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Ms. Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton): I'd like to move the following: That, in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should immediately eliminate the illegitimate health tax, beginning with serving military personnel and senior citizens.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Joseph N. Tascona): The member has moved ballot item number 38. The Chair recognizes the member.

Ms. MacLeod: It's my pleasure today to introduce and debate my first private member's resolution. I hope to receive cross-partisan support today, because this is the right thing to do for our seniors and our soldiers. This is a promise I made to my constituents in Nepean-Carleton during the recent by-election. I believe it is motherhood and apple pie.

Today is a sober day of thought for all of us in Canada when we think of our men and women in the armed forces. Yesterday, Canada lost its first-ever female to a combat battle death. Nichola Goddard was only 26, and my thoughts and prayers are with her family. I want to reflect on her sacrifice and the sacrifices of all our soldiers during this dialogue today.

There are over 30,000 serving military personnel living in Ontario. They are Brian Nelson of Nepean, they are Shawn Hoopey of Ottawa and they are Adele Donaldson of Barrhaven. As someone who has the fortune of sharing a riding with the federal Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Gordon O'Connor -- the general, as we sometimes like to call him -- I can tell you that the military is in our hearts and minds in Nepean-Carleton, as I am sure it is with every constituency across this province. In Nepean-Carleton, home to many soldiers of the Canadian Armed Forces, I see many soldiers who make daily sacrifices for us. We know they are put in harm's way, especially now, while they serve in Afghanistan to protect us.

That brings me back to my resolution. I don't believe that anybody who protects this country or who built this province should pay the health tax. In a few short weeks I have been able to accumulate thousands of signatures from across Ontario on a petition calling on the government of Ontario to immediately eliminate the province's illegitimate health tax, beginning with seniors and serving military personnel.

There is widespread support from across Ontario for this resolution. I have received encouragement from the Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Gordon O'Connor. I have received support from Senator Michael Forrestall, the Vice-Chair of the Senate standing committee on national defence and security. I've received support from literally thousands of Ontarians, including veterans like retired Captain Bill Donaldson and retired Lieutenant Colonel Graham Baskerville, and I hope to count on the support of my colleagues in this Legislature today.

I know that eliminating the health tax for soldiers has been raised before in this Legislature. The leader of the official opposition, John Tory, does not feel it is appropriate to charge the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces this health tax, especially since they do not use the health care system in Ontario. I am also proud that John Tory has made the commitment to phase out the health tax for everyone once he becomes Premier. My colleague the member from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, who has a large military base in his riding of Petawawa, has stood up for our soldiers and has demanded that this health tax be eliminated for them as well. I'm very pleased he will be joining us in this debate today.

Other provinces, such as Alberta and British Columbia, have exempted military personnel from health care levies and taxes because their health care costs are covered by the federal government. I think we ought to do the same in this Legislature. I think it is imprudent to make our military men and women pay more and get nothing, absolutely nothing, in return.

I also think we must protect our seniors who are on fixed incomes. According to the ministry's website, 52% of seniors who file taxes are paying this health tax. I don't have to tell you that many Ontario seniors are living on fixed incomes. For many of these seniors, rising costs such as property taxes eat into their fixed incomes.

A report from the Ontario Health Quality Council says that low-income people are the ones not getting health care, yet they are paying a greater percentage of their income toward the health tax. This scares me. It means that seniors who are on a fixed income and coping with increased costs -- higher fuel costs, mounting property tax increases and delisted medical services -- are arguably paying a greater percentage of their income to this tax.

To add insult to injury, the Ontario home property tax relief for seniors, which ensured that every eligible senior homeowner or renter would receive an average property tax rebate of $475 -- for up to one million senior households -- was rolled back by the McGuinty government when it assumed office. Now Ontario seniors have been twice bitten -- once by a rollback of $475 and now with this new tax, taking at least $450 out of their fixed income.

I think we ought to do something about this. We must respect those people who have built this province. Thousands across this province agree. Vera Collier from Nepean, a woman who has worked tirelessly for seniors in my community, has added her voice to call for the elimination of this tax for seniors on fixed incomes; so have Helen Byers and Shirley Mahoney, both volunteers with Nepean Seniors' Home Support. They agree that approximately 1.6 million people over the age of 65 who are paying this tax should see some relief.

If this resolution is successful, we could be responsible, together, for giving close to $390 million, in my humble estimation, back to Ontario's seniors and soldiers. This, of course, is a little more than the $200 million of health tax funds allocated to the Ministry of the Environment, not to our hospitals, in 2004, and substantially less than the $3 billion in unbudgeted revenue in the 2006 budget. Our seniors and soldiers deserve this relief.

