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April 1, 2009

39th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2009-Apr-01 (PDF)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L'ONTARIO

Wednesday 1 April 2009 Mercredi 1 er avril 2009

ORDERS OF THE DAY

GREATER TORONTO

AND HAMILTON AREA

TRANSIT IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 SUR L'AMÉNAGEMENT

DU RÉSEAU DE TRANSPORT EN COMMUN

DE LA RÉGION DU GRAND TORONTO

ET DE HAMILTON

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE

TAXATION

JOB CREATION

TAXATION

ONTARIO ECONOMY

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

WASTE DIVERSION

CULTURAL FUNDING

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY

WORKERS' COMPENSATION

ASSISTANCE TO THE DISABLED

ASSISTANCE TO THE DISABLED

NUCLEAR ENERGY

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

TAXATION

PARLEMENT JEUNESSE FRANCOPHONE

DE L'ONTARIO

TAXATION

APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING

TAXATION

ONTARIO BUDGET

JACK BOUTHILLIER

PARKINSON'S DISEASE

MURRAY GAUNT

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE

ON ESTIMATES

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

MOTOR VEHICLE DEALERS

AMENDMENT ACT

(DISCLOSURE OF LEMONS), 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR LE COMMERCE

DES VÉHICULES AUTOMOBILES

(DIVULGATION DE RENSEIGNEMENTS

CONCERNANT LES VÉHICULES

DE PIÈTRE QUALITÉ)

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS

AMENDMENT ACT

(PROTECTION FOR ARTISTS), 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LES NORMES D'EMPLOI

(PROTECTION DES ARTISTES)

COMMUNITY LIVING DAY /

JOURNÉE DE L'INTÉGRATION COMMUNAUTAIRE

COMMUNITY LIVING DAY

COMMUNITY LIVING DAY

PETITIONS

HOSPITAL FUNDING

CHILD CARE

CHILD CUSTODY

CEMETERIES

CHILD CARE

CEMETERIES

ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS

LUPUS

ROAD SAFETY

CHILD CUSTODY

HOSPITAL FUNDING

CEMETERIES

CHILD CARE

OPPOSITION DAY

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

The House met at 0900.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Good morning. Please remain standing for the Lord's Prayer, followed by the Hindu prayer.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

GREATER TORONTO

AND HAMILTON AREA

TRANSIT IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 SUR L'AMÉNAGEMENT

DU RÉSEAU DE TRANSPORT EN COMMUN

DE LA RÉGION DU GRAND TORONTO

ET DE HAMILTON

Resuming the debate adjourned on March 31, 2009, on the motion for second reading of Bill 163,

An Act to amend the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority Act, 2006 / Projet de loi 163, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2006 sur la Régie des transports du grand Toronto.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Further debate?

Mr. John O'Toole: It's a real pleasure to be here this morning. I wish I had a couple of extra minutes before I get started, but anyway, Bill 163 is dealing with transit in Ontario, and I have a couple of questions that I want to raise on it. I'm looking through my notes first to see if I can find those questions. They seem to be rushing this bill, or at least they're rushing me on this bill. I'm wondering about that. I'm wondering why they're actually rushing the bill, because an important issue in public policy is to have a properly designed, properly consulted plan for an ambitious, integrated transit system in the province of Ontario.

I'm the new critic, and that's why I'm in a bit of a rush here, because this morning I've been asked to speak for as much time as I can justify, which is another issue, on a bill that our critic, Frank Klees, extensively–he responded to the minister on the date of introduction, which was March 30, and now we're at April 1. It's almost like April Fool's Day in terms of, why is this bill being rushed? We'll refer to some of the things that Mr. Klees said, because I should be clear now: Mr. Klees is a declared candidate in the leadership for the Conservative Party, and I wish him well. He's a very well researched, hard-working intelligent, capable, competent person, as am I.

Interjections.

Mr. John O'Toole: I'm saying that because there are probably going to be four people who run, and those four people will probably be Tim Hudak, as announced, Randy Hillier, who's out travelling, and of course, more recently, Frank Klees.

Interjection.

Mr. John O'Toole: This ties into the bill, Mr. Levac. It does tie into the bill.

I'm hoping that Durham has a voice, because the transit system in Durham, the infrastructure there is very fragile and it needs to be improved. That's how this ties in, and we need a strong voice. I had been asked to run for leader, but because I'm over 65, some people think I should retire.

Mr. Dave Levac: No.

Mr. John O'Toole: No, that's a good idea. So I've refused to retire, but I am going to support that we need a strong voice for Durham, and that could easily be Wayne Arthurs, for that matter, because he's quite a good member, but he's in the wrong party. But I would say it could be Christine Elliott or Jerry Ouellette. We're going to wait on the decision on that.

But all humour aside, this is an important bill, and I think it's important for a couple of reasons. I did, in the brief time I had yesterday to respond in a couple of minutes, outline a couple of things. Essentially, it does two things. The first thing it does is change absolutely and completely the governance of Metrolinx or the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority. The governance prior to that was, I believe, 11 members. I believe there was a representative from each of the regional municipalities of York, Durham, Halton and Peel.

That's four members, and I believe Hamilton had a representative there; I'm not sure how that worked. But the city of Toronto I believe had five members, which would be sort of like David Miller and Adam Giambrone and the big shooters there. Then the chair and the vice-chair were appointed by order in council, by Minister Bradley. Obviously representatives on behalf of the Minister of Transportation and the ministry and the McGuinty government, they were given their marching orders and they went to the board meetings and basically did what the minister wanted, I'm pretty sure.

Rob MacIsaac was the full-time chair and I think worked pretty hard. In fact, I met with him quite a few times when I was critic. They had done a couple of consultation papers. I'll refer to those papers once I get all my notes. I've had a bit of a short time getting prepared here, but I have read the report. We get a lot of reports here, as all members do, and these reports are often an interesting read on the weekend as you're visiting with friends. This report here is called The Big Move. This is a big report, and it's the last report by Metrolinx under the direction of Rob MacIsaac.

Rob MacIsaac has not moved on; he's not operating in a full-time capacity now. I think he's the new president of Conestoga College, or one of the colleges, I believe.

Mr. Ted Arnott: Mohawk College.

Mr. John O'Toole: Mohawk. Pardon me. Mr. Arnott can tell me all these things. He's actually from Wellington—Halton Hills. Thanks for that.

The work he did here and in this report—this is quite an ambitious report. The report was recent, November 2008—at least just before December 2008. So it's a very current report. In fact it's the big plan for transit. I had some problems with it. The plan has been in the works for some time. The plan was to build 1,200 kilometres of rapid transit, more than triple what exists now, so that over 80% of the residents in the region will live within two kilometres of rapid transit, and with an emphasis on areas with large populations of seniors and low-income individuals that rely on transit to get around daily.

Good for the environment, good for the citizenry. Who's got a problem with that? I just want to say this for sure: There is a plan to the extent that MacIsaac and the Metrolinx group have worked on it, and they worked on it. Respectfully, this is the deal: The representatives I described, whether it's Bill Fisch from York region or Gary Carr from Halton or Joyce Savoline, who used to be the chair, so she was probably on it for a while—she's a member here now and a very strong member—or Roger Anderson from the region of Durham, along with the David Miller and the other people—Mr.

Smith was on GO Transit and I think he was on there as well—did a lot of work.

"The Big Move is about values" as much about the environment as it is about having a transit plan. They worked "with over 100 priority actions and supporting policies. It moves the yardsticks in a wide range of transportation areas. Benefits will be widespread. It will help people get to the places they need to go more quickly, allowing them to spend more time on what is really important. Average commute times will decrease." This would be good, because I commute from Durham region, generally on a daily basis. It's about an hour and 10 minutes.

That's once you're on the train and once you get off the train, and then you have to take the subway from Union Station up to here. I generally walk. This morning I'm actually quite heated up because of this speech, of course, but more importantly, because it's a long walk and I had a topcoat on, and it's a little bit warm.

But transit affects all our lives. We would not want to be perceived as opposed. This is the key message on behalf of our leader, Bob Runciman, and other leaders who may emerge in the next few months.

"More residents will be able to access jobs that were once inconvenient to reach by transit, while integrated fares and leading edge information systems"—here's the real crux of the problem. We've just started to get into the detail here. Why did they do this? What is the rush? This remains as a prevailing question, the motive; always look to the motive. Here's my feeling of it: They've tried relentlessly, in open meetings and in closed meetings under Metrolinx, working with the power brokers at the time, and they have been unable to come up with the smart card. Now, the smart card is what this is all about.

This may not seem very important to the members here, who aren't all listening—I think it's disappointing that they are not listening—but they can get a copy of Hansard, so that reassures me. The smart card will allow them to do the administration functions which I'll describe briefly here.

When you get on the GO train—and the young people, the pages, are all listening attentively, and they'll likely use transit more reliably and predictably than people from my generation because it's the new way of getting around. I commend you for that. When you get on the train or the bus now, whatever it is, you either present a ticket or a token of some sort. GO Transit has its own system and you usually buy a one-way ticket, a two-way ticket, a weekly pass or a monthly pass. I think a 10-trip ticket is about $90. Not round trips; that would be five trips in and five trips out.

That's basically what I buy each week. It's very important. This part here may be boring but it's important: If I have to get off GO Transit and get onto Durham transit or onto the TTC, I need another ticket—or another person making $100,000 a year, according to the $100,000 list this morning—to get a ticket. Do you understand?

What the smart card would do is it would be very much like a credit card. They have them in England. I have a daughter who lives in London, England, and they use the train all the time there. I see the Minister of Transportation is here; I'm very pleased about that. I'm happy he's here because he's actually a fairly decent minister and I know he's working and pushing forward; I question why he's in such a rush here, though. But I'm going to get back on track.

That card is the whole issue here, because now if you have people wanting a seamless transit system from Halton to Durham, and all of the kilometres of rail and bus links in between all have to be paid for and the bus drivers need to be paid, the money has to flow with the people who are using the system. To do that with tickets and transfers and all that stuff is just a bunch of clerks in an office fooling around with paperwork. It's completely redundant, not doable. You'd spend more money trying to transfer the money between the different transit authorities than you'd actually be making.

That's what this whole bill is about, and I would ask the minister to confirm or deny, but that's the barrier. TTC—Toronto Transit or Giambrone—they want to lead the pack. They have the largest transit system in Canada, I understand that, but they have to be part of the solution as well. While at the same time respecting their existing and current infrastructure, they've to get off their duff and start to implement a smart card.

The smart card could be something as simple as like inside a BlackBerry or technology—and you kids will get this—inside these are what they call a SIM card. A SIM could be used, and is today in some transit systems; you just walk through the stile and it automatically bills you. It's like the 407 highway. You have a transponder and it actually bills you; that's how it's done. It's technology. It's not somebody sitting at a wicket taking tickets—that's finished. When you look at the operating costs, the biggest problem with transit is operating costs.

With all due respect, GO Transit operates probably more efficiently than almost any transit system that I've heard of. I think about 80% of the revenue comes from the fare box, which is very good; it's very high. And Vancouver's quite good, but it's not as high as GO Transit. Those jurisdictions I think are what we need to look at and work with. There are systems today in Britain—I talked about London earlier. They have a card that's called the Oyster card. You just pay ahead of time and it just reduces how much is on your card. It's like a cellphone call card.

