to cut nurses in Ontario. In fact, through long-term-care reinvestments --

Interjections.

The Speaker: The member for Fort William, please come to order. Member for Ottawa West, come to order as well, please. Minister.

Hon David Johnson: Second, there has not been a reduction of $1.3 billion to the hospitals. There have been some savings realized administratively, such as a reduced number of vice-presidents and middle managers etc. There has also been a reinvestment of some $600 million --

Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): They are cutting services.

The Speaker: Member for Oriole, you choose to ask the questions the way you like and the government can choose to answer them the way they like. Your heckling is out of order. Thank you. Minister.

Hon David Johnson: I try to answer them on a factual basis. I think that's the problem the opposition has.

This government is reinvesting in health care, reinvestments announced of over $600 million. We have lived up to our commitment of at least $17.4 billion in health care. What could we expect from a Liberal Party which reduced the number of hospital beds when they were in government by over 1,200 in the last two years of their term?

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): My question is for the Premier. After your government has made huge cuts to the Ministry of Environment and has laid off hundreds of scientists, experts, inspectors and enforcers, we read today that the Minister of Environment has a legal problem. He is worried that our courts may find your government legally liable for regulatory negligence when someone is harmed as a result of all the cuts you've imposed on the environment, so now your government is busy drawing up confidential legal strategies in case it gets sued.

Premier, I've got a better idea for you: Why not stop the deregulation of our environment, the decimation of our environmental inspectors and enforcers and the demolition of the Ministry of Environment and Energy? Why won't you simply enforce the law that protects our environment?

Hon Michael D. Harris (Premier): I think the member is responding to an

article in the paper that's factually incorrect. Given that, it makes his question factually incorrect.

If the member is suggesting that the Ministry of Environment, in trying to correct the disastrous environmental record of your government, in trying to do things more efficiently, in trying to actually set standards and enforce them, something you didn't have the courage to do on either air standards or water quality standards, bringing the environmental regulation into the 21st century, not the past, in doing these things I would acknowledge this: that starting in 1994, the Ministry of Environment had numerous directives that it should be setting priorities. That was under your government.

That was one of the few things we agreed with, that they should be setting priorities in how they spend their time and their enforcement time. I think everybody has to set priorities. That's a logical exercise. We've asked them to go after the most serious offenders --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you. Supplementary.

Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): This is clear evidence once again that your minister can no longer protect the environment. The Environmental Commissioner has already issued two urgent reports about that. Today there is yet again more clear evidence. Ms Willis, the ADM at the Ministry of Environment, wrote, "The layoffs will have an obvious impact on the amount of work we can accomplish."

She went on to say that the government could no longer provide the kinds of environmental services it used to. This is again more clear evidence, and you are still standing on your feet denying it. When are you going to listen to the environmentalists, the commissioner of the environment and now an assistant deputy minister at the Ministry of Environment? They're telling you that you've got a problem here.

Hon Mr Harris: I think I said 1994 when the priority-setting started in the ministry, but it was 1992. I just want to correct the record -- same government, same administration. We thought that was logical. Let me give you some examples that Ms Willis is referring to, one who is very supportive of the new efforts of this government, by the way, in following through on those priorities.

Odours from manure-spreading during manure-spreading time in agricultural rural Ontario would not have as high a priority, for example, as dumping chemicals into a water source near the drinking water. Should both those calls come in at the same time, we would expect that the environmental officer would respond first to the true emergency and second to the environmental odours that would be a normal part of farm practices. That would be kind of the logical priority-setting you started in 1992 and we're very supportive of continuing today.

Ms Churley: Premier, I think you're an expert in manure-spreading around here. You are not listening to the facts here. Let me tell you what Ms Willis said further: She wanted the changes because of the large number of alterations being made to Ontario's environmental regulations by the Progressive Conservative government.

In my riding there is even more evidence that your government is not protecting the environment. There is a public meeting tonight so that residents can learn about health risks from dangerous chemicals called PAH in the soil in their backyards. This was discovered in testing in October 1995. The city of Toronto's health department was not informed until January 1997. It was kept secret, under wraps, and now a notice has gone out warning people not to let their children play in the backyards, not to eat vegetables from the backyards.

This has been known by your ministry for a long time and only now is it coming to light. Premier, will you now admit that you don't have the resources to protect the environment and human health any more?

Hon Mr Harris: No, not at all. I would certainly not call setting priorities and following through on that exercise, setting tough new standards and enforcing them, at all a reflection. I understand that it's not likely that you are going to stand up and say: "Boy, the government's doing a good job. Let's adjourn and go home." I understand that and I understand your role. But when it comes to protecting the environment, this government not only takes a back seat to no one; we don't take a back seat to the disgraceful mess you left in this province.

CHILD POVERTY

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): My second question is for the Premier. Premier, you're creating an environmental deficit in this province. But I want to ask you about the federal budget, which is coming down later this afternoon. Among other measures, the federal Minister of Finance is expected to commit a sum of money to a new national child benefit to address child poverty. The speculation is that the federal government will provide somewhere between $300 million and $600 million, although we know that substantially more is required to make any impact on child poverty.

Ontario has not made a firm commitment to participating in a child benefit program. Yesterday your Minister of Community and Social Services said, "We're waiting to see what Ottawa invests." How much money must the federal government commit today to a national child benefit program in order for Ontario to say, "Yes, we'll be part of the plan"? Premier, what's your government's bottom line? How much does child poverty matter to your government?

Hon Michael D. Harris (Premier): I heard an interjection that suggested to me the Minister of Community and Social Services wished to answer this.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I did not hear that, but Minister of Community and Social Services.

Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): What the honourable member is saying is simply inaccurate. This province, in conjunction with the other provinces and with Ottawa, has made a commitment to develop an integrated child benefit for people, for kids who are living in poverty in this country. I think it's probably going to be one of the most unprecedented federal-provincial initiatives I've seen in quite some time. For him to question this government's commitment to that I think is based on totally erroneous information.

Mr Hampton: I did not put words in this minister's mouth. She's quite capable of trapping herself with her own mouth. She said yesterday, "We're waiting to see what Ottawa is prepared to invest," when she was asked for a firm commitment.

Here's the problem: This government has made an art of announcing new programs for children and then not doing anything. In the last provincial budget the finance minister said they'd be spending an additional $40 million on child care and $10 million on healthy start programs for expectant mothers and young children, and yet we find today, almost at the end of the fiscal year, despite these loud announcements, that none of this money has gone to children. The government has kept all the money.

We know that child poverty is getting worse in Ontario. So I would put the question again to the Premier, though he doesn't want to answer it. We want a commitment today, Premier. We want to know how much child poverty matters to your government. Will you say yes to participating in a national child benefit and press Ottawa and the other provinces to develop national standards?

Hon Mrs Ecker: Perhaps if the member of the third party had bothered to read the press release we put out in conjunction with the other provinces and Ottawa, where we all committed to working to develop an integrated child benefit that would help children in low-income families; that would ensure there was an incentive built in for people to move off welfare into the workforce; that would not disadvantage those children currently on social assistance; and we also made a commitment that any moneys we would receive through Ottawa's options would be used to spend on other child programs that are needed in this province -- perhaps if he would pay attention to what has been happening, which we've talked about in this House on many occasions, he would know that Ontario is very committed to making this work because we know we need to do a better job to help children who are trapped either in welfare or in low-income working families.

Mr Hampton: The only person who is avoiding things here is the Minister of Community and Social Services. I've asked her twice, what is the needed federal commitment and what is Ontario prepared to commit? You don't seem to want to deal with that. We want to know, how much does child poverty matter to your government? We've seen that you can make announcements. You've made all kinds of announcements in the last year, but then you hide away the money; you don't provide any of that money for children or children's programs. So we need a clear statement of intent and commitment.

Minister, will you make a promise today to the poor children of Ontario that any savings your government gets as a result of a national child benefit will be directly reinvested as additional spending, over and above current and planned expenditures, on income support for families, on healthy start programs, on child care, on child nutrition or on any other program designed to assist children and families in need? Will you make a commitment that you will take that money and spend it additionally and not hide it away like --

The Speaker: Thank you, leader. Minister.

Hon Mrs Ecker: I've said before and I'll say again that if the member of the third party had bothered to pay attention to statements I've made in this Legislature, to statements the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs has made in this Legislature and to the press release and the announcements that have been made, Ontario has been very clear in its commitment.