I will expect today normal pushback from opponents of my philosophy. They will ask what I am going to cut. They will say, "This is a tax that applies to every citizen equally," and they will use an example, I'm sure, of a wealthy senior -- one of the few -- to try to make their point for this tax grab. My response to all of the above will be that according to the recent Liberal budget there was $3 billion in unbudgeted revenue that could have helped us give back to our seniors and soldiers, those people who have built Ontario and who protect Canada. I will say, on the point of equity, I think it is unfair, unjust and inequitable that those in the military must pay this tax yet they receive nothing for it because their health care is provided for by the federal government. I will say too that most seniors I know live on modest means, especially as they grow older. With fixed incomes and increasing taxes, fees and costs, the extra costs of delisted health care services and this health care tax, it's making it more difficult for seniors to make ends meet.

Before I conclude, I'd like to touch briefly on the health tax, and I'm sure my colleague the member from Erie-Lincoln, the PC finance critic, will have more to add when he joins the discussion. But we must remember that this is a tax. Even the finance minister is now referring to it as a tax, or at least he did on Wednesday, April 5, even though we were promised during the 2003 election that there would be no new tax increases. Yet that promise was somehow forgotten, and now this government will have collected a total of $4.1 billion since the inception of this tax to the end of fiscal 2005-06, and they are forecasting $2.6 billion in health tax revenue for next year. The chart in the expenditure estimates document reveals that this government plans to collect a staggering 8% more from the health tax in 2006-07 than in the current fiscal year. Let's compare this 8% increase with a few other tax revenues: Income tax revenues are expected to go up by 3%; sales tax revenues are expected to go up by 4%; the employer health tax -- yes, that's another health tax -- is expected to go up 2.6%; and sales tax revenues, at 4%, are the next-highest increase to this health tax.

According to these numbers, I think we can, with good, clear conscience, do the right thing in this Legislature today and salute our soldiers and our seniors by eliminating this tax for seniors and serving military personnel and putting $390 million back into their pockets, not into general revenues.

I urge all colleagues today to support this resolution for the good of our seniors and for the good of our soldiers because, as I have said, this is the right thing to do. It is motherhood and apple pie, and it can be done.

I look forward to debate and will be happy to respond to any questions or comments.

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Ms. Monique M. Smith (Nipissing): I'm pleased to stand today in the House and speak to this resolution brought by the member for Nepean-Carleton.

The resolution reads, "That, in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should immediately eliminate the illegitimate health tax, beginning with serving military personnel and senior citizens." This isn't a resolution about our respect for the military. Of course, every member of this House has the utmost respect for our men and women serving the country. I have a military base in my riding, and those constituents of my riding are of the utmost importance to me.

What I want to speak to today is the fact that this member is proposing we phase out the health premium and, in that, we bring back the Mike Harris days. As those of you in the House will remember, when we came into government, we inherited a number of deficits, including an infrastructure deficit, a health care deficit, an education deficit, and of course a whopping $6.4-billion financial deficit.

I would like to know what the member for Nepean-Carleton and her leader, Mr. John Tory, would like to cut when we cut $2.4 billion out of health care. Would you like to cut the wait-time strategy where we've had such success and seen our wait times reduced across the province? Would you like to cut our investment in hospitals?

Interjection.

Ms. Smith: I know the people in North Bay are looking forward to the groundbreaking on our new North Bay hospital, which we've been waiting for for years and for which, I might add to the member for Erie-Lincoln, we've had a poster in our hospital showing a finishing date of 2005 with former Premier Mike Harris in that photo announcing the hospital. Unfortunately, the former Premier never came up with the money for the hospital. So if you were to cut the two --

Mr. Tim Hudak (Erie-Lincoln): You delayed it.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. Member from Erie-Lincoln, the member from Nipissing was very respectful to Ms. MacLeod when she was speaking. Can you pay her the same courtesy?

Ms. Smith: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would just remind the members opposite that the hospital in North Bay did not go forward under Mike Harris because the money wasn't there. If we're to cut $2.4 billion out of our health care spending, where will the money come from?

Our family health teams, an initiative our government has introduced, are seeing many more patients having family docs in our various communities. This is an important initiative in North Bay. We have one of the first family health teams in the province. We are seeing more of our residents having a family doctor. These family doctors are able to provide more care to more people, including our seniors. They are able to spend more time with our seniors, and that's incredibly important. If we slash $2.4 billion out of our health care budget, are we taking away family doctors from our seniors? That's a question I have for the member from Nepean-Carleton.

More nurses in hospitals: We have invested in nursing across this province. We are seeing more full-time nursing in the province than ever before. We're up to almost 60% full-time nursing. This is a huge improvement over where we were. We are showing much more respect. We are investing in our nurses. We don't want to go back to the days of treating the nurses like hula hoop workers, as the Mike Harris government I think referred to them. We don't want to see a slash of $2.4 billion out of our health care budget in order to treat our nurses badly. We need to invest in nursing across the province. We need to provide quality health care where it's needed across the province.