You put in the card and it's been preloaded with so much value. They've got to move on with the system of dealing with the billing and transfer of revenue from the transit system on an integrated transit system.

We're supportive of the objective. We're probably supportive of the new governance model. I say "probably" because I'm going to raise my first concern. Mr. Watson's not here, but Mr. Bradley is. I'm not pointing it out to be mean, but I'm saying that first notice is this: There is a legislative requirement to consult with the municipalities. I'm wondering, was the memorandum of understanding, the MOU, exercised in this regard? Everything I read in the media is that David Miller and those people were taken aback. They were quite surprised that there was no consultation.

This is a bit of a storm cloud approaching here on the horizon. It's not a good thing when you start ramming things down people's throat.

With the memorandum of understanding there's no representation on this new board. If you read this report, the Big Move, and I have read it—I was the critic, as I said, so I do like to read things like this that are boring. The reason I say that—

Interjection.

Mr. John O'Toole: No, you should try to keep up. I know the minister has been briefed on it several times, so he could probably help me here today. It's not likely he will but he could. Because this is the big plan right here. It's been worked out by the board and they were members of the board. I think they agreed on a vision here.

This is the second part; it has a lot to do with the fare card. How are we going to pay for it? I think right now there has been money moved out under this, not directly under the current plan, but Ontario Move 2020 committed $11.5 billion to begin the implementation of the Big Move and to get shovels in the ground. Often this money is federal, provincial and municipal money. But this plan here is $50 billion. It calls for a commitment of $5 billion a year, I believe—the minister can shake his head yes or no—for the next 10 years. That's kind of what they asked for—something in that range, anyway. So it's a fairly large commitment.

Here's the other part: I'm not happy when governments of whatever stripe are in the cabinet signing the paper with the gold pen there. That's very important, these cabinet minutes where they commit to doing these things in law, and the big seal and all those things are used. Here is the key: I want this to be sure to have government input or intervention—not to stop it but right now here is the key: We're going into a bit of a slowdown in the economy; that might be an understatement, but I'd like to understate it a bit. The economy isn't in its best condition right now.

If the government has to make choices between the poverty agenda or persons in long-term care and in need of more support—our seniors, our vulnerable—or high municipal taxes, the province has to have the flexibility, at the end of the day, to intervene, make decisions and either support or change its priorities.

I think there will be general agreement—I'm looking at Mr. Sterling, the most senior member here, and Mr. Bradley, and I would say they've been through times where it's tough and you've got to go in; governments make difficult decisions in difficult times. We see Barack Obama making tough decisions about how much he is going to spend. Those aren't always good decisions too. Governments have to sometimes say no to certain commitments.

We saw Premier McGuinty say that the other day. He sort of had a commitment that he was going to do the minimum wage thing, and then he started to—I give him credit for having a compassionate nature and thinking about the poor taxpayer paying for this thing. He said, "You know, I might not do that." But he was quickly whipped into shape. I think Dwight Duncan just about had a heart attack when he said it. Here he was, out pushing the budget, and he's waffling on major principles; he's flip-flopping or whatever they say. I say it in positive terms: I think he was struck by the circumstance of the economy going downhill and him being responsible.

This public policy on minimum wage: Let's think about that for a minute. The government makes these rules and it doesn't cost them a nickel. They sound like they're the heroes. It's the little variety store guy or woman who's paying it, not the government. They make the law; they don't spend the money, but they look like the hero. It's ridiculous. The little guy in the variety store, the family next to where my constituency office is—I often think of Paul and his wife, and they have a son. They work seven days a week; they have no one else but the family to run the store. It's tragic. Talk about employment standards and minimum wage. They'd be lucky to get a wage.

They're forcing them to pay. If they hired someone, what's going to happen? I've been told this by some of the leaders in my community who own the McDonalds and the Tim Hortons. They're the people on the hospital boards and the community living boards; they're the people who are community builders. Don't ever kid yourself: These are the people who are ponying up the money for the new hospital, park or recreation centre. You know that yourself, Mr. Speaker; you've been doing this for a long time—some would say too long, but that's another issue; that's me I'm talking about.

The issue here is that the minimum wage is an example. How the minimum wage and the poverty agenda tie in is this: We are now transforming transit; we see on St. Clair and other streets in Toronto where the streets are being allocated to transit. I think the best way to encourage people to use transit is to not work on improving gridlock. People won't have any choice; they're going to be stuck in traffic so they'll eventually say, "Reluctantly, I'll get on that train or bus or subway" or whatever it is. That's what they're doing; they're basically making it so that you can't get around. We've heard that in Toronto.

We now have bike lanes on Wellesley. It's quite interesting coming come across Wellesley. It used to be two lanes in each direction, roughly, or portions of it. Often they'd have no parking in rush times so that there would be two lanes of traffic. Now they've got the bike lane. It was quite interesting during the winter. The bike lanes were full of snow. I don't think there are going to be many people riding bikes. I don't think young professional women or young professional men with $800 Boss suits on are going to be riding their bikes. I think it's a good idea, maybe, in California.

Ride your bike if possible; get chains for it or whatever. Now Wellesley is so congested because of the bike lanes—there's nobody in them, by the way; not this morning, because it's raining, or icy or snowing. You might be able to ride a bike probably half of the year. But you've got to have reliable transit too. I think what they're doing is making it so congested that you're going to have to take the bus.

If we follow the model of large cities—one of them is London; I've been there quite a bit, because I have a daughter who lives there and teaches high school there. They have a congestion charge. If you're coming in from Kent—they live in Sevenoaks, which is outside London, and they take the train. But they have driven in, because when they pick people up at the airport and stuff like that, they drive, and they pay a congestion charge. It sort of operates like the 407. As soon as you go in the city—you get a bill the next morning. I think it's about £20; £20 is like $40. It's expensive, so you don't take your car unless you really have to.

That's what is going to happen here, I think. The minister would be very courageous if he does it, because if they implement that, that would be like implementing the HST. There will be a lot of people against it, even though it's a good idea.

Do you understand? When you do these difficult things—this is when you have to admire leadership that makes difficult decisions, because that's basically why you're elected. Anyone can say yes. Hey, you could send some of the pages in to do that. To say no is the job; that's the job. I've learned, after 25 years of being elected, that it's a difficult decision, which relates back to this: This is the plan—I refer it to people here—it's called The Big Move. It's a big report, and it's called The Big Move. That report lays out a framework and a network of transit links.

How does it relate to John O'Toole and the riding of Durham? This is really where I want to get to the point. I am just amazed that there's nothing in here for us. We're 600,000 people in Durham. There are big parking lots. I've got a plan here. I've met with Smith and MacIsaac and I've told them, I've told the chair of the region of Durham, and now I'm telling the minister: I support the plan and I want to be part of it in a completely non-partisan way. Extend the GO train to Cobourg on the south side of the 401. And all the nodes—this isn't stuff I'm making up. This is the way it works.

I took geography in university, and the course I took was urban geography and urban planning. Transit only works when you have density. You have to have density; you have to have people on and off the buses, and density. Europe was developed—the theory was called the central place theory. It's called the Christaller central place theory; that's the academic quote for the book, and that's what it is called. It's built in concentric circles, with dense living.

There is the Places to Grow document, which is a good document by the government. It started under our government, of course, under the ministry. The ministry people lead all this stuff, anyway. Who are we kidding? We just get in the way every four years. Here's the deal, though. The Places to Grow document talks about—the term they use is "intensification," which is code language for "everybody living in a condo." That's what it really means. Individual homes, single residences—all finished. The future is that everybody is going to be living in stacks, in piles, called condos. And transit works good then.

Am I being humorous? No. If you look at the world today, the globe itself, the physical globe—this is all related. The physical globe is this size, and it's not changing. Okay? Well, it is changing, because we're polluting it, destroying it, defacing it, mining it. It's really only this big, but the population is growing, so there's less land and more people. The population in China, I think, is 1.5 billion people. One in every five people is from China or is Chinese. So it's getting bigger, and the deserts are expanding and things like that, so there's going to be more people on less land.

How are we going to accommodate them for food and water, clean air and quality of life? They're all going to live in condos, basically. Yes, they're all going to live in stacks. I'm over 65, so it won't be me, but it will be you. How do we deal with this? You're going to have to have a transit system. It doesn't matter what party you belong to.

The population in my riding of Durham currently is about 600,000 people. Let's put that into relative context here. Newfoundland and Labrador is a beautiful province. You see their advertisements on television now: "Visit Newfoundland and Labrador." Newfoundland and Labrador is about 525,000 people. Nova Scotia is a nice, beautiful province. Peggy's Cove and all that stuff is very nice. It's just under 600,000. So they're all smaller than Durham.

Now, let's put this thing into context, into a relative term that we can understand here. The region of Durham is left out of this plan, basically. We have GO Transit that operates at peak times, that is, morning and evening, and then it runs every hour. In peak times, it runs about every 15 to 20 minutes; in off times, it's every hour or hour and 10 minutes. So if I miss the train, I'm sitting there for an hour. I could be home in an hour and 10 minutes. In non-peak time, my commute time is about an hour and 15 minutes or an hour and 20 minutes, to be fair, each way. That's a long commute, and I commute daily.

Some of you probably commute to come here, but I've been doing this for 13 years now. It seems like 100 years.

The issue I'm trying to raise is the plan here is very expensive. If everything goes according to plan, there are going to be more people. Our region is 600,000, as I said. It's forecast, in the 30-year plan, I think, to be just short of a million people. In Toronto or the GTA, where we are, I think it's three and a half million; it's supposed to go to five million people. So there are going to be twice as many people, basically, in the same space. We're going to have to learn how to share the space, whether it's our streets, our parks, our schools or our infrastructure, i.e., transit. That's very important.

To get this thing to work, the minister has taken the courageous move of saying, "I'm going to take control here." That's basically what he's doing. In fact, he's ramming this thing through. He had the leadoff speech the other day and the response from the opposition today, then it will be all done. They'll have this done before we know it. I hope it's going to hearings. I'm looking for a signal from the ministry. Are there going to be public hearings on this, Minister?

Hon. James J. Bradley: It's up to the House leaders.

Mr. John O'Toole: Yes, the House leaders will decide, I'm sure, but we would hope there would be hearings, because there's always some administrivia that's been overlooked in the drafting of the bill.

I think I've made the point that the key thing here is the governance, which we're supportive of—if you're given the authority, take the responsibility as well.

The other thing is the funding. Now the funding isn't as clear, but there are changes here. This is where you get into the Corporations Act and the other things. If the money flows through non-elected people—these are people who are government appointees. Let's face it, Robert Prichard—he's the former president of the University of Toronto, an impeccable person, not to be criticized in any way, but he's a Liberal; there's no question about it.

Hon. David Caplan: What about Roger Anderson?

Mr. John O'Toole: Roger Anderson is now upset, I'm sure. He's not on the board anymore.

Hon. David Caplan: He's not elected.

Mr. John O'Toole: Mr. Caplan points out that the chair of Durham region isn't elected. That has come up from time to time in my region, but let's leave it alone today.

