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May 17, 1984

32nd Parliament, 4th Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Hansard Transcripts

GIFT FOR MEMBERS

ESTIMATES

TELEVISION IN LEGISLATURE

HAMILTON GO-ALRT

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

APPOINTMENT OF YOUTH COMMISSIONER

ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT BILL

ORAL QUESTIONS

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

UNEMPLOYMENT

TAX BURDEN

GRANGE COMMISSION INQUIRY

OHIP PREMIUMS

CONTRACT FOR AIRCRAFT

ASSISTANCE FOR SENIORS AND DISABLED PERSONS

RED MEAT PLAN

PETITIONS

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

REPORT

STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND OTHER STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS

MOTION

HOUSE SITTINGS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT ACT

CORPORATIONS TAX AMENDMENT ACT

SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

ONTARIO LOAN ACT

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

MUNICIPAL AMENDMENT ACT

ORDERS OF THE DAY

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

GIFT FOR MEMBERS

Mr. Speaker: I know many of you have been asking yourselves where the oranges came from.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: No.

Mr. Speaker: I heard you discussing it as I came in, and that is why I am going to explain. They are a gift from the young people of the Lake Wales Florida Highlander Band, which entertained us so eloquently at noon hour, and they are given with the best wishes of those people.

An hon. member: I thought we were comparing apples with oranges in the Treasurer's (Mr. Grossman) budget.

Mr. Speaker: No, no.

ESTIMATES

Hon. Mr. McCague: Mr. Speaker, I have a message from the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor signed by his own hand.

Mr. Speaker: The Lieutenant Governor transmits estimates of certain sums required for the services of the province for the year ending March 31, 1985, and recommends them to the Legislative Assembly. Signed by John Black Aird, Toronto, May 17, 1984.

TELEVISION IN LEGISLATURE

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I noticed during the extravaganza on Tuesday afternoon that the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., which is funded by taxpayers' funds, had erected television cameras in this chamber over there and over there. Of course, the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) had a special microphone mounted on his coat, and we had the potential at least for full coverage of the Treasurer's speech, which naturally was self-congratulatory, and that is part of the process.

However, I note today, when the two opposition spokespersons, the critic of the official opposition and the critic of the third party, will be providing their replies to the budget, the television cameras have been removed by the CBC. As the guardian with a great sense of fairness, which apparently does not go as far as those who make the decisions with the CBC, would you not prevail upon those who asked special permission to have the cameras erected in the House to do it for at least the duration of the speech by the Treasurer and the two opposition critics, instead of playing one side only?

Mr. Speaker: I am sure the people concerned have heard your request and I will be pleased to transmit it in case they have not.

I would just point out to the honourable member that the request for the coverage was made by the CBC and not vice-versa.

Mr. Bradley: I would just like a further very brief point -- Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I was just going to say that was not really a point of order and I was going to so rule after having said all that.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, I have another point that was related and might be a point of order. Would you not agree that it is one of the arguments militating in favour of an electronic Hansard in this House?

Mr. Speaker: It is hardly a point of order and I am not going to comment on it.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, on that same point of order -- and I see the government House leader listening -- it is entirely within the purview of any television channel to decide on its own what it believes to be newsworthy and what is not. However, because of the willingness of one station to broadcast the Treasurer's statement with respect to the budget, it might be worth while for the House leaders to sit down and reconsider in a very practical way how opposition replies can perhaps be included as part of the budget day, at least in some preliminary form, so some equal access to the magic of television is granted to all members of the Legislature.

In addition, surely it is long overdue for the government to come creeping, unwilling as I know it is, into the 20th century and recognize that Toronto is the capital of the telecommunications industry in this country and that it is another absurdity that we do not have a televised Hansard for all the citizens of the province to watch, without in any way affecting the right of television stations to decide in their own editorial judgement what they want to run with and what they deem to be news.

Those are two separate issues. I hope very much the government will finally come into the 20th century and recognize the need for change.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the honourable member very much, but I must point out, as he already knows, that was neither a point of order nor of privilege. However, I did let him continue so the message would be transmitted to the individual House leaders.

HAMILTON GO-ALRT

Mr. Cunningham: Mr. Speaker, I would like very briefly to correct a misconception that may exist in the minds of people living in my community flowing from the reporting of a question I raised on Monday.

In response to a question raised by myself, the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) said, "All I can say is they certainly have not been made" -- and this is in regard to allegations of threats -- "by me or by anyone representing me. I cannot suggest what threats the member may have made to the people of Hamilton."

I just want to state categorically I have made no threats concerning the GO proposals in our community whatsoever.

2:10 p.m.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

APPOINTMENT OF YOUTH COMMISSIONER

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce to the House Mr. Ken Dryden of Toronto, who has just been appointed youth commissioner for Ontario, effective June 1.

[Applause]

Mr. Dryden, who has just been acknowledged, is seated in the Speaker's gallery with Blair Tully, the secretary of the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development. Mr. Dryden will oversee the implementation of Ontario youth opportunities, which I described to the members on Tuesday during the presentation of my budget.

As I said at that time, Ontario youth opportunities is the key building block of our three-year commitment to provide money and direction for new and expanded programs to provide the training and experience our young people need to find and keep jobs.

As youth commissioner, Mr. Dryden will report to me as chairman of BILD and will have as his terms of reference the responsibility to oversee the co-ordination of youth employment and training policy development; make recommendations on reallocations within the youth opportunities fund; make recommendations to the chairman of BILD on additional allocations from BILD; recommend initiatives where necessary, and advise ministries with specific delivery responsibilities.

In addition, the commissioner will be president or chief executive officer of the nonprofit, private sector corporation charged to initiate, develop and support pre-employment training and employment opportunities for hard-to-employ youth.

In Ken Dryden we have found a person with the personality, judgement and commitment to provide the leadership and direction to mobilize the public and private sectors of Ontario society to the task of providing an opportunity for every young person in Ontario to prepare for a life of useful work and independence. I know all members of the House will join me in welcoming him and in promising him our full support for the very important task he is undertaking.

ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT BILL

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, later today I will be introducing

An Act to amend the Assessment Act.

First, this bill enacts the new disabled and seniors in the community program introduced by the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) in his budget on May 15. As the members will recall, this new program will provide property tax exemptions for improvements, alterations and additions undertaken to allow disabled or senior citizens to continue living in their homes rather than in special care facilities.

Second, this bill will raise the general ceiling which allows property owners to make repairs and modest improvements to their homes without incurring increases to their assessments and subsequently to their tax bills. This ceiling will be raised from the current $2,500 market value level to $5,000, effective after May 15, 1984.

The $2,500 ceiling was established in 1971 and, at that time, was considered a reasonable dollar level to allow property owners to undertake repairs, maintenance and modest improvements without a tax penalty. Today this ceiling has been eroded by inflation, so it is now difficult to distinguish between nonassessable maintenance activities and minor alterations and additions that would otherwise be taxable.

This new $5,000 limit will be more reflective of today's property maintenance and construction costs, thereby providing a workable margin within which ratepayers can make reasonable improvements to their homes without property tax increases. Major additions and renovations to properties beyond this new level will continue to be assessed and taxed in the usual way.

The Treasurer and I have agreed that this second measure in the bill is consistent with the new disabled and seniors in the community program, in that home owners generally should receive similar encouragement to maintain and improve their properties themselves so they may continue to remain comfortable in their own homes.

ORAL QUESTIONS

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer. First, I congratulate him on his dispatch in creating one job. I want to ask him a question about his youth employment-unemployment program.

We have been waiting months for specifics. We have heard the grand rhetoric of the Treasurer, the Premier (Mr. Davis) and others saying that programs would be forthcoming, yet specifics were always awaiting the budget we saw on Tuesday last. So that the Treasurer is not accused of bringing in a document of deception or of perpetrating a fraud on those 169,000 unemployed young people in this province, I want to give him an opportunity to say very specifically what he is going to do. How many placements is he going to create this year? How many person-years of work is he going to create? When is he going to do that?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the Leader of the Opposition that some of us are not enamoured of the kind of politics and economics, some would call it, that pretend government spending programs are going to solve problems if all they do is take a group of people, send them out to paint a fence for a few weeks and then have to do the same thing with the same kids next year.

Let me say that the Leader of the Opposition still seems to cling to the old-time economics that speaks of those kinds of short-term jobs. If he would look over the innovative, first time in Canada initiatives undertaken by us in Tuesday's budget, he would see that we acknowledge that the challenge is to equip and train our young people so that in the medium and longer term they do not turn into chronically unemployed persons.

I have no apologies whatsoever for saying that. While the member may cling to the proposition that politics and economics dictate that a government buy up some jobs for a period of weeks, this government and this side of the House believe that long-term sensible investments in our young people to solve the problem and alleviate the problem in the longer term is the right way to go.

I might say it indicates a distinct and important difference between the member's party and the policies it puts forward and the kind of investments we put forward on this side of the House.

Mr. Peterson: That is just a crock and the Treasurer knows it. He has brought in Ken Dryden to repair the damage of the government's educational system. That is what the Treasurer is trying to do now. He is putting a hell of a load on his shoulders.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: I am asking specifically how many jobs the Treasurer is going to create. Is this just rhetoric, a shell game, a reorganization, or is the Treasurer going to do something specific? He should not give me one of his two-bit lectures. We want results for 169,000 kids in this province.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I understand the shortness of temper of the Leader of the Opposition. I know it has been a tough week. He was ready for tax increases. They said, "David, my God, there are no tax increases in the budget." Then he was really worked up expecting the income tax surcharge to be extended. His second disappointment was that he did not get that.

I know the major disappointment he had. He was waiting for the Conference Board of Canada. He knew he would be bailed out when his favourite predicting agency would say my estimates for growth in Ontario were overstated and they --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for York South.

2:20 p.m.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer can avoid the questions all he wants to. He can perpetrate the fraud for as many times as he wants, but a fraud is a fraud is a fraud. That is exactly what he is putting forward today.

I would like to ask the Treasurer, what is long-term about the Ontario Youth Corps program? This is exactly the same as programs with another name that he cancelled. The residential centres program is a similar program with another short-term name; youth tourism is the same as an earlier program that was cancelled. It is the same money; there is no new money at all.

Despite his much-heralded $600-million program -- which some people were naive enough to think is what he has actually done -- when it comes right down to it, with respect to new money. Can he confirm what he is going to be spending this year? Can he confirm that his officials told us in the briefing on Tuesday that the amount of new money that was going to be spent was $60 million on youth programs, which is less than he is collecting from the racetracks?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, that is a cute turn of phrase. I can confirm that the amount will be at least the amount the honourable member indicated. In his depression, while he was in the lockup, he may forget I was the one who gave him that figure.

