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February 10, 1983

32nd Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Hansard Transcripts

ORAL QUESTIONS

MUNICIPAL ASSESSMENTS

VISITORS

STATUS OF GREYMAC AND SEAWAY

MUNICIPAL ASSESSMENTS

DELTA PLATING CO. LTD.

KILDERKIN INVESTMENTS

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

TRUST COMPANY ASSETS

PENSION DROP-OUT PROVISION

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

PETITION

FACILITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTALLY HANDICAPPED

MOTIONS

HOUSE SITTINGS

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

ORDERS OF THE DAY

BUDGET DEBATE (CONCLUDED)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions.

Mr. Peterson: No points of privilege?

Mr. Conway: I thought the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Ashe) would have something to tell the member for St. George (Ms. Fish).

Mr. Nixon: What about cabinet solidarity?

ORAL QUESTIONS

MUNICIPAL ASSESSMENTS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I find it strange that the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Shymko), the member for Humber (Mr. Kells) and the member for St. George are not here to listen to my question to the Minister of Revenue with respect to his plan to impose market value assessment upon Metropolitan Toronto. The minister is aware, of course, of the insurrection he has caused in his own caucus as a result of his statement of a day or two ago.

I want to ask the minister what his plans are. Is he going to go ahead and impose market value assessment? Is he going to take into account the proposal that was put to him about nine months ago by the city of Toronto to phase in market value assessment in a sensible, fair and long-term way so as to have minimum adverse impact on the people of Toronto?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, I will try to answer the questions in order. Are we going to be imposing market value assessment on Metropolitan Toronto vis-à-vis the discussions of the past couple of days? The answer to that, of course, is no.

In terms of putting the inaccurate story -- and I have said that to the writer of the

article that appeared in the Globe and Mail -- we have sent a letter to the Globe and Mail clarifying the whole issue.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: I am quite aware of the process in this government and in this caucus. There have been many discussions and requests from many members of the media, particularly in the past two months, leading up to the ultimate presentation of the Metro impact study as to the status. There have been some short conversations and some rather lengthy ones. It just so happened the one with Mr. Laver of two days ago was rather lengthy. He took part of the discussion completely out of context and wrote an erroneous story.

To put the issue into context, what we were talking about, the further discussion of when we were going to present the impact study and so on, was a statement by myself that if I had a request tomorrow from Metropolitan Toronto council to implement market value assessment in Metro, I could not do it under the Assessment Act. That is the first point. The second, which I did indicate, is that we have other second-tier governments within Ontario, both regions and counties, that are looking seriously at the possible implementation of either a county-wide or region-wide

section 86 proposal, quite possibly this year for taxation in 1983.

I definitely did indicate that if and when those motions came forward to us later on this year, we had to have some vehicle through which we could deal with them. I hope to bring before my colleagues in cabinet, and ultimately to the Legislature, amendments to the Assessment Act that would allow that to happen. I very specifically indicated to Mr. Laver that was the case. Metropolitan Toronto aside, that is what is going to be happening at some time down the line.

There is no doubt that part of the ultimate discussion includes Metropolitan Toronto. That goes without saying. I indicated to him very clearly that this was an issue for debate on another day some time down the line. How he took from that that we were implementing it tomorrow, that the decision had been made, either personally or on the part of the government, for the life of me I will never know, because that is not the case. That is where the issue stands right now.

Mr. Peterson: Do I assume from that the minister will be issuing a writ against Mr. Laver so the minister will no longer have to discuss this matter because it will be sub judice, or can I ask him for his assurance that if he proceeds to implement market value, he will respect and abide by the program put forward to him by the city of Toronto whereby it will be phased in over a period of years and he will guarantee to enrich the property tax credit so those people who need help will not be adversely affected? Can we have that guarantee?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: No. Again, that is part of the discussions for another day. As I indicated to the media yesterday and to the mayor of Toronto this morning on an open-line program, Metro Morning, he very well knows the basis of our discussions last year -- not two or three years ago but last year -- when he formally presented the position paper by the city of Toronto on how it would see the future of assessment in Toronto and, in effect, property tax reform or market value assessment.

At that time I indicated very clearly there was no way in my view this government, or I personally, would be able to see a separate tax system available exclusively to the city of Toronto. I could see Metropolitan Toronto; it is a unique community of a substantial size, not only within Ontario but also obviously within North America. Possibly there could be some flexibility for Metro, but not something exclusive to the city of Toronto.

I suggested to him and his colleagues they take that idea and discuss it in any way they saw fit with their counterparts in the other five municipalities that make up Metropolitan Toronto and let me know whether he had any support.

2:10 p.m.

Although they are saying I never got back to them in a public way -- and I acknowledge that is true -- similarly, they have never formally got back to me on that issue. I have heard informally, and I indicated it that way to the mayor this morning, that the reason they did not get back to me was that they did not get any kind of acceptance at all to their ideas from the other constituent municipalities within Metropolitan Toronto.

I let the proposal speak for itself. Frankly, I think there are a couple of things in there that could be accommodated in revised legislation to make something unique for Metropolitan Toronto. But Metropolitan Toronto is made up of six municipalities, not one municipality, and I think it was only fair, right on day one, to put that into the proper context.

The main thrust of that proposal was to suggest the taxpayers of Ontario have an unlimited pocket to the benefit of a relatively few. They are suggesting the property tax grants and the property tax credits be doubled. I indicated very clearly in my view, and speaking in that sense on behalf of the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) without his consent, that there was no way the Treasurer in these times would be able to accommodate approximately another $450 million of taxpayers' moneys to enrich the tax credit and the tax grant program.

If that was the main basis of implementation in Toronto, I would suggest it would never fly and they could forget it.

I did indicate it was very possible the Treasurer would be amenable to looking at the formula that makes up the property tax grant and the property tax credit to maybe make it more attractive to the lower end of the income scale. I thought that was possible and feasible, but if it called on any significant amount of additional funds they could forget it.

One has to put this in the proper context. It is fine to think all the taxpayers in Ontario would be called upon to pay up for the sake of what I think are a relatively small percentage of the Toronto taxpayers at the lower end of the income tax scale who would be negatively impacted by a higher tax bill.

Mr. Speaker: That was a very long answer.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a very short question and I would appreciate a very short, clear answer from the minister, because I think it speaks directly to the issue.

Very simply, is the minister saying his government would or would not proceed with a proposal to reform and increase -- reform taxes across Metro on some uniform basis under

section 63, the new

section 86 application, against the opposition of the city of Toronto? A yes or no answer would suffice.

Does the minister think he requires the approval and acceptance of the city of Toronto for a tax increase or does he not? That seems to me to be the basic question.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid it is not quite as simplistic that it can be answered by just a yes or a no. At present, the legislation says it cannot be done on a regional or county-wide basis. That speaks for itself. To suggest that may never change, I cannot answer at this time. The problem will have to be addressed, because there are second-tier municipalities that wish to proceed.

There is no doubt, and again I use the expression I used with Mr. Laver, that is an issue for debate and discussion on another day, sometime in the future. When the problem is there, we will be bringing forth, as we usually do within this government, the problem, the pros and cons and recommendations, and it will be adjudicated accordingly. If and when there are amendments to be made to the act, they will be brought here.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, the minister is obviously aware that the Metropolitan Toronto municipalities want to know first what the minister's position is before they position themselves.

Does the minister realize tenants who rent houses and apartments in the city will be taken to rent review by their landlords and, based on our present cost pass-through system, the Residential Tenancy Commission will increase rents on that basis?

In addition, many families have lived downtown for 30 years and have watched their neighbourhoods become trendy within the past decade or so and cannot afford the additional increases. Many of these people are old age pensioners who are subject to the restraint program. What provisions will the minister make to ensure these people can cope with the situation as he has described it?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, there is an automatic presumption there of two things which in my view are both in error. The first is that the big majority is at the lower end of the wage scale and cannot afford to pay its fair share of taxes. I do not agree with that.

The second is the automatic conclusion that all apartments will have tax increases which will automatically be passed through to those who are renting the apartments. That is erroneous. That will become abundantly clear when the impact study is made available, I hope within the next week or so.

There are many routes within our present system, let alone some other system that may come forth in the future, to recognize those who have financial problems at the lower end of the economic scale, whether they be seniors over age 65 or whether they be taxpayers below age 65. There is the property tax credit program and the property tax grant program. Within the Municipal Act there are sections whereby municipalities can recognize people with problems. I think there are some other adjustments that can be made.

To assume and suggest everybody is going to pay huge increases in taxes, and to assume and suggest that nobody can afford any increase at all, is something I disagree with completely. It is an invalid conclusion.

VISITORS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I should draw to your attention that there are two distinguished members in your gallery: Mr. David Smith, the distinguished member for Don Valley East, and Mr. Walter Baker, the distinguished former House Leader of the federal Conservative Party who presumably is here to keep an eye on the Premier.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I point out that the real reason Mr. Smith is here is to keep an eye on me. He said yesterday he did not want me to go to Ottawa because he would have to cross the floor of the House if I did.

Mr. Speaker: I must point out to all honourable members that the Leader of the Opposition has jumped the gun. I am going to have to take time --

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: May I respond to that?

Mr. Speaker: No. It is not a point of privilege.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: No. Will the leader please resume his seat?

I am going to ask all honourable members to join with me at this time in welcoming not two members, but three members in the Speaker's Gallery, including the Honourable Walter Baker, who is vice-chairman of a committee meeting with one of our committees, and David Smith.

There is one missing, I am told. Bill Blaikie is supposed to be here but he has not arrived as yet. We will recognize him. You may all pound your desks in recognition and then we will get on with oral questions.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have no right to say this, but I believe the Premier has just defamed the member for Don Valley East, saying he would cross the floor if he went to Ottawa. I believe you have an obligation to --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member is drawing a conclusion or he is asking me to. I am not sure which.

Mr. Peterson: The Leader of the Opposition has tried to keep the Premier honest. It is a task almost too big for me, I will admit that; but I believe he should not be allowed to defame your guests in your gallery.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I was there.

[Later]

Mr. Speaker: Before proceeding with further questions, I would like to advise all honourable members that the third of the wise men has joined us in the presence of Mr. Blaikie.

[Later]

Mr. Speaker: May I interrupt for a moment and ask all honourable members to join with me in welcoming the Right Honourable Sir Michael Havers. Conservative member of Parliament for Merton, Wimbledon, and Attorney General for England.

STATUS OF GREYMAC AND SEAWAY

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have three questions for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

First, it was reported today in the Toronto Sun that the assets of Greymac Trust are up for sale. Can the minister confirm or deny that report?

Second, it is further reported in the Sun that the negotiations regarding the sale of Seaway Trust have been completed, almost. Can the minister confirm or deny that report?