The other point is, though, that there are issues in this bill that I think need to go to committee to be heard. I'm going to go through a few of them here. I said the new board is going to be 15 members, all appointed by Minister Bradley, and he's specifically going to designate a couple of people. The first chair I believe is going to be Robert Prichard, former president of the University of Toronto, editor and chief of staff at the Toronto Star. I think he got $1 million or $2 million to leave that job, which is good.

I look at the $100,000 list. Holy smokes, some of the public sector—it's just unbelievable. Imagine that: making $2 million a year. What, are they baseball players, or what is it? I don't get it. I don't think any of us on either side get it. Hockey players I can see, because if they quit scoring goals, they're out of a job the next year; they don't get appointed to some board. That's what happens to most of the deputy ministers when they finish here—

Hon. James J. Bradley: Send them to the Senate?

Mr. John O'Toole: The Senate would be good, too, for anyone who had done the appropriate amount of work to be entitled to the job.

Now there are going to be 15 people on the board. Here's the key: This is absolute power and control here by the minister. It's very specific, tightly worded. I guess they want to take control of Metrolinx. It says, "Under the current act, the chair and vice-chair of the corporation's board of directors are designated by the Minister of Transportation and the corporation's chief executive officer is appointed by the corporation." Rob MacIsaac is the chair, so there you go. He's a great fellow too.

"The bill provides that the chair and vice-chair are designated by the Lieutenant Governor in Council on the Minister of Transportation's recommendation." So Minister Bradley interviews a few people, perhaps over lunch or whatever, and eventually they're appointed. They usually go through a pretty serious vetting process.

These are usually outstanding people; there's no question about it. They just have made the wrong choice about which party they support; that's the only problem I have. But in all honesty, they have to appoint competent people. They want to get this right. They want people they can trust and who are competent, so it's the two requirements. "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may redesignate or reappoint the same people when making its first designations of chair...."; in other words, they can be reappointed as well. I read in the media that the new chair, Robert, is going to only be there for a year or so.

"Under the current act, the corporation is divided into divisions...." This is interesting. We're right down into the micro-level issues here in the bill. "The structure of the corporation is amended so that it is no longer required to be divided into divisions." That's probably a good idea for coordination. They have the plan and they've had the technical, the legal, administration and all these different divisions. Now they've got the big plan and they've got to get to work implementing this plan: "The powers and duties allocated to the various divisions in the current act now fall to the corporation as a whole."

Here's another part. This may not seem important, but it's in here for a reason. "The corporation's first stated object, in clause 5(1)(

a) of the current act, is to provide leadership in the co-ordination, planning, financing and development of an integrated" model. This has been done. It's the report called The Big Move. "This is amended"—this is what's happening—"to say that the corporation is also to provide leadership in the implementation of the transportation network. Another amendment to clause 5(1)(

a) is the added requirement that the transportation network support a high quality of life, a sustainable environment and a strong, prosperous and competitive economy." On the last one, the "strong, prosperous and competitive economy"—I think they're failing on that one. It might be a bit too early to talk about it, but hey, on the rest, they're probably doing fairly good.

"The corporation's third stated object, in the unproclaimed clause 5(1)(

c) of the current act, is to be responsible for the operation of the GO Transit system and the provision of other transit services"—this is the key. They're going to integrate GO with Metrolinx. I agree 100%. It should have been done from the beginning. In fact, if I look back to when they implemented this—and I believe Minister Bradley was there. I was the critic and I said to them, "The governance is all screwed up and there's no money." Now they've got the governance fixed. So how can we disagree with it? He probably listened to our critical comments; I would hope that he did, or the ministry people.

"This is enacted again, with changes; the corporation is now to be responsible for the operation of the regional transit system." My concern is the transit systems in the region, whether it's Peel—Hazel McCallion wants something to say. That's her system. Or York, Bill Fisch—that's their system. Viva's got a very good system. In fact, they've got federal money, municipal money, provincial money in it, and it's touted as one of the more progressive systems. I'm not qualified to comment, other than what I read.

And the same in Durham. They're working tirelessly to integrate their system within Durham. At one time, there was a different transit system in Ajax, in Pickering, in Whitby, in Oshawa. Clarington never really had one, nor did Brock, nor did Scugog or Uxbridge, but it was integrated to the extent that GO Transit played sort of a spinal role, if you will. Now they're trying to work in coordination of schedules and stuff like that so they have one transit instead of four or five, and there's been some bloodletting over those integrations within the regions.

But they're going to take over the whole thing and they have no representation on the board? I don't know about this. The only way they're going to be able to get their attention is to wave the cheque in front of them. If they wave that cheque, they'll start saying, "Yeah, we go along with you. Give me the cheque." They'll be chasing Minister Bradley down the street for the money, and I have no doubt that he will have them chase him.

But here's the other thing, the system and prescribed passenger transportation systems in the regional transportation area. It says right here, "to make regulations prescribing passenger transportation systems, whether proposed or existing, for the purpose of this definition, and also specifying that all the assets of a prescribed system be owned by the corporation"—whoa. We're talking about Durham transit buses or York Viva going to be named Metrolinx? That's symbolic. But if those assets then become—they've just expropriated all those assets from those regional transit systems.

The big problem with transit, as I tried to point out earlier, isn't so much the capital; it's the operating. That's the problem. I'm serious. Transit is a big money-sucker for operating. If you operate a bus seven days a week, 24 hours a day, it takes five people.

We saw on the $100,000 list that there are a lot of people in the TTC making $100,000. I don't have my clippings, but I'm sure one of my supportive members in the caucus will give me them. I could pull them out and read them, but I left them with my staff, I guess. All I'm saying is there were about 200 or 300 people who make that kind of money in the transit system. Do you have your clippings, Julia? You don't? You should get them.

I am not trying to be hard on them. It's just very prohibitive when you don't have the density or ridership to provide transit. It sounds good, it feels good, but it isn't good. Do you understand? Toronto, you should have it more of it; that's good. London, Hamilton, Toronto, portions of eastern GTA and the western—Halton—there's an area similar to Durham in terms of density. Ottawa should have good transit. Centres that have population should have good transit systems, and that takes money.

This whole idea of who is going to own the assets and the liabilities becomes important. It becomes very important implementing this to have a smart card. Whatever the name of that card, there has to be a card to do the administrative background transferring of money to support the operating systems. That's critical, and I am supportive of that being the first agenda item that they move forward with, saying, "Adam Giambrone, step aside. Here is the card we're using." They have experts. I met with them, and as I said, the SIM card solution or other solutions are absolutely critical.

I'm going to add one more. This is my second observation for an amendment. I had a private member's bill. The idea was given to me by people from my riding of Durham. I met these people on the GO train, and they said, "Oh, you're John O'Toole. You take the GO train?" I said, "Yeah, I'm no different than you. I'm going to work today, every day, like you, and I take the train when necessary." They got talking a second or third time. Pretty soon it became almost a regular event, and they would ask, "Where were you yesterday?"

Anyway, they said to me one day, "Do you know what it costs?" It was a husband and wife, a nice young couple, too. They said to me, "It costs us about $10,000 a year to take transit." I said, "That's unbelievable." They said, "Well, it's $100 a week." I started to figure it out. It's $100 a week; that's significant coin. Two of them, there's 52 weeks; we'll give them a couple of weeks off. That's $5,000 each. It's more than $5,000. I just started thinking about it. Think of this pressure: $5,000 each? That's $10,000. You've got to make $20,000 in your pay to put that much in your pocket with taxes, because 50% of what you earn is taxed.

So I introduced a bill that would give you a tax credit for expenses for the purpose of public transit. I throw this on the table today to Minister Bradley: Put a little sugar in the café latte here. Put a little sweetener in it. If you want to move riders onto transit—and you know something? TTC now gives you a refundable tax credit when you use a TTC pass, a weekly or monthly pass. I believe when they implement this card, Mr. Bradley—and I'll be the first one to shake your hand and pat you on the back if I'm here, because this would get riders out of the cars.

Imagine $5,000 a year from people coming from Hamilton or Halton or Peel or Durham, and all these young families that have student debt and all this stuff. As an idea that I'm putting out, give them a transit tax credit now.

I introduced the bill, but it isn't my idea. Our job is primarily to listen to people. Now, I submitted this. I gave that bill to every province in the country, and I gave it to the federal government too, because they have a ministry. It was Lawrence Cannon who was the Minister of Transport at the time, and I gave it to him. I was at an event where Lawrence Cannon was. I knew he was there. I like lobbying even though it's not part of my job. I gave him the bill and said, "Look, why don't you just run with this federally?" They did. The federal government implemented the bill. That is a true story. It'll be written in Hansard tomorrow, and you can take it to the bank.

I'm asking the minister to use the idea. Look, none of us have the corner on good ideas, not the Conservatives—we have most of them, but not all of them—nor the Liberals. We all have good ideas, the people here. Even Howard Hampton had good ideas, I think. When he was the leader, I was always impressed. And I would say even Floyd Laughren; he was a great guy. But on this bill that we're talking about—there's so little time to talk on such a large report. This bill here and the money part of it is very important, and that smart card and the functions of the funding, the operating budget, are very critical. I'm hoping that the minister goes through with it.

Now, Mr. Klees did say that we would very probably be supporting the bill. I'm putting in a proviso that I need to have a briefing, which I'm getting this afternoon or this morning on the bill. It's too bad I didn't have it before I spoke on it; there would have been a little bit more content in the debate this morning. But what I am going to do is bring up a couple of the ideas there, because I did listen yesterday when they had the member from Brampton—Springdale. She's here this morning. She spoke.

She's the parliamentary assistant, and I'm sure that she has listened—in fact, I noticed her writing down some of the ideas I was putting on the table here. The member from London—Fanshawe and the member for Eglinton—Lawrence, Mr. Colle, spoke yesterday as well, so I do listen to their comments.

But there's one other thing I want to put on the table here that's a little troubling. I am not a lawyer, so I'm not qualified to interpret it and to understand—the bill we're talking about, when it refers to another piece of legislation, a statute that it's amending, you really can't understand from reading this bill until you look at the current bill it's amending. That's a long way of saying it. This one here is the portion dealing with the development charges.

Now, the development charges are, indirectly, a tax on a house. They're a one- time tax. The development charges, I think, are about $300 or $400 per household for transit in Durham. That development charge is a levy—we used to call them lot levees, but they're called development charges now—developed to fund capital, primarily. They can't fund operating but they can fund capital. I'm not sure if there's anything in this bill—it says here, "Clause 42(2)(

c) of the act is repealed and the following substituted:

"(

c) prescribing a date for the purpose of clause 30.1(2)(b);

"(

d) prescribing a date after which no amount is payable in respect of GO Transit under a development charge bylaw referred to in

section 30.1, and may prescribe different dates for different municipalities;

"(

e) resolving conflicts between the provisions of a transportation planning policy statement issued by the minister and other provincial plans and policies, including determining which provisions of a transportation planning policy statement or other provincial plan or policy prevail." And it says something here about the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area Transit Implementation Act, 2009.