Mr. Rae: No. The Treasurer did not.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I did.

May I also say I understand he does not have too many taxes to scream about, and I understand the pressure he is under to find something here, lest he resort only to saying things such as these programs are frauds. Let me say that while I was delivering that budget on Tuesday and while my colleagues were carefully listening to it, I was able to catch the member saying, every time we mentioned some of these first-time-in-Canada programs that he liked, that it was his idea. I was amused therefore to be watching TV that night and hear him saying to the cameras that there was nothing new in the budget.

Had I adopted his suggestions, he would have been right: there would have been nothing new in the budget. While he decides which side he is going to take -- the side he took in the House, that there were lots of new programs and he wanted to own them; or the proposition he stated outside this House in front of the cameras, that there was nothing new in the budget -- the reality is that if he goes down the list of programs, there are programs that he cannot deny have never been tried before in Canada, never suggested in this assembly. If he wants to ask a supplementary. I will he pleased to deal with it.

Mr. Peterson: The Treasurer is absolutely impossible. He says he has these wonderful new programs and he will not tell us what they are. He has new titles and no new programs. Who is he trying to kid?

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: Why does the Treasurer expect anybody to believe him more than they did when he said he was going to raise taxes to give the impression that he is such a nice fellow? He is the one who created the impression of increased taxes, not me.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: He is the one who perpetrated the deliberate fraud and hoax.

I have a specific question. How does the Treasurer expect the young people to believe that those jobs are going to be forthcoming? When are they going to be forthcoming? We do not know when the programs will be kicking in. We have some indication that the winter Experience program will not be going ahead in October we do not know its replacement.

We know he did not spend some $21 million allocated last year, principally because of the failure of the young Ontario career program. We also know he was notified by the feds in December or January that he had the additional $250 million coming forward that he could have used on youth programs, but he did not; he took credit for it yesterday.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: How does the Treasurer expect people to believe him when he is not telling us anything?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The Leader of the Opposition really should be careful. Just to set the record straight, I spent the weekend reading, with enjoyment, his speeches to the Toronto and District Liberal Association where he predicted massive new tax increases for the province. He said the surcharge would be extended. He said Ontario health insurance premiums would go up well in excess of five per cent; he was the one who was saying it would be a great error to do that.

We agreed, but let us not suggest he was not the major purveyor of the impression, at least to his own groups, that taxes were going to increase dramatically this year. He was also the major purveyor of the information that there was no way that this government could reduce the deficit. We have reduced it significantly.

Let me say quite clearly that there are those members who would opt for programs such as the Liberal Party put forward last fall, programs that would have created jobs, for $100 million, for 14.000 young people for six months, and then :hose kids would be unemployed. The Liberal leader would be standing up to say there was too much spending and the deficits were too large, and six months later the kids would be unemployed again.

Let us be clear that this party stands for important, long-term investments in our young people. This party does not stand for Liberal Party make-work, short-term projects. I have no apologies for that.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a new question for the Treasurer as he stands there, searching through his binder to find all the old speeches and press clippings, having as much fun as he wants. He is absolutely factually wrong in what he is saying in this House.

In terms of his responsibility, how many jobs is he going to create? Has he got specific youth programs or does he just have titles for them? When are they going to start? Do we have to wait another year? The Treasurer has been bleeding in his compassionate way. He thinks compassion involves just mouthing the word. He has been giving us all those phoney statements in this House, as has the Premier (Mr. Davis).

When is he going to start? How many jobs? How many of those 169,000 young people are going back to work? When are they going to be trained? When are his programs starting? Surely these are not unreasonable questions to ask the chief architect of the economic policy of this province.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, a lot of those kids are going to be working this summer. There are training opportunities --

Mr. O'Neil: How many?

Mr. Boudria: How many? That is the question.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Let me say this clearly, because I know it is a problem for the Liberal members. There are job opportunities: part-time, full-time, with full wage subsidy, with partial wage subsidy. There are training opportunities. There are residential centre opportunities. There are opportunities through the federal government programs. There are 400,000 positions through community college programs. Beginning now, there is an opportunity for every young person in Ontario.

Mr. Peterson: Nobody believes that. The Treasurer has program titles. I have read his 10-point program. When is it kicking in? When is the Ontario Youth Corps starting? When are the residential centres opening up? How many young people are going to get an opportunity? How many is he going to help through the Ontario youth start program? Let us start getting specific. The Treasurer has to have some responses to those kids who are out on the street. This has been a problem for years, if only he would recognize it. I want to know when it is going to happen.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The Ontario youth work opportunities subsidy program is under way under the auspices of the customary summer wage programs, this year beginning to focus on our young people most in need. There is $80 million --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: This is like the budget. When the members get the details, they are so unhappy with them that they cannot keep quiet and listen.

There is $80 million outlined in the budget. Let us not pretend the $80 million is not in the budget; it can be found on page 4, item 6, an $80-million program in operation. My colleague is beginning now to establish additional youth employment counselling centres. Many of them will be up and running in months, some in weeks, most by the end of this year.

The tourism program will be in operation this summer. Rather than delay the implementation of Ontario Youth Trust while we waited for a youth commissioner, we got on to that right away. As I outlined in my statement, it will be one of Mr. Dryden's first priorities. The Ontario Youth Corps will be up and running this summer. We expect the residential centres program will be in operation this fall. We expect the Ontario youth start program will be in place late this summer or early fall. The venture capital Incentive program also will be in place this summer or fall.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you, Treasurer. I think you have given enough examples.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I would be pleased to complete the awesome list for the member.

2:30 p.m.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, when the Treasurer says every young person will have an opportunity to prepare for a life of useful work, that has to be taken just about as seriously as the Wintario ads that say everybody who purchases a Wintario ticket has an opportunity to win the lottery. That is the kind of approach he is taking; it is a lottery approach.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: There are 170,000 young people out there, and he has cheated them of a chance to win; he has cheated them of a chance to find a job. That is the reality. I think the Treasurer has to come clean and say how he expects to find work for 170,000 young people when he is prepared to invest only $60 million to $80 million this year. How does he seriously expect them to be able to find those jobs?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the third party is dead wrong. He suggests we are prepared to spend only $60 million to $80 million this year. He knows, or was told, we will be spending $160 million to $180 million this year.

Mr. Rae: New money.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: New money.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That may not be a lot of money to the honourable member.

Mr. Rae: The Treasurer should not talk about old money. He cancelled those programs. Why does he not talk about the programs he has cut?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I am repeating the member's allegation. He said a moment ago we were prepared to spend only $60 million to $80 million on young people this year, and I am pointing out that he was modestly out; he was out only $100 million.

I am comfortable in saying to the member that this is the right amount of money for our young people -- far more than he, in truth, was expecting, with far more programs than he ever dreamed of on his best night.

Mr. Peterson: I note with great interest that one of the mandates of Mr. Dryden will be to oversee the co-ordination of youth employment and training policy development. I assume this is a tacit admission of the failure of the education system because of underfunding and because of the ill-timed and inappropriate policies of the Treasurer's colleague.

What role does his colleague the Minister of Colleges and Universities and Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) have in this new training thrust? Or has she been muscled aside, where perhaps she should be?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The honourable member makes a fundamental error, may I say very seriously. His error is to presume that things in this caucus and in this government are handled in the way things are handled in his caucus. There is on this side of the House something unknown to his side, truly a team effort. These initiatives have been put together by this cabinet to make sure these programs work. These programs --

Mr. Bradley: You fired the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) to replace him with Dryden.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I understand this is all the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) has left. He does not have the tax increases; he does not have the increased deficit; he does not have the conference board; he does not have overstated predictions by the Treasurer. He is stripped dry, with nothing left. I have no apologies to make for the fact that he is embarrassed and empty this Thursday afternoon.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, if it is a team effort, Mr. Dryden is going to have to get used to stopping an awful lot more pucks than he was stopping when he was a goalie for the Montreal Canadiens, because he is not going to be getting any assistance from anybody else on the team. There is going to be a pretty poor defensive effort from the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) and anybody else.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: The Treasurer should understand that the frustration we have with respect to this budget is its absolute and total emptiness with respect to dealing with the problem of unemployment and dealing with the problems of tax fairness. That is our frustration.

I was in my constituency office last night, talking to unemployed construction workers. There is nothing in this budget for those people. They had to go away empty-handed because the Treasurer had not done anything for those people whatsoever.

Specifically, I would like to ask the Treasurer what is happening in northern Ontario. The Statistics Canada figures for unemployment in Sudbury alone showed an unemployment rate of nearly 17 per cent in April 1984. The Treasurer will know that there are going to be nearly 9,000 people coming off the unemployment rolls and going on to welfare in the period up unti1 October of this year, including more than 3,000 people in June and July alone. There is nothing in this budget for those people.

How does the Treasurer justify doing nothing for those people? Specifically, how does he justify the incredible cutbacks in the expenditures, in the investments of the Ministry of Northern Affairs over the last two years, a dramatic reduction? Why are they not mentioned in the text of his speech at the same time as he talks about this $3.3-million fund that the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) is going to be implementing over this next year?

Mr. Stokes: You have not got a Detour Lake, but you have got a Hemlo. What are you doing about it? Talk to your Treasurer.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It is going great

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, if the honourable member thinks the Ministry of Northern Affairs is delivering fewer services and fewer programs to northern Ontario, then I would support an increase in allocation yet again for his research office.

He suggests we are doing nothing for the people of Sudbury. May I indicate quite clearly that because, and only because, of the suggestions put forward to me by the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) on this side of the House, the first community to qualify for and be included in community economic transformation agreement assistance will be the city of Sudbury.

Mr. Rae: That is pretty timid support over there. I think the Treasurer has to realize that at the end of the year the unemployment rate in northern Ontario and the unemployment rate in southern Ontario are going to be exactly the same, even based on his most optimistic forecasts.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: It could well be worse than it is today as a result of the budget he has brought down, which does nothing to deal with the problem of unemployment.

Since the Treasurer is challenging some figures, can he confirm that on page 41, under expenditure items from general government, Northern Affairs was spending $180 million in 1982-83, and the estimated 1984-85 expenditure will be $159 million? If that is not a reduction in investment in northern Ontario, I do not know what is.

Specifically, how does the Treasurer expect northern Ontario to face the future with a sense of confidence and a sense of optimism if his government is going to be ruthlessly cutting back the ministry that is responsible for transfer funds to the north?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: As the member's Northern Affairs critic might have told him had he asked, the apparent reduction, of course, is due to the phasing out of two one-time-only extraordinary expenditures, which were Detour Lake and Minaki Lodge. They were one-time-only add-ons.

Mr. Stokes: And now you have Hemlo -- $10 billion.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: If the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) suggests it is important for us to continue to flow money to Minaki, I will consider that.

