MPP RUNCIMAN RESPONDS TO THRONE SPEECH
Mr. Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate. I have to indicate at the outset that I concur with the other opposition member, Mr. Rosario Marchese, Trinity-Spadina, and my colleagues as well in describing the throne speech. That seems to be a pretty widespread sentiment, in terms of reaction from the media and others following the throne speech -- boring, dull, a big yawn.
There were some commentators the following day who indicated that this was a strategy, that the government wanted to keep things quiet and hopefully slip by the radar of the public with respect to the fact they don't really have a plan in so many areas that are of concern to the taxpayers and residents of this province. We've seen this over the past two-plus years now, where so many of their policy initiatives seem to have been drawn up in the back of a napkin, a quick reaction to something happening in the media. We saw that this week with the Attorney General, who is famous for this, with respect to his justice reform package that he is talking about, which came out of the blue, apparently in response to a Toronto Star series. That seems to be, disturbingly, the way in which this government has acted and clearly is going to continue to act. They are responding to pressure groups, to media groups, to donors from construction unions or from owners and operators of limousines that service Pearson airport.
There was some speculation that the resignation of the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Sorbara, overshadowed the throne speech, but I would say that a heavy rainstorm would have overshadowed this uninspiring waste of a Lieutenant Governor's time.
I'm just going to take a few minutes. I could go on and on with respect to all sorts of initiatives that could have been mentioned, that should have been mentioned, but for obvious reasons, given the track record of this government, were not touched upon.
A big one that I think is of concern, not just to Ontarians but to Canadians, given what we've seen occurring in this government over the past two years, and of course at the federal level for some period of time, both Liberal governments, is integrity and honesty in government. We raise issues, and there is some criticism with respect to it from the government benches across the way, with holier-than-thou responses to questions by our leader, Mr. Tory, about the appropriateness of Mr. Sorbara staying in office over 18 or 19 months, when the original concerns were expressed.
One has to legitimately wonder about the rationale of leaving Mr. Sorbara in that critical portfolio when the Premier, and he has admitted as much, had no way of being certain whether or not Mr. Sorbara was the subject of a police investigation. We now know that he is, that a search warrant was issued to search the premises of his family company. He was specifically named in the search warrant. What did the Premier do in response to these concerns being expressed 18 or 19 months ago, in fact that the Ontario Securities Commission had launched an investigation? He removed the OSC responsibilities from the Minister of Finance. This after the minister himself had known about this investigation for two months without relaying that information to the Premier. That, to me, would have been grounds for dismissal by any other Premier. If you had a senior minister, especially in a finance portfolio, under investigation by the securities commission and failing to inform the Premier of that investigation for two months until it was becoming public, that alone should have been grounds for dismissal. But I think it's another indicator of the weakness of leadership with the current Liberal government.
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It seems to be a "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" approach, and clearly, when the Premier made the decision to leave this individual in charge of the finances of this province in saying, "I don't know of any police investigation," I think it's pretty clear there was a police investigation underway. There has been one underway for the past 18 or 19 months. That should be of concern to all of us, that this individual, regardless of what the ultimate outcome might be -- and we don't want to prejudge that -- but the fact that he was allowed to remain in office for 18 or 19 months when it appears clear at this point in time that he was under police investigation, I think, is most disturbing and, again, a clear reflection and indictment of the Premier, his lack of leadership and his inability to make some tough decisions.
I have a few more along that line. Mr. Sorbara is not alone. We had a situation involving the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Takhar, who is now under investigation by the Integrity Commissioner on allegations, which have been supported and admitted to, to some degree, in the media and by the minister himself, with respect to his involvement with business operations, or at least with the head office of the business that he headed up and his wife now heads up. We know that when one is appointed to the executive council, they are required to place their business holdings in a blind trust. They are not to be involved in the day-to-day operations or decisions of that business and those business holdings.