They used to pool funding from the GTA for transit, and I think that has been resolved; they don't pool it anymore, which would then allow them to subsidize Toronto's TTC. The TTC could be subsidized, because some of the people like me, coming in from Durham or York or Hamilton or whatever, get on the TTC, and the TTC is being used by people outside the region, so that's how the money is transferred. I'm interested in that part of how the development charges are going to be changed, how the money's going to flow.

Having non-elected people on the board with this much power to spend $50 billion, I would hope the minister has some way of an exit strategy—although they're his people. They will be appointed by him and they'll only be doing what he wants, I would hope.

The other thing is that these meetings—it's my understanding today that the meetings of Metrolinx are open meetings. It's very important for stakeholders—transit, urban planners etc.—to stay up to date on what is going on. But under this Bill 163, there's a suggestion that they are going to be closed meetings. How are these regional transit authorities ever going to learn about the goings-on in Metrolinx and where these new routes or plans are? I'd like to see this changed. I am not big on this closed meeting.

Here's the issue: When Greg Sorbara announced the York-Spadina extension to the university, that had been talked about for some time by Lorna Marsden, who was the president. It had been talked about back then; she's not the president anymore. That land would go up in value like that. As soon as you have transit, the condos and commercial properties around the transit, especially where there's going to be a station, would go through the roof. So some of this stuff with property and the implications with that should be in private; I understand that. But the timing and circumstance should certainly be in the open.

I am putting on the record number 3. To the member from Brampton—Springdale: There should be another amendment here mandating that the meetings be open. That would be the third kind of amendment that I think should be brought forward.

Governance: no problem. I'd like a provision where the minister can directly report to the Legislature when he's going to make major expenditures, like $5 billion a year—wait a minute here. Rural Ontario is part of Ontario and there's no money from the provincial government for rural transit. Transit in rural Ontario is called roads and bridges, not buses. I want a level playing field here. I really do. The member from Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke says that 50 times a year, almost to the point where you wish he would stop talking, but the issue here—

Mr. John Yakabuski: So when are you going to stop talking?

Mr. John O'Toole: Well, whatever. But I think that what we're trying to say here on our side is that this—Metrolinx, the $50 billion—is all good stuff for density and trying to accommodate new Canadians, young people, universities and all these things, but rural Ontario, which is the forestry, the mining, the pulp and paper, the hard work, the wealth generators of this province, doesn't have transit. They want roads and bridges that are safe. We're putting that on the table too. Let's not ignore the way Ontario was built as a strong, terrific, prosperous province.

Not everybody wants to live in a condo in Toronto. I don't. That's why I commute every day. It's a beautiful city if you like the opera, but I would sooner cut the grass.

I refer to this report several times, and I think members here should get a copy of it. Stay tuned, because this is the playbook; this is the background for Bill 163. The bill itself is not that big and it's fairly technical. There are a lot of references to the Corporations Act, the Development Charges Act and the Municipal Act.

One of the other concerns I raised very early on: I'm concerned because they signed a memorandum of understanding, sort of like a United Nations accord thing, with all the municipalities in Ontario—with AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and ROMA, the Rural Ontario Municipal Association. They signed a memorandum. What was that? That they would consult with them. I'm not sure that a lot of consulting went on. This came as a big surprise.

Now I'm—"suspicious" is too strong a word; "surprised" is a much more accommodating word—surprised at the rush. I'm very concerned about the rush part of it, because if they're going to take over these municipal and regional transit systems by a new name, when all the taxpayers in those communities of Bowmanville or Oshawa or—not Mississauga; it should be called Hazelville—I would be very surprised if they expropriate it by the bill.

I do not know that's happening, but there are things in here that lead me to believe that they're going to say, "You either co-operate with us when we wave the cheque or you don't get the cheque." This is going to do that, and they'll get the transit system working. They'll start chasing the Minister of Transportation. Whenever he does an announcement, they'll be there with their hands out.

There is a lot in this bill and, as I said, I probably spoke longer than necessary, but that won't be the first time I did that. I would only say that when you have Hazel McCallion approving it, it's probably been vetted. The consultation probably occurred at a very high level with people that they could trust. Robert Pritchard is an intelligent man and a former president of my alma mater, the University of Toronto. I would say that Rob MacIsaac—I've met with him several times—is a very, very capable guy. I'm fortunate to have known him; he's that capable. He's a former mayor and a very highly regarded fellow.

Peter Smith, as well, with GO Transit, is very capable. He's run an operation that is the best in Canada in terms of how much revenue they get from the fare box.

I think the consultations—they came to a decision that they had to move forward, and that's an appropriate name for the report: The Big Move. So in Bill 163 I am proposing number 5 amendment. It should be called the Big Move. Let's get on with it. Bill 163 is called

An Act to amend the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority Act. This morning, let's just rename it to the Big Move, because they're going to be taking a lot of money: $50 billion. It's a scary amount of money.

Here we are in the middle of a recession. We're implementing a whole new tax; it's called the harmonized tax. That tax actually takes 8% out of everybody's pocket. That's basically what it does. You can start with the exceptions, the houses under—it takes 8% out of your pocket when you die. The funeral, the headstone, the pallbearers, all these various things you pay for—8%. You pay your bills, you get gas for your car, put heat in your home.

I'm wondering, if when you buy a transit pass it's going to have this HST on it. "Oh no, they've just increased the price of transit. I never even thought of that. I'm going to have to start"—that's terrible. Transit has just gone up 8% as of this morning, or when this bill passes. It's disgusting, really, when you think of it. At a time when the economy is going one way, their spending is going the other way. It's simple economics. It doesn't work. It's called a deficit and they're into an operating—what I call a structural deficit now.

This bill and how good it is—and it's a reasonably good plan done by MacIsaac and Smith and all those people. We have no money. Why don't we have any money? We have poor tax policy. Everybody is running away. And it's not just Premier McGuinty's fault, either. I want to be on the record clearly here today that he's trying his best, but he should have saved a little bit for the rainy day. They have had huge—they have increased spending by some 60%.

Hon. James J. Bradley: It's because you asked us every day to do it.

Mr. John O'Toole: I know, but it's the unwise choices you make. This isn't a time—and the minister is right. Wise choices—they are telling us that $50 billion is in this bill. That's a wise choice? I put it to the people of Ontario: Let's put it on a ballot. Let's find out if $50 billion is a good idea.

I think helping seniors and people in long-term care who built this country—that's my first vote. Let's not put them in the poorhouse. Let's make sure that people with special needs—we have Community Living here today—are taken care of.

These grand, wonderful plans—and I see them in London and I see them in Paris and I see them in other countries. We can learn from their mistakes. They've got this huge infrastructure to support, and this is what this amounts to. Once you build it, you've got the ongoing cost of it all. It's not one-time. The operating budget on that kind of system would become the largest single expenditure in the province. It would cost more to operate a transit system than all the hospitals. That's a fact.

Remember, for every bus that runs seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year—or maybe take Christmas and New Year's off—it takes at least five people. Each of those people should be paid and trained appropriately, with uniforms that get cleaned and all that stuff. They should probably make $50,000 to $60,000 a year. That, times five, is $3 million per bus per year. How many people on that, how much per day?

I put to you that this strategy needs a fuller hearing. It's fine for the experts here, these urban planners, the Christaller central place people, telling us what to do. Of course, they like transit; that's their livelihood. That's where they make all their money and their training and knowledge etc. But I think there are other ideas in transit. I think light rail is more important than subway. I also think that smaller footprints in transit are important. Why have these big 60-some passenger buses in areas where there aren't 60 people living in this small community? They should have smaller buses.

Why not give people who commute with more than one person in the car a tax break? Why not? Say you live in Uxbridge and you want to get down to Bay Street and you could prove, demonstrate—audited—that you are carpooling. I think they should be getting support, rather than a great big bus running around with nobody in it. So there are some ideas from the people whom I hear from in my riding, and I'm sure other members do as well, which could easily solve some, but not all, of this problem.

Bigger footprints like Toronto, Hamilton, London, Ottawa—big cities, big buses; small cities, small buses. I put to you, in my town—in fact, I've said it to the mayor—we have about 80,000 people in my community. It's very spread out. It's quite large. It's called Clarington. It's made up of many smaller communities within the municipal area called Clarington. For the amount of people using the buses, they could actually give them a series of taxi chits. You could get the taxi chits for—let's say it would be $10 for four tickets. Those would allow you a trip within the town's borders.

Subsidize it municipally, rather than having a bus with nobody in it driving up and down the street with the carbon diesel going out the windows.

I'm telling you, there are other solutions here—and this bill isn't all of them. But the structure of the bill and its intent—it's well intended.

I've certainly rambled on here a while, but I hope it's been informative and that I did advance five specific ideas. I would hope that the minister, who has been here—that's a compliment. Often, they're so busy making phone calls and putting fires out that they're not allowed to come to the House. The parliamentary assistant was here too, and I know that she was listening and I think she took notes.

I'll look to see the Presto card brought into force. If they delivered that one thing, I'd be supporting the bill. I'd be there for the photo op—not in it, but taking the picture. I think that's what they need to do: Get the smart cards working—currently, the one they're looking at is called the Presto card—so they can deal with the administrivia of transferring the money between Durham, Halton and all these places.

With the very little time I've been allowed to speak this morning, I would hope that the minister realizes that this is one bill we can celebrate, because most of the ideas here we've been supportive of, or at least we've advanced them. Again, I'm going back to first principles.

Frank Klees—I'm going to finish up that way—when he was the minister, started a lot of good things; he really did. Minister Bradley actually made them law in many cases, and here's another case where he's doing roughly the same thing. I think this bill here, as Mr. Klees said in his remarks, is the right thing to do.

I just don't want Durham to be ignored in this. Durham region and GO Transit should stay on the south side of the 401. People who want to come from Peterborough, Millbrook, the city of Kawartha Lakes—

Hon. James J. Bradley: That's not what Jim Flaherty says.

Mr. John O'Toole: Jim Flaherty doesn't know what he's—on this issue, I'm right.

Interjections.

Mr. John O'Toole: No, no, just this issue. I don't want to get into trouble here. But his wife is a person who I have a lot of time—Mrs. Elliott is a person whom I have the highest regard for, and I'll listen to her opinion on this because I know she uses transit as well.

Thank you for your attention this morning, and I'll leave a few minutes on the clock here.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Questions and comments?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: It's always interesting to listen to my good friend from Durham because he does raise good points in debate, I must say. Sometimes he digresses a bit, and I guess there was a bit of that this morning, but that's all in fun.

I just want to respond to a couple of points that he made.

We agree that there needs to be a better coordination of commuter services across the GTA. I think the point that the member makes is a good one: that this might be a first step toward a solution of trying to better coordinate services in the GTA. But we can't lose sight that there are many cities and towns and areas across Ontario that really do need special attention when it comes to coordinating their transportation services. If you're in eastern Ontario or northern Ontario or southwestern Ontario, it's much the same issue.

Up where I come from in Timmins—James Bay, there's only really the city of Timmins that has a transit system. The member made a good point: A lot of these municipalities are struggling, trying to pay for transit services so they can help their citizens get off the roads and out of their cars and into transit, but it's pretty hard to do when you don't have the type of support we used to have from the provincial and federal governments. More and more, municipalities are having to go on their own.