Unfortunately, one of the options we must deal with -- we cannot make that decision as provinces until we have an understanding of where Ottawa is coming from. We have had experience with Ottawa in the past where they have made commitments about spending they were going to give the provinces and then that money never materialized. I'm sure the honourable member is not suggesting that we should run out and sign on something where we have not got the commitment from Ottawa.

I would also like to remind the honourable member that his colleague in British Columbia, who likes to talk about the child benefit they have done, who likes to talk about how well their children are doing -- they're still getting less money in that province than they're getting in Ontario, so I don't think that our record needs to be questioned in the least, sir.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Well, this seems like the perfect time to introduce one of the guests we have in our gallery today. I'd like everyone's attention.

VISITOR

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): I'd like to inform the members of the Legislative Assembly that we have in the Speaker's gallery today Mr Mario Dumont, leader of Action démocratique du Québec, member of the National Assembly for the riding of Rivière-du-Loup. Welcome, sir.

HOSPITAL FINANCING

Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): My question today goes to the Minister of Health. Last week the minister declined to admit that his ministry had made mistakes with the biggest part of its responsibility. We can draw a direct line between those responses last week and Mr Zukowski tied to his chair in a hospital in Toronto, not the only elderly person treated that way. Hospitals around the province -- I can say with authority that over half these hospitals were given the wrong allocation by your ministry.

Today we learned that one of your members, the member for Simcoe East, has called his hospital and said: "We have made mistakes. We're going to give the money back."

You were given the opportunity in this House to admit that you're aware of those mistakes and are doing something about them within your ministry, and you declined to do so. I want to give you another chance today to tell us that you're aware of the $23 million in extra cuts you've made to hospitals and tell those nurses who have to tie patients, tell those other people that they're going to get their money back and they can go ahead and operate with some certainty in the face of those monstrous cuts you're making them carry out.

Hon David Johnson (Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet, Minister of Health, Government House Leader): What I did say, and I gave a commitment, was that this government would live up 100% to the funding to the hospitals it outlined over a year ago, and I reaffirm that commitment today. I also say that we will go above and beyond that because this government believes in reinvesting in services to patients. You will see more money flowing into the hospitals in various areas.

Second, I will say in addition that this government has corrected a long-term flaw in the formula for operating funds, which was present when the Liberals were in government, which was present when the NDP was in government, which withheld a payment to the hospitals for three weeks. We have corrected that situation so the hospitals will now get all the money they deserve in the fiscal year they deserve it.

Mr Kennedy: I have a memo here from the Deputy Minister of Health trying to claim that a correction is being made. But, Minister, it is you and your government that made this mistake. It didn't happen last year; it didn't happen the year before. It only happened this year. The question people have to ask is, was this deliberate?

Your ministry is in chaos. Your hospital cuts are a mess. You've been calling hospitals all week telling them there are changes in their allocation because you made mistakes. Your assistant deputy minister in charge of hospitals left last week, the same day I raised this issue. Suddenly he's gone. Minister, you are left, left to tell us and patients out there how the chaos taking place in your ministry, taking place for Mr Zukowski and for other patients across this province is going to be addressed. Will you confirm today that you're giving the money back to hospitals, that you made too deep a cut? Will you also tell us that you'll stop making the cuts overall? They can't be done --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Thank you, member for York South. Minister.

Hon David Johnson: I will confirm once again that this government is reinvesting into hospitals, into services for patients, putting patients first. This government is carrying forward a process begun by the previous government seeking the advice of the people within their communities through the district health councils, looking to reinvest money wisely within their hospitals. I'll say once again that we have corrected a long-standing formula which was in place when you were in government, when the NDP was in government -- check the record, sir -- which withheld payments to hospitals for three weeks.

We have corrected that situation so now hospitals get the money they deserve in the year they deserve it.

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES CONTRACT

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): I've got a question of the Minister of Community and Social Services. You've cut a deal with Andersen Consulting Ltd, which, along with Arthur Andersen, is part of the US-based, multinational Andersen worldwide organization. Your computer systems and the systems in your offices may well need revision and addressing. The fact is that Andersen Consulting stands to make up to $180 million out of this deal you've cut with them. Surely there are companies in Ontario, Ontario-based and Canadian-owned, that are capable of doing this same work. Why do you find it necessary to hire and cut a deal with an American-based multinational to do this work?

Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): As the honourable member will know, it was his government that put out the notice of intent for this particular contract. Contrary to what he appears to be saying, we do believe in an open tender process. We also believe in choosing the company with the best experience and the best ability to deliver the savings in the program we need, the best quality at the best price.

Mr Kormos: Minister, you abandon jobless Canadian workers and Canadian and Ontario expertise in favour of an American company. I think we're starting to understand why. Surely you know that Andersen Consulting is a part of the company that was forced to pay out $82 million in settlement as a result of its negligent audits up to and during the course of the savings and loans crisis in the United States, a crisis that cost American taxpayers billions of dollars.

This same company that has demonstrated its negligence has been hired by you to hack away at our welfare system. How can the people of Ontario have any confidence in you or in this company when it has demonstrated its incompetence and negligence and when you've demonstrated yours by cutting your deal with them?

Hon Mrs Ecker: I guess I'm a little at a loss why the honourable member would wish to second-guess a decision his government had made when they recognized that to make the welfare system work better for people who need those services, to make the system work better for people who are paying for those services, we need an up-to-date computer technology system.

Mr Kormos: That's a lie and you know it. That's a bold-faced lie. You're in bed with --

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Member for Welland-Thorold, that is unparliamentary language. I would ask that you withdraw.

Mr Kormos: I withdraw. I maintain that she's in bed with these actors.

The Speaker: Member for Welland-Thorold, you only get an opportunity to withdraw or not withdraw. I don't want you to replace it with anything. It's just withdraw or don't withdraw. It's your option. Minister.

Hon Mrs Ecker: We explained this in the Legislature yesterday, but the honourable member obviously was not paying attention. We believe that any dollar wasted in administration, that any dollar we can pull out of inefficient processes is a dollar we can reinvest back in a front-line service.

The auditor has been clearly flagging the fact that the processes we have in this system need to be improved. Those communities that are signing on to workfare out there have indicated very clearly that better computer technology is what they need to do a good job. That's exactly what we are doing. We are bringing in good-quality technology to make improvements in the system that take savings out of administration so we can protect those programs for people in need.

FEDERAL HEALTH SPENDING

Mr Bert Johnson (Perth): My question is to the minister responsible for seniors. The federal government is cutting $2 billion over two years from its health care and social service costs in Ontario. Last week Ottawa talked about adding $50 million for pilot projects for publicly funded home care and free prescription drugs. If the federal Liberals confirm in today's budget that $50 million is going to health care, could the minister tell the House approximately how much money Ontarians can expect?

Hon Cameron Jackson (Minister without Portfolio [Seniors Issues]): At this point it might be premature to guess exactly how much might flow to Ontario with this trial balloon sent out by Ottawa, and there have been no official discussions with the Minister of Health. But if precedent and population trends are any indication, we could be looking at somewhere around $18 million for the province.

I'd like to say, on behalf of our province and all the other provinces in Canada, we are delighted that the federal government is revisiting the health care envelope after they have cut $7 billion over two years from all the provinces.

As you know, our government, in response to that, has strengthened its commitment. It has increased health care spending to the historically high level of $17.7 billion, implemented long-term-care reforms that have been 10 years on hold by the previous governments, we've restored out-of-country coverage for seniors and we've introduced the most comprehensive flu immunization program in all of North America. That's the kind of solid commitment seniors are seeking and it's the kind of commitment seniors deserve.

Mr Bert Johnson: Ontario currently provides the Ontario drug benefit plan for seniors and welfare recipients at a cost of $1.2 billion. We also increased the home care and community services budget to $1.1 billion. Could the minister please tell me what the impact of these federal dollars for seniors would be?

Hon Mr Jackson: The member has asked an important question: What would this impact be on Ontario's seniors who, on average, are using about 27 prescriptions a year under the Ontario drug benefit plan? Clearly the new federal money being discussed out of Ottawa would be the equivalent of paying for the first 10 pills of their first prescription in an entire year. That's only 10 pills.