Third, it was reported in the Financial Post earlier this week that Touche Ross has submitted a report on the status of Seaway Trust to the minister. If this is so, can the minister indicate why he has not made this report public as he did with the Woods Gordon report on Crown Trust?

2:20 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, as I have tried to make clear, it certainly would be most preliminary for anyone to assume there are negotiations going on for the sale of all or part of the assets of Greymac Trust or Seaway Trust. I mean that very seriously.

There may be some discussion between some parties but there is no agreement by any of the parties as to whether anything is for sale or whether any such agreement can be reached. If and when there are such discussions that lead to an agreement, I will be pleased to report it to the House.

I have received some preliminary information with respect to Seaway which is being analysed. When the analysis is complete and there is information to report to the House, I will report it.

Mr. Peterson: As the minister is aware, Greymac Trust was operating on a monthly licence for some time prior to its gaining an annual licence in October 1982. We have reports from Mr. David Taylor, the man appointed by the minister to administer Greymac Trust during this period, that since the takeover, the investigators are having a very difficult time sorting through Greymac's books to determine what its assets are worth. He is saying its affairs are the most complicated of all of the trust companies seized.

Can the minister explain why the books of Greymac are in such a muddled state, after the close review by his investigators in 1982 and after they apparently gave Greymac a clean bill of health in October 1982, when they restored its annual licence?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Again, the issue of the operation of Greymac Trust is one that is currently under intensive review, as the member knows, by the Morrison special examination. I am aware of some reports by the registrar that the books of Greymac were not in the kind of order one would like. It was believed at that time it was due to the fact that the business was switching over to a new computer process. In any event, at that time it was not a matter that alarmed the registrar.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister can tell us as a matter of policy, given that both Seaway and Greymac were for a very substantial period of time on a 30-day licence from the ministry, if he does not feel some obligation as the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations to the consumers of this province; does he not feel the depositors of the province have a right to know when a company is put on a 30-day licence?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the third party has raised a very good point. One of the issues that is going to have to be discussed in the white paper is what type of information should be made public and when it should be made public.

The leader of the third party and I know, from exchanges we have had, particularly on January 20, that he sees certain situations where it might be unfair to a company simply to have it reported they are being investigated. He also knows my view that sometimes there may be situations that the registrar sees are wrong but that can be corrected. To make that public could again cause a dangerous situation with respect to the viability of the company.

We are now in the process of working on criteria, and so forth, in order to make appropriate use of that new power that the Legislature gave the ministry, and to be able to use it in such a way that it does not jeopardize the viability of legitimate ongoing corporations. It is a problem; I understand that.

Mr. Peterson: In the case of the Crown Trust situation, the minister is aware that he decided to split the assets into so-called hard and soft assets and had a different disposition of each of those. Can the minister tell this House what sort of poetic justice he plans to implement with respect to the soft assets of Seaway? In particular, I am asking about the $70-million mortgage portfolio, which is not related to the Cadillac Fairview deal but which is Kilderkin-related and occurred prior to the Cadillac Fairview /Greymac sale and which presumably had the approval of his regulators during their earlier inspections of that company. What is his plan with respect to those soft assets?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I can appreciate that everyone in the Legislature and throughout the public would like to know the outcome and fate of those two companies and in particular, because the member has raised the subject, the issue of Seaway. I can only repeat that I will report to the member as soon as we have the information that allows us to make the determinations as to the options that are available. I remind him we are in a partnership arrangement in this, playing different roles with Canada Deposit Insurance Corp., and whatever is determined will be after thorough and complete consultation with them.

MUNICIPAL ASSESSMENTS

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Premier; it also concerns the matter of tax assessments and the remarks that have been made by the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Ashe) with respect to certain plans the government may or may not have in mind for the taxpayers of the city of Toronto and Metropolitan Toronto.

We are not entirely sure, but we think we know the government is planning to go ahead with Bill 127 despite the officially expressed opposition from the city of Toronto, from the Toronto Board of Education and from many trustees, parents and teachers across Metro. Will the Premier tell us whether it is the policy of his government to proceed with the change in assessment for Metro despite the opposition of the city of Toronto? It is a very simple, direct question about the position of the government with respect to the opposition of the city to a tax increase for all of Metro.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I did not hear all of the minister's answer, but I thought he explained it rather well.

Mr. Swan: He has a lot of explaining to do.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Toronto is part of Metropolitan Toronto. We had been requested by municipalities to conform to the legislation, to produce certain information. The decision then is up to those participating municipalities. I have lived through this in my own municipality, as have other members, but the honourable member is not going to get me in the position of saying this government is imposing something on the city of Toronto. He can ask as many questions as he likes, but he will not succeed in doing that. The initiative came from Metropolitan Toronto.

Mr. Rae: The reason one asks the question is that this is exactly what he is doing with Bill 127; so why should we not expect exactly the same behaviour when it comes to property taxes? That is the question.

I simply want to share with the Premier some facts that have come from a study done by Metropolitan Toronto staff in the summer of 1981, based on a 1980 sample, showing the average tax on single dwellings and duplexes would go up by 22.2 per cent in the city of Toronto, and it would go down very slightly in some of the other boroughs; but commercial assessment would go down substantially in Toronto and would go up substantially in the boroughs as a result of the application of this

section to all of Metropolitan Toronto.

What kind of sense does it make to tax the towers of gold, the commercial establishments in the city of Toronto, less; to tax them more heavily in the suburbs and boroughs of Metropolitan Toronto; to increase the taxes of property owners very substantially in the city of Toronto with a very slight decrease for the some of the suburbs, which would result, after all this is done, in a total transfer of only $4 million to the city of Toronto?

What kind of sense does it make from a planning point of view when he knows it will mean commercial establishments are going to come to Toronto more and more and it will discourage residential ownership in the city? From the perspectives of planning and fairness, what sense does this kind of proposal make?

2:30 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member should remember one or two things. I am not quarrelling with the fact that he has read whatever information he has relayed, that he is not attempting to mislead anyone; I would not say that for a moment; but it may well be that some of the information contained in what he has read to the House does not turn out to be totally accurate. I just put that at the back of his mind as a possibility, because some people study these issues from different perspectives.

One of the problems government has with this whole question of reassessment is not just the city of Toronto. It is not just York South. Surely the member would want to feel that somebody living in Kitchener, in Brampton or wherever, was paying the same amount of tax in reasonable terms that is, related to value -- as somebody in the city of Toronto or in York South. Surely, representing the people of York South, he would want to feel his home owners were not paying any more in taxes than citizens in the city of Toronto. It is a very difficult, tough problem and it is one this government has taken very gradually.

If he is saying his party would like to prevail upon all of the Metro political leaders, all of them, that they would just as soon not have anything to do with this reassessment proposal, that is fine. We are not forcing it on them; we are not forcing it on anybody; we have not. It has been done by local initiative and local resolution.

Incidentally, I do not think the member's figures happen to be correct.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, the Premier has just said it is determined by local resolution. Will he agree with me that this policy should continue and that the municipalities should have a choice as to whether market value is forced on them or whether they have an option to choose market value on a local basis; or does he agree with his own minister that it should be forced on them by the Metro council, by giving Metro or a larger municipality the option to choose it for everyone?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I did not hear everything the minister said, but I do not recall in my conversations with him any suggestions that Metro should force it on the city of Toronto.

The member has been through this in his own constituency. He knows the rationale, he knows the initiative that was taken locally, he knows there was not total unanimity and he knows how relatively well it has worked out. I just put the challenge to him.

lnterjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: His party has supported in theory, until it came to a crunch, market value reassessment. He has supported it, he has asked questions in the House about it, and every time it gets to be a difficult local political issue he runs for the woods. He goes away and hides, and I understand that.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: If the Premier would take only a few minutes to read what we have said, he would know we have supported it on a local option basis and not on a --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That is not a point of privilege.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: The one thing that is wrong with it is that it is not allowed. I am not going to debate it.

Mr. Rae: The Premier has been abandoned by all his city members, but I know how politically convenient it may seem to the Premier from time to time to pander to anti-Toronto sentiment which exists and can be whipped up by the Premier whenever he wants to.

But the hard fact remains, and the difficult question for the Premier is this: does he not recognize that the creation of Metropolitan Toronto was

an act of trust and

an act of goodwill among all the boroughs in the city of Toronto'? Does he not recognize it was also based on the assumption that the province was going to continue to bear its fair share of the overall tax burden and the overall services burden in Metropolitan Toronto and in all the boroughs in Toronto?

In that context, how can he justify a reduction in support for education, for example, from 33 per cent to 15 per cent in the last five years? Does he not recognize that this kind of reduction in the overall provincial commitment is exactly what is contributing to the kind of anti-Toronto sentiment he is pandering to in the remarks he has made today?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I really gave the member credit for more sensitivity or intelligence. I am making no anti-Toronto observations.

Mr. Martel: The Premier always does it politely.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh sure, it is always anti-Toronto, yet we built the convention centre and Ontario Place. Some of the third party out-of-town members to the leader's left and right have made far more critical comments about Metropolitan Toronto and what this government does than I have ever made in my political career. They do not always make them here; they go up to Sudbury and make them. Whatever I say here, I will say in Sudbury or in Brampton. The member should not put me on the side of being anti-Toronto. There is no greater Toronto loyalist than myself, after Brampton.

The member's problem is that he has been dealing with international finance and economics. He does not understand mill rates, assessment and local government. That is his whole problem.

Mr. Rae: All I can say to the Premier is that he is not in York South to understand the problems of local assessments and to know what kind of a phoney solution and how unfair are the property taxes his government has been imposing right across this province and all through Metropolitan Toronto. Take that and run with it.

DELTA PLATING CO. LTD.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Labour, having to do with the situation at the Delta Plating Co. Ltd., which I am sure he has been made aware of. On the face of it, in the light of some of the evidence we have had as a result of some meetings members of my caucus and staff have had with a number of the workers involved who have left the employment of Delta Plating, it is a situation that appears to be very similar to the situation at Canadian Pizza Crust.

I am sure the minister will know there are 12 employees, all of whom happen to be of East Indian background, who lost their employment very soon after they asked for a raise in pay. I wonder if the minister could once again intervene and use his good offices to discuss the matter with the company and make every effort to see that these workers get their jobs back, as he did in the Canadian Pizza Crust situation?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to report that we are doing just that. The matter has been referred to the employment standards branch and to the Ontario Human Rights Commission and we are also taking the approach we took with Canadian Pizza Crust, that is, to have a senior person from our conciliation and mediation services go in to see what he can do to resolve the matter.