With respect to our support for the north, we have in this budget alone the community economic transformation agreements, Sudbury being the first city to qualify. We have the small business development corporations, which are tilted towards northern and eastern Ontario for the first time.

Mr. Wildman: Only $7.5 million for northern and eastern Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Rae: You have cut back on the SBDCs. What are you talking about?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The members opposite really have to get better researchers. We designated $7.5 million out of the SBDCs to northern and eastern Ontario.

I might take this opportunity to say I was delighted to see the member endorse SBDCs through what he called the municipal development corporations. I was delighted to see his reliance finally on government programs to stimulate private sector economic activity, and I welcome him as he endorses one of our most important economic tools. I have one bit of advice, though: had he done his homework the other day he would have discovered that we do not need legislation, we do not need any changes to allow municipalities to invest in small business development corporations.

2:40 p.m.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, the only program under youth opportunities that seems to be directed specifically towards northern youth would be the Ontario youth tourism program, and yet I notice that in order for the program to work the minister is asking tourist operators, who we all know are already very hard pressed financially, to create 2.500 new jobs at a cost of $100 per week each.

This means the Treasurer is asking the hard-pressed tourist operators to cough up $1 million a month to subsidize one of his programs --

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Sweeney: I have to ask the Treasurer what contribution he is making.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, this program is widely welcomed, as my colleagues and even the honourable member's colleagues will tell him, by the tourist industry. It will allow tourist operators, unlike any other employers in the province, to gain additional help if they want it.

No one is obliging anyone to participate in the program. If they want young people who can learn the industry and eventually work in it, then they can get young people who are trained by the community colleges in tourism. They can hire them to supplement their employment base for $100 per week.

As I have talked to people in the industry, they have told me one of their major problems is the cost of hiring additional staff. If we could develop a program that would give them kids who are at least somewhat trained, they would be quite happy to assist in that program by hiring those people at $100 a week. This will be an oversubscribed program. The tourism industry is delighted, overjoyed, with the program.

If the member turns and asks the member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. Eakins), he will tell him it is one of the most important things we have done for the tourism industry in a long time.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, has the Treasurer been made aware by his colleague the Minister of Northern Affairs that we now have on stream at Hemlo something much bigger than Detour Lake, with gold reserves worth $10 billion to $12 billion and counting? The communities are forced to provide the hard and soft services for the work force that will be domiciled there and yet they lack the ability to tax this new wealth.

What is the minister going to do for communities such as White River, Marathon and Manitouwadge, one of which is under the supervision by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing? What within the estimates of the Ministry of Northern Affairs will address that situation? That area is creating $10 billion of new wealth and not a penny is in the budget.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, t regret the member is troubled by the proposition there is billions of dollars' worth of new activity in northern Ontario which occurred in large measure without government support.

I have been listening to the leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Rae) suggest that nothing is happening in Ontario and that our economy has ground to a halt. I welcome the member's endorsement and the provision of information by him to his leader about what is happening in northern Ontario --

Mr. Stokes: The minister does not understand. That is his problem.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Indeed, I have visited those communities. I have visited that area. I have discussed at some length with my colleague the Minister of Northern Affairs the various steps that have been taken. There is a co-ordinating committee at work, as the member knows, and the Minister of Northern Affairs is well equipped to provide the necessary assistance to those very important developments.

Mr. Stokes: Not without supplementary estimates.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: They are there, and he is working on it. It is evidence of the climate in Ontario and the boom that is going on in that part of the province. It well sustains our prediction of 4.7 per cent growth, which the member's leader denies but which even the Conference Board of Canada endorsed this morning.

Mr. Rae: It is not Ontario that has ground to a halt; it is the Tory government that has ground to a halt. That is the issue. It has been sleepwalking through this session. The minister has been sleepwalking through this session and he sleep-walked through the budget. There is nothing in it to provide jobs and opportunities for the people of this province. That is the fundamental reality.

TAX BURDEN

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, in 1980-81 the province was receiving about $3.5 billion in personal income tax and at the same time was receiving $1.4 billion in corporate income tax. Can the Treasurer confirm that in 1984-85, according to his own figures, he expects to receive about $7 billion, twice as much, in personal income tax from the average taxpayers of this province, at the same time as he is going to receive less this year from the corporate sector than he did four years ago?

How does he expect the average taxpayer to survive when he sees that kind of unfairness and discrepancy between the taxes being paid by corporations and the taxes being paid by individuals in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, first, let me say that part of the reason for that is the important small business tax holiday that small businesses have had for the past three years, a step, I remind the member, which I believe had the endorsement of him and his party and a step he complained about the other day in terms of its not continuing. That accounts for part of it.

Second, and most important, the major cause of that shift was that five or six years ago corporate profits in Ontario accounted for 12 per cent of the gross provincial product. Because of the recession, corporate profits dropped to only six per cent of gross provincial product in Ontario. With that very significant reduction, it is obviously not at all surprising that their share of the total tax load declined. In simple terms, the base upon which the tax was calculated dropped by 50 per cent.

Happily, as corporate profits improve, even though the member would have us tax them away, their natural share of the tax burden will increase.

Mr. Rae: The fundamental fact remains that the family making $15,000 a year pays more in taxation in Ontario than in any other province. That situation has deteriorated as a result of the budget and nothing has been done to address the fundamental inequities of the tax system in the province. In fact, the Treasurer has only made it worse.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: With respect to the much-vaunted tax credit program that the Treasurer spends so much time taking credit for, why has he done nothing to enrich that program so that seniors are able to live in their own homes for a longer period of time and so that people with middle incomes can get some kind of relief from the degree of property tax falling on them? Why has he done nothing to enrich the program and take into account the rate of inflation? Why has he done nothing about the fact that the value of tax credits has been decimated over the last decade?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Let us get this in some perspective. In 1981, in terms of the Ontario health insurance plan premiums the member likes to complain about, the level for premium assistance for a single wage earner would have been $3.22 an hour. Now it is $3.72 an hour. There has been a significant raising of the threshold for full premium assistance for wage earners over the past three years.

Let us also acknowledge that the circumstance the member structures for what he calls an average person earning $15,000 is not really average. He has not taken into account a great deal of deductions, credits and benefits that are received by that family, and the real circumstance that very few people find themselves in exactly the circumstance he constructs to put forward that particular argument.

If he compares average tax loads across the broad base of those who are at or around the average industrial wage in Ontario, he will find that we are extremely competitive with the rest of Canada.

2:50 p.m.

Mr. Rae: To respond, out of all the questions that have been put to him today, could the Treasurer try to answer one -- this one. Why did he not do anything to enrich the tax credit program to take into account the dramatic increases in the cost of living? The real value of the tax credit is nothing compared to what it was 10 years ago.

How does the Treasurer explain the fact that in the city of York, for example, the average property taxes are about $1,600 or $1,700, many of them being borne exclusively by senior citizens, and the value of his tax grant is $500? It still means that family is paying $1,200, which is directly contrary to what the Premier, in 1977, said would be happening. How does he justify the failure to do anything to enrich the property tax credits in his budget?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: As I have indicated, we, unlike the New Democratic Party, do not presume that one example is in any way reflective of what is happening out there.

GRANGE COMMISSION INQUIRY

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, the Attorney General will be aware that in his absence in his various trips abroad there has been a discussion in this House with the Premier (Mr. Davis) about the terms of reference of the Grange commission.

My understanding is that the commissioner has made the determination that he must come to the Attorney General and the cabinet to clarify the terms of reference of the order in council that gave his commission life.

Assuming the Attorney General has received that request -- if he has not received it, I am sure he is aware he is about to receive it -- is he prepared to clarify those terms of reference so that the commissioner fully understands his responsibility to inquire into the conduct of public officials in the pursuit of public duties and that he has the full power in those circumstances to name names and to assign responsibility wherever that may lie?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I have received a letter from the distinguished commissioner Mr. Justice Grange, together with his statement with regard to proceedings in phase 2. In his letter, the commissioner has asked me to consider an amendment to paragraph 4 of the original terms of reference in order to clarify the situation and avoid what he indicates may be extensive litigation. He certainly points out in his reasons, as I read them, that this is a very complex and difficult matter.

In view of the clear request by the commissioner, I certainly will very seriously consider some clarification, but in the context of carrying out the original intent of the terms of reference in relation to stage 2 -- to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the investigation and the prosecution of Miss Nelles -- I will be giving very serious consideration to how we might be able to do this without inviting the commissioner to appear to make findings of civil responsibility which obviously could, at the very least, be perceived to interfere with the ongoing litigation.

I do not underestimate the difficulty of our challenge, but every effort will be made to accommodate the commissioner in order that he may proceed to phase 2 of the proceedings.

Mr. Peterson: As the Attorney General knows, the ball is now clearly in his court. We did have discussions in his absence about the responsibility of the Premier. I was one of those who, in looking at and reading about what the various counsel were saying, believed there was so much confusion that the cabinet should have taken the responsibility and the leadership at that point.

That being said, we are now in the position where that is in the past. The Attorney General now has a specific request.

I know he wants to avoid the appearance of a coverup.

There are a number of people in his own ministry, as well as the Ministry of the Solicitor General and others, who have responsibilities and when the truth comes out it may not be very pleasant for some of his officials, but I want him to assure this House and the people of this province that there will be no reason for anyone in this province to feel there is a coverup; that the Attorney General clearly wants the commissioner to get at all of the truth and to assign that responsibility wherever it may lie so that hopefully, once and for all, we know what happened and any parties that deserve to be named should be named.

That is his responsibility. I would ask him to exercise that responsibility.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I do not want to be unduly repetitive but it is certainly my intention to facilitate the efforts of the royal commissioner proceeding with stage 2 of the proceedings and at the same time recognizing the importance of the original principle enunciated in this legislation: that a royal commission is not a substitute for a trial, be it criminal or civil.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about the Attorney General's answer. What he appears to be saying is that a private lawsuit should somehow affect the proceedings of a royal commission of inquiry. That is a point of view which is not acceptable to us and I do not think it is acceptable to most people in the province.

Can the Attorney General give us the assurance, first, that the letter from Mr. Justice Grange will be made public? Second, can he assure us that the clarification from the Attorney General will specifically allow the commissioner to conduct the inquiry fully and in public and not restrict him in terms of making findings of fact which are essential if the commission is to be able to do its job? I hope he can give us that assurance today.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I will simply repeat the assurance I gave the public of this province more than a year ago. I believe it was in the public interest for there to be public accountability in relation to the activities of those involved with the investigation that led to the prosecution of Miss Nelles. I certainly stand by that earlier commitment.