The other issue is the coordination of transportation services beyond just the GTA. Again, where I come from, transportation is mainly cars and highways because there isn't transit in many places. So we need to look at how we can move people out of cars and how we can move freight off of cars and onto trains and other means of transportation. We own the Ontario Northland Railway, and it has always been an issue of contention in northern Ontario that the province is not using the ONR facilities as effectively as it could.

Later on in debate, I'd like to be able to speak to that to a greater degree, because we really need to have a provincial integrated transportation strategy, not just one for the GTA.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Questions and comments?

Ms. Helena Jaczek: It's a pleasure to comment on the remarks of our colleague from Durham, who is actually my neighbour. My riding abuts his at the Whitchurch-Stouffville-Uxbridge border.

I am obviously very much in support of Bill 163. This legislation is going to mean that things will happen faster; implementation will occur more rapidly than it has. This is incredibly important to the residents of my riding.

Minister Bradley came to my riding to open the Lincolnville GO station last summer—a tremendous asset not only to the residents of Whitchurch-Stouffville but also those from Mr. O'Toole's riding who come over from Uxbridge. It has made a dramatic difference to the Stouffville station. Now, with the Lincolnville station, people can park more easily and get on the train. The people right in the heart of old Stouffville appreciate the fact that their parking lot is not so congested. So these are great steps forward.

Our colleague made, I think, a very important remark in relation to those regional chairs, those political representatives from the municipalities who have served so excellently on the GO board and in their own transit systems, and what they've done. In particular, I would like to commend regional chair Bill Fisch, who really was the architect in York region of our amalgamated transit system, the YRT, which brought together the various local municipalities' transit systems. He did that in the face of some opposition. He showed great political leadership on that.

He served many years on the GO board, providing his strategic expertise. Now this bill is the next step and moves us towards implementation.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Questions and comments?

Mrs. Julia Munro: I'm pleased to be able to offer a couple of comments in response to the member from Durham. I think that in his remarks he was able to identify some of the really difficult issues that we face in this whole issue of transit in the GTA.

Certainly the effort to be made with regard to a smart card is one that I think everyone will applaud. It needs to be something that is seamless, that allows people to move freely on public transit throughout the GTA.

The question of the level of commuter service is a real conundrum, because certainly in parts of my riding the object is to see if there's anyone on the bus besides the driver. The other complaint that I hear from those who do use it is that the routes, by virtue of this issue of the population, have to wind around areas. You can sit on the bus for such a long time and only have gone a very short distance simply because of these lengthy, circuitous routes. Then, naturally, people in my area who face these kinds of problems look at the kind of investment that's required and ask me to justify it.

So I think that as the government moves forward, as we move forward with some of the issues, this has to be kept in mind, that we need to provide a public service, a public transit service. Certainly, I think that there is agreement all around about the need to get people out of their cars.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Questions and comments?

Mr. Howard Hampton: I just want to say a few things about my colleague's very lengthy dissertation on this bill and on many other things which he found the opportunity to include in his conversation and discussion of the bill. First of all, I want to say to him that during his speech he actually said that once in a while I have a good idea, and I just want to caution him to be careful. I don't want him to go overboard and say anything here that he might later regret.

The reality is that I think my colleague has captured the essence of what is going on here. This has been a McGuinty government that has had lots to say about transit. In fact, it's the McGuinty government that has given a number of self-congratulatory speeches about transit, that has used all the right rhetoric about transit, that has made announcement after announcement about public transit, but people are still waiting to see when anything is going to happen.

Sad to say, if you actually look at this bill, this bill still doesn't do anything. It is another shuffling of the cards in the deck. In this case, I would argue that the major thing that's happening with this bill is that public representatives are being shuffled off and private, corporate representatives are being shuffled on. What will come out of that? People will have to wait and see. But I think my colleague from the Conservative Party in part has effectively captured what is not happening under this government—lots of talk and no action about public transit.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): The member for Durham, you have two minutes to respond.

Mr. John O'Toole: I want to thank the members from Timmins—James Bay, Oak Ridges—Markham, and Stouffville, as well as the member from Kenora—Rainy River.

I guess there were really five points to summarize briefly: One is the memorandum of understanding, the consultation process prior to the bill, the requirement to have open meetings to the public as well on any large expenditures; tax credits for transit users; the development charges implications for property owners and affordable housing; the smart card implementation, which is important to proceed with right away; and to always recall that Ontario is not just one big city. How about rural Ontario? The transit system there is roads and bridges.

But if I bring it back to my riding—the regional chairman, Roger Anderson, said, in response to The Big Move report, that the region of Durham isn't well served in the plan. In fact, the only thing they got in a 25-year plan, a $50-billion plan, was a bus rapid transit system on Highway 2.

I don't disagree with the importance of moving forward, as I said, with these five recommendations. I think the bill is a framework to get on with making transit in urban areas much more friendly.

The comments made by the member from Timmins—James Bay were probably the best remarks when he realized that Timmins, in far northern Ontario, is emblematic of a community where they probably have fewer resources, and therefore probably less waste, so we should look at small-town Ontario as a good model of how to do public things in a way that's more efficient.

To the members who participate in this, we are setting the framework for a very broad policy into the future. I wanted to thank the board members who did serve on Metrolinx. Almost all of them were municipal mayors or councillors. I would also like to thank Paul Bedford, who is an academic with Ryerson University; Fred Eisenberger from Hamilton; Norm Kelly—he's a planner and councillor; Hazel McCallion; Adam Giambrone; Bill Fisch; Peter Smith; and Rob MacIsaac for the work they've done on this report.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Pursuant to standing order 8, this House is in recess until 10:30 of the clock.

The House recessed from 1014 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Mr. Bruce Crozier: It's a pleasure for me this morning to introduce three people who are in the east members' gallery, they being my friend Craig Demers, who is with Community Living Essex County—you'll get to know him better later today; Mathew Berthiaume, who works with Community Living Essex County; and Nancy Wallace-Gero, executive director of Community Living Essex County.

Ms. Helena Jaczek: I would like to introduce Monica and Colin Costello. They are actually from the riding of my neighbour in Richmond Hill. They won their attendance today through a silent auction fundraiser.

Mr. Kevin Daniel Flynn: It's my pleasure today to introduce to the House Steven Muir, who is a member of my constituency staff and also a self-advocate with Community Living, and Dianne Garrels-Munro, president of Community Living Ontario.

Mr. Jeff Leal: It's a delight for me to introduce, in the members' east gallery, Chris Grayson and members of Community Living Peterborough.

Mr. John O'Toole: I would like to recognize all the people from Community Living Durham today, as well as Gary Cooke, who's a good friend of mine. Welcome.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): We have with us today in the Speaker's gallery Mr. Jesse Flis, former federal Member of Parliament for the riding of Parkdale—High Park. Please join me in welcoming him today.

We also have with us in the Speaker's gallery a parliamentary delegation from the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, led by Madame Truong Thi Mai. Please join me in welcoming our guests to the Legislature today. Welcome.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE

Mr. Robert W. Runciman: To the Premier: Welcome to April Fool's Day. Sadly, this is also a dark day in the history of our province, a day that Ontario officially becomes a have-not province—have-not status for the first time in our proud history, thanks to the mismanagement, out-of-control spending and lack of priorities by the Premier and the folks around him.

Less than 24 hours ago, we found out that under your direction, taxpayers are on the hook for the bloating salaries of high-priced staff. The $100,000 sunshine list has grown by more than 10,000 since last year alone, to well over 53,000. You couldn't fit them into a stadium. Premier, how do you suggest we tell our friends and neighbours who have lost their jobs and are struggling to pay their bills and your taxes that their taxes are going toward paying more than 53,000 public service workers over $100,000 a year?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I welcome the question. First, I want to say that one of the questions that I've been asked is that we index the original $100,000 to inflation. Had we done that, 70% of the people on the list would not, in fact, be there. The reason that I've said no to that is because we believe—but, more importantly, families believe—that $100,000 is a lot of money.

We also believe in transparency, and that's why we have, notwithstanding the approach brought by the previous Conservative government, through the sunshine law now uncovered OPG and Hydro One salaries to make sure that those are public. We're proud of the work that our public servants do for us, but we also feel a heavy responsibility to ensure that they are paid in keeping with the ability of Ontario taxpayers to pay them.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Robert W. Runciman: The Premier can dress this up all he wants, but it's clear that he's not the one in charge over there. While over 300,000 Ontarians have lost their jobs under your misguided direction, you've allowed the salaries and bonuses at the lottery corporation to nearly double since you took office. The Ombudsman said that the OLG violated the trust of Ontarians and is out of control. This is an agency that has spent the past three years apologizing for blatant abuse of Ontarians' good faith.

Premier, why don't you take some control, show real leadership and roll back these salaries and bonuses and apologize to the people of Ontario for this agency's lack of respect for hard-working Ontarians?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: We've got to keep an eye, obviously, on all these salaries and do what we can to manage costs.

I want to tell you a little bit about the Ontario public service, those folks who work directly for us. We have the fewest civil servants per capita of any province in Canada. We are the second-most efficient public service in the country. Ontarians are paying 32% less than the average pay for public servants, so to speak, across the country.

With respect to the sunshine list, the average salary of Ontario public service members on the list increased by just 1%. Those are the people over which we have immediate control, people working within the Ontario public service. We will do everything we can to respect the ability of Ontarians to pay and to ensure that we're being accountable to our families.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary.

Mr. Robert W. Runciman: I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Premier is living in a very comfortable, taxpayer-subsidized bubble. It's clear he can't appreciate the impact his policies are having on real people in this province. You've driven this province into have-not status. You've lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs—100,000 in just the past two months.

Premier, do you have any idea of the message you are sending to struggling Ontarians when you sit idly by and let a discredited agency in the midst of the worst recession in 70 years hand out bonuses to fat-cat officials? Premier, show us you do understand, roll back those bonuses and fire the CEO.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: You know, the leader of the official opposition keeps disparaging his own province by saying that somehow we lack the capacity to generate the necessary wealth. I want to remind him of a couple of things.

First of all, Ontarians don't believe him. They understand that the recession we find ourselves in is global in nature. I think they also are on to the notion that we send tens of billions of dollars on an annual basis to Ottawa for distribution in the rest of the country. The fact is that we continue to generate a great deal of wealth in the province of Ontario. We have an ongoing conversation with the federal government; we'd like to keep a bit more of that so that we could use it to make ourselves stronger.

My colleague has a point when he says we need to continue to be prudent and responsible when it comes to protecting taxpayers' dollars.

TAXATION

Mr. Robert W. Runciman: Back to the Premier: The Premier abused the trust of taxpayers in two consecutive elections when he promised not to raise taxes along with a mountain of other broken promises. It's to the point where his broken-promise policies and out-of-control addiction to taxing and spending have brought us to this very sad day in history where Ontario is now in have-not status and taking federal handouts. Let me remind you of the massive health tax grab, the biggest tax increase in our history. Let me remind you of the Premier's latest tax grab on Ontario's hard-working families through his last budget.