Home care is another issue where we've seen a record investment of $1.4 billion. This is direct care for seniors in their homes. During the previous campaign in 2003, while I knocked on doors in my riding, I met with seniors who had recently experienced cuts to their home care that was going to mean they were going to have to move into a long-term-care home. That's not where they wanted to be or where they needed to be. With a little bit of home care they were able to stay at home.

We've reinvested in home care. We are seeing our seniors age in place in more places across the province, and that's what they want. With a cut of $2.4 billion out of our health care budget, we would see that slashed and we would see our seniors losing those services that they so dearly need.

We would also see cuts to the funding that we've flowed to mental health in our communities and to our long-term-care homes, which I know are incredibly important to everyone in this House.

Mr. John Yakabuski (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke): You're making that up. Is that parliamentary?

The Acting Speaker: I'm glad that the member from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke has joined us, but we want to hear from the member from Nipissing.

Ms. Smith: It is amazing that the member from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke can find something to say when he hasn't actually been here to hear what I was talking about. I'm talking about the $2.4 billion that your party wants to cut --

Mr. Yakabuski: You don't have to be here to know what you're going to say.

The Acting Speaker: Member from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, come to order.

Mr. Yakabuski: She referred to my absence, sir.

The Acting Speaker: Member, one more outburst and that's it.

Member from Nipissing.

Ms. Smith: I seem to have hit a nerve this morning, perhaps because they are sensitive to the fact that they are proposing a cut of $2.4 billion from our health care budget. We all know that health care is the most important issue for Ontarians. People in Ontario want to see quality health care close to home, and that is what our government is providing.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this resolution. As I've indicated, I will not be supporting this resolution today.

Mr. Yakabuski: I'm glad to join the debate. I hope the member for Nipissing will stay to hear what I have to say, but it's highly unlikely.

This resolution on the part of my recently elected colleague from Nepean-Carleton speaks to an issue which I raised in this House shortly after the disastrous budget this government brought forth, bringing forward the largest tax increase foisted on the people of Ontario in the history of this great province. I remember sending a letter to the Minister of Health, to which I got no good response. I did get a response, thank you very much, but I did not get a good response.

It is an issue that we have raised repeatedly in this House, not only in the context of debate but in the context of questions as well, and not only myself but the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey, John Tory, has also raised it in the context of questions. So I commend the member for Nepean-Carleton for bringing this forward in the form of a resolution to this House so that perhaps -- unlikely, but perhaps -- the members opposite will have the freedom to make a decision on this without being whipped or without being told by the Premier's office that this is the way it's going to be, that they might actually be able to make a decision based on what is right and fair.

When we talk about our military personnel, they don't get their health care from the provincial government. This government can call it a health care tax, they can call it whatever they want, but it is just another hand in the pockets of the hard-working people of the province of Ontario. Over 25,000 military personnel from Ontario have that dip into their pockets on the part of the McGuinty government.

They don't get their health care from the province of Ontario. The federal government is solely responsible for providing health care to our military personnel. In fact, they don't get an OHIP card. They have a DND card that provides them with health care. This shouldn't surprise people when it comes to this government, but what it amounts to is the old double-dip. They want to get them on the tax, like they're getting everybody in this province, and how much longer they can take that, I don't know. But they want to get them on the tax and then, when the military personnel go and procure medical treatment of any nature, they send the bill to the federal government as well. It's the old double-dipping routine on the part of this government.

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Mind you, when you see some of the appointments they've been making, we can understand how they feel so in tune with the phrase "double-dipping." I think we're going to see a few more in the next couple of weeks, some nice, plum appointments made by this government before we recess for the summer, which is their habit: hoping that as the press sort of takes the focus off the Legislature -- you who sit on the government agencies committee will see that there will be a number of plum appointments to the friends of the McGuinty Liberals coming in the next few weeks.

This is an issue of fairness, and the Premier has had it placed straight in front of him. His responses have been absolutely brutal, and then he has passed it on to the Minister of Finance, whose responses have been brutaler yet -- or more brutal, in case there's an English teacher in the crowd. I want to make sure I got that correct.

What they said was how much they respect and care about our military personnel. I want to take a moment to say that I'm sure all members of this assembly, indeed all Ontarians -- our hearts go out to the family of Captain Goddard, who was our first-ever female casualty of war of our country ever in history, in Afghanistan yesterday, defending democracy in that torn country. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family and also to our serving military personnel who have lost one of their own.