While the Mike Harris government has increased home care and community health care spending in this province to the tune of $1.1 billion, that is $3 million a day being spent on home care. That is the equivalent, with the new federal money, of only three days a year. That's all we're talking about from the federal government.

To put this in context, and the Globe and Mail has referred to this as a possible election ploy, it's clear to us that the amount Paul Martin wants to give to Ontario seniors and their drug plan will be less than the amount Paul Martin gave Sheila Copps for the great Canadian flag giveaway.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Come on. You wouldn't want to leave the Speaker in the unenviable position of declaring the flag as a prop. So I'd ask that it be put away.

CASINO GAMBLING

Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): My question is for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. You and your government have really become addicted to sanctioned gambling with the announcement of some 44 permanent mini-casinos containing over 6,000 video slot machines that are going to be placed in neighbourhoods all across Ontario.

Minister, by referendum, have you asked those communities if they want all these slot machines in their backyards?

Hon David H. Tsubouchi (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): I am sure the honourable member as well as almost everyone in this House has heard from the charities in their own local areas. The real difficulty here is that from the three-day roving casinos the Liberal government of Mr Peterson introduced there is absolutely no accountability. We've heard from a lot of charities that after having a three-day Monte Carlo event, they often make nothing or are in the hole. I don't think that's right for the charities.

By introducing permanent charity gaming clubs, we introduce an element of accountability where charities will benefit. In fact, the charities' benefit from this will go from about $10 million to $12 million under the previous procedures up to about $180 million. I think that's a boon to charities in this province. They're waiting for this.

Mr Crozier: Minister, I saw your mouth move but I didn't hear you answer the question. Do you know where the real boon is going to be? The real boon is going to be to this government because they're going to make a lot more out of it than the charities are going to make.

During the election campaign Mike Harris promised referenda for communities to decide whether or not they would get a casino. Your Premier used to be very interested in finding out what communities thought about gambling in their backyard. Now we have an announcement that you're simply going to put 6,000 video slot machines, the most addictive little machines, right in their backyards.

Minister, in light of the Premier's promise, will you give communities the option of whether they want these video slot machines in their backyard or will Coopers and Lybrand simply tell them they're going to be there?

Hon Mr Tsubouchi: I had the opportunity to speak to a number of mayors in some of the catchment areas that would be the beneficiaries. I must say many of them were delighted with the fact that they thought not only would this benefit their charities, this would benefit the employment situations in their own communities.

I'd like to point out as well that last year the Gaming Control Commission issued around 4,200 licences for the three-day Monte Carlo. If you multiply 4,200 by three, you get about 12,600 gaming days. When you look at the number of gaming days that will come as a result of the permanent charity gaming clubs, it's pretty close to the same.

This does not look like a great increase in the amount of gaming going on in the province, but it indicates an increase in accountability to the charities.

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I've got a copy of the request for proposal dated October 20, 1995, that resulted in this government's deal with Andersen Consulting. Maybe the minister would like to stand up and correct her comments before she's assumed to have misled this House.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): To the member for Welland-Thorold, that's just not a point of order. I see you're not shocked about that.

New question, member for Cochrane South.

Interjections.

The Speaker: I didn't know the wording as he was yelling, but I would ask the member for Welland-Thorold --

Interjection: That's not what he said.

The Speaker: I'm not certain that's what he said either, with all due respect, but I give the member the opportunity to withdraw the comment.

Mr Kormos: I didn't, Speaker. Thank you.

The Speaker: New question, member for Cochrane South.

TRUCK SAFETY

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): My question is to the Minister of Transportation. Every year an average of 400 small vehicles run into the side and the rear of tractor-trailers because they're not able to see those vehicles at night as there's no reflective tape put on the side of those trailers.

Research has indicated that such tragedies can be largely avoided by retrofitting trucks with reflective tapes. As of 1996 there is a requirement that all new trucks have reflective tape installed on those that are being used within the province of Ontario. However, this does not apply to trucks that are already in service.

You would know, Minister, that there was an accident a couple of years ago where a young woman died, at age 35, because her vehicle drove into the side of a truck because it didn't have that reflective tape. As a result of that, a coroner's jury recommended that a requirement of reflective taping be used on all trailers travelling on Ontario roads to the same standard as required on new trailers.

My question is simply this: Are you prepared today to follow the jury's recommendation and mandate the retrofitting of reflective tape on all used trucks travelling on Ontario's roads?

Hon Al Palladini (Minister of Transportation): I want to thank the member for the question. I certainly concur and agree that we have to make sure our trucks on our highways are safe. I'm really happy to say that a lot of consultation has gone on with the industry and that reflective tape has been a major topic; as a matter of fact, it's been at the very top since we started our think tank back in October 1995. I think we have made some progress. Target '97 is also taking a look at some of the other things we could implement. I want to assure the honourable member that striping all trucks is on our plate. It's something we're looking forward to making sure we accomplish here in Ontario.

Mr Bisson: I certainly hope we're able to see that concretely in legislation in this House.

I want to say that the Canadian Automobile Association has challenged all shippers to serve notice to their carriers that they will only ship their products on trucks that are fitted with this reflective tape. The particular campaign is called "No tape, no freight."

Will you, as the Minister of Transportation in Ontario, ask the Chair of Management Board to make sure that any shipping that is being done on behalf of the province only be done in vehicles that are using reflective tape?

Hon Mr Palladini: Really I do understand where the member is coming from, but I want to remind him that any new trailer that gets put on the road today has to have reflective tape; that is a mandatory thing. But I do understand what he is saying about going back and making sure all trailers are done.

I want to say that the shipping association in this province has been very cooperative in helping us to establish a good, safe highway system. I also want to say that the CAA has been constantly talking with my staff, including myself, to see how we can all work together and make sure that safety is practised in Ontario.

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): My question today is for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. For the past couple of weeks I've been sitting on the standing committee on general government hearing deputations on Bill 103, the City of Toronto Act. I, like all members on the government side of this committee, have been listening to what the deputants have had to say.

One of the accusations that has been thrown at our government is that if and when Bill 103 passes and the municipalities of Toronto become united, our government is going to take hundreds of millions of dollars of reserve funds from the municipalities and apply it to the provincial debt. Will the minister please comment on this accusation and inform this House as to the government's plan regarding these reserve funds?

Hon Al Leach (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): I would like to thank the member for Scarborough Centre for the question. I know he has been at the hearings many hours and I really want to let him know that I appreciate his efforts in being there to hear all the deputants.

I'm pleased to have this opportunity to clarify in the House what is actually in the legislation regarding the reserve funds of the Metro municipalities. It clearly states that all the assets and liabilities the old municipalities had are vested in and become assets and liabilities of the new city. I've said on many occasions that the province has absolutely no intention of taking the reserve funds of the Metro municipalities. Any reserve funds that belong to the municipalities before the merger will remain with the unified city of Toronto after the merger, and any individual who says the province is going to take the money is absolutely wrong.

Mr Newman: I'm glad the minister has clarified that it the House and that there will be no more wild accusations.

Could the minister please explain to the House and for my constituents in Scarborough Centre what the role of the board of trustees will be with respect to these reserve funds if and when Bill 103 finishes the legislative process?

Hon Mr Leach: Again I thank the member for the question. I'd be very happy to clarify the role of the board of trustees with regard to the reserve funds of the seven municipalities. The board of trustees will not be taking over the reserve funds accounts of the seven governments. The reserve funds will be transferred in their entirety to the new city. The role of the board of trustees is to provide protection of these reserve funds for the taxpayers of the seven municipalities. Our intent is to ensure that these new reserve funds are there for the taxpayers of the new unified city of Toronto. I hope that clarifies this issue once and for all.

ASSISTED HOUSING

Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Over the course of the last week we have discussed the cost of downloading social housing to municipalities from a macro perspective. We released numbers yesterday that we believe are accurate with respect to the cost to individual municipalities. Given the obvious impacts this move will have on the property tax base, do you expect that municipalities in this province will either raise rents in what were formerly Ontario Housing Corp units or do you expect they will sell them off and get out of the public housing business?

Hon Al Leach (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): I thank the member from Windsor for his question. It's a very good question, because when this government carries out its proposals to take education off the property tax and carries out our other proposals to switch services with the municipalities, the taxpayers won't have to worry about a tax increase and renters won't have to worry about a rent increase. They'll be able to look forward to a decrease.