Mr. Rae: I would like to ask the minister if he could do something a little extra, which did not happen in the Canadian Pizza Crust situation. We are very concerned that workers who are left in this situation, even once they get their jobs back, have frequently been without work for a couple of weeks, a month, a month and a half or two months. I wonder if, in the course of attempting to reach a settlement in this matter, the ministry could also attempt to impress upon the employer the importance of compensating the workers for the time they have lost?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I cannot make a commitment for the employer, but I can certainly make a commitment for the ministry that we will raise that matter with them.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, given the fact this is not the first time this has happened -- and the minister acknowledged in his first answer the remarkable similarities to the Canadian Pizza Crust situation -- does he think the time has come for legislative initiatives and amendments to the Employment Standards Act? If so, can he indicate to this House when he is going to be prepared to bring the legislation forward?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, my answer to the honourable member is the same as I gave him in the estimates debate just a couple of weeks ago. We are very actively studying it, but I cannot propose a timetable at present.

Mr. Rae: That answer is not really good enough. The minister will know that in the speech from the throne nearly a year ago, the government said specifically it was looking at this and planning to introduce legislation to deal with that subject. I do not really see how the minister can justify the statement he has made today that he cannot produce any kind of timetable, when we surely now know cases of group dismissal that we can bring before the Legislature. For every one of these group cases, for all we know, there may be dozens or even hundreds of cases of individual workers who are unorganized and who do not have any protection under the Employment Standards Act.

Can the minister not undertake to this House to give us a timetable and a commitment to bring in legislation dealing with the problem of unfair dismissal?

2:40 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I stand to be corrected on this point, but my recollection of the throne speech is that we committed ourselves to studying unjust dismissal legislation. We did not necessarily commit ourselves to introducing legislation.

[Later]

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, in an exchange I had with the Minister of Labour with respect to what was or was not contained in the throne speech with respect to severance pay, he suggested there was no definite commitment by the government in that respect. I want to read into the record what is contained in the speech from the throne: "As a result, in consultation with the ministries of Labour and Industry and Trade Development, measures to provide protection for employees under the Employment Standards Act will be advanced in such areas as unjust dismissal and protection of severance pay."

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, if I recall my remarks correctly, when I answered that question I said I stood to be corrected, but that was what I believed.

KILDERKIN INVESTMENTS

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations regarding Kilderkin Investments, a company which employs at least 1,600 people, 800 of them staff employees and 800 of them suppliers and tradespeople.

The minister is aware that as of next Tuesday, February 15, Kilderkin will have no banking privileges, no cheques can be cashed or deposited, and no one can be paid. He is also aware that the information on the difficulty that Kilderkin could run into came to his attention as early as January 14, when the action which was going to be taken on Tuesday was first threatened by the Bank of Montreal, and that bank has now made good on its promise to cut off banking privileges. The minister is further aware that no other bank will take up Kilderkin.

Is he aware the Kilderkin employees are outraged and are terrified that they face the real prospect of losing their jobs next Tuesday? What will he do, in the light of this situation, to preserve the employment of the 1,600 Kilderkin people across the province?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to downplay the importance and the honest concern that the employees of Kilderkin may have. I hope the member is not suggesting that the government should not have taken the steps it has taken in the face of the problems confronting it.

I appreciate what has followed from that, and that some of it can produce very difficult situations for people. If there are any remedies in our hands that can be used, in conjunction with the Canada Deposit Insurance Corp., to preserve any aspect of any problems that remain, we will do it. But the government has not been the cause of these problems in any way. The government is trying to resolve them. I do not think it is quite fair or logical for the member to ask what the government is going to do to assure their continued employment. We did not create the problem.

Mr. Wrye: I am sure the minister knows that no one in this party has ever suggested the government should not have taken action. Our criticism for the last two or three months is that the government had not acted long before now. The minister is aware it will cost over $8 million to create 1,600 temporary jobs under the last budget, which is what will have to be created if these people are thrown out of work.

The minister was fully aware of the Kilderkin banking problem as far back as January 14, which is almost one month ago. I am sure he would agree it is naive to think that the banks are responding to Kilderkin other than as a result of the government's actions surrounding the trust companies.

Does the minister not believe he has a clear and obvious obligation to use his considerable resources to preserve the employment of the Kilderkin people, including using his influence with the banks, with the federal government in terms of the banks, or taking one of the several legal responses that are available and perhaps setting up an interim manager for Kilderkin? Will he give us some assurance that he will take some kind of action so that these 1,600 jobs will not be lost next Tuesday?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: The government, as it has shown, will take appropriate legal steps when it feels it has the evidence to justify those steps.

Second, I do not believe the member is suggesting that the government should be going to the banks and saying, "Never mind the problems that we are all investigating, but start providing funds and banking privileges." That is a bank decision. It is not ours. The decision they have made has nothing to do with what we are involved in.

I am afraid I see no way the government can help with respect to Kilderkin's banking problems. If there is any way the government, on the advice of counsel, can see that it should take legal action to protect a number of parties involved and a number of circumstances, it will be pleased to do so. I think it would be misleading to leave any insinuation, in any sense, that the government has been the cause of any problems those employees have.

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. The minister must know the combination of low commodity prices, the inability to sell last fall's crops and the hangover from the exceptionally high interest rates has caused many farmers to be in a horrendous situation across this nation. It is getting worse from day to day.

I am sure the minister will recognize Ontario farmers are in a worse position than most others because of the inadequacy of the ministry's programs, particularly the Ontario farm adjustment assistance program which he said last spring he was funding in the amount of $60 million.

Is it not true that as of last Friday, more than 10 months into the program, he has paid out of that fund only $16,439,000 and payouts will not even reach $20 million, let alone $60 million by the end of this fiscal year? Will the minister give a commitment to the farmers and to this House that by broadening OFAAP, or by some new program, he will use all of that $60 million allotment in this fiscal year to assist the farmers who are in increasingly desperate need?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, to correct the record, the honourable member is suggesting the $60-million commitment, when it was made in the late fall of 1981, was in a fiscal year. I want to remind him the program, even had it not been extended, would have gone over three fiscal years in that whatever option the individual farmer receives it goes for a full year.

In the case of the first option, it deals with deferred interest; in the case of the second option of the program, it deals with rebates of interest on outstanding debt; and in the case of the third, on new lines of credit, it goes for a full year from the date of approval. The government's liability is not in any one fiscal year and it was never said that way in the beginning. Let us clear that up.

As of February 4, last Friday, we have approved interest rate rebates to farmers on outstanding debts in excess of $623 million. Of the $60 million, we are committed to almost half of that already --

Mr. Swart: The banks are foreclosing.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Hold on. The member likes to portray everything as going to hell in a handbasket. With all due respect, I really do not think he knows what is going on.

In addition to having approved interest rate rebates on over $623 million of outstanding debts, we have assumed guarantees on almost $40 million of new lines of credit, some of which may well have to be called on, and that would be a call on the program. On top of that, I remind him the program has been extended another year. The call on the Treasury will fall into four separate fiscal years and I expect we will well exceed the $60 million by the time the program is finished.

Mr. Swart: Whether the minister knows or not, there is not going to be more than $20 million paid out of that $60 million, whether it overlaps two years or a short period of three years.

Mr. Speaker: Question please.

Mr. Swart: If the minister is indicating this, will he say clearly that the $60 million is considered to be all payouts during this year and he is not putting any new money into it whatsoever? Does he not realize OFAAP will be of even less assistance to the farmers this year than last?

First, he is subsidizing interest only above 12 per cent and there will be little to subsidize this year, although even 12 per cent is hard for the farmers to pay, as he must know. Second, he has changed the policy so the government guarantees only 50 per cent of those repeat loans in many circumstances. If the minister does not broaden his program, he will not be paying out even $10 million this year. What new program of assistance is the minister planning for the farmers?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: It is not the goal of this party or this government to make the farmers the captives of the government by making them totally dependent on government for their wellbeing. It is the intention of this party and this government to devise policies that will allow farmers to help themselves and to derive an income in the marketplace that will support them in the manner in which they would like to become accustomed, not to follow the kind of socialist nonsense the member would have us inflict on them.

2:50 p.m.

I repeat, it was clear right from the outset of the program that the commitment was for a period of 12 months from the date of approval. Clearly, the commitment of $60 million towards the program was going to be through more than one fiscal year. There was a small beginning in the 1981-82 fiscal year. It has been extended to 1982-83 and beyond that into 1983-84. With the extension of the program and the eligibility to the end of this calendar year, it will go well into and in many cases right to the end of calendar 1984, making payments to farmers who have been approved for assistance.

What the member is saying is clearly wrong. With respect to the renewals --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I do not know where the member got the 50-50 figure. What we have is a shared risk with the lenders on their total portfolios.

Mr. Swart: That is a change this year.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Yes, it is a change this year because we do not think the government should take all the risk. We think the lender should take some of the risk on these new lines of operating credit. That is something the member may not understand. We think it should be a shared risk when it is on their total portfolio.

Mr. Swart: The banks are not lending the money.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: That is ridiculous. Of course they are lending money, but they would not if they had in place the kinds of policies the member for Welland-Thorold would like to put in and the kind of control he would exercise over farmers' daily lives.

Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, with evidence that farmers of all ages and experience are going to dramatize their economic plight in a most militant and visible fashion -- yesterday's incident in Palmerston is a typical example and is just one of the many bush fires we are going to see across the province -- it must be obvious to the minister that OFAAP is not adequate to meet the needs of farmers at this time.

Why does the minister not take a look at some of the programs other provinces are offering their farmers, for example, Saskatchewan, which is working through the Farm Credit Corp. but is going to subsidize the interest rate for farmers down to eight per cent for the first five years and 12 per cent for the next five years?

Why does the minister not consider a low interest rate program at this time to help farmers get through these economic doldrums, so that perhaps two or three years from now we will still have the farmers on the land rather than migrating into the urban areas and further swelling the ranks of the unemployed? Why does the minister not do something to try to help these farmers now, something more than OFAAP?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, we are looking at that particular program to see if it is something that would commend itself to Ontario.

Mr. McClellan: Now he is a socialist.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: However, I would remind the member -- if the member for Bellwoods would listen -- that the program is for beginning farmers. It does not apply to all farmers in Saskatchewan. I would remind members that while Saskatchewan has put that program in place it does not have an OFAAP type of program. Each province has a different set of programs, but we are looking at that particular one.

With respect to the incident yesterday, that may be a case in point. We have the farm assistance program in place. We have approved over 3,300 farmers for assistance. This is a case where they did not come to us. It may very well have been a case where we could have helped had they come to us and applied for assistance, but they did not.

TRUST COMPANY ASSETS

Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations on the ongoing saga of the Crown Trust, Greymac and Seaway problem. It involves the art collections held by those companies.