Again I say, this is a fundamental issue of fairness. The member for Nipissing, babbling on over there about what she says this government is doing or not doing, talking about this party talking about taking money out of health care -- that, I categorically state here right now for the people watching on television and for our friends in the gallery, has never been said by this party. What we are going to do through the course of our first term in office is eliminate this regressive, punitive health tax because we will manage the affairs of this province in a prudent fiscal manner that will make that unnecessary. In fact, if this government had any fiscal bones in its body, they could have balanced this budget without instituting this health tax, but they chose not to for purely political reasons. That is what is truly unfortunate about this government. Everything they're doing has a partisan, political reason behind it. It is not about serving Ontarians; it is not about serving citizens; it is not about being fair to those men and women who are defending our interests and the interests of democracy around the world; it is about the Liberal Party's partisan plan and will to be re-elected at any cost to anybody in this province.

I'll say again that I'm pleased and most thankful that my colleague from Nepean-Carleton has brought forth this motion to ensure that fairness will be on the table for military personnel in our armed forces across this province. The McGuinty government has to show some interest in fiscal responsibility because they can balance the budget in this province without that punitive tax. That is only one, and I'm sure that my good friend from Erie-Lincoln, our finance critic, is going to probably touch on some of the other disgraceful moves this government has made to take more money out of the pockets of working families and seniors across this province.

My time is just about up, but I do want to thank you for this opportunity and assure you that for the rest of the day I'll be on my best behaviour, because the last thing I'd want is to be sent home early on a Thursday.

Ms. Andrea Horwath (Hamilton East): It's certainly my pleasure to speak to this resolution put forward by the member for Nepean-Carleton. I wanted to start by saying that absolutely, definitely, New Democrats have been on the record time and time again -- and being a New Democrat, that makes me in agreement with that position -- opposing the McGuinty Liberal government's regressive health tax that they chose to introduce in the province of Ontario. I'm going to speak about that at some length in a few minutes.

But I also have to state -- with quite an ironic lilt to my voice, I guess -- that I also oppose the irresponsible actions of the former government in the way they dealt with Ontario's tax system in the first place. They made decisions and chose to cut taxes in a way that has forever reduced Ontario's fiscal capacity. I think everyone would agree that that's the case. Regardless of what party you happen to belong to or what position you happen to take on any particular issue, that party over there, the member for Nepean-Carleton's party, when they were in government, made real decisions that reduced the fiscal capacity of the province of Ontario to meet the needs of the people of Ontario. From my perspective, that was extremely irresponsible and has ended up with disastrous results in this province.

I was sitting on municipal council at the city of Hamilton during that time frame -- not quite the entire time frame, but almost the entire time frame -- when that party was in government, and I can tell you, today we are still reeling at the city level with the results of their decisions from a fiscal perspective. It started off with their illusory tax cuts. Ask anybody who lives in a city and get them to tell you that those tax cuts really had any results on the pocketbook; they did the opposite. They might have gotten a couple hundred bucks from the Tories, but when it came to everyday life in their cities, in their communities, they paid through the nose and they're still paying through the nose.

We just have to look at the big mess of the property tax system to see what that group over there did when they were in government. It is a mess, and now they're scrambling, through this bill and a bill from another one of their members, to fix the problems that they messed up in the first place. So it's ironic that we're here talking about this current government's fix, which, again, I oppose -- and I will speak about that in a few minutes -- but let's face it, it was the Tories who messed up the fiscal issues in the province of Ontario. They reduced the ability of our provincial ministries to meet the needs of Ontario citizens, and that includes the Ministry of Health. I think that's something we all have to acknowledge as an underpinning of this debate, and that means senior citizens and working families and young people and older people; it means everybody. Yes, it's appropriate to debate this issue, and yes, it's appropriate to pay positive respect to our senior citizens and to our serving members of the military. On behalf of the New Democrats, I too want to say that we mourn the loss of the woman killed in action on the front lines, the first Canadian woman to be killed in action in battle. We certainly do mourn her loss and have the greatest of condolences to her family and to her colleagues on the front lines in Afghanistan.

But I have to say that this debate is not about those issues; it's more about the choices that governments make in attempting to meet the needs of the people of Ontario. I have to say that previous governments, in the way they dealt with the choices in front of them, decided on illusory tax cuts that led to property tax increases at the municipal level, which are through the roof as a result of downloading and as a result of a messed-up MPAC system, the municipal property assessment system, which, we know, we've had some stinging criticisms of recently. It included a number of local-level user fee increases that were foisted upon users of various municipal services because municipalities were unable to deal with the provision of service at the local level under the crushing burden of downloading that this previous government, the Tories, decided to foist on municipalities. It put local governments in chaos, and they are still struggling to get through that chaos. Quite generally, they made a mess, and now, through private members' bills here and there, they're trying to pretend that they didn't make a mess or that they have the solutions. Well, they didn't have the solutions when they were in government, and they don't have the solutions now, I would submit to you.