Premier, how much more abuse of taxpayer trust have you in mind?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I think it's a good opportunity to remind ourselves of what the Conservative government did in its day. I will remind you that what they did they did during a period of economic growth. They cut health care by $557 million in their first two years, when the economy was growing. They cut over $1 billion out of education in their first two years, when the economy was growing. At a time of economic growth, they cut social assistance support by 22%. Then they froze that for eight years. They did the same thing to the minimum wage: They froze that for eight years. They did all those things at a time of strong economic growth.

I will gladly compare and contrast, in terms of our commitment to our public services and our vulnerable, against their approach any day of the week.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Robert W. Runciman: We have a great deal of respect for the voters of the province and we know whom they can trust, and it sure ain't you.

I want to quote today's Toronto Star, when referring to the Premier's latest so-called harmonized tax scheme and the challenges faced by Liberal backbenchers: "...MPPs privately express disappointment at being 'misled'" by Mr. McGuinty. According to the same article, on March 10 you assured your backbenchers that "nothing had been decided" on this.

I'm not sure if your Minister of Finance is operating behind your back, but he actually signed the deal on the same day you were supposedly seeking input from your caucus.

Premier, you haven't been straight with Ontarians, and now you're not being straight with your own caucus. They are just simply trying to bring their concerns to your attention. Do you actually know what you're doing? Premier, who's in charge over there?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I appreciate the leader of the official opposition's genuine concern about my caucus and his longing to enhance relations. But one of the things that I would draw to his attention is an article—in fact, an editorial—that appeared in the Vancouver Sun, and I'll quote from that. It says: "The case for BC to harmonize its sales tax with the GST has long been strong. Now it is even more compelling."

Ontario is "an aggressive competitor. We can ill-afford to leave unchallenged this new, major tax advantage" that Ontario is creating for itself.

I would ask my colleague at some point in time to tell us whether or not, as a party, they intend to move ahead with a single sales tax in the province of Ontario, or whether, if given the opportunity, they would undo that and reinstall two separate sales taxes.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary.

Mr. Robert W. Runciman: Speaker, I'm not sure about you, but I certainly didn't hear an apology to his caucus and all of the constituents they represent for blindsiding them and not giving them the facts in terms of what he's doing in this massive tax grab. He kept his own caucus in the dark. He's hurting constituents and the ability to represent their interests.

The Premier doesn't seem—if that's not the case, the Premier clearly doesn't know what's going on. We just have to look at his recent flip-flop on the minimum wage. And let's not forget his lack of knowledge on the pesticide legislation. What about his comments a few months ago about it being crazy to raise taxes in the middle of a recession? What happened last week? A massive tax grab.

Now he has made it clear to his own caucus that there's no need to attend those meetings; they are going to be ignored anyway. You're going to—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Premier?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Order. Premier?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Listen, that was an interesting—

Interjection: Rant.

Interjection: Conversation.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Whatever. It was interesting.

Interjection: Exchange.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: An intervention, an assertion. We can get caught up in these kinds of things, but what we've got to ask ourselves is, what do Ontarians want us to talk about? What do they want us to focus on?

There's a tremendous economic challenge that we're facing. Families have a great deal of anxiety. Communities, in some cases, have been devastated. People are losing jobs. I think they want us to keep our eye on the ball, and the ball is to find a way to move our province forward, not left and not right. I would respectfully submit that we've gone a long way towards doing that with our budget. We're cutting taxes for businesses. We're cutting taxes for people. We're trying to build a more caring and competitive Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): New question.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Spring is definitely in the air.

The leader of the third party.

JOB CREATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is to the Premier. The budget missed a golden opportunity to use infrastructure dollars to create good, long-term jobs in this province. Yes, the government committed $27 billion for infrastructure. But without a buy-Ontario policy, there's no guarantee that Ontario is going to land the value-added transit and green energy jobs. Why did the Premier reject a strong buy-Ontario policy that would have created the long-term jobs in addition to short-term construction jobs?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure.

Hon. George Smitherman: First off, we appreciate the acknowledgment of the leader of the third party that in this budget there is a very substantial investment in infrastructure. I would caution her that there are opportunities, over the course of many months, to roll out programs in all communities in the province of Ontario that will be extraordinarily beneficial, not just from the standpoint of the shorter-term stimulative aspect of work for people, but in transitioning and transforming our economy to one that's more productive.

The focus on transit, as an example, is very substantially important in the greater Toronto area, where we know that gridlock is something that imposes costs on business and makes us less efficient. So I do quarrel with the assumptions of the honourable member, and in the supplementary, I'll look forward to opportunities to demonstrate just how many of these dollars are going to land here, to the benefit of the people of province of Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Twenty-seven billion dollars out the door, and the government will only have short-term jobs to show for it. With a 50% transit requirement for vehicle manufacturing and a 60% requirement for energy manufacturing, the light rail, the wind farms and the solar projects of the future could actually be made right here in Ontario, with steel from Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie and manufacturing expertise in places like Thunder Bay, Mississauga, Oshawa, Windsor and Niagara.

Why are the Premier and his minister rejecting proven policies that create good, long-term jobs and value-added jobs?

Hon. George Smitherman: To the contrary, nobody rejects the responsibility that we have in making the allocation of infrastructure dollars so that they should have maximum impact here in the province of Ontario. I think that we've demonstrated, as an example, on transit projects, that the all-in impact of those projects—over 80 cents of those dollars are spent and have impact here in the province of Ontario.

Yesterday, I toured a new gas-fired power plant being built in Halton Hills. The biggest value-added piece of that entire plant is from a Siemens factory that, if I'm right, is in the very member's riding, or at least in a riding of the honourable member's party.

These are examples of how our investments in the renewal and renaissance of our energy system, in the renewal of our communities, in our roads and in our transit will all have very substantial impact, on the short term through labour and through components, and on the longer term by transforming our economy to one that is more productive and able to meet the needs of the people of province of Ontario. And in green energy, we will demonstrate even more progress—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: In terms of job stimulus, the McGuinty government is proposing a nudge when what we need is a jolt. Sometimes I think the Premier forgets, and this minister forgets, that we are talking about real people here. Sue, for example, has built light rail cars in Thunder Bay for 23 years, but without a government requirement that Ontario transit contracts create manufacturing jobs here, Sue has to worry about her future.

Why are the Premier and his minister so proud to support long-term value-added jobs in Germany, the US, China and Mexico, while Ontario's manufacturing sector is crumbling?

Hon. George Smitherman: I do think it's very, very important to note that at the plant in Thunder Bay that the honourable member references, those workers were disheartened when the honourable member's party stood up and said, "No, we're not in favour of the expansion of subways in the greater Toronto area to the scarcely populated York region where only a million Ontarians live." Those workers know that the government of Ontario, through its investments in public transit, in subway cars and in double-level cars for GO Transit—the expansions in those areas, we know, have a positive impact in Thunder Bay.

We have those workers first and foremost in our mind. We wonder why it is that the honourable member's party says that expansion of subway lines to York region is a wasteful exercise because that is a scarcely populated part of the province of Ontario.

We've said in the context of green energy—it's embedded right in the legislation—that we will establish domestic content rules which will enhance the investment here in the province of Ontario, enhance the economic impact for the people of the province of Ontario.

TAXATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is back to the Premier. The budget is cutting more than $2 billion in corporate income taxes. To benefit from corporate income taxes, however, companies need to be profitable. Can the Premier explain how across-the-board corporate tax cuts help hard-hit, money-losing companies that are shedding Ontario jobs by the tens of thousands every month?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I'm pleased to take the question just to ensure that my honourable colleague understands. While we're cutting business taxes by $4.5 billion, we're cutting them for people by $10.6 billion, just so we're clear.

We talked to Ontario businesses. They told us at the outset, a number of years ago, that the most important thing we should do, and what we are doing, is to eliminate capital taxes. I think my colleague knows that. We then asked what would be the next most important step that we ought to take together. They said, "You've got to find a way to move to a single sales tax." They said, were we to redesign our tax system all over again, we would not require our businesses to collect two different taxes, send them to two different governments and deal with two different sets of regulations and two different auditors.

They said, "Give us one sales tax." That's what we're doing. That in and of itself will result in considerable savings, and when you get savings you grow stronger and you hire more Ontarians.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Here's the Premier's economic strategy as I see it: Give already profitable companies more, and ignore struggling companies that are forced into laying off their employees and cutting hours, and then turn around and hammer Ontario families with an 8% tax hike. It's bad economics at the very time that it matters the most for the people of this province.

How can the Premier possibly tell Ontarians that giving more to highly profitable companies is the right thing to do, while ignoring those that are already laying off workers? How can he say that that is smart economic policy?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: The NDP, of course, is saying that this is heavily weighted in favour of business. Business is saying it's heavily weighted in favour of our most vulnerable. We're actually not about left or right; we're about moving forward on behalf of all Ontarians.

I want to remind my honourable colleague that she voted against, and her party voted against, a direct $190-million rebate to manufacturers last year when we retroactively eliminated capital tax for them. Now she tells us that she's in favour of finding ways to move more quickly on the capital tax front. We are moving on the capital tax front. We are reducing corporate income taxes. But we're also increasing the Ontario child benefit; we're increasing the minimum wage; we are investing in affordable housing; we're investing in health care, education, post-secondary education; and we're creating 300,000 jobs.

It's a balanced, positive, progressive package that's suited to the values shared by Ontarians.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Just last year, the Premier was telling the Conservatives that they were wrong when they wanted the government to cut taxes. He said in Hansard, "They want to cut taxes in the province of Ontario.... That is not going to help businesses that are struggling today." That's what you said a year ago.

Tax policy does matter. But there was another option that he could have chosen. A refundable manufacturing investment tax credit would have traded job-creating investments for tax savings. It would have benefited companies that are losing money. That's targeted tax policy, and it's proven. It has worked in Manitoba, and it has worked in Quebec. So instead of giving money to companies that don't need it while imposing an 8% tax on Ontario families, why did the Premier introduce a manufacturing tax credit?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Just to be clear, 93% of Ontarians will be getting a tax cut as a result of our package.

Again, we've already eliminated the capital tax for our manufacturers. It will be eliminated for everybody else next year. We're also moving towards a single sales tax and we're reducing corporate income taxes. We feel that it's absolutely essential as part of the package to putting Ontario on the road to recovery, but we will not lose sight of our most vulnerable. Again, we're increasing the Ontario child benefit from $50 a month per child to $92 per month per child. We continue to increase the minimum wage. We continue to invest in affordable housing.

We're reducing income taxes on our lowest income-earners to the lowest level in Canada. From an objective perspective, you cannot help but conclude that this Liberal government is moving forward in—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you, Premier.

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mr. Toby Barrett: My question is to the Minister of Finance. As of today, April Fool's Day, we all know that history has been made. It's official: Ontario is a have-not province. You can't just blame this on the decline of the rest of the industrialized world. All the other provinces within the Dominion of Canada have been subject to the same kinds of economic pressures.

Minister of Finance, my question is: How did it come to this? How did you manage to get the great province of Ontario into this pickle? Will you please explain?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Ontario will in fact be getting some of the money back now that it has put into the federation—our own money. I would say that it's the result, as Mr. MacKinnon and others have said, of a gerrymandered equation that sees the vast majority of Canadians living in provinces that receive equalization. It doesn't reflect have or have-not status; it reflects the seriousness—and that's not us. There's a body of work done by a whole range of people that suggest that.