Is the minister aware that some assets of Greymac Trust and Crown Trust comprise an art collection supposedly valued at around $3 million? In addition, I understand that last spring Greymac Trust acquired a Van Gogh drawing at a price of well over $200,000. Is the minister aware of this portion of the trust companies' asset portfolio? Can he advise us of its present status and tell us who is currently in possession of this collection?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, is the member making an offer? Is there any particular painting he is interested in?

lnterjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I can only confirm the existence of those paintings; I cannot confirm in any exact way the ownership of them.

Mr. O'Neil: If the minister is supposed to be in charge of this investigation, is he aware there is some doubt as to the evaluation of $3 million, and can he confirm for this Legislature whether or not the same person who originally sold the majority of these art items to Mr. Rosenberg and the trust companies is the same person who is now in possession of them?

Can he also confirm whether this same person and firm is the company that has been asked to do the appraisal on them, and whether there is some question as to the original value of $3 million that was placed on them when they were sold? Does he not feel this could be an unsafe place for them to be, and an unsafe person to be doing this evaluation? Is he also aware that there may be a tax investigation going on into this particular problem?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I think it is important the member now understand that one of the reasons the registrar has taken possession is that a number of issues in those companies need to be resolved. Without commenting in any specific way about the issues the member has raised, let me say I have not yet received a report with respect to Greymac or with respect to a number of items relating to Greymac. When I do, I will make it public.

PENSION DROP-OUT PROVISION

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer. We are still waiting for the other shoe to drop in the matter of the Ontario government's veto on the drop-out proposal for the Canada pension plan.

Despite recommendations in favour of it from the Ontario Status of Women Council, the Business and Professional Women's Club of Ontario, the Royal Commission on the Status of Pensions in Ontario, the select committee on pensions and the federal green paper, the Treasurer has still not made a decision on when or whether he will remove this veto. This is a much-needed change in the Canada pension plan to compensate women who stay home to look after their children so they would not lose pension benefits. They would be allowed to drop out in certain years.

I would like to ask whether he raised this issue at the December 16 meeting of the Treasurers across Canada. He said on December 10 that he would not give a decision on the question until this meeting had taken place. Will he tell us whether he raised the matter at this meeting and whether he made any commitment to drop the veto? If so when will it be dropped?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, first let me compliment the honourable member for wearing Tory blue in the House today.

Yes, I did raise the issue of the drop-out provision and pensions in general at the December 16 meeting. It was discussed. We heard from the other participants that they wished to wait the full year while the federal paper was studied. Ontario said it was prepared to move on certain issues if they were negotiated jointly. That was one of them.

Ms. Bryden: Does the Treasurer agree with the statement of his parliamentary assistant, the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Jones)? He was reported in a story in the Toronto Star on January 19 to have said, "The province might drop its opposition to the proposed changes to the Canada pension plan because most studies on the subject favour it."

3 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There seem to be a lot of private conversations going on. I find it very difficult to hear the questions, let alone the answers. I would ask the co-operation of all honourable members in limiting their private conversations, please.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I simply point out that my parliamentary assistant and I always speak with one opinion. I can assure members that in advance of his speech we chatted about the policies and he has done, I think, a yeoman job, both sitting on the committee and taking a large load off me in the discussion of pension policy.

What we said is correct. I think if members look into the speech, somewhere there is some relationship to the negotiation of a package of changes, rather than taking the one they want in isolation from the ones we want.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, we have discussed this matter for two or three years in this House. Everyone else has removed his objections. The Treasurer is the only holdout in this country. I have asked the Premier (Mr. Davis) and I have asked the Treasurer on I do not know how many occasions. He always weasles and equivocates and he says, "Maybe yes, maybe no; maybe we are prepared to negotiate it in part and maybe not."

Why does he not show his good faith in the great pension debate by removing his objection to this one provision? With one phone call he could solve this problem. Why does he not get in touch with Ottawa and say we will start the ball rolling with pension reform by removing our veto? Why can he not do that one simple thing without equivocating and saying, "Maybe yes, maybe no," and all this fooling around he is doing with this important issue?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, my learned friend is a lawyer. I suggest when he represented his clients he seldom put all his cards on the table in advance before the negotiations. We are away ahead --

Mr. Breithaupt: Don't play games with this one.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Do you want to listen?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. F. S. Miller: We have been ready, far more ready than any other province, on the pension issue. The federal government dragged its feet for a good 18 months on its so-called green paper. It is dragging its fees again. That is fine. But the member was the very first to complain in this House, as my critic, about the underfunding of the Canada pension plan. He knows he stressed the need to look at the funding of the Canada pension plan before we started giving a lot of other benefits.

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, if I had thought the leader of the third party had a question to ask on Security Trust I would be glad to yield my position. However, assuming he does not, I will put my question to the Minister of Agriculture and Food.

Following up on a response which he gave to a former question that he is looking at the Saskatchewan plans, am I to understand we may see the young farmer credit program which was promised in the budget speeches of 1981 and 1982? I will quote a little from that:

"The government recognizes the problems faced today by young farmers. It places a high priority on continuing to attract young people to establish themselves in this vital sector of the economy and will introduce a new measure to provide them with start up capital assistance."

Where is the government's priority and commitment to these young people? When might we expect the young farmers credit program?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I would remind the member of something I told him before in estimates and elsewhere. That is, about half if not more of the individual farmers who have benefited to date on assistance from the Ontario farm adjustment assistance program have been young farmers in the 35- to 40-year-old age bracket.

I would also repeat what I have told him several times before. Following up on the commitment in the throne speech of March 9, 1982, proposals have been prepared. I would also remind him that some months ago the government found revenues had fallen off markedly from the May budget. As a result, a number of proposals, including one I made with respect to a program for beginning farmers, had to be put on hold.

I am looking at other alternatives, such as the recently announced Saskatchewan program, which I think is a very innovative one and frankly an approach which we ourselves had not thought of before. We are looking at it to see if there is some other way we can do it so that I can convince my colleagues we should move on this sooner rather than later.

PETITION

FACILITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTALLY HANDICAPPED

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by 1,505 people, which says:

"The Ontario government has announced plans to close six community-based residential facilities for the developmentally handicapped. More than 800 residents will have their lives dramatically changed by the closure of centres in Brockville, Goderich, St. Thomas, Aurora, Cobourg and Whitby.

"We, the undersigned, citizens of the province of Ontario, petition the honourable the Lieutenant Governor in Council and the Legislative Assembly praying for:

"1. An immediate moratorium on the closure.

"2. Full examination of the plan with participation by parents, municipal authorities, volunteer associations for the retarded, staff of the institutions and, where possible, the residents themselves.

"3. A commitment that no facility will be closed until a full debate can be held and a commitment that a complete system of care for the developmentally handicapped will not be sacrificed simply to save money."

There are thousands more to come. We have only just begun.

MOTIONS

HOUSE SITTINGS

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that, notwithstanding the previous order, this House will sit in the chamber next Wednesday, February 16.

Motion agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that, notwithstanding standing order 64, government business will be taken up on Thursday, February 17.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, before calling the order, it has been agreed that the time today would be shared up until about 5:45. Perhaps we could ask the table to allot the time equally three ways.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

BUDGET DEBATE (CONCLUDED)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.

Mr. Speaker: I am informed that when this debate adjourned in July, the member for Oriole (Mr. Williams) was the last speaker. He is not in the House. I recognize someone from this side. The member for York South.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, it is perhaps appropriate for us to cast our minds back to the evening of May 13 when the budget was introduced. It is appropriate to recall some of the things the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) had to say at that time with respect to the Ontario economy, with respect to the projections he was making for the future, and with the kinds of measures he brought forward in response to the challenge to the Ontario economy.

3:10 p.m.

I suggest the Treasurer was fundamentally wrong in the analysis of the economy he made at that time. He had little appreciation of the very real crisis that was facing the Ontario economy and of the major difficulties it was facing then and which, as we all know, it is facing today. In my remarks, I also want to suggest to the House --

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Could we have a bit of order in the House please?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would again ask all honourable members to conduct their private conversations outside the House, please.

Mr. Rae: The Treasurer was completely off base in the projections and the analysis he made at that time. The situation we are facing today is unparalleled and unprecedented in our history. It is one that requires concerted action by the provincial government, a very different kind of action from the one we have seen. It requires a determination to deal with the job crisis -- and the human crisis that represents -- in ways that have clearly not been contemplated by the government. In particular, they have not been contemplated by the Treasurer.

On page 4 of the budget the Treasurer made his analysis of what was happening in the economy. He then introduced measures that were completely inappropriate to deal with the crisis all the people of our province are facing.

He said, for example -- I am quoting from page 4 of his budget: "While the last few months have been very difficult, there is now a strong potential for the economy to follow a recovery path throughout the rest of the year. Businesses have been meeting demand in large part by running down inventories, a process that I expect will end soon. This means that sales will be increasingly filled from current production, leading to the recall of workers. Also, the combined effect of tax cuts, increases in social security payments and higher defence spending in the United States should restore some momentum to that economy. This will aid the recovery of Canadian exports."

He then went on to project a long-term decline in the rate of inflation. He did not have anything to say about employment other than to predict it "should reach 125,000 over current levels. Real growth in GPP in the second half of 1982 should be four per cent on an annual basis."

That is not simply a question of somebody making an academic judgement or academic projection that is wrong. It is not simply a question, as the Treasurer has tried to convince us, that he was listening to his experts who happened to be wrong and he was really in no way responsible for the fact that analysis was completely off base.

This misplaced assessment of the economy is very important. As a result of that miscalculation, as a result of the Treasurer having been dead-flat wrong about the state of the economy and the future of the economy in the short term and medium term from May 1982, the government has missed the boat. It has missed the opportunity to create jobs and has underestimated the seriousness of the situation. It has underestimated the human, social and economic cost of unemployment and the long-term strategic cost of having seriously misunderstood exactly what is happening to the Ontario economy.

We hear the Treasurer say, for example, "This means that sales will be increasingly filled from current production, leading to the recall of workers." Then we recall that immediately following that May budget there was an epidemic of plant closures, layoffs and unemployment, and jobs lost. It is not simply a question, as the Premier (Mr. Davis) would have it, of jobs not being performed or jobs having been misplaced somewhere -- as if in a fit of absentmindedness the workers of Ontario in a collective fashion forgot to go to work. It is because the Treasurer completely misunderstood and badly misread the signs of exactly what is taking place in our economy.

The kinds of measures the Treasurer suggested in that budget, as I understand it, were basically fourfold. First, there was the summer jobs project costing $171 million; second, the initiative for housing construction; third, the major tax writeoff for small businesses, and fourth, the broadening of the sales tax base to include a great many items that had not been included before.

Following that budget were the events of May and June -- the federal budget in June and the attempt by Mr. MacEachen to redeem himself from the disastrous errors he had made. But I suggest this government has singularly and dramatically failed to address the human crisis -- that is, unemployment -- in the Ontario economy this past year. If we can believe the projections we see -- and they have a sense of inevitability about them -- it will last for at least another year.