Now we know that the minister was travelling back and forth to that business place -- he says, to visit his wife. We know he was there for extended periods of time. We know that he even had political meetings in that office. We know that his chief financial officer was on the board and involved with the company. Yet those are the kinds of allegations, supported by a significant number of facts in the public domain, that the leader of the current government, Mr. McGuinty, when he was sitting on this side of the House, would have been ballistic about in terms of requiring -- demanding -- that any minister of the former government step aside until the air was cleared. There was no question about it, no grey area, when it came to Mr. McGuinty's demands for resignations by members of the former government.
I happened to be one of them, for a relatively minor incident, where he was certainly on his feet, along with other members of his caucus. We know, time after time after time, the demands for public inquiries and resignations that flowed from these benches. Now we've seen this totally different approach and the holier-than-thou reaction from the Liberal benches when we raise these issues. I would encourage the new members sitting on that side to go back and read some of the Hansards from the past few years when the Conservatives were in power in this province and look at the positions taken by them with respect to ministers of the crown. "Hypocrisy" is not a word that's permitted in debate in this House, Mr. Speaker, so I won't use it.
I have to mention another issue that was raised -- several issues, really -- related to fundraisers. We're talking about integrity and the failure to mention integrity in the throne speech. We know, on a number of occasions, the ones that are public knowledge, where the construction unions had a significant thank-you fundraiser and raised about a quarter of a million dollars for the Liberal Party. This was right in the middle of legislation in this House by the Minister of Labour, which was removing secret ballot votes for certification of unions in the construction sector. Here's a thank you, a $250-million thank you, in the middle of legislation -- unprecedented, in my history in this place. You could call it tollgating; you could call it a payoff. Whatever you want to call it, it reflects on the integrity of this government, and it reflects badly.
We also know that this is the same group of people who were involved in the working families --
The Acting Speaker: I would ask the member for Leeds-Grenville to withdraw his comments about the government.
Mr. Runciman: If I said anything unparliamentary, I will withdraw, with my apologies.
The Acting Speaker: You did, and I appreciate your withdrawal.
Mr. Runciman: This is the same organization that was a significant sponsor of the working families initiative against the former government and invested something in the neighbourhood of $300,000 to run extremely critical ads of the former government.
We know there was a $10,000-per-person fundraiser in the home of the former Minister of Finance's brother and allegations surrounding that that related to protection of land around the then-proposed greenbelt. Those are allegations that have never been answered appropriately.
We know that, again, the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Takhar, was bringing in legislation banning Toronto taxis from picking up fares at Pearson airport. We also know that those same limousine drivers, their organizations, raised approximately $200,000 for the Liberal Party. Again, what does that say about the integrity of the Liberal government? They couldn't speak to that issue because it wouldn't stand the test of credibility, given their track record over the past two-plus years.
If they had wanted to, if they had a clean sheet to present to the public of Ontario, they could perhaps have announced a legislative requirement that political parties keep promises that get them elected. When we talk about integrity, the biggest one that shows continually on public polling is their failure to keep promises that put them in office -- 230 promises. We've counted 50 so far that have been broken. Of course, the most significant one was their tax promise, where Mr. McGuinty was featured in television advertising promising the people of Ontario that he would not increase their taxes.
Mr. McGuinty and others now argue that, "We had no choice. We had to do this." But they did have a choice. Another element of that promise was that if they felt, for financial or other reasons, that they had to bring in tax increases, they would go to the people; they would make their case before the people through a referendum. That's a key component of that promise which they fail to talk about when they discuss this issue.
Again, they failed to talk in specific terms about the economy. There were a number of references to the economy and economic growth, but I would suggest a great deal of that was bravado, smoke and mirrors. We hear certain pockets of Ontario are doing well, but we all know there's increasing uncertainty about the economic well-being of this province and certainly about the manufacturing base. We have had 42,000 manufacturing jobs lost over the past year. Those are the September statistics: year to year, 42,000 manufacturing jobs lost.
Certainly I know from my own area, my own region of the province, eastern Ontario, we are the recipients of those body blows. In Brockville we've lost SCI, Black and Decker, Phillips Cable. We've seen RCA move out of Prescott. We've seen manufacturing jobs lost in Cardinal. We've recently seen the Nestlé food plant in Chesterville, which borders my riding, being announced as a closure.