Obviously, the efforts I am going to make to assist or facilitate the responsibilities of the commissioner in carrying out that mandate will have my earlier commitment, which I reiterate today, uppermost in my mind.

OHIP PREMIUMS

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to the Treasurer, who in his answers today has brought supercilious shallowness to an art form.

In his budget he has ignored the very harsh realities affecting many people in our society. Why has he not responded, as it looked like he might on April 24, to the fact that minimum-wage earners and other people in the working poor are not going to be covered by premium assistance, or are going to have to start paying at least part of their premiums over the next little while?

Premiums in the last three years have gone up 50 per cent. The Treasurer admits today that $3.72, not $3.85, is the highest level to which he will provide full premium assistance to the working poor. Why was there nothing in his budget for those people?

3 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, let us have a glance at that budget. It removed the personal income tax surcharge, something the honourable member was not expecting to have happen. It increased Ontario Health Insurance Plan premiums by only $1.40 per month for a single person.

When I looked back at the change between 1981 and 1984, I discovered that because of indexing of exemptions the assistance levels have changed dramatically. In fact, for the family the member put out as a typical example -- and there would not be a broad base of people caught by his description of the facts he put together -- none the less, if that were the case, the reality is that for partial assistance in 1981 the taxable income level was $6.54 an hour and it is now $7.43 an hour.

There would have to be a circumstance in which, as he postulates, both wage earners were working at a minimum wage in both 1981 and 1984 and did not have all the exemptions kicking into place. That would be a fairly unusual but not unheard of circumstance.

The changes necessary to accommodate those people would have cost a great deal of money and would have meant an increase in tax rates somewhere along the line for them and for other people. It just does not work out. If we are going to raise premium assistance, we are going to have to pick it up somewhere else.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Treasurer will understand that it does not have to be those people who pick up that extra cost.

I have two supplementaries. Will the Treasurer not admit that if he looks at any of the poverty lines established in Canada at the moment, the people at those poverty lines, whether they are single or in any of the other categories, will not be eligible for full premium assistance in Ontario?

He talks about the $7 and so on for which people can get some partial assistance. If that is the case and it is so helpful to people, then why did only 2,098 working families in Ontario last year receive partial assistance? That is only two per cent of the general group. If that is so available and so helpful to those people, why did such a small percentage participate in that program?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: A great number of them or their spouses are working for firms that have group plans and, therefore, they are covered. That is a fact.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: The Treasurer knows the majority of the working poor are not covered by their employers.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, can the Treasurer tell the House why he would have effectively brought in an implementation date for the new OHIP premiums that will force OHIP to send out new bills or new notices to groups and individuals to collect one month of the three-month period that is now due from June 1 to the end of August? Why will those individuals have to spend their time and their money to send, in many individual cases, the grand total of either $1.40 or $2.80 to the Treasury? How much is it going to cost him to collect that extra $8.5 million for the month of August?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, it will cost us very little because of the computerized system that is used to accomplish it.

CONTRACT FOR AIRCRAFT

Mr. Hennessy: Mr. Speaker, I direct my question to the Minister of Northern Affairs.

Yesterday we were in Sault Ste. Marie. Why was the contract for the Dash-8 plane and the $2-million construction contract for a hangar that will employ 35 people given to Sault Ste. Marie when the Thunder Bay proposal backed by Nordair which met all the qualifications was rejected? I think the people of Thunder Bay deserve an answer.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Fort William. I think the people of Thunder Bay deserve an answer.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Lake Nipigon on a point of order.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Do you think it appropriate that the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Northern Affairs should be openly criticizing his minister?

Mr. Speaker: Whether I think it is or not is immaterial.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that the honourable member --

Mr. Ruston: Pardon me, Mr. Speaker, but that is against the rules.

Mr. Speaker: I think not.

Mr. Laughren: Does he know it is Mickey?

Mr. Cooke: Does Mickey know he is the parliamentary assistant?

Mr. Speaker: I think the parliamentary assistant made it quite clear he was asking the question as a member and not as a parliamentary assistant.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: When is a parliamentary assistant not a parliamentary assistant?

Mr. Speaker: I know quite well what rule the member for Essex North (Mr. Ruston) is referring to.

Mr. Ruston: I am correct.

Mr. Speaker: That is his

interpretation of it. My

interpretation is that the parliamentary assistant was asking a question on behalf of his constituents.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Since you have ruled this way, would it be appropriate for the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Ramsay) to ask a question on behalf of his constituents? Despite the fact that he is a member of the cabinet, could he ask a question on behalf of his constituents?

Mr. Speaker: Stop the clock for a minute. We are going to have a consultation.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I want to answer, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I am not sure whether the member for Sault Ste. Marie should perhaps answer it.

An hon. member: Stop the clock.

Mr. Speaker: There are nine minutes and one second left in question period. I have made a note of that.

The standing orders state quite clearly that the honourable member, as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Northern Affairs, is out of order and I cannot allow the question.

Mr. Hennessy: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: May I redirect my question to the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch)?

Mr. Speaker: I would point out to the honourable member that the standing orders require the minister to redirect, not the individual member.

Mr. Piché: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Northern Affairs. The people of Thunder Bay would like to know why the Dash-8 contract was awarded yesterday to Air-Dale and Austin Airways and why the decision was made for a certain hangar to be built in Sault Ste. Marie instead of or in lieu of Thunder Bay.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Cochrane North and, of course, the member for Fort William because I know the people of Thunder Bay want the answer to that question, and I am pleased to give it to them.

I would point out to the honourable member that proposals were called about a year ago for the operation of the new Dash-8 aircraft that will go into operation in September 1984 in northern Ontario. They were carefully gone over by a select group of experts in the aviation field from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission and my ministry. The Nordair proposal was the highest received. Nordair's bid was much higher than the bid submitted by the new consortium of Austin/Air-Dale.

3:10 p.m.

This was an historic moment, as the parliamentary assistant asked the minister a question I would say yesterday was an historic day in northern Ontario because some of my cabinet colleagues took the first Dash-8 aircraft. The member for Sault Ste. Marie and I took the Dash-8 up to Sault Ste. Marie and made that announcement. It was an historic day for this country, this province and northern Ontario.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Northern Affairs indicate to us how this is going to affect his colleague's riding of North Bay and whether or not more people and staff will be moved from North Bay to Sault Ste. Marie as a result of this decision?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, in my remarks at Sault Ste. Marie yesterday, I pointed out that the operation and maintenance of the Dash-8 aircraft would be located in Sault Ste. Marie for both aircraft. I also indicated that the administration of the norOntair operation would remain in North Bay.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Northern Affairs and his colleagues made the decision to award the contract to the consortium of Air-Dale and Austin Airways, were they able to assure the people in northwestern Ontario, particularly the people in the minister's riding of Kenora and Dryden, that it would not unduly impair Nordair's ability to continue to do the excellent job it does on behalf of constituents from Kenora and Dryden? Will this deal impair the ability of that company to provide the excellent service it has provided in those communities to the minister's constituents?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I would have to point out to the members that the actual routing and the scheduling of the aircraft, which comes on stream in September, has not been fully worked out as yet. We have not looked at the northwestern Ontario routes and scheduling at this time.

It is certainly not our intention to remove the present service or to hamper in any way the quality and level of service we have in northern Ontario, albeit in Timmins, North Bay, Dryden or Thunder Bay. We will add to the service that is already there.

ASSISTANCE FOR SENIORS AND DISABLED PERSONS

Mr. Wrye: I have a new question for the Provincial Secretary for Social Development concerning the terrible plight of the disabled in this province. In his response to our plea that his government end the shocking discrepancy in financial assistance to the single elderly and the single disabled, a difference of $300 a month by the end of this year, he said last month, "I ask that he give the government an opportunity to bring forth the budget proposals so that he will more clearly know our intentions for the future."

The budget has come and gone, and there is not a dime of extra money for the 55,600 disabled in Ontario. We now understand his government's intentions for the future are to keep the disabled in poverty. If that is not the case, why was this terrible injustice not addressed in the budget?

Hon. Mr. Dean: Mr. Speaker, the matter of the level of pensions for different segments of the populace is always under constant review. It will continue to be addressed by those ministers responsible.

Mr. Wrye: I want to remind the Provincial Secretary for Social Development that the review ended on Tuesday with the provincial budget for this year. They are not going to get an extra dime.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Wrye: In the minister's response last month, he included a line from Tennyson, "Freedom slowly broadens down." I checked the reference and it is from a poem called, "You Ask Me Why." I would like to ask the minister to elaborate on the surrounding lines. They are very short:

A land of settled government,

A land of just and old renown,

Where Freedom slowly broadens down

From precedent to precedent.

Why is the minister not going to follow the precedent established with the single elderly with a similar action for the single disabled? Is the settled government over there just a tired, worn, uncaring, unfeeling group that wants to neglect the disabled in this province?

Hon. Mr. Dean: To answer the last portion of the question first, I would say the answer is no. To answer the first part of it, I would briefly say yes, it will.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, is the Provincial Secretary for Social Development in favour of bringing the pension of the disabled up to the equivalent amount of the seniors' pension? Will he be pushing for this to happen this year?

Hon. Mr. Dean: I think I answered the question fairly well in the very first response, when I said it is constantly under discussion.

RED MEAT PLAN

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer, if he would go to his seat. Perhaps I can start putting it while he is on his way.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed, please.

Mr. Swart: I am sure the Treasurer is aware of the repeated promises during the past year by the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) that a tripartite red meat stabilization program was imminent, yet the subject was not even mentioned in his budget. Worse still, no funds are provided for payment even of stabilization premiums in a budget that runs until March 31, 1985.

Does the Treasurer not recognize that no premium payments until April of next year will mean little, if nothing, in stabilized payments to farmers before the end of 1985? Is this absence of funds in the budget for red meat stabilization on the advice of the Minister of Agriculture and Food?

The Treasurer said the budget was a team effort. Is there agreement between the Treasurer and the Minister of Agriculture and Food that, by some convoluted logic, a stabilization program could be delayed for another 18 months while hundreds or thousands of farmers in this province slowly sink out of sight in the quicksand of the government's farm policy?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I should tell the member that our Minister of Agriculture and Food, having been the leader in Canada in putting together the stabilization program, has the complete authority from us to mount our end of the program as soon as the other governments involved do what they have to do. We have done everything we have to do. The funding is available and ready to go as soon as the other governments come to the table as aggressively as this government and our Minister of Agriculture and Food have.

Mr. Swart: Is the Treasurer aware that the Minister of Agriculture and Food, according to the Kitchener-Waterloo Record of April 10, stated that the Ontario government had budgeted $50 million in price support subsidies for the beef, hog and sheep industries and that would be Ontario's contribution to a national red meat stabilization program he hopes will begin this year?