After the transition period over the next couple of years, by about the year 2001, we fully expect the municipalities would be in a position to lower rents, because we're also going to fix up the property tax situation and property taxes as well should be able to be lowered.

Mr Duncan: The Minister of Housing does not understand what the government is doing. What the government is doing indirectly and in a most cowardly way is getting out of public housing entirely. What you are doing is keeping your Common Sense Revolution pledge to sell off public housing, to not provide public housing for the most needy people in this province, and you're leaving the dirty work to municipalities because you know that your plans will raise property taxes or they'll have to get out of it altogether.

Minister, will you tell this House how property taxpayers can be expected to bear $1.4 billion in costs? Will you tell this House now that you expect municipalities to get out of public housing and will you tell the House that you don't care about public housing because you don't care about the most poor and vulnerable in this society? You have no vision of housing. You're closing public housing. How do you expect us to have a public housing stock in this province? How do you expect that, Minister?

Hon Mr Leach: The member says that's a cowardly action. You know who wants to get out of the housing business, Mr Speaker? His Liberal cousins in Ottawa. The Liberals said, "We want to get out of the social housing business."

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Government members. Thank you.

Interjection.

The Speaker: Except the Minister of Education, who is being very good. Minister.

Hon Mr Leach: Both senior levels of government know and agree with the municipalities that the municipalities are far better equipped to administer and deliver social housing. Even the social housing providers in those municipalities know they are best prepared to do that and have asked for that responsibility. The member asks where they will get the money to do that. I assume they'll take it from the $6 billion they save from having education taken off the property tax.

CAPITAL FUNDING FOR SCHOOLS

Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River): My question is for the Minister of Education and Training. In January the minister announced that the school construction moratorium was over and that $650 million in much-needed school construction could go ahead. But then he created more confusion, confusion that is really bothering a lot of boards of education out there. Each school construction project has a provincial contribution and it also has a local contribution, and you've told boards of education to go out and borrow the money they need to pay for their local share.

The problem they have is, if they borrow this money and incur a debenture, under your Bill 104 they will no longer have the authority to tax. So they're wondering who will pay back these debentures. Minister, will your government be paying back these debentures and assuming the responsibility for the repayment of that local share down the road? That's the answer they need to hear from you.

Hon John Snobelen (Minister of Education and Training): I want to thank the leader of the third party --

Interjections: Boo.

The Speaker (Hon Chris Stockwell): Order.

Interjection: We want to make him feel at home.

The Speaker: All right, you're out of order. Minister of Education.

Hon Mr Snobelen: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. You were very eloquent in that rebuttal.

I want to thank the leader of the third party for the question. Yes, we did announce that there is going to be construction of new schools in Ontario. The province will live up to its commitment that we made. We made it very purposefully. We want to get the shovel in the ground this spring to build some of the schools that are necessary across this province and we will do that. Nothing that has happened from that announcement till now will delay the construction of those schools.

Mr Hampton: Minister, I hear what you're saying but I also hear what those boards are saying. For example, in my part of northwestern Ontario, the Atikokan board has a $3.2-million project but they have a $500,000 local share and they haven't been able to get anything from your ministry about how that $500,000 local share is going to be covered.

Fort Frances-Rainy River board has a $14.5-million construction project, a new high school multi-use facility. It has a local share of over $3.2 million. They can't get an answer as to how the debenture's going to be paid down, so they can't begin. The Dryden Board of Education has a project. They can't get a firm answer. The Kenora Board of Education has $5.8 million in projects with a $2 million local share. They want to proceed.

These are much-needed schools. They want to proceed. They want an answer from your ministry. First, do they have the approval to sign the contracts; second, they want to know if they borrow this money which is needed to cover the local share in some cases, will you --

The Speaker: Thank you, leader. Minister.

Hon Mr Snobelen: I'm very pleased to have a chance to address the question here. I hope that the critic from the Liberal Party is also listening because I believe that the correct information needs to get out there. We have been in communication with school boards and we have told them the template by which to apply, and we will build those schools and the leader of the third party certainly has my assurances of that. It's our intention to build those schools and we will build them.

PETITIONS

HOTEL DIEU HOSPITAL

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I have an important petition made out to the government of Ontario. It reads as follows:

"Since the Hotel Dieu Hospital has played and continues to play a vital role in the delivery of health care services in St Catharines and the Niagara region;

"Since Hotel Dieu has modified its role over the years as part of a rationalization of medical services in St Catharines and has assumed the position of a regional health care facility in such areas as kidney dialysis and oncology;

"Since the Niagara region is experiencing underfunding in the health care field and requires more medical services and not fewer services;

"Since Niagara residents are required at present to travel outside of the Niagara region to receive many specialized services that could be provided in city hospitals and thereby not require local patients to make difficult and inconvenient trips down our highways to other centres;

"Since the Niagara hospital restructuring committee used a Toronto consulting firm to develop its recommendations and was forced to take into account a cut of $44 million in funding for Niagara hospitals when carrying out its study;

"Since the population of the Niagara region is older than that in most areas of the province and more elderly people tend to require more hospital services;

"We, the undersigned, request that the government of Ontario keep the election commitment of Premier Mike Harris not to close hospitals in our province, and we call upon the Premier to reject any recommendation to close Hotel Dieu Hospital in St Catharines."

I affix my signature as I am in full agreement with this petition.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I have a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It reads as follows:

"Whereas it is vital that occupational health and safety services provided to workers be conducted by organizations in which workers have faith; and

"Whereas the Workers' Health and Safety Centre and the occupational health clinics for Ontario workers have provided such services on behalf of workers for many years;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to oppose any attempt to erode the structure, services or funding of the Workers' Health and Safety Centre and the occupational health clinics for Ontario workers.

"Further, we, the undersigned, demand that the education and training of Ontario workers continue in its present form through the Workers' Health and Safety Centre and that professional and technical expertise and advice continue to be provided through the occupational health clinics for Ontario workers."

I signed that petition.

SCHOOL BOARDS

Mr Tom Froese (St Catharines-Brock): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the provincial government is planning to make significant changes to the delivery and governance of education in this province; and

"Whereas we as parents believe that school councils should play an important role in education, with clearly defined responsibilities limited to their particular school communities; and

"Whereas we, as ratepayers, are extremely disturbed that consideration is being given to abolish school boards and eliminate decision-making by locally elected representatives,

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario that the present structure of school boards within the province of Ontario continue to have a major role in governance of schools to deal with broad policies as advocates for the students in their community, to provide cost-efficient educational services and to be directly accountable to the parents and local ratepayers."

It's signed by constituents in my riding.

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas

section 30, subsection 5 of the Education Act provides for dispositions with regard to habitually absent students and therein makes reference to the Juvenile Delinquents Act of Canada; and

"Whereas reference to the Juvenile Delinquents Act has caused and continues to cause confusion throughout the courts of Ontario because of its interpretive nature; and

"Whereas different

interpretations of the Juvenile Delinquents Act have caused and continue to cause inconsistent rulings throughout the courts of Ontario; and

"Whereas the inconsistent support and enforcement of the compulsory school attendance legislation threatens the very concept of compulsory school attendance;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly as follows:

"To resolve this long-outstanding problem to the educational future of Ontario's youth and reinstate the government's support of compulsory school attendance by clarifying the existing legislative confusion, by the deletion of any reference to the Juvenile Delinquents Act and by a clear adoption of the remedies available under the Provincial Offences Act."

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the Harris government has begun a process to open the Occupational Health and Safety Act of Ontario; and

"Whereas this act is the single most important piece of legislation for working people since it is designed to protect our lives, safety and health while at work and allow us to return home to our families in the same condition in which we left; and

"Whereas the government has made it clear that they intend to water down the act and weaken the rights of workers under the law, including the right to know, the right to participate and especially the right to refuse" unsafe work; and

"Whereas this government has already watered down proper training of certified committee members;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario not to alter the Occupational Health and Safety Act or erode the rights of workers any further and ensure strict enforcement of the legislation."

I add my name to theirs in support.