What's happening, Mr. Speaker, as you know, is that many of these jobs are being replaced by significantly lower paid service jobs. We're becoming a service job economy. We may not see the impact of that over the next few years. We're still seeing a large growth in Brockville, for example, of the commercial sector. But I think, over time, that's going to have an impact on all Ontarians and our ability to maintain this healthy economy over the next 10, 15 or 20 years. Certainly in the small business sector we're seeing increased taxes, we've seen increased regulation and energy costs -- again, none of these referenced in terms of providing assistance through the throne speech -- WSIB premiums -- or labour legislation.
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The third point that I want to address quickly is agriculture -- virtually ignored. Mr. Speaker, I know that you have an agricultural component in your riding. We know how the farming community is suffering. And it's not just farmers; it's the people who live and work in the agricultural community as well.
I had the opportunity, along with a federal member and some municipal officials, on the Thanksgiving weekend, of meeting with Grenville OFA folks and touring, meeting cash croppers, feed and fertilizer dealers, equipment dealers -- the whole range of people who are impacted by what is happening in rural Ontario, and who are virtually ignored. Alex McGregor, who is a beef farmer -- and I think he's also involved in dairy operations now -- his net income from 1997 to 2004, down 85.5%. That's due to higher input costs and lower returns on sales.
Mr. Speaker, we have low commodity prices, as you know, and low crop prices for corn, beans and wheat. There's a whole range of very serious problems, and they are not getting support from the Liberal provincial government. In fact, they witnessed a very significant cut in the ministry budget in the past budget. They are in serious concern, and I would suggest that this Torontocentric government provide time for urban area members to spend a day or so out in rural Ontario with the farmers, with the cash crop folks, with the implement dealers. Get a better understanding. Get some manure on your shoes. Get out there and walk around and realize the challenges that these people are facing and that you are not addressing in any way, shape or form.
I had a letter from a young couple, Jeff Gatcke and Corinna Smith-Gatcke -- it's tough for young couples to get into farming -- talking about the fact that they want to grow their business. They want to be in farming. These are young people who grew up on farms and they want to stay in farming. They love farming.
"As grain and oilseed producers, our sector requires long-term solutions to provide stability. Governments at all levels must support the idea of a level playing field, as Ontario farmers produce farm products at the local level but the prices paid for our products are influenced by world trade issues. Ontario must prove that OMAFRA is a lead ministry and important to their government by increasing the budget, not cutting it, and providing stable programs to help farmers arrange financing and enable young farmers to enter the business of agriculture."
That's not happening with this government, and it virtually ignored the sector in the speech from the throne.
Some local issues, quickly: We are seeing some negative impacts in the health care sector. The Brockville General Hospital, which had a $37-million expansion under the former government, is now being forced by the current Liberal government to close beds. We're closing a complete ward in the Brockville General Hospital, closing down the lab, restricting operating room time. They are continuing to operate a CAT scan, for which they get no funding from the province, on monies that are donated to the hospital. That's the sort of thing that's happening.
We've lost the walk-in clinic. This is in Brockville. I understand that the walk-in clinic in Prescott is now under threat. This is overwhelming the Brockville General emergency room. This, all in the wake of a record tax increase by the Liberal government to supposedly improve health care in the province, at the same time removing physio, eye exams and chiropractic care from OHIP coverage. That's the sort of thing that's happening.
Nursing homes: I've been in contact with Sherwood Park nursing home. Again, nursing homes are under significant pressure. They had promises from this government which are simply not happening. Stress, frustration and discouragement: The government claims "to have created 2,000 new positions in long-term care when in fact, most of us have struggled to retain what we have and are, in fact, planning to cut ... the few health care aide" workers that we have. That's the reality and speaks to the honesty of the current government. There are so many people, so many challenges, and I can't get into all of them with the limited time that I have, but I very much appreciate the opportunity.