Would the Treasurer tell this House, because the funds are fully committed in his budget to other programs, what existing programs or promised programs are going to be cut out to fund this $50 million?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I want to repeat this quite carefully. As soon as the federal government does what it has to do to get the stabilization program going, funding will be provided to our minister to implement the program, which he designed, put together and has led the way with and which will be in operation immediately upon the other governments all being lined up and the federal government doing what it has to do. The money is there.

PETITIONS

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

Mr. Kolyn: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the members representing the constituencies of Lincoln (Mr. Andrewes), York North (Mr. Hodgson), Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Robinson) and York Mills (Miss Stephenson), I table the following petitions to the Lieutenant Governor:

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

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

"Whereas women in Ontario still earn only 60 per cent of the wages of men;

whereas women are still concentrated in a very small number of occupations; and

whereas unanimous approval of the concept of equal pay for work of equal value was expressed in the Ontario Legislature in October 1983,

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to amend Bill 141 to include equal pay for work of equal value and to introduce mandatory affirmative action."

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of residents of Hamilton East and Wentworth, I wish to table the following petition:

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

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

"Whereas women in Ontario still earn only 60 per cent of the wages of men;

whereas women are still concentrated in a very small number of occupations; and

whereas unanimous approval of the concept of equal pay for work of equal value was expressed in the Ontario Legislature in October 1983,

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to amend Bill 141 to include equal pay for work of equal value and to introduce mandatory affirmative action."

3:20 p.m.

REPORT

STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND OTHER STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS

Mr. Sheppard from the standing committee on regulations and other statutory instruments presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bill with certain amendments:

Bill Pr37,

An Act respecting the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.

Motion agreed to.

MOTION

HOUSE SITTINGS

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that when the House adjourns on Friday, May 18, at 1 p.m., it stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 22, at 2 p.m.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that, notwithstanding the previous order of the House, the House will sit on Wednesday, June 13, and when it adjourns on that date, it stands adjourned until Monday, June 18, at 2p.m.

Motion agreed to.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Gregory moved, seconded by Mr. Eaton, first reading of Bill 71,

An Act to amend the Assessment Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, earlier today I made a statement on this bill, which contains amendments arising out of the Treasurer's budget of May 15, 1984.

First, this bill provides property tax exemptions for improvements, alterations and additions undertaken to allow disabled or senior citizens to continue living in their homes rather than in special care facilities.

Second, this bill will raise the general ceiling which allows property owners to make repairs and modest improvements to their homes without incurring increases to their assessments and subsequently their tax bills. This ceiling will be raised from the current $2,500 market value level to $5,000 market value level.

CORPORATIONS TAX AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Gregory moved, seconded by Hon. Mr. Baetz, first reading of Bill 72,

An Act to amend the Corporations Tax Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, this bill contains amendments arising out of the Treasurer's budget of May 15, 1984, as well as some administrative amendments.

The budgetary measure being implemented by this bill relates to the income tax exemption to a newly incorporated, Canadian-controlled private corporation on its taxable income of up to $200,000 for each of the first three taxation years of the corporation. This measure will follow upon the expiry of the present tax holiday program for small business.

The administrative amendments include a number of changes that are required as a consequence of recent amendments to the Income Tax Act, Canada, to which the Ontario Corporations Tax Act is closely tied.

SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Gregory moved, seconded by Hon. Mr. Baetz, first reading of Bill 73,

An Act to amend the Small Business Development Corporations Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, this bill implements the amendments arising out of the proposals in the Treasurer's budget of May 15, 1984, as well as some administrative amendments.

The budgetary measure provides that the incentive funds from which grants are paid may be allocated in such a way as to support investments in small businesses that are newly formed or based in northern and eastern Ontario.

The bill also reduces the maximum amount invested in any one small business by one or more small business development corporations from the present $5 million to $2.5 million.

The administrative amendments include certain changes that are required for the effective operation of the act.

ONTARIO LOAN ACT

Hon. Mr. Grossman moved, seconded by Hon. Mr. Wells, first reading of Bill 74,

An Act to authorize the Raising of Money on the Credit of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Motion agreed to.

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Ramsay moved, seconded by Hon. Mr. Bernier, first reading of Bill 75,

An Act to amend the Labour Relations Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a series of amendments to the construction industry provisions of the Labour Relations Act. The changes are proposed in response to concerns that have been expressed either by employers or by building trade unions in the construction industry.

To briefly summarize, the bill contains four basic features. First, it is intended to facilitate the immediate enforcement of arbitration decisions in the Supreme Court of Ontario.

Second, it sets out the authority of the board to grant relief in respect to activity that has precipitated an unlawful strike, such as selective picketing during a provincial work stoppage.

Third, the bill provides the board with the authority to make remedial directions regarding unlawful arrangements concluded outside the provincial bargaining process.

The final feature is intended to limit entitlement to participate in votes in the industrial, commercial and institutional sector to tradesmen and contractors having a direct interest in the bargaining.

I will be explaining the purpose and effect of the proposed changes in greater detail during the debate on second reading.

3:30p.m.

MUNICIPAL AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Epp moved, seconded by Mr. Haggerty, first reading of Bill 76,

An Act to amend the Municipal Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, this bill would amend the Municipal Act to provide that the seat of a member of council who ceases to reside in the municipality or to own or rent property there becomes vacant after a 30-day period. Under the present law, such a member may continue to hold office for the balance of the term, although the member would not be entitled to vote or to be a candidate in subsequent elections.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day, I would like to inform you that it has been agreed we will split the time for the two leadoff speakers from the opposition and third party today. Perhaps the table could handle that matter.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

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

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I wonder if I could find out from the government House leader whether the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) intends to be present. Here he comes.

I have a particular reason for asking that question. Obviously the budget as a whole is going to be the basis of the Treasurer's run for the leadership. The credibility of the Treasurer is at stake in this his first budget. I want to deal with three or four matters concerning the credibility of the Treasurer as we know it to date. I might even go so far as to give him a little friendly advice.

Let us talk about the credibility of the Treasurer and the budget. The first thing that comes to my mind, and we just found this out, is that the Treasurer and his staff were informed by our federal cousins that they were going to receive part of $750 million in extra transfer payments under established programs financing in this last fiscal year. The Treasurer and his people were told this last December.

Even the Treasurer, being the Treasurer, could figure he was going to receive something like an extra $250 million. We know as a result of the figures in the budget, which the Treasurer certainly did not underline or draw to anybody's attention, that he received something like $337 million more than he expected from the federal transfer payments. The Treasurer did not tell us about this in December.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Yes, I did.

Mr. T. P. Reid: No, he did not.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It was in Ontario Finances.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Not $337 million. We checked. Why did the Treasurer not tell us when we were doing the prebudget statement that his deficit was going to be down by that much money?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The members opposite had it as soon as we had it.

Mr. T. P. Reid: No, we did not.

Second, I do not feel I have been put upon necessarily, but I am used to the shenanigans of the Treasurer and the cabinet in floating balloons and putting it out to the public and manipulating the media by suggesting there are going to be large tax increases. The Treasurer has tried to indicate in the House this afternoon that this was the fault of the Leader of the Opposition.

What the Treasurer did was float trial balloons, scaring the populace of the province by suggesting it could expect nothing but large tax increases this year. Then he came in with his budget of Tuesday last and said: "Lo and behold, you are not going to get all the tax increases I was threatening you with. Am I not a nice guy? Should I not be the next Premier of Ontario?" It was typical of the Treasurer's and the cabinet's manipulation of the media and of the public of Ontario at large.

The other matter that affects the Treasurer's credibility, regardless of what the Conference Board of Canada says today, is that every other economist, even some of those who advise the government on a public basis, is saying the minister has taken the optimistic end of the scale. Very few people are predicting we are going to have real growth of 4.7 per cent in this coming year, a figure on which the Treasurer's whole budgetary philosophy and all his figures are based.

It is interesting that when our former leader talked about statistics from the Conference Board of Canada which showed that Ontario was 10th and last in economic growth, and all that sort of thing, the present Treasurer and all his colleagues pooh-poohed the conference board and said: "They are a bunch of crying Cassandaras. Who would believe all that?"

Those were specific statistics that were based on historical fact. What we are dealing with is forecasts. We know and accept that anybody's forecast is probably as good as the next person's, but all the advice we have received, and I am sure the Treasurer has received, is that you take the worst scenario, the best scenario and the ones in between, and you work out some kind of reasonable average.

There is nobody who is predicting more real growth in the province's economy than the conference board. Almost everybody else is predicting less. The Treasurer's budget is based on extremely faulty assumptions and a great deal of quicksand.

The other part of the Treasurer's credibility that is slipping day by day is something I am personally annoyed about. On two occasions in the last little while I have been asked by the media, in one case the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., to be on a television program to debate with the Treasurer of Ontario, the heir apparent to the premiership, matters relating to public opinion polls and advertising. The Treasurer refused and said he would not appear on camera live with me. I do not think the Treasurer fears me that much.

As recently as yesterday, my colleague from the third party and myself were on Metro Morning as finance critics for the two opposition parties. We went down to the studio but, lo and behold, there was no Treasurer.

The Treasurer has stipulated he will not go on live with the two opposition critics, but he will go on if he is allowed a 10-minute rebuttal or statement after we have made our points. Of course, our microphones are turned off. We cannot reply to the rhetoric of the Treasurer and we cannot argue about the red herrings he tries to make out of our arguments. He is presumably sitting either in his chauffeur-driven limousine, with the telephone in the back seat, or in the study of his home in Rosedale or wherever he happens to live.

I happened to be in a car behind the Treasurer going through his riding one day. He must be embarrassed to be seen in the back of a limousine, because he slumps down so his constituents cannot see he is being chauffeured. I checked the seat and even the Treasurer, if he sat up straight, could be seen by one and all.

It is interesting that the Treasurer, who thinks about, wishes to be and almost salivates at the thought of being the first minister of this province, is afraid to take on members of the opposition in an open and public debate.

Mr. Nixon: He is a chicken.

Mr. T. P. Reid: My colleague may be closer to the truth than others.

This budget, the Treasurer's first and I suspect the last before the next election, is probably going to go down in history as long as the game of Trivial Pursuit exists, because I think this budget is going to make it in that party game as, "What was the most trivial budget ever brought down in Ontario in the last 13 years of the Davis regime?"

Mr. Kerr: It must have been a good one then.

3:40 p.m.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I want to tell my friend the member for Burlington South (Mr. Kerr) that I do not know whether it is a good one -- I do not think it is -- but historically it is certainly in the mode since the member for Brampton (Mr. Davis) became Premier. The last time we had a budgetary surplus in this province was 1969-70, when there was a surplus of roughly $150 million.

