LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO
BUDGET MEASURES ACT, 2006

OCTOBER 31, 2006

Mr. Toby Barrett (Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant): I welcome the opportunity to address Bill 151 this afternoon. As we know, this is the Budget Measures Act. In looking at this piece of proposed legislation, I would like to try to determine how it would relate to my riding down in Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant and what it might do, being a bill about our economy, to help out with respect to our farm economy and our rural economy in Ontario.

There's an expression in rural Ontario: "You can't spend your money until you earn it." That is a very simple way of looking at things. It's something that I personally attempt to subscribe to. I feel in many ways that should be government policy. I do believe in balanced budgets, although we do know that in times of warfare or dire economic circumstances, one does have to run a deficit on occasion. I really question why any level of government would even think of running a deficit and compound an existing debt during the good times, but we have seen that pattern, actually, with several governments in the province of Ontario.

Bill 151 is an economy bill. As you would know, much of rural Ontario and farm Ontario is in a bit of trouble with respect to their economy. I find -- and I suggest this to the members present today -- that we have an opportunity right now, between now and November 13, to continue to stay plugged in, if you will, in our home areas by either attending the many all-candidates nights that are happening across the province or, at minimum, monitoring what's coming up through our local media.

I've attended a number of nights in the past, and I have an opportunity with our small-town local media to stay informed. Many questions are being raised. Many of them do relate to issues economic, certainly in my area down in Haldimand, Norfolk, and Brant counties, and there are plenty of ideas coming forward with respect to economic development and ways of dealing with many of these issues as a result of the economic downturn in certain areas in my riding. Good ideas come forward. I attended an all-candidates night in Dunnville just last week -- excellent presentations from all concerned at the level of mayor, the municipal level and at the school board level.

In much of my area, agriculture really is the heart of the economy, and I can't say this enough: We're going through some tough times. We have some opportunities down my way. One opportunity, which has apparently been put on the shelf somewhat, is what I refer to as the mid-Pen corridor, that transportation corridor to move people, goods and services out of the Buffalo-New York area towards Toronto, by and large. This mid-Pen corridor was raised many times at the all-candidates nights to date in the Haldimand area.

Other issues raised: Obviously, we need to cut red tape. Those of us in this House are fully aware of the myriad of rules, regulations and red tape that suffocate so many good intentions. Red tape essentially takes the fun out of doing business. Again, at these nights, we hear the need for water and sewer infrastructure, road and highway development.

One unique comment that comes up time and time again through these all-candidates nights, and certainly through the feedback I receive at my constituency office, is the need to return to the realm of law and order. The standoff in Caledonia, the illegal occupation just south of town, has created a tremendous amount of uncertainty with respect to our local economy. It's not an issue that can be addressed through Bill 151, but everything is interrelated. As we all know, uncertainty is very bad for business. The other thing that's very bad for business and job creation is any government that jacks up taxes.

1700

Another threat in Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant: Brantford is a major supplier, for example, for the Nanticoke generating station. Six hundred jobs are on the line at that plant, 600 jobs that this particular government has indicated they're more than willing to sacrifice. They're more than willing to subtract not only 600 jobs, they're more than willing to subtract $3 million from the treasury of Haldimand county.

I find that many people aspiring for municipal office, they get it, they understand it. They understand the need as an elected representative to make it very clear that the province of Ontario and counties like Haldimand, Brant and Norfolk are open for business. They make it very clear that in order to realize the opportunities that are there in agriculture, the opportunities in small business and industry and in the housing industry, we need to show a serious commitment to infrastructure, to better roads and to transportation links.

I go back to the mid-Pen corridor. It's crucial for a community like Dunnville to have that link, to have that access to the mid-Pen, as what appears to be the economic trend continues east, as the people in Dunnville continue to look toward the Niagara region with respect to not only economic activity but social interaction as well. The bottom line: Jobs are so important in a rural area. Without jobs, people leave, young people in particular, to pick up work elsewhere.