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

Mrs Barbara Fisher (Bruce): I'd like to present a petition this afternoon on behalf of the County of Bruce General Hospital and its alliance partners, Chesley, Durham and Kincardine. The petition reads as follows:

"We, the undersigned, realizing the importance of local accessible hospital and medical services, therefore petition the district health council, the Minister of Health and the restructuring commission to continue to provide comprehensive hospital services at the County of Bruce General Hospital as well as at the facilities of its alliance partners, Chesley, Durham and Kincardine."

I am pleased to affix my name to the top.

COMMUNAUTÉ INTERGÉNÉRATION

M. Gilles E. Morin (Carleton-Est) : À la législature de l'Ontario :

«Attendu que la fondation PACE 2000, organisme à but non lucratif, prévoit de construire une communauté intergénération résidentielle pour aînés et pour étudiants adultes sur le terrain directement au nord de l'Hôpital Montfort ;

«Attendu que les objectifs de la fondation PACE 2000 sont de promouvoir l'autonomie des aînés dans leur domicile et de favoriser l'insertion socio-professionnelle des jeunes, et que ces objectifs seront atteints avec l'appui du réseau intergénération qui favorise la complémentarité entre les âges ;

«Attendu que la congrégation des Filles de la Sagesse, l'Hôpital Montfort et la fondation PACE 2000 ont déposé ensemble le 26 janvier 1997 l'application pour changement de zonage du terrain de 21 acres, et que, au 28 janvier 1997, les autorisations n'ont toujours pas été accordées par la ville d'Ottawa ;

«Attendu que 510 signataires depuis mai 1996 ont demandé que le projet PACE 2000 soit réalisé dans les plus brefs délais ;

«Nous les soussignés demandons à la législature de l'Ontario ce qui suit :

«D'accorder la plus grande priorité aux accords municipaux et provinciaux nécessaires au développement du projet intergénération PACE 2000 sur le terrain situé directement au nord de l'Hôpital Montfort, et ce avant la mise en application prochaine de la nouvelle nomenclature de zonage de la ville d'Ottawa.»

J'y affixe ma signature.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): "Whereas it is vital that occupational health and safety services provided to workers be conducted by organizations in which workers have faith; and

"Whereas the Workers' Health and Safety Centre and the occupational health clinics for Ontario workers have provided such services on behalf of workers for many years; and

"Whereas the centre and clinics have made a significant contribution to improvements in workplace health and safety and the reduction of injuries, illnesses and death caused by work;

"We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to oppose any attempt to erode the structure, services or funding of the Workers' Health and Safety Centre and the occupational health clinics for Ontario workers.

"Further we, the undersigned, demand that the education and training of Ontario workers continue in its present form through the Workers' Health and Safety Centre and that professional and technical expertise and advice continue to be provided through the occupational health clinics for Ontario workers."

I add my name to theirs.

MUNICIPAL RESTRUCTURING

Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the city of Scarborough is requiring individuals who want to participate in the mail-in referendum to provide their name, address and signature on the ballot; and

"Whereas this requirement is blatantly undemocratic and threatens the legitimacy of the democratic process; and

"Whereas the city of Scarborough makes no mention as to whether or not it will accept ballots from residents who wish to vote in confidence; and

"Whereas the question on the ballot itself is slanted towards the position of the city and cannot be viewed as a neutral question; and

"Whereas this uncertainty and undemocratic procedure make the entire process a great misuse of taxpayers' dollars and tarnish any results that will come out of the vote;

"Therefore,

be it resolved that we, the undersigned, petition the Legislature of Ontario to:

"

(1) Speak out against this undemocratic vote;

"

(2) Disregard the results of the vote; and

"

(3) Continue with the proposed unification of the municipalities into one unified city of Toronto."

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"Whereas

section 30, subsection (5) of the Education Act provides for dispositions with regard to habitually absent students and therein makes reference to the Juvenile Delinquents Act; and

"Whereas reference to the Juvenile Delinquents Act has caused and continues to cause confusion throughout the courts of Ontario because of its interpretive nature; and

"Whereas different

interpretations of the Juvenile Delinquents Act have caused and continue to cause inconsistent rulings throughout the courts of Ontario; and

"Whereas the inconsistent support and enforcement of the compulsory school attendance legislation threatens the very concept of compulsory school attendance;

"Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

"To resolve this long-outstanding problem to the educational future of Ontario's youth and reinstate the government's support of compulsory school attendance by clarifying the existing legislative confusion, by the deletion of any reference to the Juvenile Delinquents Act and by a clear adoption of the remedies available under the Provincial Offences Act."

Of course I affix my signature to this petition as I agree with it.

FINANCEMENT DE L'ÉDUCATION

M me Shelley Martel (Sudbury-Est) : J'ai une pétition à l'Assemblée législative de l'Ontario :

«Attendu que Mike Harris et John Snobelen avaient promis de ne pas apporter des coupures dans l'éducation au niveau de la salle de classe, et que depuis leur élection, le gouvernement Harris a sabré plus de 430 millions de dollars dans les budgets des conseils scolaires, ce qui représente près d'un milliard de dollars supprimé du secteur de l'éducation publique sur une base annuelle ; et

«Attendu que nos enfants ont déjà perdu 50 % du financement accordé à l'éducation spéciale, ainsi que les bibliothécaires et, dans certaines régions, les maternelles, et que de nombreuses écoles ont perdu leurs programmes de musique, et que le nombre d'élèves dans chaque classe a augmenté sensiblement -- certaines écoles vont même perdre leurs autobus scolaires ; et

«Attendu que les parents à l'échelle de l'Ontario savent que la majorité des changements apportés au secteur de l'éducation ont pour but de supprimer un milliard de dollars des dépenses du gouvernement pour financer sa réduction d'impôts ; et

«Attendu que les parents savent que ces coupures affectent l'éducation dans les salles de classe et la qualité de l'éducation de leurs enfants ; et

«Attendu que les parents savent qu'ils n'ont pas été consultés ;

«Nous, soussignés, exhortons Mike Harris à cesser ces coupures qui affectent l'éducation et l'avenir de nos enfants.»

Cette pétition est signée par 31 personnes qui habitent la circonscription de Sudbury-Est. Je suis d'accord avec eux et j'y affixe ma signature.

DRIVER EXAMINATION CENTRES

Mrs Barbara Fisher (Bruce): I'd like to present a petition this afternoon on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce of Port Elgin, and the petition reads as follows:

"Petition for the return of the drivers' examiners to Port Elgin and the reinstatement of Port Elgin as a travel point for Ministry of Transportation examiners:

"We, the undersigned, strongly support:

"

(1) The return of the Ministry of Transportation drivers' examiners to Port Elgin; and

"

(2) The Port Elgin issuing office be reinstated as a travel point for the Ministry of Transportation.

"We see this as a need and a demand for students, seniors and those obtaining testing for special licences."

I am pleased to affix my name to the top.

NORTH YORK BRANSON HOSPITAL

Mr Monte Kwinter (Wilson Heights): I have a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

"Whereas the final report of the Metropolitan Toronto District Health Council hospital restructuring committee has recommended that North York Branson Hospital merge with York-Finch hospital; and

"Whereas this recommendation will remove emergency and inpatient services currently provided by North York Branson Hospital, which will seriously jeopardize medical care and the quality of health for the growing population which the hospital serves, many being elderly people who in numerous cases require treatment for life-threatening medical conditions;

"We petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to reject the recommendation contained within the final report of the Metropolitan Toronto District Health Council hospital restructuring committee as it pertains to North York Branson Hospital, so that it retains, at minimum, emergency and inpatient services."

I have affixed my signature.

HOSPITAL RESTRUCTURING

Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): I'm presenting a petition signed by over 2,000 people in Windsor. "To the Ministry of Health Care" is how they wrote it:

"We, the Windsor taxpayers, petition to keep our hospital rooms open and not to close entire floors due to a lack of funds from our government. With a population of 200,000 people and a new casino and other industry on its way, we as Windsor residents have a right to the same health care for our tax dollars as London, Toronto, and other cities in Ontario. Our city is growing and we feel very strongly to keep our hospital rooms open.

"We ask the ministry to take this matter seriously and respond by reopening all the closed floors of the hospitals and designate adequate funding for the nurses so that we may be taken care of as taxpayers. Allowing hundreds of empty beds to stay closed while people are put in hallways for numerous days is a disgrace.

"As you will see by the amount of signatures, this issue will not be forgotten, nor will it disappear. We want our hospital rooms open and ready to care for the sick."