We've laid out a plan to move Ontario forward. We're investing some $32 billion in infrastructure. I see that Mr. Hudak is opposed to that, and the Conservatives, I presume, are opposed to that. We are reducing personal taxes by $10.6 billion and corporate taxes by more than $4 billion, and we're investing in the kinds of human services that make this province, I believe, the best place in Canada to live.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Toby Barrett: The best we hear is, "We're getting some money back." Minister, this is embarrassing on April Fool's Day. The Toronto Sun, for example, has a full front-page caricature of our Premier, tin cup in hand, Pinocchio nose down to the sidewalk. That's have-not status. This is not the Ontario I grew up in.

Minister, you talk about a plan. The only plan we have seen is seven years of projected red ink, seven years of deficits. Do you have a real plan to get us out of this predicament? Do you really care? Have you and your colleagues—essentially, we get the impression that you've given up. Perhaps you've panicked; you're taking the easy way out. Perhaps you see yourself as spending your way out of have-not status. What is the real plan, Minister?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: There is a Sun newspaper I would like to remind the member of. The Vancouver Sun, on March 30—and let me read to the member what was in that editorial: "The case for BC to harmonize its sales tax with the GST has long been strong. Now it's even more compelling."

Ontario is "an aggressive competitor. We can ill afford to leave unchallenged this new major tax advantage it's creating for itself."

This is the best province in Canada, in spite of a gerrymandered equation on something called equalization. This is the province that will lead Canada out of these difficult times. People across Ontario have a plan from this government that invests in our future, both the immediate future and the long-term future, that will make this still the best place to live and do business in the country.

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

M me France Gélinas: Ma question est pour le premier ministre.

Ontario is reeling from skyrocketing job losses, with cities like Windsor reaching a heartwrenching unemployment rate of over 12%. These numbers cannot convey the devastation that is being felt by these workers. Mental health providers in the hardest-hit cities are reporting alarming 22% increases in calls to distress centres and other supports, calls from men who have lost their jobs. Does the Premier have a plan to ensure mental health services are available to these laid-off workers when they need them the most?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Health.

Hon. David Caplan: In fact, yes. As the member well knows, there are a number of fronts that we're acting upon.

I've set up my own advisory panel to initiate a mental health and addictions strategy for the province of Ontario. I know the member opposite is part of the select committee of this Legislature, of all members who are going to be working together, I hope, to help formulate part of that plan.

In addition to that, I know that in the budgetary policies outlined by my colleague the Minister of Finance, he has outlined some $80 million to be available to provide funding toward mental health services and mental health providers, not simply in the city of Windsor but right across the province of Ontario. That's in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars which are annually available to mental health providers. Mental health, having seen cuts in previous New Democrat and Conservative governments, is being supported like it never has before by this government—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

M me France Gélinas: Well, the Auditor General, in his latest report, found that the average wait time for community mental health services is 180 days. Six months is a very long time to wait when you're in distress.

Mental health research shows that massive job losses always lead to the same thing: increased depression, hardship, marriage break-ups and suicides. As predicted, the need for mental health services has dramatically increased since last fall, yet the new money has yet to turn into new services. What does the minister suggest to these laid-off workers who are in crisis right now and can't wait?

Hon. David Caplan: Of course I and all members of this House, when one person loses their job, want to be there to be able to support them, and we are, in a number of ways, whether that's through social services or mental health services or it's through retraining through the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. I can tell you that since 2003, our government has increased funding by more than $200 million. That's a 50% increase to mental health services.

But we do acknowledge there is more to be done. I do acknowledge that in the past, New Democrats—

Interjection.

Hon. David Caplan: I hear my friend from Trinity—Spadina tell us that in 1992-93, New Democrats cut $23 million from mental health services in the province of Ontario. I recognize that those were the actions of a government at the time that I very much fundamentally disagree with. That's why we're working together with members on all sides of the House, and I would encourage the member to bring these ideas that she has forward to the select committee as we come forward and develop a mental health and addictions strategy for the province of Ontario—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you.

WASTE DIVERSION

Mr. Bob Delaney: My question is for the Minister of the Environment. There's a riddle in the information technology world that goes like this: How many computer programs does it take to change a light bulb? The answer is, "None, because it's a hardware problem."

Now, that riddle sums up Ontario's hardware problem as computer users upgrade to new equipment. Unwanted electronic equipment should not end up in landfills. These products also contain such toxic elements as cadmium or mercury, which can threaten water sources and land when disposed of improperly. Most parts in computer hardware—steel, glass, copper, aluminum, plastics and precious metals—can be recovered and reused to make new products. Some electronic equipment, such as computers, printers or televisions, can be cascaded, thus further reducing waste.

Minister, you launched a program to keep electronic waste out of our landfills. How will this program make it easier for Ontarians—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Minister?

Hon. John Gerretsen: Let me first of all congratulate and compliment the member from Mississauga—Streetsville for his ongoing interest in the 3R program, which is extremely important. And he's correct: Yesterday we launched a new program which provides convenient options for people and businesses to reuse and recycle their used electronic equipment. It's all about keeping toxic components out of landfill sites and making sure that we recover the valuable metals and other materials for reuse in new products.

As of today, individuals can go on the dowhatyoucan.ca website, type in their postal code and find out exactly where they can drop off their old computers, monitors, printers and televisions. There are literally hundreds of locations around the province. They can take them to the Salvation Army. They can take them to municipal recycling depots, as well as selected outlets of Sears, Staples and Best Buy.

This is the right way to do it. We're keeping old computers, old electronic equipment out of the landfills.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mr. Bob Delaney: Many of us, consumers and businesses alike, find ourselves at a loss when it comes to dealing with obsolete PCs. Old PCs and related equipment get piled up in store rooms and basements because people don't know how to properly dispose of them. Ontarians can now find convenient options to dispose of old PCs, TVs and fax machines and know that the materials will be properly recycled into new products and toxic components will be properly disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.

But obsolete PCs and related equipment are not the only products that need to be recycled. Products like digital cameras, cellphones and audio equipment also need to be diverted from our landfills for reuse or recycling. Are there plans to expand this program further to increase waste diversion?

Hon. John Gerretsen: I want the member to clearly understand that the old PCs we're talking about are the personal computers, and not the other PCs.

Waste Diversion Ontario and the Ontario Electronic Stewardship are working on a second phase right now that we hope to unveil in July. At that time, we hope to include in this program cameras, cellphones and other audio equipment. We also want to expand the number of collection sites. Right now we have over 167 drop-off locations. It's going to go up to 250 locations during the summer, and by year five of the program we hope to have at least 650 drop-off depots throughout the province.

We want to make sure that this old electronic equipment, the old PCs—the old personal computers—are kept out of the landfill sites so that they do not cause any damage to the environment.

CULTURAL FUNDING

Mrs. Julia Munro: My question is to the Minister of Culture. Minister, Ontario is now a have-not province. You are running a huge deficit to pay for all of your programs. So why are you going to give $5 million to build a new museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba?

Hon. M. Aileen Carroll: Our budget has reinforced all of the initiatives that this government is taking to reinforce, to reinvigorate an economy that needs the kind of leadership and the kind of courage that this Premier and this finance minister have shown in the budget. I'm very proud of that portion of the budget that falls within the realm of culture. I'm very proud of what this government is doing: understanding the role of culture in this creative, knowledge-based economy. Everything the government is doing is exactly right, exactly what we should be doing in facing these difficult times.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mrs. Julia Munro: Well, instead of giving $5 million in the middle of a recession to another province, why don't you give it to projects in Ontario? The Sharon Temple in my riding is looking for $50,000 for renovations. Shouldn't you be providing money for Ontario's museums and heritage sites like the Sharon Temple, rather than money going outside the province?

Hon. M. Aileen Carroll: I'm really disappointed at my honourable colleague's approach in this regard. This government has an incredible track record in reinforcing heritage sites, museums, art galleries, TV and film production, and a great understanding of exactly what we should be doing as a government who gets it on the culture file.

The Sharon Temple is an excellent and a fabulous location of not just Ontario historical happenings but Canadian happenings. It is, indeed, a file that I'm very cognizant of. I've met with the people involved, and I look forward to hearing about future developments in your riding and on that project.

Holistically speaking, one could not ask more from a government on culture and the creative economy than one could ask of this government. Our response has received nothing but kudos from every sector of this economy—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you, Minister.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: My question is to the Minister of Housing. Toronto residents Angel Robinson and her two children, Tiera and Tyrone—very cute—are here in the gallery today. They are here because, like over 100,000 other Ontario families, they are waiting for an affordable housing unit. Angel and her family have been on the waiting list for affordable housing for 12 years. What would the minister who is responsible for ensuring that Ontarians have access to safe and affordable housing like to say to Angel?

Hon. Jim Watson: I'd like to welcome Angel to the Legislature, and I'd like to remind all members of the House what the honourable member said in this House yesterday when I proudly stood in my place and announced that the provincial and federal governments are going to contribute $1.2 billion over the next two years to build and fix up affordable housing in the province of Ontario. What was the response from the honourable member? She said, "Crumbs is what this housing minister is giving them and hoping they'll be satisfied." Well, only a socialist would think $1.2 billion is crumbs.

I'm very proud of the fact that we are working in partnership with the federal government, the municipal government and the not-for-profit sector to put a substantial, record amount of money into building new affordable housing so people like Angel can have a decent, safe place to live in the city of Toronto.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: The minister well knows that not one dollar of that money is going to Angel Robinson and her family and people like them in the province of Ontario. To quote the Wellesley Institute, it offered virtually nothing to Angel or "the 125,000 households on affordable housing waiting lists and the tens of thousands of people who are homeless" now.

In fact, the budget for the Ministry of Housing was actually cut by 6% and has now fallen to 25% below where it was even three years ago.

When will the minister end the stress and suffering caused by the lack of affordable housing in Ontario, and put an end to Angel's and others' interminable wait for affordable housing? When are you going to help Angel? That's the question, Mr. Minister.

Hon. Jim Watson: I'm very proud of the fact that this $1.2-billion investment in housing will see $704 million to repair and rehabilitate buildings to make them more energy efficient, $365 million to create new affordable housing opportunities for low-income seniors and persons with disabilities, and an extension of the Canada-Ontario affordable housing program.

I would tell Angel, who perhaps is a constituent of the honourable member, that every single time we have brought forward new money to put into the housing budget, the NDP have voted against those particular measures. It's fine to stand up and talk and rant and rave about support for housing, but every time a vote comes in this place, that honourable member and her party vote against housing and the most vulnerable in this community. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr. David Zimmer: My question is also for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Minister, the editorial pages of Ontario's newspapers make one thing clear: They want our government to tackle poverty. One way to tackle poverty is to invest in affordable housing, and indeed we've made progress in investments in affordable housing through programs such as the affordable housing program, which has meant over $180 million for over 5,000 units in Toronto; the rent bank, which has meant the prevention of about 3,600 evictions in Toronto alone.