I have been intrigued since coming into the House to listen to the responses of the Treasurer and the Premier and to compare them with the answers I used to get after asking questions dealing with the national economy from the Minister of Finance. Whether it was a Tory or a Liberal minister did not really make very much difference. There is a marked similarity in the kinds of approaches to the economy the Davis and Trudeau governments have taken.

One can say there has been a major alliance, a major coming together of minds -- if I may use that term in the loosest possible sense -- in matters dealing with the economy. There has been a major consensus between the Trudeau and the Davis governments with respect to the economy, and there has been a major misassessment, misunderstanding, miscalculation and misreading of the real situation and what is required to deal with our current situation.

If one asks a question about interest rates, one gets the same answer. "There is nothing that can be done. There is no way in which the province can possibly intervene." In Ottawa, there was no way the federal government could possibly intervene. There was nothing that could be done for those people suffering from the impact of high interest rates -- and in any event, high interest rates were playing a role in reducing inflation and maybe they were not so bad and not so destructive anyway.

Unemployment was a problem, but on the other hand there were signs the economy was turning around. No matter when one asks them questions about the economy, no matter at what stage of the cycle, whatever day it happens to be, whatever news is being announced that day, whatever layoffs have taken place in whatever sector of the economy, the answer is always exactly the same:

Things are getting better. Things are going to improve. There is no reason to think we can do it alone. The only people who can save the Ontario economy are a combination of Ronald Reagan, world economic forces, Margaret Thatcher and actions by the federal government which will eventually work their way through in producing growth and answers for the Ontario economy.

In the absence of any other kind of strategy, there would always be a few tax goodies for the corporate sector, the business sector; and tax hits, tax hurts, for those ordinary consumers, those ordinary citizens who do not have big accountants or powerful advisers, those who do not have the ear of the Treasurer or the Minister of Finance.

3:20 p.m.

The miscalculation and the misreading the Treasurer made is not something he can fob off on his advisers. It is not something he can say is the responsibility of somebody else. He cannot simply come into this House and say: "I was not really wrong; it was more a question of what other people were telling me. It was not really a question of my responsibility in any way; I am just a simple soul who is doing a job and I cannot in any way be responsible for any of the calculations contained in this budget."

If ministerial responsibility means anything, it means the Treasurer has to be responsible for the statements that are contained in the budget. I, and I think a number of others in this caucus, have reached the conclusion that the Treasurer should consider resigning. In the light of what has happened to the provincial economy, of the downturn that has taken place, the human cost over which this Treasurer has presided during the last few months, in the light of the very real difficulties our economy is facing and the fact there is so much in this document that is simply dead wrong, I think the Treasurer should seriously consider submitting his resignation to the Premier.

I think the doctrine of ministerial responsibility means something. I do not think the Treasurer has taken full responsibility for a budget that can only be described as a disaster. It is a disaster not only because of the things it did do and in the positive steps it took -- if I may describe such a step as broadening the sales tax as being in any sense positive -- but also because of the things it did not do, because of the sins of omission. I believe in many cases this government's sins of omission have been more deadly for the Ontario economy than its sins of commission.

There has been a consistent thread in the Treasurer's answers to the questions my colleagues have raised with respect to the economy. Like it or not, we have not only presented an alternative assessment of what was happening and of the seriousness that is facing all sectors of the provincial economy but we have also suggested there are alternatives in what needs to be done and what Ontario can do.

Last week I was struck by the fact there was almost a sense of sadness in the responses the Premier was giving to the questions we were asking him about the economy. He was suggesting to the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) there really was nothing he could do about the Sudbury economy because it was, after all, so dependent on the one resource and, after all, it was a world market.

The Treasurer even took the cheap shot, one he takes from time to time -- indeed, quite often -- of saying that somehow governments that he described as socialist governments were responsible for the problems the nickel industry was facing. As we all know, the Soviet Union has been accused of dumping nickel on world markets.

I do not consider the Soviet Union to have a socialist government; I consider it to have a totalitarian government. It is typical of the Treasurer to use that word and point at us as if there are any people in this party who in any way support or are in any way on the same wavelength as the government of the Soviet Union. It is typical of the cheap level to which he has had to descend in order to deal with the very real questions we have been raising about the economy of this province.

It is a sad day when we hear that kind of red-baiting on the floor of this Legislature from a minister of the crown as if it is somehow a statement of high policy from the Treasurer of this province. What a statement.

But even behind the cheapness there is also, I believe, an admission of collective impotence on the part of the Tory government. I think that is the central issue in our political and economic life today. The basic question we as Ontarians and legislators have to face is not some vast ideological or theoretical argument. It is not simply a question of throwing statistics back and forth across the floor of the Legislature. It is a question, rather, of dealing with the human costs of what we are experiencing. It is a question of making a collective effort to roll up our sleeves as legislators and have a very good, hard look at what Ontario can do.

That is the challenge. It is not to name all the things Ontario cannot do. We know there are all sorts of things Ontario cannot do. A child of five -- indeed, I would suggest, a child of three days -- knows what Ontario cannot do. Ontario cannot, tomorrow, land a man on the moon. Ontario cannot, tomorrow, deal with the problems of world demand. Ontario cannot, tomorrow, resolve all the problems in the international economy or problems of international finance.

But Ontario can start putting the people of the province back to work -- step by step, day by day on a steady firm course, to make jobs and the creation of jobs the number one priority in this province. That is all the members of my party are asking of the Treasurer.

We are asking that he make good on the commitments the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch) made in December when he said that jobs were the number one priority. We ask that he make good on the very basic sense which exists in the province. The government is polling like mad and knows what the people of this province think about jobs. This government knows full well how deeply the problem of unemployment has touched the consciousness of the Ontario public, how deeply the people of Ontario are worried about jobs and that they want a response on the job question. That is really what it comes down to.

What is the commitment of the Tory government, of the Davis government, to jobs? What does it intend to do about them, and why in the name of goodness has it taken this government so long to recognize the depth of the job crisis, the need for this government to declare an economic emergency in this province and to take some action that is worthy of the name?

Why has it taken this government so long to recognize there are things Ontario can do? There are things the public sector can do and there are things the private sector can be encouraged to do, which cannot wait. They have been waiting for too long a time; they need action now and they are not getting the kind of action they so clearly deserve.

I suggest there are a number of areas where this government has failed. We have tried to suggest alternatives. It is not simply a statement of failure we are making; it is rather a statement that there are alternatives which I believe are possible for the government to take. These alternatives are there and ready for the taking. If one looks at the different sectors of the economy, both short-term and long-term, it is possible for the government to move towards job creation and to start providing some hope for our young people.

Let me take one sector, the housing sector. This government, in the last budget, did provide for assistance to new home buyers, which it said would reduce the pressures on the rental market. The Treasurer has so proudly said -- indeed, almost like somebody who can point to only one achievement in his life, he goes back to it time and time again -- "Look what we have done." When he is asked a question about any subject, he says, "Look at the marvellous success of this program."

That program does appear to have done something for a certain

section of people who wanted to buy their own homes and who had a little capital saved up and were able to take advantage of a combination of federal and provincial grants. But I suggest the Treasurer really has taken only a very short first step towards solving the housing crisis for the vast majority of the citizens of this province.

3:30 p.m.

The member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) and I had occasion in December to visit a shelter in downtown Toronto. We also had occasion to meet with a number of people who are involved in providing shelter for people on a so-called temporary basis in downtown Toronto.

We have tried to convey in a variety of ways -- to the Treasurer, the Premier and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett) -- that it is not a question of people who are, in a classic sense, down and out, living on the margins of society and going from temporary place to temporary place. It is not a question of older men and women who, for a variety of reasons such as being discharged from hospital or having serious psychological or psychiatric problems and being unable to adjust to life in a competitive and difficult world, are forced to live on the margins of society.

It is not simply a question of the stereotype we have in our minds of the kinds of people who are occupying temporary shelters downtown.

What we heard is that there is a disturbing number of young people coming in from outside Toronto, young people who have grown up in Toronto, young people who have left home, young people who do not have work, and young people who do not have a place to go or stay and cannot afford to stay in an apartment or a proper rooming house. There are many reasons. The rooming house industry or the provision of rooming houses in downtown Toronto has changed or deteriorated.

It is a question of the numbers of people who are living in temporary housing. It is a question of the numbers of people who are not housed but warehoused. People are being forced to sleep on floors. People are forced to live out of a knapsack. They are people who would like to have and in ordinary circumstances, other circumstances, earlier circumstances, would have been able to have accommodation in an apartment, a house or a rooming house, but are now forced to live in extremely difficult, unpleasant and unnecessarily bad circumstances in these temporary shelters. It is a question of the government having completely underestimated and misunderstood what the real problem is.

We find that whenever we ask the government questions about what is happening with temporary housing it will say -- and I see the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea) is here and he will say, and quite rightly say -- "We have provided extra funding for temporary shelters. We have attempted to respond to that emergency situation. We have attempted to increase the number of places on the floor or the number of temporary beds that may exist to cope with this temporary problem, with this crisis in shelter."

There were some reporters who were with us who said: "Why did you not come here at night when it gets really heavy and there are some fights? Is that not what you really wanted to see? Did you not want to see how difficult the circumstances are, how tough it is, and the spectacular sense of what is going on in these temporary shelters when there are fights between different people who may have had too much to drink or may have been on drugs?"

I said: "No, that is not why we are here. We are not here to sensationalize the problem of temporary hostels. We are not here to have a look at the more provocative aspects on the margin of life with the down and out. We are here because there is a housing crisis. We are here because there is a human crisis to which this government is not responding."

As I said before, when it comes to the shelter problem, the government does not have a housing policy, it has a warehousing policy. The response of the government to the number of people who are wandering the streets is to say: "Let us put them in another temporary accommodation. Let us put them somewhere else where they can sleep on the floor."

That is the problem with a government that still somehow sees this as

an act of charity on its part,

an act of the expression of its social charity, when it should recognize and know that the people who are being treated in that way and who are being warehoused in that way do not want charity; they want justice.

They want the right to have a house, a home, an apartment, a place they can call their own. They want the right to have a place where they can have books, a television, chairs, their own bed; a place where they can have pictures on the wall and carpets on the floor.

I do not think we have moved so far in this province, and I do not think things are so bad in the economic life of this province that that is in any sense an unworthy or unrealistic dream. It should not even be a dream; it should be an absolute reality for every single person in this province. They should be able to have a place they can call their own, a life they can call their own and a shelter they can call their own.

It is nothing short of disgraceful that, when we present that picture, which is a realistic picture of what is happening not only in the city of Toronto but across the province, the only response the government can make is to say: "Look what we have done. We have allowed a number of people who want to buy their own home to buy their own home." That does not deal with the question.