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 MODIFIANT LA

LOI SUR L'ÉDUCATION

Mr Bartolucci moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 124,

An Act to amend the Education Act respecting school attendance / Projet de loi 124, Loi modifiant la

Loi sur l'éducation en ce qui a trait à la fréquentation scolaire.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): This bill is in response to the petitions that were read into the record today but also to ensure that school attendance certainly is mandatory for those students who wish to skip school. The proposed amendment is intended to clarify the law with respect to children who are habitually absent from school. Provision is made for a review process to be governed by regulations prior to taking court action.

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Before we move to orders of the day, pursuant to standing order 34(a), the member for Downsview has given notice of her dissatisfaction with the answer to her question given by the Attorney General concerning plea bargaining. The matter will be debated today at 6 pm.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

FAIR MUNICIPAL FINANCE ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LE FINANCEMENT ÉQUITABLE DES MUNICIPALITÉS

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 106,

An Act respecting the financing of local government / Projet de loi 106, Loi concernant le financement des administrations locales.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): I look forward to getting into some detail about this Bill 106, which is

An Act respecting the financing of local government. More succinctly said, this is the bill that introduces MVA to the city of Toronto, as much as the government tries to hide from the fact. They are trying to tell the people of the city of Toronto and others that they are moving on a new tax system for Ontario, namely, for Toronto, called actual value assessment. In actual fact, when you look at this legislation, what you see is a government that's moving on introducing what basically is market value assessment for the city of Toronto.

I find that very ironic because I remember as a government member between 1990 and 1995 the debate in the city of Toronto around the whole issue of MVA. I remember clearly the position that was taken by the then third party, the Progressive Conservatives, here in the House and by their leader, one Mike Harris, as being very opposed to moving to market value assessment for the city of Toronto.

I thought Mr Harris and the now government whip, Mr Turnbull, and others had made very eloquent arguments against introducing this tax system called market value to the city of Toronto because they were really worried about what it was going to mean to their community and what it was going to mean to the small businesses and the residents of their communities in and around the city of Toronto.

Madam Speaker, you remember that well because you were a member of a cabinet, a member of a government, which had made a decision not to move on market value because you recognized, and I think wisely so, as a cabinet minister of the day that if we went to market value in the city of Toronto, it would be really chaotic. People's taxes in the downtown core would skyrocket. The result of that would be higher taxes for both residences and businesses in the downtown area. It would mean an outmigration of people from the city into the suburbs across the GTA. You would not only see businesses fleeing the downtown core but you would also see residents because of a number of different issues.

The government of the day, the Bob Rae government, I think made the right decision not to move on market value assessment. So we made that decision as a government and, as I say, I think it was a decision that was quite correct, not to move on MVA, because we recognized as a government, an NDP government, that it would really be a detriment to the cities of Toronto, Scarborough, North York and others which would be adversely affected by moving to this particular tax system.

As I said, I remember quite well the position of the then Tory caucus. I find it ironic that here we are, less than three, four years after that debate, with Mike Harris now as the Premier of Ontario, who has moved his status from being the leader of the third party to the Premier, who introduces a bill called Bill 106, which is what? It's MVA in window dressing. That's all it is. It's not actual value assessment, because actual value assessment, quite frankly, is market value assessment. It's a bit of a different play on words.

Succinctly put, what's the difference between MVA and AVA? MVA is a market value assessment, just as you would think. Market value assessment means to say that when the assessors go out to assess a property, they look at your property not only from the context of the building, the structure and the property itself, but they look at how much that entire property is worth in regard to the market that it finds itself in.

So if I have a building in one particular area of the city where the market dictates that it should, let's say, sell at $200,000 with property and building, the taxes are reflected based on the market values of the particular building. Conversely, if I live in a different area of the city and the market dictates that the same building would be sold at, let's say, $180,000, the taxes are applied on the market value; in other words, the $180,000.

So yes, you have a difference in taxes. You have in one part of the city one building being taxed at a lower rate than in another part of the city. But I think you need to take a look at that. That's a form of equity, when you really look at it, because we're saying in the tax system, "Listen, if you can sell your building at $200,000 and the person seven or 10 or 15 blocks over in another part of the city can sell it at $180,000 because of the market, we'll reflect that on your taxes so that it balances out in the end." I think that's a fair way of approaching the assessment system.

But is that what actual value assessment does? Frankly, yes. Actual value assessment, in my view, is no different than market value assessment. Actual value assessment means to say that you will assess the building based on the actual value and you take into account the conditions of the market. The Minister of Housing and the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the same person, can stand all he wants in this House and pontificate to whatever degree he wants; he can't run away from the fact that MVA and AVA are the same system.

So now within the city of Toronto, once this bill is passed and the requirements under the statutes are followed, the residents of the city of Toronto are going to find themselves -- you'll notice I'm saying "residents" and not "businesses," and I'll get to that point later. Residents in the city of Toronto who own homes are going to see their local property taxes go through the roof, literally, because you will now have a system of taxes that will be applied to the residents of the city of Toronto that is no different than MVA.

I find it quite ironic to boot that the now government whip, Mr Turnbull, who was very opposed to MVA and very vociferous in his opposition, is not saying but a peep on this whole issue now that his government is moving on its version of MVA. So I find that quite disconcerting because I thought that the opposition third party of 1990 to 1995 were true to their convictions and what they said they would do if they ever formed the government. But I find that they are not at all a party of their word. They are really a party of image and a party that likes to spin things rather than trying to deal with the actual facts of the case.

What's even more sinister about this particular bill -- "sinister" I think is a bit of a strong word. As a matter of fact, I think I'll take that back. What is really, I would say, unfair about this legislation is how taxes will be applied to different classes of properties within all the cities and all the towns and all the townships across Ontario. The government is moving in a direction that I think is very wrongheaded, and let me give you two specific areas that they are moving in, because I only have some 20 minutes to go through this.

One thing the government is doing is it's saying the government is going to remove what's called the business occupancy tax. Let's explain what that is. The business occupancy tax is a tax that is --

Interjections: A ripoff.

Mr Bisson: I hear the government members calling it a ripoff. You're about to rip off the property taxpayers in this province, that's what you're about to do, and I agree with your comment.

The business occupancy tax is a tax that is charged to businesses above and beyond the assessment that is on the property. What they do when they do the assessment of the taxation is, they look currently at the property where the business is residing, they tax that property, and then in order to support the infrastructure of the downtown and support the infrastructure that the community provides to the business sector, there is an additional assessment that is charged to the businesses that are occupying those premises. That is why they call it the business occupancy tax.

This government is going to eliminate the business occupancy tax. They're saying if you're a bank and you have premises in downtown Toronto, downtown Timmins or Sudbury, you will no longer have to pay the business occupancy tax.

I guess if you're the bank, I guess if you're the business that's being affected by that, at first you say to yourself, "That's a break; that means to say I've got to pay less taxes." The problem is, and this is important, that the municipalities across the province are going to have to find the revenue by which they're going to make up for the shortfall of the money they lost with the business occupancy tax, because we all know Mike Harris and his ministers are working very hard at downloading all of their responsibilities on to the municipalities of Ontario.

They're transferring over wholesale services and the cost of those services on to the municipality, everything from transit services to homes for the aged to ambulance services. You name it, they're transferring it over the municipalities, and the municipalities are going to have to pay.

So while the Harris government is throwing all these services on to the municipality, along with the additional cost, he's saying to the municipalities, "We are going to remove the business occupancy tax." The municipality is sitting there and saying that in some cases that's 15% to 20% of the assessment base on the business community, depending how big the business community is in that particular community, so they're saying, "Okay, we're going to have to go and find the money somewhere else."

Normally what would you happen, you would think, is the council would say, "Okay, they removed the business occupancy tax, so what we will do is we will transfer over that assessment on to the building in which the business is occupied." In other words, if they remove the occupancy tax, some councils would decide, "Okay, we've lost the occupancy tax; we'll raise the assessment on property within the downtown core to make up the difference." So the businesses end up paying for it through their rent -- because they're already paying for it, and I'll get back to that point in a second.