In 1970-71, when the current Premier took over the reins, we had a deficit of $566 million. The next year it was $1,018,000,000, the next year $744 million, then $708 million and $977 million. In 1975-76 it was $1,799,000,000, and then we get up, of course, to the $2,039,000,000 that we have today. I will go over those figures.

The Treasurer has followed the tradition of Davis Treasurers of having large deficits in Ontario, and I will get to some of the ways in which we could well have reduced them.

However, I want to say something nice about the budget. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then we on the Liberal Party side should be blushing. Tuesday's budget draws its two main thrusts directly from Liberal policy: increased emphasis on youth programs, with particular attention to the needs of the hard-core youth unemployed, and funding of new initiatives through trimming government fat.

I would draw to members' attention the two very well-thought-out programs the Liberal Party announced back in the fall of this year. We did not wait until May 15 to announce our programs: we had them then; we recognized the problem. This government is only now reacting, and the Treasurer today could not tell us how many jobs were going to be created and available for young people in this province this summer.

Unfortunately, while the budget pays welcome lipservice to these principles, it does little else. The actions simply do not match the rhetoric. Like the Treasurer who drafted it, the budget is long on hype but short on substance.

People have called this the budget of deception. I must confess, though, that the document is masterful in at least one way. The Treasurer has managed to turn what used to be a factual document into an inflated, unenlightening and self-congratulatory piece of nonsense. The resemblance to one of the Premier's own speeches is uncanny.

In previous budgets we found tables that compared year-to-year expenditures by category, allowing the opposition to determine, for instance, how much payments to doctors or expenditures in the whole training field were necessary; these have been removed. In previous budgets honest figures were provided as to what would be spent on programs in the current fiscal year: now we have nebulous promises as to what will be spent overall, when program parameters are developed, if a program is carried out over three years or five years or more.

I thought the Treasurer's word processor had broken down when I first read the budget, because everything is three to five years. When you break those figures down, the programs that are available to youth, the unemployed, women, the disabled and for housing assistance break down to very few dollars indeed.

Unfortunately, the Advertising Standards Council has no jurisdiction here. Unfortunately, truth in advertising is no longer a budget requirement. The Grossman technique is most clearly indicated by what he has done with the deficit. The Treasurer went out of his way to lead the public to believe that the 1983-84 deficit was $2.7 billion and in danger of growing larger, while knowing full well that it dropped substantially. Then he announced the drop in his budget and tried to claim credit for the improvement. Again, he did not mention the fact that it was the federal government that bailed him out with a hefty increase in federal transfer payments.

Likewise the deception on taxes. The Treasurer would have us believe his budget contained no new taxes. Apparently $70 million for the Ontario health insurance plan is not a tax, apparently the $44 million that will be passed through to consumers by Hydro does not exist and apparently the $350 million that the so-called social services maintenance tax will net him this year is not a consideration.

The last illustrates a new trend in budget-making in Ontario. The government has apparently decided that yearly tax increases alienate the electorate, so now we have bi-yearly announcements with increases spread over two years. By some strange logic, the Tory collective mind, if that is not a contradiction in terms, has decided this allows the government to say the personal income tax increasing from 46 per cent to 48 per cent in 1982 was not really an increase, nor was the social services surtax going from 2.5 per cent to five per cent this year.

The Treasurer is only following his leader's example in obfuscating and misrepresenting the facts. After all, it was the Premier himself who had the gall to tell his Empire Club audience two months ago that he was proud Ontario had weathered the recession "without any significant tax increases."

Since the dictionary defines "significant" as meaning "of important consequence," we can only assume the Premier considers several billion dollars in tax increases, including the broadening of the retail sales tax and the hospitality tax, the personal income tax increase, the social services surtax, three consecutive increases in Ontario health insurance plan premiums, the gasoline ad valorem tax, the sin tax increases and others to be of no consequence to the taxpayers. I do not think the taxpayers feel the same way.

In claiming the need to increase OHIP premiums, one of the most regressive of taxes and one we have lone claimed should be eliminated, the Treasurer ignored that this year he will already earn some $350 million from the so-called social services maintenance tax above and beyond what the regular tax structure would net.

The ostensible purpose of the tax was to ensure that one-time costs associated with offsetting the effects of the recession on individuals would not become built into the system by increasing the deficit. As the 1983 budget address stated, the tax was "to ensure that decent public programs and job creation initiatives are paid for without undue increases in our deficit."

This and subsequent statements made it clear that short-term job creation programs and increased transfer payments for social assistance were the main items the tax was intended to cover.

The government has made no attempt to demonstrate that the actual cost increases associated with these items even approaches the revenues the surtax brings in. The reason is readily apparent to anyone who examines the government's detailed expenditures, for the revenue increases far exceed the cost increases.

In 1983-84, transfers to municipalities for general welfare assistance rose by $25 million over the 1982-83 levels. Expenditures for short-term job creation and manpower training rose by $31 million and $13 million respectively. Thus in 1983-84, the total increase on those items for which the social services maintenance tax was intended was $69 million, fully $101 million less than the revenues generated by the tax.

In the current fiscal year, the gap between revenues and increased expenditures will widen even further. The main short-term job creation expenditures last year were associated with the Canada-Ontario employment development program. Virtually all the $110 million provincial contribution under the program has been paid out in the past two years.

Expenditures for short term job creation will fall this year by $59 million while general welfare assistance will increase by $29 million over last year, or $94 million over 1982-1983.

In other words, the surtax will bring in $350 million to cover at most $40 million in additional social services costs. Thus there is already a hefty tax increase in effect, the bulk of the take from which will go directly into consolidated revenue. In such a situation there was no justification for further increasing OHIP premiums or other taxes at this time.

This does not mean there were no opportunities for taxation reform. Recently, in questions to the Treasurer, I pointed out that imposing a minimum tax of 20 per cent in Ontario, as they do in the United States, can earn something over $50 million from high-income earners who currently escape taxation. This sort of measure is practical and desirable in tandem with the federal government, yet would not increase the total tax burden.

3:50 p.m.

If you will recall, Mr. Speaker, I raised the question about some 8,000 people who pay no tax because of the clauses -- I guess I would call them loopholes -- and incentives in the federal tax system. I have checked and I understand Ontario cannot go this route alone unless we get into our own personal income tax, which I do not think anybody wants to do. Surely the Treasurer should he more aggressive in pushing his federal counterpart on this matter.

It is interesting to me that the day after I asked this question, the leader of the third party was obviously busy on the phone to his federal counterpart in Ottawa saying: "Reid's got a good issue, Mr. Broadbent, and you sure need something. You had better get on this one." That is another story.

I want to talk about trimming the fat over there. I could go on in this vein for some time, but I think, given the limitations, I should turn my attention to some specific issues concerning the budget. I would like to start with another of the Treasurer's prevarications, his attempt to develop a method of responsible cutbacks in government spending.

I want to point out, before I get into some of these specifics, that we have the most swollen, bloated cabinet for any population in Canada. We have 29 cabinet ministers, three of whom are in the policy secretariats. Aside from getting in their limos in the morning, I do not know to this day what the policy secretaries do. We have 14 parliamentary assistants; and this is a government that is being lean and mean.

All we see is more of the Tories getting more out of the public purse. If the Treasurer and the Premier were really serious, they could cut their cabinet back by four or five ministers, do away with most of the parliamentary assistants and really show an example that they are running a lean government.

But, oh no, it is restraint for everybody else and the Tories at the pork barrel. I truly wish the Treasurer was cutting government waste. Certainly, it is a task which needs to be done, but when one examines the figure that is clearly not being done. Of the $311-million reduction in the deficit this year, only $50 million will come from the so-called flat-lining of government expenditures.

By the way, I like all the Treasurer's new euphemism. It shows a lot of creativity in the literary field but none, unfortunately, in the financial field.

The rest will come from $120 million in tax increases from the Ontario health insurance plan, the water rental charges and bank tax, $45 million from the elimination of the corporate tax holiday for small business, $25 million from selling off a tiny share of the government's $5-billion land and building stock, and the balance from significant increases in tax revenue over the inflation rate. In fact, Ontarians will pay fully $1 billion more in income tax alone this year.

That lonely $50 million in reduced expenditures is a pittance compared with a possible saving. The government itself has recognized there is ample room within each budgetary category to trim back expenditures.

In November 1982, a memo was circulated to all ministries outlining a process of program review which they were to undertake prior to the 1983-84 budget and the 1984-85 and 1985-86 allocation process. This process entailed each ministry targeting possible cutbacks totalling 10 per cent of its expenditures and developing plans for their implementation.

I have the statement here and members will find that on page 5, the program implicitly and explicitly recognizes the reality of waste in government. The memo states clearly, "Each ministry has the potential for some degree of program savings," and adds that "the total of options thus identified will be around $2 billion." That is somewhat in the neighbourhood of what the government's deficit will be.

The timetable in the memo suggests choices would be finalized by September 30, 1983, with implementation "in the latter part of 1983-84, 1984-85, 1985-86 and possibly beyond."

Would the Treasurer table with the members of the Legislature all those program reviews? Did the government come up with the savings of $2 billion across all the ministries? The answer is obvious with respect to action. Very little paring has yet occurred.

While the government has claimed that $300 million was constrained last year, substantial amounts of this related not to expenditure reductions but to fortuitous increases in loan repayments from various sources. With only $50 million in further cuts this year, this source has been barely tapped.

Two billion dollars is a lot of money. Indeed it is, but not in the context of this government's endless capacity for waste. At $700 per chair, at $206,000 to make ambitious ministers sound coherent, at $42,000 for bookmarks, at literally millions of dollars to keep friends busy with untendered contracts, the money adds up quickly. Huge savings are available, even if the government continues blindly to refuse to clip the wings of the provincial albatross, Suncor, or to dispose of its bankrupt and bankrupting land banks.

Moreover, we still do not know the extent of total government expenditures in two important areas: advertising and the hiring of outside consultants. Whether we use the figure of $27 million from Media Measurement Services Inc. or the Provincial Auditor's suggestion of $70 million, the Tory government is pouring vast amounts of money into the coffers of Foster and friends.

While much of this advertising is necessary, and in some cases essential, an equally large amount is wasted on unjustifiable self-promotion. The former Minister of the Environment, Mr. Parrott, said: "We discovered through our polling that people were concerned about the environment. So we went out and advertised that we were doing something about the environment. We did not have any programs, but we advertised that we were doing something." As we all know, the budget of the Ministry of the Environment has been cut drastically this year.