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However, having said that, I actually don't disagree with the fact that the Liberal McGuinty government made a big mistake when they decided to foist a new tax on the people of Ontario, when they decided that a regressive health tax was the right way to go to raise some of the money that the Tories, the previous government, so recklessly cut out of our ability to meet the needs of Ontarians.

The Tories decided it was the best thing to do, to cut health care, to cut education, to cut social assistance, to cut affordable housing, and to ignore crumbling infrastructure and crumbling transit systems. That was their legacy: at the same time pretending to give people money in their pocket while really increasing all the other taxes and user fees they had to pay.

This government, the one we're dealing with now, decides, after promising -- this must have been, if not the first broken promise, certainly the worst in terms of broken promises. It is arguably the most odious of the broken promises of the McGuinty Liberal government. Why do I say that? The McGuinty Liberal government had choices when it came to their decisions about how they were going to redress some of the transgressions of the previous government. They had some real choices. But what did they choose to do? They chose to introduce a regressive health tax. Why do I call it a regressive health tax? Because it quite obviously is, if you do the math and figure out in real dollar terms who's paying what amount on their health tax.

Let me give you an example. A family with two income earners, earning maybe a little over $36,000, will be paying $900 annually for their health tax; $900 on $36,000. Two income earners with $50,000 in income are going to pay about $1,200. You figure, well, you know what? That's kind of going in the right direction. You earn a little more, you pay a little more. But a multi-millionaire in the province of Ontario, an individual making millions of dollars, is not going to pay $1,200. You thought maybe $1,500, maybe $2,000, maybe $2,500, based on the fact they're making so much money. What is that multi-millionaire going to pay? It's $900, the same as a family with two incomes that's earning $36,000 a year. That is a regressive system. It's a system that New Democrats at every stage have said is inappropriate, just wrong-headed and the wrong thing to do.

So yes, the McGuinty Liberals had choices. If they were going to break their promise on taxes, they could have introduced progressive taxation. They could have done all kinds of things to make our tax system in Ontario more progressive, meaning that the people who earn more money pay proportionately more in their taxes to help cover off the costs of the services that are required to keep this a thriving, competitive, healthy and environmentally sustainable province. But no, they chose not to do that. They chose not to raise these revenues that the previous government so callously cut out of the provincial revenue capability. Instead of introducing progressive taxes, they introduced a new regressive health tax that they said they weren't going to do.

What could they have done? They could have made some incremental increases in income taxes for those who are earning over $100,000, for example. There are choices they could have made. They could have chosen to do something that would be less harmful to middle-income Ontarians, middle-income people, working families, that they like to talk about now. They could have done something to make sure those hard-working families in Ontario weren't hurt financially by their revenue-raising policies. But no, the McGuinty Liberal government chose very clearly: Bay Street over working families; Bay Street over Main Street.

That's what the government decided to do. The McGuinty Liberals decided they weren't going to look at high income earners in Ontario. In fact, in this last budget, what did they decide to do? They accelerated the capital tax elimination, losing $3 billion over the time frame of the full implementation of that move. What does that do? Well, that helps the banks. It helps the insurance companies maybe. But it doesn't help working Ontarians. It doesn't help middle-income families who are the ones being disproportionately hit by this McGuinty Liberal health tax. That's the choice they made.

They didn't choose to cut the loopholes, for example. Right now, large corporate sectors have got a lot of loopholes in terms of employer health taxes that are not being paid, but they didn't go after ensuring that employer health taxes are being paid consistently across all employers in Ontario. No, they didn't choose to do that. Instead, they chose to hit moderate-income and low-income families and senior citizens and everybody else with a very regressive tax.

What else did they do? You know what? You could almost fall into some of the arguments the member from Nipissing was raising a little earlier on. She liked to talk about all the things they're accomplishing in the health care sector, but she also made it sound like they had no choices. I've just clearly indicated that they had many choices. Instead, they chose to implement a regressive health tax.

What else did they do? We know they haven't hired all the nurses they said they were going to hire. We know there's still a crisis in hospital care. We know that elderly patients in hospitals, particularly in long-term-care facilities, are having a very poor quality of life because of lack of investment by this government, notwithstanding the regressive health tax they've foisted on the people of Ontario.

We know there have been increased user fees as well as the new tax. We now see optometry, routine eye exams, having a new user fee, no longer covered by OHIP, and physiotherapy, chiropractic, all of those things, no longer covered. We have to pay for those things out of our own pocket, except those who are lucky enough to have a health plan at work, and some people do and that's great. But those fees used to be covered under OHIP. Now you're paying for those out of your own pocket, as well as paying your health tax out of your own pocket.