Farther west in my area, communities like Delhi and Langton, the heart of tobacco country -- it wasn't that long ago that virtually every single farm in the Langton area was growing tobacco. I think something like 97% of the agricultural activity in the Langton area, down in the southwest, was related to growing leaf. Right now, constituents are reeling from the news very recently announced by the tobacco board that 150 pink slips are in order for the coming crop year, if there is one. Again, this kind of uncertainty is very bad for business. We're not seeing much in the way of answers in this particular bill, Bill 151. I know it makes reference to tobacco taxes; it seems that just about every budget that comes out from this government takes a hit to tobacco taxes. But I see no plan. I don't see a plan in this legislation or in the various sections that provides much encouragement for the rural areas that I represent in my particular area, the rural south of the province of Ontario.

Delhi, a case in point, is an example of economic devastation. The threat to downtown Delhi can be exemplified by, and in fact I would suggest has been accelerated by, Ontario government policy. We lost the MTO office and we lost the licence bureau. This government put out a request for proposals. People with business sense in the community applied, put their money on the table and discovered that that RFP had been withdrawn. Again, we only hope that adjacent businesses and businesses thinking of coming to Delhi would not follow the McGuinty lead of essentially abandoning small communities, taking out an MTO office. We need something much better than that. We need solutions, essentially, and I see little of that in this particular piece of legislation, the Budget Measures Act.

It's not only Delhi and what's reflected with the hit on the downtown in the community of Delhi. There is concern in parts of Simcoe, in the town of Simcoe. I recall downtown Dunnville in the 1980s. I used to consult in that community with business and industry, and there was devastation in that particular town in the 1980s. It's time to plan for that now and do everything we can, not only to attempt to spruce up downtown but to work on the underlying economic underpinnings, the foundation of communities like Delhi, Simcoe, Dunnville and the neighbouring area that provides the customers, provides the visitors to the town and provides the economic foundation to ensure that we have a healthy downtown. In this Budget Measures Act, I fail to see any indication or any real hope, essentially, that would help out.

Our rural economy needs stimuli. We see this with tobacco. Obviously, in the last several years, we have seen a war on tobacco -- this government is upfront about referring to it that way -- and any war on tobacco or on farmers is not the answer. There are some approaches. For a number of years I've called for a feasibility study to take a look at a pipeline, for example, to draw raw water north from Lake Erie, raw water that would be available for our irrigation-based agriculture on what's referred to as the Norfolk sand plain, the sand area that touches east Elgin, southern Oxford county, Brant county primarily in the west and much of Norfolk county. Untreated water could be available for irrigation. Once it hits Highway 3, water would be available for treatment to serve those towns, ranging from Tillsonburg, Delhi, Simcoe and Waterford. As far as who pays the bill, I really feel there is a tremendous potential for partnerships with the city of Guelph, for example. Kitchener-Waterloo -- a certain percentage of their water draws on the Grand River, Brantford draws on the Grand River, and so many smaller towns. Burford, Oakland and St. George in my riding rely on wells in that sand plain. Perhaps the time has come and we need to check out the feasibility of a water pipeline.

I look at Bill 151 in the context of being a member of the PC caucus in this Ontario Legislature, a caucus that opposes tax increases and higher taxes, a caucus that is very concerned about high electricity rates -- essentially what we consider the runaway spending nature of a series of budgets now coming from the McGuinty government. This government has taken $6 billion more in revenue than was felt to be needed to keep that litany of promises that was presented to the people of Ontario during that last election three years ago. Those promises remain broken. We have seen no reduction in taxes -- no reduction in taxes for Ontario's overtaxed low-income seniors, for example, and no reduction for overtaxed families or businesses. I don't see any tax cuts announced in this particular piece of legislation named the Budget Measures Act.