A young kid of 16 or 19 coming out of school, who cannot get a job because he or she has not been trained properly, who has no opportunity to work, is not going to be in a position to walk into a bank and say: "Look, I have $5,000. The Ontario government is going to give me whatever, and the federal government is going to give me whatever. Let's parlay that into a mortgage." That is not the real world out there. That is not the reality for those people.

The reality for those people is an affordable place to live, an affordable rent. The crisis in housing is an affordability problem, and I am sad to say it has become apparent this government does not understand that. This government does not understand that the problem of housing is a question of what one can afford, and there are a great many people in this province today who cannot afford a decent place to live.

We have proposed that the government, in co-operation with the municipalities, the nonprofit housing sector, the co-operative sector and the federal government, move on the housing front in a big way, in a positive way, that it make the creation of affordable housing its number one priority on an immediate emergency basis.

There does not seem to be any argument in the Legislature. Whenever I raise this matter with the Premier he says, "I am glad to hear you are saying this." When the Treasurer came away from the meeting he had with the Minister of Finance and his other financial colleagues in Ottawa in December, he spoke on radio and on television and he said: "You know, we had a great conference; we had a good time. It was a very productive session. We all got on tremendously well. There was a sense of mutual respect. It is the most successful conference I think I have ever attended." Can the Treasurer please tell us what is in it for the rest of the citizens or Ontario?

He may have had a good time. The 25 or whatever number of advisers who went with him on the trip to Ottawa and stayed in a hotel may have had a great time. It may have been a very interesting and exciting discussion. The questions on our minds are: Where is the action for the rest of us; where are the results for the people of Ontario; where are the dollars that are going to be spent; where is the investment that is going to be undertaken -- not in April, not later on, not away down the road, but now, today?

My colleague from Hamilton and I met with people in Hamilton yesterday. I met with the mayor of Hamilton. He pointed out to me there are a number of projects on the books. They are ready to go. All they are waiting for is the provincial money. In the city of Toronto last week, I had occasion to tour a number of sites -- one a parking lot, and one an old site that was going to be used for a school but is now not being used for a school and is sitting there empty. People came down from the Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto Inc. They showed us plans; they showed us they had rezoning; they showed us everything was ready to go, they are all ready to go.

There is not a municipality or a township, a co-operative housing group or a nonprofit housing corporation in the province that is not ready, waiting, willing and ready to go. There is not a construction worker sitting at home idle in Toronto, Kitchener, London or Niagara Falls, in communities right across this province, who is not ready, able, willing and eager to work. The only thing they are waiting for is the go-ahead signal from the Treasurer. That is the one thing holding them back.

They are waiting for this government to say: "We recognize there is a crisis. We recognize there are people ready to work. We recognize there are people who want to live in a house. Let us put those people together and start putting this province back to work." The only thing they are waiting for is action from the Treasurer, not the news on coming back from a meeting that it was a great session, that they had a really good time for the first time.

I am sure it is anecdotally interesting to all of us that the Treasurer likes Marc Lalonde better than Allan MacEachen. I am sure that gives great satisfaction to the people of Ontario. The Davis-Trudeau alliance on the economy is more solid and closer than it has ever been before. I am sure that gives a warm feeling to every unemployed Ontarian.

3:40 p.m.

The fact remains that those people are still waiting for the go-ahead signal from this government and that signal has not been coming. It has not been coming for the simple and basic reason that this government is caught in the silly, pathetic, ideological trap of thinking and feeling that the only way permanent jobs can be created in Ontario is if Ronald Reagan, Pierre Trudeau, Margaret Thatcher and everybody except the government of Ontario get together and somehow take the economy out of the doldrums; somehow the private sector and market forces will do it on their own.

If we have learned any lesson from the last 50 years it is that market forces cannot always do it on their own. People cannot wait around for market forces to do it on their own. Government leadership has to be expressed not in terms of rhetoric or vague generalities or saying we have reached some happy conclusions about meetings that took place between cabinet ministers of various kinds. It has to be expressed in very specific and concrete action.

We have made a proposal with respect to energy conservation. I believe if this province engaged in a major retrofit program co-ordinated by municipal governments that are ready, eager and willing to go, co-ordinated at a local level -- not involving a heavy bureaucracy but a very intensive and far increased application of energy conservation both at the industrial and residential level -- it would do a number of things for the Ontario economy.

It would continue to provide us with the advantage of lower demand which in turn would help to bring the price down. That is essential for a province that is as heavily reliant on energy imports and as large a consumer as we are. It would provide a lot of jobs that do not require a lot of skill. It would put a lot of our young people to work, over 200,000 of whom are unemployed. It is something I believe can be done and should be done; indeed, some provinces are doing it. They have begun to recognize there is a very positive role government can play. There is a very real need for the government to respond and to act.

We have called for action on municipal public works, municipal capital works. If I may speak for a moment about my own riding of York South, I had occasion to meet with the mayor of the borough of York last week. As the Treasurer knows, the borough of York is one of the older parts of Toronto and suffers from tremendous problems with its infrastructure, its roads and its sewers. There is a great deal of damage to residential property at times of flooding. These problems have put an extraordinary burden on the tax assessment of the people of the borough.

The mayor said if we had a capital appropriation, if we had a way of getting that to work, it is something that would be providing jobs for people who are out of work in the heavy construction industry and a very definite service, a definite improvement, something that can be measured, a calculated real thing. It is not a question of digging ditches and filling them up; it is not a question of make-work projects, which I know are words the Treasurer hates; it is a question of looking at projects that are ready to be done, need to be done and have to be done.

I wish there would be a psychological shift on the part of the government. I wish they would look at those areas where a government with imagination can move. The government can do some things, it can intervene and provide assistance.

I also think it is a question of the government recognizing that there are three aspects to the unemployment we are suffering. There are the human cost, the social cost and the economic cost. I have discussed the last with the Treasurer already. Then there is the long-term cost which I also want to touch on before I finish.

It should be unnecessary to say these things, but one has to say them in response to a government that continually says, "We cannot afford to do anything"; a government that looks at the balance sheet it produces and says, "We are now running a deficit of $2.676 billion, which is an increase of $444 million over what we were projecting in the last budget and therefore we cannot afford to do anything."

They use the line, "Big socialists; you want to nationalize everything." They use the big smear and say all we want to do is spend, spend, spend, as if somehow this is a particularly penetrating analysis of the kinds of things we have been saying over the last 10 years at both the federal and provincial levels. I want to suggest to the Treasurer that the real question for this province is that it cannot afford not to act; that the cost of not acting, of not investing, of not spending directly now is so colossal that the imagination boggles.

I suggest the proof of that prescription is in the pudding the Treasurer has been serving us over the last few years, because the pudding he served us last May was to say: "We have looked at the New Democratic Party proposals," which we put forward before the budget, "and if we did that we would have a mammoth deficit. We would have a deficit that would be over $2.5 billion. This province cannot afford that, so we are not going to do what the NDP has suggested with respect to job creation.

We are just going to hunker down, restrain ourselves, raise a few taxes here, maybe give away a few taxes there and do a couple of tiny programs. That really is all we can afford to do. We cannot afford to do the kinds of bold, imaginative things the NDP has asked us to do because it is just too darned expensive."

I want to point out to the Treasurer that his deficit is larger than the one he projected ours would be if he had adopted our proposals back in May. I want to suggest the person who is responsible for the largest deficit in Ontario's history is the man who takes pride in calling himself a Conservative, who sees himself somehow on the right wing of the political scene.

He would love to be able to do the things the chamber of commerce would like him to do, but he does not think it is politically realistic to do them. He would like to abolish the minimum wage; he would like to do all these great creative things that provide for working people so well; he would like to be able to unleash industry and give them whatever the heck they want. But he has a sense that maybe it might not be quite politically realistic, so he is continually having to hold in his real political self and put on this mask of political reality in order to deal with our problems.

That is the Treasurer and that is the government that is responsible for the largest deficit in our history -- not the New Democratic Party; not the Liberal Party, bless their souls, who cannot make up their minds whether they want to spend money or save money from day one to day two. But the Treasurer --

lnterjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Gillies): Order.

Mr. Rae: I knew I would get the occasional members here to respond to that remark.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Good term, "the occasional members."

Mr. Conway: I preferred you on Saturday night, Bob.

Mr. Renwick: I think that is a tremendous response considering there are only four of them here.

Mr. Rae: That's right. I think so, too.

Mr. Roy: The member for Riverdale doesn't listen to your speeches.

The Acting Speaker: The member for York South has the floor.

Mr. Rae: The social or human cost is one that no party and member can claim to understand better than anybody else. There is not a member in this House who, every time he deals with a constituency problem and every time he goes back to his constituency, does not have to confront the very real tragedy that unemployment represents.

I believe one of the most destructive myths of our time -- it has been a very destructive economic myth, and I have heard it expressed by no less a figure than the governor of the Bank of Canada -- is that unemployment in the 1980s is somehow less costly, less humiliating, less difficult and less a problem than it was in the time of the Great Depression.

I do not think that is true. I do not think the figures for suicide, for family disruption, for family breakdown, for hospitalization, for the increase in mental illness, for the increase in real unhappiness expressed in so many different ways, bear out in any way that pernicious doctrine that somehow unemployment is less a problem today than it was 30 or 50 years ago.

3:50 p.m.

There are young people who have never known the meaning and satisfaction of having a job. That number has grown. I think that is a disgrace. I think it undermines the work ethic, which is something the Conservative Party is supposed to believe in. I think it undermines the sense of satisfaction that all of us have in being able to receive a pay cheque for work we have done and to feel we have earned it and deserved it and can take some pride in the fact we are being paid for what we are doing.

I think the epidemic of unemployment, of joblessness, that we are suffering, is something that is going to have an incalculable cost for years to come. If indeed we are to believe the figures I have seen expressed both at the local level and at the national level, they say we are going to have this level for a long time. If communities like Hamilton, Sudbury and St. Catharines are going to be facing double-digit unemployment for many years to come, I just find that unacceptable.

That is one projection we as legislators have an obligation to prove wrong, an obligation to make wrong. The social cost, the human cost, the cost to people of joblessness, of being without the hope of jobs and what work represents, without the sense of value and the sense of self worth that comes from work, is one that we as a society cannot afford.

Any government that thinks it can afford it and any government that takes satisfaction or accepts in any sense of complacency that it has somehow won the battle of inflation on the backs of increasing the amount of welfare payments and increasing the amount of joblessness and worklessness in our society, is a government that in my view has lost its soul and has lost its right to preside over the affairs of the people of this province or the people of this country.