This doesn't help the ability of Ontarians to receive the kind of health care that they need and that they want. It doesn't help working families to afford all the other things they are faced with in the province of Ontario when it comes to increased cost of living, when it comes to things like hydro rates, when it comes to things like increasing gas costs, when it comes to all of those regular, daily expenses. Then on top of that, working families are faced with a health tax that penalizes, that proportionately they have to pay more for than the high income earners and wealthy people in Ontario.

The government had many choices when it came to how to deal with the previous government's mess in terms of reducing the fiscal capacity of the province of Ontario. The McGuinty Liberal government chose not only to break a promise on taxes but to implement a regressive health tax that is disproportionately burdening working families and lower-income Ontarians compared to others, when they could have had all kinds of other measures put in place that didn't include a health tax but that did include a fairer taxation system that was much more progressive.

New Democrats stand soundly against the health tax.

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Mr. Wayne Arthurs (Pickering-Ajax-Uxbridge): I'm pleased to spend four or five minutes joining the debate today. I must say that it's an interesting resolution, a tax-cut resolution. I shouldn't be surprised. This really falls back to the Mike Harris and Ernie Eves days, where tax cuts were the solution to all of our problems.

I must say to the member from Nepean-Carleton, it may be the only opportunity during the balance of this mandate to bring forward a private member's bill or resolution. Often, it's an opportunity to bring forward something on behalf of constituents or those interest groups or stakeholders in the province to move an agenda forward. That's a progressive approach, and, unfortunately, although they're trying to recapture the Progressive Conservative moniker through Mr. Tory, this tax-cut resolution is clearly anything but progressive.

It would seem to me that Mike Harris ran as the Taxfighter in the early 1990s. No one really rose to that particular agenda, so he reframed it and became the defender of the Common Sense Revolution. It was another tax cut agenda. This really is just one further step in that regard.

This particular item has already been certainly discussed, if not debated entirely in this Legislature, over the past little while, but let's just remind ourselves what it was that the former government did with their tax cuts, what they did to health care during that period of time, and what would happen if we removed from the health system at this point in time some $2.4 billion, since that's what's being asked for: the elimination of the health tax. Let's just remember that there were some 28 hospital closures; that over 5,000 hospital beds were eliminated in just two years during the early Mike Harris days; that there were 8,000 fewer nurses working in Ontario from 1995 to about 1998; and that underserviced communities in this province ballooned from some 63 to 142. So we know where that agenda took health care, and we clearly know why it is that we need to invest in health care in this province.

I know that in my neck of the woods, both in my own riding and those constituents who have to get service within the area beyond my riding, they very much appreciate the investment we're currently making, and will need to make, on the operating side of our capital investments in places like Lakeridge Health, the Rouge Valley Health System, the Sam McLaughlin cancer care centre and the newly announced west Durham health team, and in expanded dialysis for those in our communities. To make those investments that my constituents can take advantage of within a reasonable geography, if not within their own riding, requires an investment in health care beyond what this resolution would achieve. This resolution would achieve the elimination of some $2.4 billion from the health care system.

I want to talk about what we're doing for health care in the province of Ontario with the money that we're raising from the health premium. What is it doing? It's bringing down those wait times; it's bringing down wait times for cataracts, for those seniors in our communities who, more often than not, are the ones getting cataract surgeries.

It's improving health care through the establishment of 150 family health teams. Well ahead of the target for the mandate, 150 have been announced to allow those health teams to get themselves established and begin providing that primary health care to begin filling the void created by that astronomical leap in underserviced communities during the Mike Harris days.

We're paying for more nurses in our hospitals, in long-term care and in home care. It's providing the opportunity to guarantee places for newly graduating nurses here in the province of Ontario so that they don't have to look elsewhere. We can guarantee them a future here in Ontario.

It's helping to move health care from hospitals to communities. It's driving a primary care agenda. It's getting care closer to home, it's getting care quicker when it's needed, and it's getting care from physicians and support workers who know the patient, not in an emergency room.

It's providing increases for the first time in more than a decade in mental health, certainly a sorely neglected agenda for so long for those in our community with so much need.

We've added new vaccines, free of charge, for young children. That's a savings to families of some $600 per child, often from families who are least able to afford those out-of-pocket expenses for those particular needs.

The premium is necessary, quite frankly, because of the actions of the previous government. They not only left us with a fiscal deficit, but they clearly left us with a substantial health deficit. Our choice would not have been to have a health premium in the form of a tax. Having said that, the agenda for health care is more important than the neglect that would have occurred without the health premium.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity.