But the government is saying no. What's going to happen is the government is saying to the municipalities of this province: "You cannot transfer the cost of the business occupancy tax back on to those businesses through their rent. You're not going to be able to charge it back to the business through the property that they are renting." Instead they're saying, "Municipal councils in the province of Ontario, we want you either to cut services further, because you're losing revenue, or go and charge more taxes to the individual ratepayers in the community."

I don't know about you, Madam Speaker, but I would imagine that the residents in the riding of Riverdale who own property and their homes are not any richer than they are in the city of Timmins, and I would imagine that the residents of Riverdale, such as the residents of the city of Timmins, Matheson and Iroquois Falls, are already paying a prime amount of money in municipal taxation and really cannot afford and don't want to pay more municipal tax assessment. I'm afraid this bill is going to make that possible.

Those residents in your riding of Riverdale and in my communities of Timmins, Matheson and Iroquois Falls are going to see their municipal taxes on residences increased as a result of this bill, because the government is saying, "We're giving a tax break to the wealthy, a tax break to the banks and to the other businesses that are paying the business occupancy tax," and the municipalities will then offset that by raising the taxes to individuals who own homes within our community.

That is the most cynical form of politics there is, because this government makes no bones about it: It clearly favours one sector of our economy. They clearly stand squarely behind Conrad Black. They stand squarely behind Mr Stronach. They stand squarely behind everybody in the business élite of this province and say, "We're going to give you a break and we're going to make things better for you," but at the expense of everybody else, at the expense of your community and at the expense of my community and of the hardworking people who make up 90% of who pays taxes in this province.

I say that is wrong. A government is elected to govern on behalf of all the citizens of the province, not a select few. If there's one thing that makes a lot of people angry in this province -- increasingly angry, I should say -- it is that they're starting to recognize this government stands for big business and no one else. If they're going to do a favour for somebody, if they're going to give a handout to big business, that's fine by them, but they're going to put the boots to the average working people in this province. They're going to step all over the small business sector of this province because they believe in big business.

The other thing they're doing which is quite interesting: I always believed that the government, the Tory party, that is, had a lot of support in rural Ontario. I think that's important. For years the Tories have benefited from that support in rural Ontario. One of the reasons is that previous Conservative governments have done fairly well by rural Ontario, and rural Ontario has done fairly well by the previous Tory governments. I would say they did well by the NDP government, probably better.

What they have done in this particular case is they've really started the slide of the Tory party in rural Ontario because they are eliminating something that I would have thought was unthinkable to do in Ontario. They have gone to the Minister of Agriculture, who stood up proudly in this House and talked about how they've eliminated the farm tax rebate program. They took great pride in doing that.

Let's explain what that's all about. What they're basically saying is that there is a program in place where for farms in areas that have to pay a fair amount of municipal tax assessment, the farmer is able to participate in a program by which he or she as a farmer is able to get back some of that money they pay in municipal assessment so they can offset the running of their farms, because farming is a very expensive business to be in.

Because farms have big tracts of land, they tend to get assessed fairly well by municipalities. They get caught in a municipal assessment. Governments of the past recognized it was a problem. The municipality needed the tax assessment to be able to pay services because if you own a farm out on rural route 2 in Blackmire township or wherever it might be, you still need to have a road to go there. The way the municipality pays for that road and does the snow-clearing and builds the bridge to get to your land is to charge municipal assessment. If they didn't charge on municipal assessment, you wouldn't have the road. It's as simple as that.

The government said some years ago, "The farmers can't afford the cost of those infrastructures, so we, the province of Ontario, will introduce a farm tax rebate program so that for municipalities that charge that assessment to their farmers, the farmers are able to get some of that money back through the farm tax rebate program." It was a very successful program.

The government has decided it's going to do away with that farm tax rebate. What they've done is that in true Harris style they have conducted what I think is one of the biggest smoke-and-mirror operations in the history of farming in Ontario. They said: "We're getting rid of the farm tax rebate program. But don't worry, be happy. We're going to make sure that municipalities lower your municipal assessment on property and we're going to do things better and smarter. Rather than the government administering the farm tax rebate program and giving you that money back via a grant, we're going to tell the municipalities they have to reduce the assessment on your farm land."

I guess at first stroke that sort of makes sense to people. They sit there and they say: "Oh, yeah, that makes some sense, a little bit less administration. We can save some money. If it's done in that intent, maybe it makes some sense." The problem is, who's going to pay for this? The Minister of Agriculture is the one who's going to save the money. He's going to take that money as a savings directly to the Minister of Finance so the Minister of Finance can fund his phoney tax scheme.

But who's going to pay? It's going to be the municipal taxpayers, that's who's going to pay. What's happening is that by reducing the assessment on farm land, the municipal government has to make up the difference in assessment by raising taxes on the municipal ratepayers. The farmer's taxes on his or her house are going to go up on the residential assessment and the taxes on residential assessment throughout the municipality will go up as well.

The government stands there and says: "Boy, we're bright. We've eliminated the farm tax rebate and instead we've told the municipalities to lower the farming tax assessment." Come on. They have to give their heads a shake here. In the end people are starting to catch on that this is really smoke and mirrors.

On the one hand, yes, what all is happening is the government is getting rid of yet another expenditure. They're offloading the responsibilities of the farm community directly on to the municipal taxpayers. Municipal taxpayers have hit the wall; there's nowhere they can go. You might be able to get away in this day and age with a 1% or 2% tax increase at the municipal level, but to offset the kind of offloading this government's doing to municipalities is going to take in some cases -- well, in most cases -- a 40% to 50% tax increase above and beyond what we now pay in municipal taxes.

In the city of Timmins they've quantified this. The council of the city of Timmins under Mayor Power has sat down at the council table and asked the councillors and the department heads to take a look at the cost to the municipality of the city of Timmins: What are we losing in revenue by the government taking away revenue from us, first of all, in the tax assessment system, and how much additional expense do we have to incur as a result of the downloading?

It's unbelievable. It equals a 40% increase in municipal taxes. If the municipality of the city of Timmins wants to keep services at the same level they are now, with all the downloading the Harris government is doing on to that municipality, it's going to have to raise municipal taxes by some 40 per cent to offset the cost to residential taxpayers. I know the good citizens of Riverdale can't afford a 40% tax increase, Madam Speaker. I can sure tell you that the good citizens of the city of Timmins can't either.

People in our community are starting to wake up to that fact. I am just taken aback by how people are starting to clue in really quickly about what the real Harris government agenda is. As I walk around the community -- and I go to municipal events in and around the entire riding; I go into the malls and the downtown and various places where we meet the public in our day-to-day work as MPPs -- I can literally not move without people stopping me and saying, "Gilles, my Lord, do you see what they've done now? My property taxes are going to go through the roof," or, "I'm going to lose my ambulance care," or, "I'm not going to have this; look at what these guys are doing."

As sure as I'm standing here the support the government has I believe is starting to slip big time, because people are finally starting to clue into what this government is doing, what it's doing by way of this bill and every other bill, and that is abdicating its responsibility as a provincial government. It's saying, "We, the Conservative government of Ontario that's responsible for governing this province will not take on these responsibilities."

In effect, these people don't believe in public services. The view of the Conservative Party is that public services should be very minimal when it comes to whatever services are being offered, but even better in their view, whatever's offered should be done by the private sector. They're downloading everything and this bill is one of the means by which they're going to go around to pay for some of that.

I couldn't let this opportunity go by without having a word on the northern support grant. I want to say clearly to the members on the other side of the aisle, I want to say in strong terms, that it took the north years to lobby the provincial government to come up with what is now called the northern support grant, so that municipalities across the north, which do not have the commercial and industrial assessment you have in the city of Toronto, would have a program by which to offset our tax system.

If we in northern Ontario had the kind of assessment you have in the city of Toronto when it comes to industry and business, big office tower buildings etc, we would have enough money within our own municipalities' value of property to assess to be able to operate the infrastructure of our communities, but we have long recognized that in our communities we're basically resource-based and we're not able to raise the amount of commercial-industrial assessment in our communities that you can in cities like Toronto and Hamilton and Windsor.

What's worse in many cases like the city of Timmins, where is most of our industrial assessment? It's underground. You have mines in Timmins -- some of these mines, like the old Hollinger mine or the current Kidd Creek mine, the underground workings of those mines are bigger than -- my Lord, we could probably take all the mining underneath the city of Timmins and build a highway across Canada with it. That's how much mining has been done. But our assessment on these mines we're not able to get to because all their workings are underground.