There is a second cost. The cost to the Treasury is one we have described; it is one the Treasurer understands. The reason he has a deficit of the size he has is that he is presiding over an unemployed, underemployed economy that is working well under capacity. That is a cost which again is large, major. It puts pressure on all other aspects of spending; it puts pressure on the ability of government to provide services; it puts pressure on the government to try to raise taxes from other sources that are not acceptable.

We had an exchange today about the city of Toronto and the rest of Metro, the rest of the province and so on. Why is the pressure now on to start singling out certain victims and certain people in order to raise property taxes, in order to try to grab revenues from certain areas and not other areas? We all know why it is; it is because we are living in an underemployed economy that is desperate for sources of revenue and is going to start looking for scapegoats and going to start looking for the easy answer and the quick solution that is really not a solution and is really not fair.

It is going to set municipality against municipality, north against south, community against community, and the suburbs of Metro, the boroughs, against the city of Toronto. That is what has happened; that is really what it is all about. It has nothing to do with an exercise in fairness or anything else; it has to do with an exercise in unfairness, an exercise in attempting to find money there because money is not coming from a healthy economy.

I say to the Treasurer, the only way he can get his deficit down is if he gets Ontario back to work. I know he knows that and I know he understands that. It is not going to be possible to get Ontario's deficit down without putting Ontario back to work. There is not a person in this province who is not aware of that fact, and is not becoming increasingly aware.

In fact, I am amazed to learn now when I visit with chambers of commerce, as I have been doing from time to time -- I was visiting with the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce yesterday --

Mr. Kerr: How was your welcome?

Mr. Rae: I got a good welcome. I got a very good reception. I want to thank the member for Burlington South (Mr. Kerr) for asking me that. They were delighted. Indeed, they asked after him.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: They wanted to know if he was still around.

Mr. Kerr: My brother-in-law is the chairman.

Mr. Rae: He did not mention that.

I want to suggest that even chambers of commerce are recognizing this is no time to be focusing on cutting deficits. Even chambers of commerce understand the only way we can somehow get our economy into longer-term balance, provincially and federally, is if have our economy working.

It is a simple and basic truth, but it is one that has to be stated and restated because it is frequently ignored by those neo-conservatives who can only see the bottom-line figure, the so-called $2.676 billion, and who have no understanding of why that does not really represent the degree of undercapacity, the degree of loss and the real loss to our economy of the joblessness that now is being tolerated by governments at the federal and provincial levels, and indeed is being accepted by many of them as something that is simply inevitable.

The final cost of the joblessness over which this government has presided is the long-term structural cost. That is something I want to turn to in my concluding remarks. Our party has been saying for some time that what we are experiencing as a province and what we have experienced since 1973 in response to the world energy crisis is a major structural change.

We have been saying a branch plant economy with relatively few strong, internally organized, internally generated basic industries, with a resource base that has been misused and abused by private development, private developers and private enterprise for a long time, is an economy that is in serious structural difficulty and has some real problems to face up to.

My colleague the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) has referred with such eloquence, as has my colleague the member for Nickel Belt, to the challenge to the forestry resource and the fact that our forest resource has been abused, has not been harvested and has not been husbanded. It has been treated as something to be in a sense pillaged for a time. Profit is something to be taken out of it, yet little has been invested back into it.

Mr. Stokes: Mined.

Mr. Rae: As the member for Lake Nipigon says, it is something that has been mined, something that has not been harvested.

There is no long-term planning conducted for our mining industry; so we have communities growing up, communities dying and communities growing up again, with all the schools, communities and homes built around those industries just left to slide. People are told to put on their knapsacks, get into their cars and drive off to some other community where perhaps they will be able to find jobs for another couple of years.

That is life in a great many northern communities. In our party we do not feel that is a satisfactory way to plan or build an economy. That is not the right way for the northern economy to grow.

There must be a better way to plan for our basic resource industries, recognizing their continued importance and the importance of investment in growth but recognizing we have to deal directly with the problem of waste, the human wastage and the financial cost of looking at those industries as something to be exploited and not as something to be harvested, husbanded and cared for.

When one superimposes a weakening in our manufacturing sector, an increased penetration of imports from abroad and a serious problem in our resource industry on this basic structural problem, which we all know we have been experiencing in this province -- the kind of neoconservative sado-monetarism that has passed for economic wisdom over the past couple of years and has literally devastated economy after economy -- there is an increased structural cost.

One is not simply cutting into the fat of an economy. That is the phrase so often used by those people who believe in these kinds of techniques. It is like applying leeches to a body with a fever as if that is somehow going to do anything but drain blood, the very lifeblood from an economy. Those people have really misunderstood that when one superimposes those kinds of rates on the structural problems we have, those very industries themselves are threatened; their very viability is threatened.

That is something that concerns our party deeply, because it really means we have two jobs to do in Ontario. We have to provide right now for the job crisis which we see all around us and which is so visible and so real to all of us, and we have to be prepared to build the new institutions, the new ways of planning and the new forms of intervention that are going to deal with the basic structural problems our economy is facing.

4 p.m.

Instead of simply building a number of goodlooking showplaces across the province -- where the Premier can cut the ribbon not once, not twice, not three times, and where the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr.

Walker) can yet again announce a third, fourth, fifth or sixth time that the following centres will be open on the following days and members who want to go are welcome; where he can send a personal invitation then issue a general invitation, then get up again and say the ribbon will be cut not once, not twice but three times, that it is going to be opened on Tuesday and Wednesday and then opened again on Thursday -- instead of having this public relations exercise which the Tory government specializes in, those specialists in smoke and mirrors, specialists in the taste not the reality, specialists in the essence and the vapour, not the real problem --

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member has one minute remaining.

Mr. Rae: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It means that a government which is so committed to that kind of strategy is going to have to learn something. It is not enough simply to set up a series of these little exercises and fund them at $2 million or $3 million a year, or whatever the figures may happen to be for each centre.

It is a question of looking at the structural problems and realizing that there has to be a new partnership by business, government and labour, that there has to be a partnership of private and public investment to really put the bucks behind the effort to turn the Ontario economy around and to create the kind of new structure that will be far stronger than anything we have seen before to deal with the realities of world competition.

I want to close by saying the Tory government has lost the commitment to full employment, the Tory government has lost the commitment to jobs, and the Tory government has never had a commitment to planning and the kind of democratic co-operation and partnership which is going to be essential to turn this economy around and to provide work for all of our people.

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

Mr. Rae: Thank you, Mr. Speaker; a good point to end.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I am appreciative of the opportunity to participate in this debate, not because I will be taking any particular relish in the predictions that the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) has made and unfortunately have not turned out --

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Maybe we should all start our conversations now.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Gillies): Order. Could I ask the members of the third party to please restrain their conversations somewhat?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Perhaps the member does not remember his conversation at the beginning of my leader's speech.

Mr. Roy: The record should show that comment came from a frustrated potential leader. That should go on the record. He is frustrated about something.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: No, I just like a little politeness.

Mr. Roy: I want to participate in the debate. I want to underline some of the concerns we have about the budget itself and I appreciate my leader giving me the opportunity to so address this assembly. I understand the member who is going to wind up for the government is the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea). There is something prophetic and ironic about that.

The Treasurer got all the glory at the time he gave the budget speech -- and we know what sort of production is put on by the government party when that takes place.

Mr. Nixon: Galleries full of Tories; free booze at the Albany Club.

Mr. Roy: Galleries full, the lights are on and the Treasurer is here in his plaid jacket and the whole bit.

It is somewhat ironic that nine months later, after the budget and after the predictions -- and I intend to review some of the predictions in the budget -- turn out to be so disastrous, the person who is asked to wind up and make the apology on the part of the government happens to be the poor Minister of Community and Social Services, who unfortunately is the person who is going to have to give some explanation.

He is the one who has to pick up the pieces. He is the one who has to deal with the human suffering and misery this budget did not deal with. There is something prophetic and ironic about that process.

Mr. Foulds: It is called poetic justice.

Mr. Roy: The member says it is poetic justice. I would not be that harsh, but there is something prophetic about that process.

My colleague the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid), seconded by the House leader for our party, the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon), put forward a motion nine months ago. I want to deal with that motion just briefly, to show how enlightened we were at that time in pointing out the failures of the budget. I will read the motion my colleagues put forward:

"This House deeply regrets that the 1982 budget fails to recognize the most serious and fundamental problems facing Ontario today." The motion then condemns the government for:

"Ignoring the plight of the many home owners whose mortgages come up for renewal this year, by refusing to introduce specific interest rate relief programs." That did not take place, of course.

"Ignoring the plight of the many small businessmen who are operating at, very near or below the break-even point, by refusing to introduce interest rate relief programs." I intend to deal with the problems caused by the fact that the budget did not deal with that problem, or dealt with it in a way that had no effectiveness whatsoever.

"Ignoring the plight of the farmers who faced modern-day record numbers of bankruptcies, by refusing to introduce specific interest rate relief programs." Undoubtedly, members will have noticed in today's papers, with some interest, the frustration of groups of farmers who, seeing some of their colleagues being victims of auctions, move in, ignoring the rule of law, because it is their belief and understanding that they are not getting justice under the present process in Ontario 1983.

The motion says further:

"Punishing the citizens of this province who are at the lower end of the income scale, the poor, the elderly on fixed incomes, by removing a large number of sales tax exemptions and thereby forcing these individuals, more than any other class, to pay a larger portion of their incomes to this government;

"Further punishing low-income earners by increasing OHIP premiums;

"Jeopardizing the operations of the municipalities and school boards of this province, by removing their exemption from various sales taxes and increasing their OHIP group plan costs, thereby placing them in a deficit position or forcing them to cut back on programs;

"Threatening the quality of Ontario's hospitals, universities, colleges and other institutions by warning them that this government will continue to underfund their basic requirements;

"Refusing to recognize Ontario's industrial decline and the need for a definitive industrial strategy as well as massive retraining programs for Ontario workers;

"Refusing to recognize the impact on the provincial deficit of such wasteful and ill-advised expenditures as the purchase of a one-quarter interest in Suncor." How idiotic that appears today.

Mr. Nixon: Isn't that some motion? I had not realized how good it was.

Mr. Roy: I thought it was helpful to read it over to see how prophetic it was and, as my friend has said, how good a motion it was. I will repeat that part, because members may have missed a few words of it.

"Refusing to recognize the impact on the provincial deficit of such wasteful and ill-advised expenditures as the purchase of a one-quarter interest in Suncor, the assemblage of land banks" -- imagine land banks and how idiotic that appears in 1983 Ontario -- "and the extravagance of a luxury jet."

We saw what happened to the jet. There are still people in that caucus, including the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché), who stated it was a mistake to get rid of the jet, that the exchange for the water bomber was not justified. But to continue with the motion:

"Producing a budget which is unfocused, without direction, lacking long-term vision, regressive in its tax impact and contradictory to what had hitherto been announced government policies;

"Therefore, this government lacks the confidence of this House."