Mr. Hudak: I'm pleased to rise and debate the private member's resolution of my colleague, the new member from Nepean-Carleton, and I congratulate her on bringing this issue forward. I think members who have gotten to know the member from Nepean-Carleton know she's not one to simply dip her toe in the shallow end to test the water but instead is someone willing to dive right into the pool with a thoughtful, well-reasoned, meaningful resolution before the House today, standing up for her constituents in Nepean-Carleton. I encourage members of the governing party to stand up for their constituents and against Dalton McGuinty and support this resolution here today.

I'd say, as a priority, I commend the member from Nepean-Carleton, who, today, on the very day Canadian soldiers, men and women over in Afghanistan, fighting for Canadian values of freedom and liberty, bringing those values to the country of Afghanistan -- my colleagues have mentioned the tragic passing of Captain Goddard just yesterday. The notion that those soldiers, those women and men overseas, have to pay this Dalton McGuinty health tax when they don't benefit from the Ontario health care system directly is an affront to those courageous women and men. I commend my colleague for saying that the first act should be to take the health tax off the backs of our soldiers here in the province of Ontario.

Secondly -- the member is exactly right -- seniors, those who built our province and made it strong, who constructed our highways, who built hospitals like the Port Colborne general hospital, Douglas Memorial and West Lincoln Memorial Hospital, to name but three, now into retirement on fixed incomes, looking forward to enjoying their retirement, who for five, six, seven, sometimes eight decades have paid taxes into our health care system, now get whacked with a massive tax hike courtesy of Dalton McGuinty, despite solemn campaign promises to the contrary.

Think of seniors today in the province of Ontario, those in Glanbrook, those living in upper Stoney Creek or Beamsville. Every time they turn around their costs are going up: new user fees brought in by Dalton McGuinty's Liberals, higher home heating costs, higher gas prices, steadily in the high 90 cents to over a dollar, and, despite promises to the contrary, Dalton McGuinty hiked taxes on our seniors and he hiked hydro rates by some 55%.

It is hard to imagine how Dalton McGuinty can sleep at night when he looked into that camera and said solemnly to seniors, looked them in the eye when he was campaigning and told them he would not raise their taxes, he would not raise their hydro bills, and then his first acts in this Legislature were to do just the opposite and break those promises.

The other thing I'd say to my colleagues is that this notion that this health tax goes into the things my colleague from Pickering-Ajax-Uxbridge listed is nothing but one big pile -- and I'm conscious of the young students here today, Mr. Speaker -- of horse feathers. It's nonsense. This goes into that big revenue pool collecting over at the Ministry of Finance. Those taxes you pay if you purchase tobacco, if you lose some money at the blackjack table down at Casino Niagara, the sales tax you pay when you buy clothing: It all goes into the same place as the health tax, and that's the giant pile growing at the treasury under Dalton McGuinty. It doesn't go into health care. Not one dime of this goes directly to health care. This is nothing but a massive income tax on the backs of working families and seniors as part of a gluttonous and greedy attack by Dalton McGuinty on your pocketbooks.

Do you know how much revenue Dalton McGuinty has taken out of your pockets if you're a working family in Ontario, a senior citizen or a small business trying to get by? He has taken $17 billion. It's the biggest tax hike in the history of the province when people can barely make ends meet -- $17 billion.

Let me tell you this: This notion that the Ontario Liberal Party is some big defender of health care is nothing but more horse feathers.

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I remember them campaigning, saying they were against public-private partnerships: "No way; that is the privatization of health care." My friend from Ottawa-Orléans said that during the campaign. But instead, they have increased the number of public-private partnerships and increased the number of privately financed hospitals in this province more than we dared. It would probably make Nelson Rockefeller blush, these 3P hospitals across the province -- not that I disagree with the philosophy, but I wish you had told the truth during the campaign and said you were bringing in those 3P hospitals.

At the same time that they raised taxes in a gluttonous attack on pocketbooks, they delisted chiropractic care, they delisted physiotherapy and they delisted optician services in the province, effectively creating two-tier health care for the people who need these services. To this day, despite the $17-billion increase in revenue, they still make patients of those services pay out of their own pocketbooks.

We have an unsatisfactory announcement by the province for the West Lincoln Memorial Hospital. There's a great staff there; great patient service. People in Grimsby, Smithville and Beamsville all depend on this hospital. But the announcement that it won't be until 2009 at best that this government plans on breaking ground with a very unsatisfactory level of provincial funding is a shame. I suspect that this is just one more promise by Dalton McGuinty to try to sneak through the next election, which he plans on breaking if he is successful. I certainly hope that is not the case.

Then health card clinics, which we benefited from in Beamsville, Fort Erie, Port Colborne and Dunnville for years, so seniors wouldn't have to drive to St. Catharines, so mothers and fathers taking care of their children, trying to run them around to sports and school -- now they can no longer get their health cards renewed at the Beamsville seniors' centre because they're cutting out health card clinics. They probably don't cost that much: The space is provided voluntarily, for example, in Beamsville by the seniors' centre.