Only last week, the first information became available on the extent to which the government's vaunted reduction in public service employment has been offset by increased hiring of private consultants. The figures provided in estimates, as a result of persistent Liberal Party inquiries, show that between 1977-78 and 1982-83, expenditures for management consultants in the Ministry of Government Services alone rose by 507 per cent, from $176,000 to $1,069,000. In the last year of that period, the increase over the previous year was about 43 per cent, at a time when all government workers were being restricted to five per cent pay increases.

It is ironic that these monumental increases should have been occurring in the very ministry where a minister later tried to cut down on unjustified expenditures and was fired for his efforts. It is frightening to think what these expenditures may be in larger ministries, considering Government Services ranks only eighth among them.

It is obvious the government would have had far more room to manoeuvre in implementing new programs had it made a real effort to contain costs. We believe this should have been done. The budget did not provide the sort of stimulation needed for many areas in the province.

I am not talking about an endless proliferation of open-ended programs. Any party can develop a wish list of programs totalling billions of dollars and say they should be implemented regardless of financial feasibility. We all know one party which does just that, but this cannot be taken for thoughtful comment. Rather, we propose about $200 million in additional stimulation should have been provided. This could have been done without increasing the deficit, by further cutting the waste the government's own program review admits is all too prevalent.

I would now like to look at some specific issues and sectors, and compare the measures proposed in the budget with our Liberal Party alternatives.

Directly and indirectly, the tourism industry accounts for more than 350,000 jobs in Ontario. A far larger percentage of these jobs than for other industries is at the entry level. As a result, tourism provides a disproportionate number of opportunities for young people. On a regional basis, tourism is of major importance in exactly those areas most in need of economic stimulation, particularly northern Ontario.

These are all ample grounds for providing additional stimulation to the tourism sector, but there remains a further consideration. The industry is in trouble. Last year Ontario attracted 22.5 million US visitors, compared to 28.3 million in 1981, a 20 per cent drop. The number of visitors to Ontario from other countries fell even more precipitously by 25 per cent. These factors led to a doubling of Ontario's travel account deficit from $341 million in 1981 to $683 million last year.

4 p.m.

One of the most important factors contributing to the problems of the tourist industry is the continued escalation in government-controlled costs. In particular, the ad valorem tax on gasoline and the compounding federal-provincial taxes on alcohol have led to prices far above those in American border states. The only stimulus the government provided in this regard is the temporary extension of the provincial sales tax refund program for visitors to Ontario for commercial accommodation.

Tourism Ontario had pointed out that a permanent extension would cost only $750,000 in lost revenue and generate 100,000 additional room-night rentals per year. The government would not even go this far, opting to spend less than $560,000 for the temporary extension. The industry could receive no better indication of where it stands in the government's list of priorities.

While numerous types of incentives could have been provided to the industry, one of the simplest and most sensible would have been to eliminate the provincial gallonage fees for licensed establishments. The fees are 12 per cent for liquor and wine and 12 cents per hectolitre for beer. No other province charges these fees. Even the Liquor Control Board of Ontario recognizes the futility of providing a five per cent discount on purchases by licensed establishments and then slapping on a 12 per cent gallonage charge.

Removing this tax would cost about $29 million, but by allowing establishments to lower their prices more in line with those south of the border, the action might well lead to increased tourism and increased tax revenues. Lower prices at licensed establishments could lead to a shift in the percentage of all beverage sales occurring at such establishments. Since licensed sales provide far greater provincial sales tax revenues than home consumption and generate employment, total government revenues might well increase from such a move.

I will not talk about the obscene taxes the Treasurer levies on alcohol, beer and wine in this province. We can have that debate at another time. There is no doubt that they are having an adverse effect on the hospitality industry in Ontario.

There can be little doubt that small business is the engine of employment growth in our present economy. Every study that has looked at this issue has concluded that small business has accounted for nearly 100 per cent of the job creation that has occurred in the recent past and that the outlook for the future is the same. Providing a conducive environment for small business growth should be an essential budgetary strategy.

The major assistance for small business in the past two budgets has been the corporate tax holiday. Originally instituted for two taxation years, it was extended for a third last year. This means some businesses will use up their eligibility this tax year while others have one year remaining.

The current budget stated that the tax holiday will end on schedule. The budget did provide for a tax holiday for newly incorporated firms during the first three years of operation. This is a response to a direct request from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. Moreover, there is by no means unanimous agreement in the small business community that this was the best tack to take. To extend the holiday for a further year would cost at least $250 million and might well have had mixed results.

However, in each year the exemption has applied, it has been of no benefit to the more than half of all the small firms which did not show a profit and therefore did not pay taxes. Many of these firms did not survive the recession. For those that did, a strong argument can be made that having come through a rocky, profitless period, they deserve the same break offered those small businesses which did make money in the last few years.

Given this rationale, we would propose an extension of the small business tax holiday for one additional year, applicable only to those businesses operating for at least two years that have not been able to utilize the exemption. Such a modified continuation of the program would cost only a fraction of the current initiative. While it is impossible to estimate accurately, our best guess is that the cost might be about $40 million this year. A slightly larger amount would be required in the next fiscal year.

This is an acceptable price to pay to reward and stimulate those small firms that have struggled to grow and maintain employment during the economic downturn.

It is not clear whether the government will parallel the federal government's actions in abolishing the $1-million upper limit on retained earnings for firms eligible for the small business tax rate. Certainly, we would urge it to do so.

In a similar vein, the $500,000 export sale requirement for participation in the export success fund should have been abolished so that even newly exporting businesses could utilize the fund. It was unfortunate that this was not done, for the government has long mentioned that encouraging small firms to begin exporting should be an important goal.

It is also worth noting that the budget made no mention of increased funds for the export success fund as promised in the throne speech. Is this to become another of the empty promises from the

throne, like freedom of information and sunset legislation?

While the Treasurer claimed to be maintaining his commitment to the small business development corporations, in fact he cut their funding from $30 million last year to $25 million this year. On that topic I might ask whether the Treasurer intends to table the results of the small business development bond review, which I understand was completed just recently this spring.

Northern Ontario is obviously a very important part of this province with unique concerns. After years of benign neglect by this government, it deserves special consideration in this budget. It did not get it. The budget did little more than assign a new $3.3-million-per-year program for economic development in the north, a pittance considering the hardships the region has undergone in recent years. As somebody put it to me, the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) spills more than that as he is travelling between Hudson and Minaki Lodge.

Moreover, this new plan does little more than replace the assistance previously provided under the joint federal-provincial northern Ontario rural development agreement, which expired on March 31, an agreement I understand the feds were prepared to extend but this government was loath to, or refused to, extend because the feds were insisting they get a little credit for the money they pumped into northern Ontario through this agreement.

This government, which has been using federal grants, transfer payments and programs and pretending it was all Ontario money, has refused to share any of the credit with the federal government across northern Ontario. It is upset that people in the north have now realized it is the Liberal Party that is helping them out and that they are turning to the Liberal Party; so it is all going to be back in the hands of the Minister of Northern Affairs, but NORDA, unfortunately, will not proceed. I think that is a shame and it is callous on the part of the government to take that approach to northern Ontario.

In the past year the government has finally recognized the added costs associated with life in many northern communities. The task force report on living costs in the remote northern Ontario communities substantiated the claims that northerners have been making for years.

But the problems are not only in the remote communities. Even those living in larger northern centres pay dearly for many products relative to their friends in southern Ontario. For instance, as of March 1, 1984, two per cent milk costs $2.99 or less for four litres in most of southern Ontario but $4.10 in Sioux Lookout, $4.49 in Kirkland Lake, $4.32 in Rainy River and $4.67 in Wawa, a difference in some cases of up to $2 for four litres.

This very government in 1971 found within its heart and within that reservoir of compassion the Treasurer is so overflowing with that it could equalize the cost of a case of beer across Ontario, but it cannot find some way to equalize the cost of a litre of milk as between northern and southern Ontario.

At the same time, there is a dire need for direct stimulation to promote growth and job creation in the north. With the mining and forestry industries among the worst affected by the world recession and with tourism reeling as a result of government tax and price increases, recovery has been slow to nonexistent in many northern communities.

Therefore, both to offset the high living costs of the north and to pump more money into the depressed economy, we believe a northern Ontario tax credit is justified. A credit of $100 per taxpayer would cost about $49 million. While the amount is not excessive, it might well be better to provide a larger credit to those with lower incomes than to provide a universal grant. Some northerners -- for instance, doctors in remote areas or highly paid executives sent north by their companies -- are already being paid bonuses for working in these areas; it would be redundant to pay these people again for additional costs for which they are already being well reimbursed.

4:10 p.m.

Thus, weighing the tax credit against taxable income, as is now done with the sales tax credit, would allow the same amount of money to be spread around the north to those who need it most. A larger maximum, in the order of $180, would then be available to low- and middle-income earners, with some, of course, receiving only part of the credit while high-income earners would receive little or no credit.

I do not have to tell most of my colleagues about the high cost of such things as fuel oil and gasoline, or that while we pay the same Ontario heath insurance plan premiums, we still have to pay our travel costs to go to centres to get treatment and so on.

There is also a need for the province to devote attention to the state of its development programs in the north. We have shown in the past that northern Ontario, along with eastern Ontario, has been shortchanged in assistance received from the Ontario development corporations. There was no mention in the budget that any steps would be taken to correct this problem.

Lest the Treasurer think I never give him any credit for anything he does, let me commend the decision to allocate a specified portion of small business development corporation funds to the north and east. Moreover, he should be applying a similar approach to ODC assistance, which is of much greater magnitude.

Over the past few years, society has come to the realization that women will never enjoy full status until governments recognize and deal with the special problems confronting them. Unfortunately, while the rhetoric used by the Ontario government has changed with the times, there have been few substantial actions to accompany these words.

The clearest indication of the attitude of the Davis administration towards the disadvantaged majority is the tax imposed in the 1982 budget on women. By cynically enacting a seven per cent sales tax on feminine hygiene products, and then defending his actions on the grounds that the tax was no more inequitable than taxing shaving creams, the then Treasurer demonstrated the reality of the Tory attitude towards women.

The 1984 budget was the first opportunity for the new Treasurer to correct his predecessor's error. The elimination of the retail sales tax on feminine hygiene products would have been the most significant symbolic act the Treasurer could have taken in his budget. It would not have cost an exorbitant amount. We estimate the revenue loss to be less than $6 million. Surely this is not an unreasonable price to set on an important symbol of equality between the sexes, but apparently it was too much for the Treasurer.

A second major area of concern to women with which the province must deal relates to day care. A great many couples cannot afford the $4,000 per year that unsubsidized day care generally costs. In the vast majority of cases it is the mother who is forced to remain out of the work force to provide in-home care. As a result, the participation rate of women in the labour force is no longer growing significantly and the large gap in average wages between men and women shows little sign of narrowing.