4:10 p.m.

That is the motion we proposed nine months ago in May 1982. I am convinced, knowing the enlightened objectivity you have shown in the past, Mr. Speaker, that if you were forced into a situation where you had to break a tie, for or against this motion, you would probably vote for the motion in condemning the government and in condemning this budget.

Let us look at some of the prophecies of the budget and at what has happened during 1982-83. The budget talks about what we call economic outlook. I must say, and I want you to judge, Mr. Speaker, whether I am exaggerating, that basically all the Treasurer's forecasts were wrong. He was dead wrong. As one says in the wine business, this has not been a vintage year for the Treasurer with this particular budget.

Let us look at it. The Treasurer said: "Because of these factors and actions, the Ontario economy should strengthen during the balance of the year. Employment by year-end should reach 125,000 over current levels. Real growth in gross provincial product in the second half of 1982 should be four per cent on an annual basis." That is the prediction.

Let us look at the facts. Let us look at the evidence, as we say in law. Employment at year-end was actually down 276,000 from May in actual terms. It was not up 125,000, but down 276,000.

The seasonally adjusted decline of 148,000 was a 3.6 per cent drop, the worst employment performance in the country. I repeat, the worst employment performance in the country. I must apologize to the Treasurer. I have exaggerated. We are tied with British Columbia. He cannot even blame the socialists over there, because they are not in power. He cannot blame the Liberals over there, because they are not in power.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Not anywhere.

Mr. Roy: They are still the minister's friends in Ottawa.

Mr. Nixon: They do everything to save the minister's bacon.

Mr. Roy: When he needs them, he still has friends in Ottawa. In response to a question from my colleague the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney), the Treasurer replied: "We will make up for jobs lost in 1981. We are going to create jobs to make up for job losses that have occurred."

Mr. Ruston: You will notice, Mr. Speaker, the NDP has abandoned the House. I just thought you should know.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Roy: What is my colleague saying? The record should show there are no -- oh, I am sorry, there is one member of the NDP sitting on our side. Actually the member for Cornwall (Mr. Samis) really does not count. He can hardly be considered a socialist.

Mr. Conway: Did you say the landlord from Etobicoke was here?

Mr. Roy: He is. He is on the floor. He is not in his seat.

The Acting Speaker: I am sure the member for Ottawa East will want to continue speaking to the motion.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, the average employment in 1982 --

Interjections.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, am I being interrupted by the landlord from Etobicoke? I wish he would restrain himself. I know when he starts talking about private enterprise --

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Philip: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I wonder if the occasional member, who I am sure represents a lot more landlords in court than I ever have, would like to define "landlord."

The Acting Speaker: I am not at all sure that is a point of order. The member for Ottawa East will want to continue speaking to the motion.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, as you know, I have a very busy practice and I hardly have time to start teaching that member legal terms. But I do want to say that any time he wants to compare his majority with mine, he is welcome.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Philip: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: The fact that the member has a busy practice is very evident in his speeches.

The Acting Speaker: Again, that is no point of order. Will the member for Ottawa East please resume?

Mr. Roy: There is nothing like a socialist who gets carried away with private enterprise. It makes him hostile.

Mr. Speaker, if I may continue and emphasize again what I said, because I am sure you missed it. It says, "Average employment in 1982 was 108,000 less than in 1981." That can hardly be called progress and I think the Minister of Community and Social Services would agree.

I look forward to his comments. In fact, I would yield the floor and follow him if he wishes, so that I could comment on some of the things he is going to have to say in his closing comments. He will understand I have to do it by anticipation, which is always difficult for one who has defence lawyer training as I have. Everyone agrees we will not show --

Mr. Philip: Your speeches sound like my desk looks.

The Acting Speaker: Will the member please ignore the interjections and plough on.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to ignore that member's interjections. They are so delicious and enlightened it will be difficult, but I will try to control myself.

Everyone agrees we will not show anything close to the four per cent growth in the second half of 1982. In fact, the second quarter for Ontario has a real gross provincial product equal to the first quarter of 1979 when the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller) first became Treasurer. There was also current dollar decline for the first time in 22 years. Other forecasts from the budget have also proved incorrect. The unemployment rate was supposed to average 7.6 per cent, the Treasurer said, but the average was actually 9.8 per cent.

I recall when we were discussing the Treasurer's predictions in committee he said: "It is not too bad when you are only one or two per cent out. It is an inexact and difficult science."

I want to point out that being 2.2 per cent out represents something like 98,000 people out of work. When one looks at it in those terms, the human misery and concern that is caused by not being more enlightened really has consequences that are more understandable once it is put in terms of the numbers of people who are out of work.

The situation was not improving by year-end. The Treasurer's forecast was worsening. The unemployment rate in October was 10.8 per cent, in November 11.4 per cent, in December 11.7 per cent and in January 12.7 per cent. The situation is not going to improve in the immediate future. The federal government estimates there will be 17,000 unemployment insurance exhaustees per month in that period and numbers of unemployed are still increasing.

The number of weeks of unemployment increased 55 per cent from the budget month of May to December. Other indicators are also below forecast. Housing starts were supposed to be 50,000 annually, but they were less than 40,000. From May to December, 82,000 jobs have been lost in manufacturing, the key sector of the Ontario economy. In all of 1982, 112,000 manufacturing jobs were lost, a decrease of 11 per cent.

While we are dealing with that point, I will come back to the 1981 election. The members will recall that our leader then, Dr. Stuart Smith, went around making predictions about the difficulties in Ontario and the fact we were going to have to deal with real problems in our manufacturing sector. I am sure my colleagues all recall that and recall the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the Treasurer cynically referring to him as Dr. Negative, saying he was not being positive about the facts.

Unfortunately, we paid the price. They went on with the good news and we tried to be realistic. We are here and they are there. I suppose they could say: "We are in power and you are out of it. Our motivation and the end involved were justified." It is somewhat cynical as we sit here two years later to consider that some of the predictions we made then were not only not exaggerated, but were in fact much below what has happened.

4:20 p.m.

With respect to the immediate measures to create jobs that were forecast in the budget, $171 million was allocated to create 33,000 temporary jobs by the end of November. During the period in which these jobs were supposed to have been created, unemployment increased by 156,000. I recall Joe Clark -- remember, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Conway: Who?

Mr. Roy: Joe Clark. The only declared -

Mr. Conway: Did anybody hear the Acting Speaker this morning?

Mr. Roy: No.

Mr. Conway: I heard him. The member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) on Joe Clark this morning was quite unbelievable.

The Acting Speaker: Order. That is not the motion before the House.

Mr. Roy: When Joe Clark referred to the federal government's new employment expansion and development program, he referred to it as a fraud and a "maybe" program because its 60,000 jobs equalled only about 25,000 person-years of employment.

Let us look at the provincial program. The provincial program of 33,000 jobs yielded only 10,000 person-years. What would you call that Mr. Speaker? Without wanting to quote Joe Clark, would you call it a fraud? Would you call it a "maybe" program?

I know there is some ill-feeling between Joe Clark and the Treasurer. After all, Joe Clark was very frustrated when he kept seeing these ads during the 1981 campaign with the Treasurer --

Mr. Nixon: Liberal ads.

Mr. Roy: Liberal ads, yes.

Some jobs created by the budgetary measures were extremely short-term. The average duration of those jobs under the northern employment incentive program was 4.9 weeks. That is real job creation. Each job under the repair program for college, university and local school buildings cost, on an average, $577, equal to only a few weeks' work. The moneys assigned in the budget to youth job creation were far from sufficient.

Mr. Conway: Who was responsible for that program?

Mr. Roy: I do not want to get personal.

I should repeat that. Funding for youth programs has declined 16.5 per cent in real terms since 1979-80, even though the youth unemployment rate was 13.4 per cent when the 1979-80 budget was being prepared and 16.2 per cent when this budget was being formulated.

To bring the funding of the youth program back to the 1979-80 level and to deal with the increase in youth unemployment would require an increase in funds for youth job creation of $90.7 million to $130.9 million. This is not even taking into account that since April the unemployment rate for youths has increased to over 20 per cent.

Mr. Conway: We have a youth secretariat. I believe.

Mr. Roy: Yes.

Mr. Conway: What do they do?

Mr. Roy: Who is the parliamentary secretary -- is that the term that is used? -- in charge of the youth secretariat, Mr. Speaker?

The Acting Speaker: This is not question period. The member will please continue.

Mr. Roy: I will carry on, Mr. Speaker, but I am sure you are listening to every word I am saying because I am giving you ammunition now to go back to caucus -- or to cabinet, if you are invited. Wait for the call. It will come. Be patient.

Mr. Conway: Dick Beckett had to wait a long time.

Mr. Roy: They waited a bit too long for Dick, in fact. Other things have happened.

On May 14, 1982, the Treasurer said, "We are realizing there is beginning to be a shortage of youth in the summer period." I guess he meant a shortage of youth employment in the summer period -- a statement that those thousands of students who could not find work last summer and will not be able to find work this summer will find amazing.

The supplementary job creation measures announced on November 22, 1982, committed an additional $50 million for expenditures by March 31, 1982, plus $100 million for a joint federal fund to be used over an 18-month period. The provincial contribution would create slightly more than 29,000 jobs for 12 to 26 weeks' duration. Twenty-nine thousand full-time permanent workers became unemployed within 40 days of the new measures being announced.

Mr. Speaker, again I am giving you valuable ammunition. I know these are dry statistics, but the human misery and suffering caused by such tragedy should be underlined, and can never be underlined enough.

The $150 million used for the job program is only one fifth of the money to be saved by the restraint program. The government is using the remainder of the money to cover up its own fiscal irresponsibility rather than stimulate badly needed job creation.

We are reviewing this budget and this is not overly politically sexy stuff, this is not the stuff of great speeches because these are statistics; but surely the government, and the minister who will be responding, understand they have failed in this area and failed miserably in the area of job creation.

One of the concerns and one of the things that has given the minister a headache is the fact --

Mr. Nixon: He says he hasn't had a headache for months.

Mr. Roy: He says he is not getting a headache. I suppose this minister, not being in Consumer and Commercial Relations but being in Community and Social Services, feels this is made easier after what has happened with the trust companies; but I want to tell him, this is something his government, his officials and his Treasurer could not take much pride in. Hark back to May and all the production that was made here at the presentation of the budget. We look at the reality of February 1983, and it is not very encouraging.

Hon. Mr. Drea : I know you are an admirer of mine but you shouldn't do it with your shirt tail out.

Mr. Nixon: Who would ever come in here with his shirt tail out?

Hon. Mr. Drea: For the last five years I have been looking for company.

Mr. Roy: Frank, is my collar okay? It has to be a first in this place when I get a comment of that nature from the