I want to bring to the attention of the members of the Legislative Assembly the cut in the TBT procedure, an important women's health issue, to attack stress urinary incontinence, increasingly affecting women as they get older. It has now been substantially reduced at our local hospital, despite Dalton McGuinty's promises to the contrary.

I'd say, in conclusion: Congratulations to my colleague. This is a sensible, well-thought-out and important resolution reflecting what I think all of us hear from our constituents on a regular basis. This is not connected to health care; it is nothing but a massive tax increase on the backs of seniors and working families. They should reduce it, beginning with those in the military and our hard-working senior citizens.

Mr. Phil McNeely (Ottawa-Orléans): I'm pleased to speak to ballot item number 38, the elimination of the health tax for military personnel and seniors. It's quite coincidental that today we're mourning the death of Nichola Goddard, who made the supreme sacrifice: She gave up her life for Canada.

I'd like to thank the member from Nepean-Carleton for bringing this motion forward, but I wonder how the member can do that -- suggest that the health premium be slashed -- when our government has spent its mandate cleaning up the mess that the Tories left across Ontario and particularly in the Ottawa area.

Under the Harris and Baird government, the Ottawa area suffered immensely from the cuts to health care. The Tories closed two hospitals, Riverside and Grace, and they tried to close the Montfort, except they lost the court case. Thank goodness for Gisèle Lalonde; they won the court case. Our community hospital in Orléans is not only there -- the Montfort is doing well -- but it's going to be doubled in size, and includes a whole wing for the military. That was the legacy left by the Tories in Ottawa, people who were supposed to be supporting us.

We had the 14^th-longest wait times out of 14 in the province. That's according to the report from Access to Health Services in Ontario, April 2005, the ICES report. We were the worst-serviced in the province of Ontario. All you could get out of the member from Nepean-Carleton or the member from Lanark-whatever was, "Well, it's because of Quebec." Minister Smitherman has changed that. Minister Smitherman has put money into Ottawa. We have increased the capacity and we've increased MRI exams by 43% in two and a half short years and we're continuing to provide the health care that we in Ottawa deserve and that the member for Nepean-Carleton wants to follow her predecessors and destroy.

The honourable member suggests eliminating the health tax for senior citizens. As a senior citizen, I need that, and as a high-earning senior citizen I'm pleased to pay the health tax. It's important. I'm going to need those services and my family is going to need those services. Seniors come to me and tell me they want better health care services. They don't want to save those dollars. They want to make sure the health care services are there.

What about our military personnel? I think this is a different situation. I support that part about the military. It is a situation where the federal government is paying. But when you were down in my riding on Tuesday instead of being in this House, members for Nepean-Carleton and Erie-Lincoln, you should have talked to Royal Galipeau, the federal member. We should get those transfer payments. There's a major gap, and we can't afford the health care in Ontario that they can afford in other provinces across the country because we support every province, other than Alberta and maybe British Columbia, through the inequity, that gap that we talk about. When you're down in my riding next time, talk to Royal Galipeau, who hosted your meeting, and make sure --

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Time for a response.

Ms. MacLeod: I really appreciate the members from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, Hamilton East, Pickering-Ajax-Uxbridge, Erie-Lincoln and Ottawa-Orléans. This is my first foray into private members' business. It is something that is very important to my constituents. I have a lot of seniors and military personnel who expect this premium, this illegitimate tax, this broken promise, to be cut. I find it highly ironic that the member from Ottawa-Orléans, whose riding is affectionately called CFB-Orléans, with the amount of military personnel there, would speak against this resolution. I have -- right in front of me, in fact -- petitions, signed, from his riding when I attended his riding.

I've got a letter from Cornwall that says, "I've written and spoken to my MPP Jim Brownell on a number of occasions about this" --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Member from Huron-Bruce, we're close to being finished. Can you please be quiet?

Ms. MacLeod: I have petitions from the army, navy and air force veterans' unit in Stratford. These are not Conservative ridings; they're Liberal ridings. The people of Ontario don't want to pay this tax, because it's not going to health care. They don't want to pay this tax as seniors or serving military personnel. I find it highly offensive that they don't support our military, but I do and my colleagues do and the Conservative Party of Canada does. Thankfully, last night they continued to support our mission in Afghanistan.

I urge my colleagues to do the right thing, something that should have been motherhood and apple pie earlier today. But you're going to sit down. You're going to vote against it because you don't know how to do the right thing. You'll just break another promise. You've lost your moral compass. I'm just shocked and appalled. I'm upset. The people in Nepean-Carleton will be disappointed today if this does not pass.

The Acting Speaker: The time for private members' public business has now ended.