But Minister, I continue to read editorials stressing the urgency to tackle social housing that is in need of repair and the urgency for additional affordable housing. Last week's budget did make new commitments to affordable housing, but what in fact will these investments do? What is the detail here?

Hon. Jim Watson: I thank the honourable member very much for his question. I was very proud when, prior to the budget, I joined colleagues from the Ottawa area to visit 20 Rochester Street in the city of Ottawa, where we announced that, through the budget, Minister Duncan and Premier McGuinty—the province of Ontario—would in fact match the $622 million in federal funding. That money is going to go to help some of the most vulnerable in our community by renovating 50,000 social housing units over the course of the next two years and building 4,500 new housing units.

Let me quote Hugh Lawson, president of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association. After the budget, he said, "Today's announcement represents a bold move forward during these harsh economic times that will preserve and create more affordable housing, assist low-income people and create jobs. It"—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. David Zimmer: Over and over again, I keep hearing the concerns about affordable housing's long-term challenges. Housing affordability problems are getting worse. Ontario's low- and moderate-income households are losing ground. Communities are left to worry year after year about how much money our senior levels of government will commit to the cause.

Minister, as the former chair of the Toronto Community Housing Corp., I know that no social housing provider will ever turn down a one-time funding allocation when it's offered, but I also know that the real issue is, what steps will the province take to establish long-term goals and provide greater long-term stability to the important matter of affordable housing?

Hon. Jim Watson: I'm very proud of our track record when you look at the entire package of housing initiatives. One of the things I'm particularly proud of is the Residential Tenancies Act, where we brought some semblance of order to rent increases. Let me just tell the honourable member and some of the people in the gallery that rent increases under the Liberal government averaged 2.05% per year; under the Conservatives, 2.9%; and under those great pretenders of the vulnerable, the NDP, the average increase was 4.8%. I see the honourable member from Parkdale—High Park blushing, because she should be blushing. That is not a record I'd be particularly proud of.

We committed in the 2007 campaign that we would bring forward a long-term affordable housing strategy. I look forward to going out across the province with my parliamentary assistants, listening to people and learning how we can improve the housing situation in the province of Ontario—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you.

AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture. The farmers of Ontario are concerned about Dalton McGuinty's tax grab, and they're as concerned as the Liberal backbenchers. Farmers fought for years for a point-of-sale exemption, so when they buy their farm equipment and supplies, they show their farm organization card and they don't pay tax. A farmer in my riding wrote me about the exemption and said, "Over the course of a year it amounts to quite a bit of money.

I think the system works well the way it is and to change it will cause too many problems." Minister, can you guarantee that under the Dalton McGuinty harmonized tax grab farmers will continue to get point-of-sale exemptions?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: I thank the member for the question. I certainly have received the same questions from farmers in my riding and I've heard from many of our rural colleagues in this assembly. We are, as we speak, confirming with the federal government how we will move forward on this very important issue. At the end of the day, what we are able to say is that farmers will pay no more tax in this area than they do now. We are very mindful of the issue that you've brought forward, as have our caucus colleagues. We are working with our federal government to mitigate the impact that moving to the harmonized tax will have on them.

But what I can say as well, and I remind your constituents as well, is that moving to the harmonized tax, by reducing business taxes, is going to be good for farmers. They will be paying less—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you, Minister.

Supplementary?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Obviously the minister missed the previous questions when they talked about discussing it with the federal government. It seems the Minister of Finance was signing the agreement while you were thinking about going to talk to the federal government about it.

Minister, you once again demonstrate that you don't understand what is happening on farms across Ontario. Farmers used to have a rebate, and they fought long and hard to get the point-of-sale exemption because it works better for them. Now farmers will have to pay the tax and wait for months or maybe a year for the government to give them their own money back. Many will have to increase their borrowing to cover this money.

Minister, the budget allows for point-of-sale exemptions for some items. Have you asked your Minister of Finance to have agriculture included as a point-of-sale exemption?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: It is the Minister of Finance who is working hard on behalf of farmers and has. I would remind the member that it was this government that actually moved forward on the point-of-sale tax exemption. We have been very, very mindful of the issues of farmers.

I would also like to remind the member that with this shift, with this move, farmers will no longer be required to pay provincial sales taxes on their trucks and on the equipment they buy. If they purchase computers for traceability and improving their safety net systems on farms, they won't be paying tax on that. I have to say it's very important that all of the members in this House appreciate that this move is good news for farmers. There will be significant tax savings for farmers as a result of the leadership that has been taken by this government. Yes, you can go back and tell your farmers no taxes on vehicles or equipment or any computer equipment—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you, Minister.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION

Mr. Paul Miller: My question is to the Premier. Time and time again we've seen many examples of poor judgment and leadership at the WSIB. Recently, I've drawn attention to the WSIB's flawed experience rating system. It has now come to my attention, Premier, that the WSIB hired from outside of Ontario to fill the position of its chief prevention officer. At a time when Ontarians are struggling to find work, it seems logical that the WSIB should hire from a pool of talented and qualified Ontarians who are undoubtedly available to fill a position like this one. Why does this government allow poor decisions by the WSIB to continue under its watch?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I must disagree wholeheartedly with my honourable colleague. I guess now as Canadians we can't help each other. We can't invest in a new national institution, a museum committed to human rights. We can't do that as proud Canadians. And now we can't hire anybody who hasn't grown up and lived in our province. That's not the kind of Ontario that I'm trying to build. It's not the kind of Ontario that I envision. I don't believe it's in keeping with the people of Ontario. We are proud Canadians and proud Ontarians at the same time, and we're not going to choose between the two.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Paul Miller: He just happens to be from Ireland.

Other examples of bad WSIB leadership include its failure to ensure that all employees are covered by the WSIB and its inability to insist that the Ministry of Labour enforce compliance with the certification requirements under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The hiring of foreign key executives rather than hiring a qualified Ontarian is just one more example of poor judgment shown by the WSIB chair.

In the light of this newest development, maybe of bad judgment, will the government commit not to renewing the current chair's position in the WSIB for another term?

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Premier.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): You just asked the question. I would appreciate it if you'd listen to the response. Premier?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I just think we have to be careful when it comes to pandering to protectionist tendencies, because economic history has demonstrated that there is no success to be found in pursuing that path.

I think the other thing that we've got to keep in mind is paying some attention to the foundation of this province. We are built on calling upon the best from around the world. Are we now going to say that we're closing our doors to others to come here to make a contribution to Ontario and to Canada? I think not. I just see it differently, and I'm pretty confident in saying that Ontarians see it differently as well.

ASSISTANCE TO THE DISABLED

Mr. Khalil Ramal: My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. Minister, tomorrow the ODSP Action Coalition is holding a two-day interactive forum right down the street from here. This conference is entitled "Leading the Way: Developing a Poverty Reduction Strategy for People with Disabilities."

I know there was a 2% increase in the budget, which was announced last week, for the people on Ontario Works and ODSP. It's important to support the vulnerable people among us. It's important since we are in government and you are the Minister of Community and Social Services. However, there are some, including the ODSP Action Coalition, who are asking for more. They are suggesting that Ontario needs to see more action for people with disabilities. Minister, what is your response to this call for more action?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: That's a great question. In fact, as part of the poverty reduction strategy, my ministry is planning to conduct a social assistance review to identify any additional improvements to our program.

But that's only part of the story. We've already started to remove barriers that were keeping people from employment. For example, we simplified the rules around earning exemptions so that more people can work and they can keep more money; we're engaging employers' and employees' organizations to expand job opportunities for people with disabilities; we have extended drug, dental and vision care benefits to people leaving social assistance for employment; and we've launched a number of pilots to test innovative employment support that will help people on social assistance move to sustainable paid employment.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mr. Khalil Ramal: Thank you, Minister, for your response. I know that the coalition, for the next two days, wants to talk on forming a proposal that would be submitted to you. Also, they want to continue the discussion with you and with your ministry in order to improve the lives of people who live on Ontario Works and Ontario disability.

It's important that we keep open channels of communications with these groups. We can work with them to improve the supports available to help the people reach their full potential. Can the minister tell me and tell this House how she is going to plan to work with those coalitions to improve their lives? Also, especially right now, when we have a strategy to reduce poverty in the province of Ontario, can you tell me, please, how we can include those people in your strategy to reduce poverty in this province?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: I will refer the question to the Minister of Children and Youth Services.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Thank you to the member. No one knows better about how the system works or how it doesn't work than people who are directly involved in it. We welcome the participation and advice from people like Community Living self-advocates, members of organizations such as Voices from the Street and the ODSP Action Coalition, as we move forward with our commitment to review social assistance. Indeed, our legislation specifically requires the engagement of low-income people in the development of future poverty reduction strategies.

The conversation has changed tremendously over the past little while around here. People who were, under the previous government, protesting on the front lawns of the Legislature are now at the table working with us, rolling up their sleeves and having a constructive—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you, Minister.

ASSISTANCE TO THE DISABLED

Ms. Sylvia Jones: My question is for the Minister of Community and Social Services. Minister, last year on Community Living Day you announced your government's plans to amend the developmental disability legislation by introducing Bill 77. The bill received third reading in fall 2008. Today, Minister, one year later, families are still waiting for Bill 77 to be proclaimed.

Minister, as you know, Bill 77 does nothing until proclamation. Will the minister announce today when we can expect Bill 77 to be proclaimed?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: First of all, I'd like to welcome people from Community Living here today. It's a great day.

That's a very good question. We are working with our partners in the community to put forward the act and to put action into the community. We want to get it right, so we are working with our partners. We want to make sure that there is one place that people can apply if they need housing or they need to go into a group home.

We need to formalize Bill 77. We are presently working, and I'm encouraged to see good improvement in the—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Ms. Sylvia Jones: Minister, we'd all like to welcome the members from Community Living Ontario, but I think we'd all like some answers too. What I asked you was: When can we see proclamation of Bill 77?

If your intent is to seek consultation and to reach out, then would the minister today table those prospective regulations so that we all have an opportunity to provide input and assess whether the regulations will actually achieve what we all agree is needed?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: Again, you know, we celebrated yesterday the closure of our three institutions, so that was a great day for the DS sector. I wanted to commend all our partners in the community, including the families and those that we serve. It's a big celebration.

All of this started in our transformation of the DS sector. We are presently working with our partners to make sure that Bill 77 is working not only for the government but is working for those that we try to serve. The consultation is there. We're working with them. Our wonderful officials in the ministry are working on that.

I can guarantee you that that sector will improve and we'll reach our goal, which is full inclusion—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

NUCLEAR ENERGY

Mr. Peter Tabuns: The question is for the Premier. Premier, in May 2006, you promised Ontarians that they would not be forced to pay for cost overruns from a new nuclear plant. You said, in a story that was reported in the Globe, that if we were to go with nuclear, we would be looking at a turnkey operation. "Don't come to us with cost overruns. Been there. Done that."

Yesterday, an Infrastructure Ontario official was reported in the Ottawa Citizen as saying that cost overruns for a new nuclear reactor would be shared between the builder and Ontario Power Generation—in other words, the Ontario ratepayer.

Premier, that promise in 2006 not to saddle ratepayers with an overrun seems to have been abandoned. Why did you break t