Over the years, we've seen what I call a rise and then a fall of the traditional Liberal tax-and-spend, tax-some-more-and-spend-some-more recipe of disaster for this economy. Under the current regime, the tax-and-spend orthodoxy is seeing a renaissance, and I am concerned that we are well on our way to the bad old days. In June 1997, I did a presentation in this House on tax-and-spend Liberal economics and made reference to the previous government as well. The NDP government, coupled with the Liberal governments at that time, during their era passed on to people in Ontario a total of 65 tax increases. They gave consumers 65 reasons not to spend money, they gave businesses 65 reasons not to hire new employees and they gave investors 65 reasons to keep their money out of the economy. Those were tough times. Wages increased 54%. However, taxes increased something in the order of 73%. Nobody got to see a single penny of those raise increases because government was giving itself yet again an ever-increasing and bigger raise.

1710

I used the treadmill analogy at that time, and I'm seeing this coming now. People were running on a treadmill, but every time they ran a little faster and worked a little harder, invested more in the economy or did their best to better their skill set, Liberal and NDP governments just increased the speed of the treadmill. In the end, people were working harder but they were not seeing the fruits of their labour. This philosophy of punishing hard work can be downright dangerous, in particular for the economy. With this budget bill, Bill 151, I see no evidence or indication of attempting to turn back the clock on this one.

In 2003, Premier McGuinty -- Dalton McGuinty, at the time -- looked into the eyes of Ontarians and said, and I quote the oft-quoted expression, "I will not raise your taxes." Do you remember that? I remember reading that election platform. It also said, "We'll balance the budget." In 2003, the present government said they would balance the budget and they would keep taxes down. In 2003, Liberals pretended they had learned that Liberal tax-and-spend economics don't work. They promised that they had learned those lessons, but they're Liberals: A promise is a promise that must be broken.

Let's be clear: In my view -- and I'm really synthesizing my degree in economics, if you will, and my experience in this House over the last 11 years -- tax cuts do create jobs. What do tax hikes do? They kill jobs. Deficit spending just mortgages the future of our children. This current regime is obviously on the wrong side of this economic equation.

I was reading the Toronto Star this weekend. I don't do that often, but it was sad to see a story titled, "Liberals Expect to Face Election with Deficit." In it, Greg Sorbara promised to deliver yet another large budget deficit this coming spring. It's a sad day when the provincial Minister of Finance is promising a flood of red ink. Why would he do that just before an election? I do try and search for the silver lining. Maybe the Liberals will see their deficit promise like some of their other promises: Maybe they'll break it.

The Toronto Sun -- now there's a paper that I do have occasion to read a little more regularly. In fact, in many parts of my riding, it's pretty difficult to find the Toronto Star, but you can find the Toronto Sun. Again, I'd like to read more about the McGuinty Liberal economic train wreck, in my view:

"McGuinty takes the blame in our downfall, too -- with lame-brain policies like higher taxes, skyrocketing electricity prices and the highest property tax burden in the industrialized world, which has sent firms packing and caused plants to close. At last count, Ontario had lost more than 100,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, and the list continues to grow."

That's the Toronto Sun. Regrettably in what we heard this afternoon during question period, that list is continuing to grow. Nobody is feeling the pinch of this government's failed borrow, tax and spend policy more than the good people throughout rural Ontario. It's been less than a month since the McGuinty Liberals downloaded the massive cost of source water protection onto rural Ontario. Rural Ontario has a long memory. Rural Ontario remembers --

Ms. MacLeod: They will never forget this crowd.

Mr. Barrett: They remember well. They won't forget. They remember when Dalton McGuinty made the promise -- get this one. Here's another promise: "We will make the Ministry of Agriculture a lead ministry."

We're debating a budget bill. Take a look at the last budget. Cash crop farmers ended up with a 51% decrease in assistance. This government continues to pay lip service to farmers by telling them that agriculture is a top priority, but you know, as we've seen in the House this afternoon, it has degenerated to running and hiding. And when they do get caught, they kind of turn around, they're in a corner, and they point towards Ottawa --