The situation is even more serious for single mothers. When subsidized day care is not available and the opportunity to work is therefore strictly limited, social assistance is all too often the only alternative. Accessible day care is vital to free these women to join fully in Ontario's economic life.

We welcome the 1,500 additional spaces the government has pledged to provide, but across the province 3,000 spaces are needed to alleviate the day care crisis. The total cost would be about $10 million, approximately the same amount as the tax on women has earned since 1982. What better way could there be to return the funds that were unjustly taken from women than to recycle them into such programs?

In the important agricultural sector, the budget initiatives fall far short of what was needed and what was promised. The 16 per cent increase in financial assistance promised for the agricultural industry is purely illusionary. The agricultural budgetary expenditures will remain at one per cent of the total budgetary expenditures. The budget for the ministry will do little more than approach the levels of expenditures of two years ago.

While the government intends to spend $335 million on the whole agricultural industry compared to $330 million in 1982-83, it will collect $583 million from the tobacco tax alone. That is the commitment of this government to agriculture.

Contrary to the statements of the Treasurer, the new Ontario budget offers no assurance to Ontario farmers that the recession is over for them. There is little evidence that the immediate critical requirements of this vital sector of the economy are being given any serious consideration by the government. The additional funds allotted for 1984 will go for programs previously announced and committed before the release of the budget, such as the farm tax reduction program, the beginning farmers program and the red meat initiative. No new programs have been announced to assist the farmers for the year 1983, in which they were very hard hit.

The one area that requires immediate financial assistance, namely, the red meat industry, continues to be neglected. In fact, there is no financial commitment to a tripartite stabilization plan the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) has claimed would be introduced this summer and which he has held up as a solution to farmers' financial problems for the last two years. I understand from my colleague that Saskatchewan has recently announced a program to assist its farmers.

This budget will do nothing to help farmers begin to pay back the huge debts they have accumulated over the last few years. Many proposals have been made by farm organizations to address these problems which have been totally ignored by the Treasurer. The prebudget consultative process with these groups was little more than a charade. The comments of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture with respect to the so-called substantive assistance has been: "The provincial budget blatantly ignores the immediate, critical needs of the farm sector.... This budget has no news as far as agriculture is concerned."

Our party has provided numerous proposals for the ways in which additional funds should be channelled into agriculture. There is a need for an immediate increase in funds for tile drainage loans to meet all the needs of Ontario farmers. At the same time, the maximum loan assistance should be increased to cover 75 per cent of the drainage work as provided for by the legislation. Priority should be given to upgrading farm land in northern and eastern Ontario.

One of the major requirements, of course, is for an emergency financial assistance program for our red meat industry which would allow our producers to stay in production until a tripartite stabilization program is introduced. The Ontario farm adjustment assistance program is also in need of amendment. Since only a small portion of the funds originally allocated to the program has been spent, interest rates under OFAAP should be subsidized down to eight per cent from the current 12 per cent.

The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Brandt) was the biggest loser in this year's budget. For the second consecutive year, the government has reduced his ministry's budget. The estimate for the Ministry of the Environment for 1984-85 is $312 million, down $19 million or 5.7 per cent. It was cut by $10 million in 1983-84 from $341 million in 1982-83.

The message is clear. The minister and the Treasurer have agreed that environmental protection has a low priority in terms of government spending. With beaches polluted, drinking water threatened, dumps leaking and acid rain killing our lakes and forests, the response of this government is to cut the Environment budget.

These problems must be addressed, and an emasculated ministry cannot do it. I am not saying we need to simply throw money at the problems, but moderate expenditure could yield desirable results.

For instance, the government should introduce an incentive program to reduce toxic industrial wastes. The Ontario Waste Management Corp. has already outlined a program to help industry reuse, recycle and generally reduce wastes. Understanding that the establishment of a provincial waste treatment facility is still several years away, the reduction process should begin now. It will save Ontario twice the funds in the future from the damage that will accrue.

The cost of the incentive program should be about $5 million to $10 million a year over five years initially. This money should generate twice that amount from industry for pollution control programs. Eventually the program could pay for itself with the money industries would save from recycling, selling and reducing the wastes they generate.

Another example would be the expansion of the Niagara Falls activated carbon filtration water treatment experiment. Committing another $5 million to institute a meaningful filtration program for neutralizing and removing chemicals in drinking water would obviously be of benefit to all Ontarians.

Once again we have something about youth. When my colleagues and I announced our youth employment proposals last October, I hoped and stated that the government would steal them. I am honestly glad it has. We believe in what we proposed, and we know our solutions can help many needy young Ontarians.

4:20 p.m.

The budget measures for youth mark a complete turnabout for the Treasurer. Last fall he derided our program; now he has accepted it whole hog. Last fall he refused our request for more money for the Ontario career action program; now he has upgraded OCAP. Last fall he proclaimed the young Ontario career program as the solution to all our needs; now the program has been cancelled after it failed, just as we said it would.

What is disturbing, however, is that we have a general focus on hard-core disadvantaged youth, as we suggested, and a plethora of program names but very little else. As suggested earlier today, the whole budget has created one job, that of youth commissioner; and, as I understand it, he already had a job to start with.

The funding for most of the programs has not been established, nor in many cases have the eligibility criteria been established. We do not know, for instance, on what basis participants for the part-time employment program for students will be selected. This program could conceivably affect tens of thousands of young people, yet we have no idea how restricted or open it will be.

There is also no information available on timing. We got some information in the Treasurer's comments during the question period this afternoon, but it is quite obvious that by the time most of these programs, recycled as most of them are, are up and running, we will be into the fall of this year or into the winter, when it is going to be extremely difficult to provide any jobs.

On the funding issue, some $450 million is promised over three years. It is slightly more this year than in the next two; but $160 million to $180 million, the figures the Treasurer often mentions, will be less than $42 million over scheduled expenses last year, not the $60 million the Treasurer claims. That latter figure is derived only if compared with the actual expenditures, which include $20 million in underspending resulting from government screwups. This money should be added to this year's allocation but used to try to inflate the apparent size of the increase.

The Treasurer talked about compassion. One of the things he and his colleagues have heard me talk about is the whole matter of providing more assistance to the handicapped for such things as wheelchairs and a system of prosthetic devices, to allow them to have the tools and the essentials to go out and participate in the life of Ontario, whether it be just the social life or the economic life. As it is, for those over 18 and 19 years of age, if they need these devices, they have to go and literally beg from the municipalities to get them, whether it be a wheelchair, an artificial arm or an artificial leg.

It always confused me that we would pay a doctor under the Ontario health insurance plan to cut somebody's leg off, but we would not pay under OHIP to have that artificial limb replaced so the person could get back into the life of Ontario. Where is that in this budget? Where is that from the former Minister of Health who found it in his heart and in his compassion to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the doctors by way of increase a few years ago but cannot find it within that bellyful of compassion which we heard about on Tuesday to help these people?

I also want to talk about housing. I want to state, first of all, that is going to badly affect the Treasurer's credibility. He is talking about housing starts being up by 4,000 this year. Everybody in the industry thinks he has lost his marbles; housing starts are going to be down. The whole budget was obviously based on an interest rate of about 10 per cent, but it has gone up by two percentage points since the Treasurer drafted this budget. Housing starts are going to be down.

There was an area where the Treasurer could have done something. Instead he says, "We are going to have 3,200 new units across the province," when in Toronto alone there is a waiting list of more than 6,000. In my own riding, there are something like 45 people in one small town waiting to get into socially assisted housing. These are people who are on small pensions or widows who cannot work. What about the young people who have no housing, the young single people, the same ones who are unemployed and cannot get a job? Where are they to live?

We could have solved a number of our economic and social problems by putting in $100 million or $150 million, as we suggested a year or two ago, for socially assisted housing in Ontario. That would have created a few thousand jobs and satisfied the basic need for shelter of the people of the province. There is no stimulation and no suggestion that this was a priority for this government.

There is no need more fundamental than the need for decent, affordable housing. It is a responsibility of government to ensure that this kind of accommodation is available. The budget has failed to address the critical needs of the approximately 18,000 families and 6,000 senior citizens on Ontario Housing Corp. waiting lists. The Ontario government abandoned this responsibility when it strangled new OHC construction in 1976. It is time for the province to set the construction of new apartments as a priority.

Since many OHC projects have serious social problems, we feel the most benefit would be derived if Ontario would assist the federal government in funding more municipal nonprofit housing. An expenditure of $18 million would provide an extra 360 units, enabling Toronto and Ottawa to make up for some of this year's shortfall resulting from political wrangling between the province and the federal government.

In our view, only some of the units should house the most needy, while shallow subsidies should ensure some spaces for the working poor and a portion of units should remain at market rent to ensure a broad mix of tenants and thus a more stable and amicable environment.

Instead, the budget merely regurgitates an announcement made last August by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett). Although the minister indicated his willingness at that time to raise his cap on the percentage of social housing units that could be rent-geared-to-income from 25 per cent to 35 per cent, with an additional five per cent for disabled people, he also placed some rather onerous obstacles in the way of municipalities and co-ops interested in pursuing this matter.

The minister and the Treasurer have not yet provided the supposedly stellar details of this program, but a few troublesome aspects have already emerged. First, let us recall that the minister's past policy has been that no more than 25 per cent of units in social housing projects could be rent-geared-to-income. This policy was amended in August 1983, when the minister announced he would allow this cap to be increased to 35 per cent, plus an additional five per cent in some cases for disabled people. This increase was not implemented, because he has attached strings that are of concern to municipalities and he has refused to meet or to negotiate with municipal officials.

The bulk of the 3,200 units announced in the budget are apparently related to this announcement of last August. Some of these units will also be spent on rent supplement in the private sector. The 3,200 units will be provided over five years; so an average of only 640 units per year will be provided. That is shameful.

The minister's staff is unwilling or unable to tell us the base from which the 640 units is to be increased. We have also been denied information on how many of the units will go to the private sector, which has other major and troublesome implications. The only thing that is certain is that no significant numbers have been added and that this government's commitment to social housing is as unsatisfactory now as it has been for the past eight years.

Property taxation exemptions announced in the budget for seniors and the elderly, we believe, are worthy programs to pursue. It is interesting that they will not cost the Treasurer anything at all.

4:30 p.m.

I want to suggest some other initiatives a Liberal Party would have taken in this budget. I have already talked about, and it has been our policy for some time to provide, prosthetic and assistive devices, wheelchairs, etc., for the handicapped. We cannot understand why this government has not moved in that direction. We also talked about the northern Ontario tax credit, which would give the people in northern Ontario who have these higher costs some kind of parity in their living costs with the rest of Ontario.

I would like to spend more time talking about product