So the only thing we're able to assess are the mills and the shafts and the office buildings on the mine properties, which are minimal compared to what the actual workings are underground.

The government set up the northern support grant back in 1974 or 1976; I've forgotten the exact year. The Bill Davis government recognized that northern municipalities did not have the industrial, did not have the commercial assessment of southern Ontario, that we couldn't tax much of our assessment anyway because it was outside our municipal boundaries or it was underground and we couldn't tax it.

So the government put in place the northern support grant so citizens in Timmins and Sudbury and Sault Ste Marie and Kapuskasing and Hearst and Iroquois Falls and Matheson were able to get a certain degree of equity when it came to services being offered by their municipalities so we can have sewers and water, so we can have our roads plowed, so we can have our roads paved, so we can build sidewalks. We're talking about basic services here; we're not talking about glitz.

On the basis of the assessment we have, quite frankly we don't have the money to pay for some of this. I can tell you about municipalities in northern Ontario that had at that point substandard sewer and water treatment facilities because they didn't have the assessment base to pay for it. So the government of the day recognized and put in place the northern support grant. I remember the day in the year that happened, back in the early 1970s, northerners and northern mayors and councillors were very pleased by what the provincial government had done. This government is turning its back on that.

What's worse, it's not only breaking a promise made when the Conservatives ran in the last election, it's also breaking a promise of the Premier that was made in this House less than a year ago. I remember last year when the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, the absentee minister as we call him in northern Ontario, was musing about cutting the northern support grant, I asked the question in this House to the finance minister and to the Premier, to which the response was that they were not going to touch the northern support grant, that no, they would not cut it.

When the Premier at the time was travelling to communities of Sault Ste Marie and Timmins doing fund-raisers so they could raise more money for the Tories in Ontario, he was rather embarrassed by the fact that his government, at the time that he was out there trying to raise funds in northern Ontario, was going to cut the northern support grant. So the Premier did the political thing: He made the promise. He said, "I'm not going to cut the northern support grant." He said it in Sault Ste Marie; he said it in front of Steve Butland and a crowd of people in the Sault and it was repeated again through one of your ministers here in the House.

I was told, "If the Premier said it's not going to be cut, it ain't going to be cut." We thought we had a victory. We thought, "Hey, right on, the government's done something right." I went back to my community and said, "We got the government to commit to the northern support grant," and I gave the government credit. But what do you do less than a year later? You forget that you made a promise. You made a promise prior to the last election, you made a promise during the last election and you made a promise after the last election, and what do you do? You break it.

The people of northern Ontario are not going to forget for two seconds. For this government to try to put itself off as the government that kept its word, that does what it said it was going to do in the last election -- poppycock. Not at all.

This government, on almost all occasions, has tried to play the smoke-and-mirrors approach to politics, and in this particular case of the northern support grant, because the Premier was doing fund-raisers in northern Ontario, because the Premier and the Tory party wanted the dollars from northerners and northern businesses -- at $100 a plate, I might add -- and were looking to raise dollars for his party, he said the politically expedient thing. He said, "I will not cut the northern support grant." You broke your promise.

Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): That's questioning motivation.

Mr Bisson: I am questioning his motive.

Mr Wettlaufer: That's not parliamentary.

Mr Bisson: That's parliamentary. I question what you guys are doing because your government is about to destroy much of what we hold sacred in this province. I for one, as a New Democrat and as the member for Cochrane South, am not going to sit idly by as you guys tinker with the province to the point of putting citizens at risk. That is not something, in my view, that is acceptable to the people of this province.

We have a tradition in this province of building on the best, of saying that we as a province will care for each other, that we will work together towards building a better and more prosperous Ontario, and I will not stand by to watch you people tinker with our present and, more dangerously, tinker with our future to the point of putting us in jeopardy.

We have people in this province who are at risk because they can't get into hospitals now because the waiting lists are getting large because of your cutbacks. We have people who have died because they can't get adequate health care services. We have people who have died because the highways of our province are not plowed half of the time in northern Ontario because your Minister of Transportation has cut the budget in the ministry for road clearance. We have people who have died driving those highways. I'm not going to sit by and let you guys get away with it unscathed.

I think the story has to be told. People are telling me across this province, as I travel around as the transport critic for the New Democratic Party, that they're increasingly starting to figure out what this government is doing. So when it comes to Bill 106, the government can stand all it wants and try to say that it is doing something that is somehow fair and equal. There's nothing fair and equal in transferring taxes from the business sector on to residential ratepayers.

There is nothing fair about giving a decrease in taxes to the Bank of Montreal, the Royal Bank and others that have made record profits, in the billions of dollars, and giving Granny Smith an increase in her property taxes. I say that is not only wrong, that is not only --

Interjection.

Mr Bisson: I think there's some chirping next door, Madam Speaker. I always know when a speech is having an effect: when the government listens and heckles. It tells us they're listening to what we're saying and they're starting to feel uncomfortable. I can certainly tell there are members in this House on the government side who are plenty uncomfortable about what I'm saying, because they know what I'm saying is true and they're hearing it back home.

The citizens in their municipalities within their ridings are going to them and saying, "I'm concerned about what you're doing." Sure, you got elected as a government to make some decisions in this province, but you didn't get elected to be able to --

Mr Wettlaufer: Why don't you tell the teachers --

Mr Bisson: You don't like teachers. We know that. You hate teachers. You can't stand teachers. Why don't you say it? Listen to this guy.

The Acting Speaker (Ms Marilyn Churley): Order, please.

Mr Bisson: Boy, I'll tell you, I've never seen a gang like this to get worked up. They can't stand teachers, they can't stand unionized workers, they don't like anybody who stands for anything that's progressive. All they can do is try to blame everything on a certain class of society. My, my, Madam Speaker, it is certainly telling to watch what they're doing.

So I say to the government across the way, I certainly will not be supporting Bill 106. No great surprise, the government says, but I think you're not surprised because you realize this is a draconian piece of legislation. We already have across most of Ontario a system of taxation that's based on MVA and what you're doing is introducing to the city of Toronto by way of this act MVA, something you promised you would not do prior to the last election, something you promised you wouldn't do in the last election. You're breaking yet another promise.

You're introducing AVA, which is MVA, to the citizens of the city of Toronto and other cities around Toronto, and I say to you, he who breaks the promises in the end pays the price.

The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?

Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): It's a pleasure to respond today. I was listening intently to the member for Cochrane South. I want to make sure that the viewers today understand, and I'm here to tell you, that the members of the government are friends of the teachers. In fact, we're friends of students.

Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): Quality education.

Mr O'Toole: Quality education. There are those who don't want to make any changes, but this government is making changes and we are accountable to the people.

When it comes down to the fair tax bill, Bill 106, for many years I've heard and most of the people here in this room -- I know Mr Bradley from St Catharines knows very well that they have been discussing the tax system in Ontario for at least the last decade. Both previous governments have backed away from it, and this government is doing something about it. In fact, I'm sure that it will be a fair tax system at the end of the day. Two people living in the same community with the same size and valued house should be paying the same tax. It just makes common sense.

Much of what we're doing in this bill is to bring fairness back to the residential property tax base and to resolve long-outstanding problems with the farm tax rebate system itself. So I'm satisfied to speak very much in support of this bill.

I think the member for Cochrane South made a couple of points. Some of them were not completely clarifying the intents of the bill, very well thought through perhaps. But I think the people in Toronto -- certainly the previous government knows full well that they backed away from the hard decision. When they were looking at MVA and the people of Toronto started to scream because they knew their taxes were going to go up if that was brought in, they backed away from it. I think what we are doing is what we promised to do: to bring back fairness to all of the systems in Ontario, whether it's education or the property tax system.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I was particularly intrigued by the member's comment that this government has targeted members of the teaching profession and students in its policies and that this bill was all part of that mix, because we know that it's going to be a circumstance where only the very rich will be able to attend post-secondary education, for instance. We're going to see that people with money are going to be able to send their children to private schools the way they do in the United States.

As the public school system is bled by this government, they appropriate funding, you will see more and more people going to Upper Canada College or one of those places where rich kids get to go or privileged kids get to go. So I was glad he mentioned that as well.

From speaking to individual teachers who work on the front line of education