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September 27, 2012

40th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2012-Sep-27 (PDF)

L085 - Thu 27 Sep 2012 / Jeu 27 sep 2012

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Thursday 27 September 2012 Jeudi 27 septembre 2012

MEMBERS’ PRIVILEGES

The House met at 0900.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Good morning. Please join me in prayer.

Prayers.

MEMBERS’ PRIVILEGES

Resuming the debate adjourned on September 26, 2012, on the amendment to the amendment to the motion by Mr. Leone arising from the Speaker’s ruling of September 13, 2012.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Further debate. The member from Huron–Bruce has the floor.

Ms. Lisa M. Thompson: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I stand this morning to pick up where I left off yesterday. It’s with sadness, as everybody has expressed, that we have to carry on with this motion, but there are very, very compelling reasons why the motion must be upheld, and this issue must be passed along to our financial committee, because we have to get back to business in this House.

I feel I have very relevant information to share with you that further supports the whole fact that this has just been absolute nonsense and we need to get to the bottom of it. The only manner in which to do it properly is to pass it along to the committee.

As I said yesterday, we have had folks that have spent day and night poring through the 36,000 pieces of documentation that the Liberal government provided. We recognize that much has been redacted or completely blanked out, and quite frankly, the excuse that, “Oh, the opposite page or the wrong side of the page was scanned,” is absolute nonsense. I say to the good people of Ontario: Please, stick to your gut feeling. Recognize what’s spin and what’s fact.

In that light, I’d like to share with you some more factual information that pertains to this very serious issue. My EA, Ashley Hammill, was one of the team members who worked through all this documentation earlier this week, and she has provided me with some, quite frankly, very damning information that supports the whole fact that the Liberal government is out of control, they’ve totally mismanaged this situation, and it needs to go to committee.

To pick up where I left off yesterday, I want to share an excerpt from Michael Lyle at OPA and his comments on how to handle media. Quite specifically, he says, “Thinking about this some more it might be better to fudge who is actually engaged in ongoing negotiations with TransCanada Energy by just starting with ‘Discussions are ongoing….’” Again, here’s blatant contempt. There’s blatant, blatant intent here to fudge the facts with that quote from Michael Lyle from the OPA.

Another quote from a Liberal insider: “If the government or OPA kills the project” in “(Oakville) they will be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars for incurred expenses and lost profits.” I’m going to repeat that: “They will be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars for incurred expenses and lost profits”—absolutely disgusting.

Speaker, this is one of my favourite quotes that was taken from emails and information: “Hi Deputy, I hope you got the debrief on Oakville. From my perspective it went as well as it could have. Can’t go wrong for TV when politicians make an announcement and a room full of people” stand up “in cheers of joy and applause. Financially” it’s going to “be muddy in the papers tomorrow. Province could be on the hook for millions and the minister wouldn’t talk about it. How did it go with Hydro One?”

Speaker, as you can see, the case for contempt is very, very clear.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Further debate?

Ms. Soo Wong: It is with sadness that I rise this morning to speak on the motion from Mr. Leone, the member from Cambridge.

I listened attentively for the past two days to the various members from all three parties. The two opposition parties focused on the government’s failure to fully disclose all the documents related to the Oakville and Mississauga facilities in a timely manner. The official opposition party continued to misuse the Legislature to argue that the minister continues to hide or conceal documents related to the Mississauga plant.

As a rookie member from Scarborough–Agincourt, I’m concerned over the tone and the language used by some members of the opposition parties to attack a member of the Legislature, who happens to be a minister of the crown. I’m also concerned about how the three parties will move forward after the conclusion of this motion, Mr. Speaker.

The people of Ontario have spoken not just last October, but also more recently at the by-elections in Kitchener–Waterloo and in the city of Vaughan. The people of Ontario have elected 107 of us to serve to our best ability with integrity, transparency and a commitment to Ontario. They also want us to protect public health, public education, our environment, natural resources and ensure safety for all.

Similar to the member from Cambridge, I too came from an academic background before entering provincial politics. For the past two days, I’ve reviewed numerous documents about the cancellation of the Mississauga and Oakville facilities.

This is what I’ve learned from my research on the cancellation and relocation of both facilities, Mr. Speaker: Since 2003, we’ve rebuilt our electricity system. We added 10,000 megawatts of new clean generation, including six—

Mr. Gilles Bisson: How do you like your hydro bill so far?

Ms. Soo Wong: No, let me speak, okay? That’s not respectful.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Timmins–James Bay, come to order, please.

Ms. Soo Wong: —six new gas facilities and 5,000 kilometres of transmission lines. We have invested almost $30 billion from the public and private sectors and created thousands of jobs. That’s on the record, Mr. Speaker.

We have made a commitment to Ontarians to close coal-fired generation, a North American first—again, showing leadership, showing vision. As a registered nurse, I recognize the health concerns associated with the burning of coal. The US Environmental Protection Agency, better known as the EPA, stated that the burning of coal causes premature deaths in people with heart and lung disease. It also worsens respiratory problems such as coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath, triggering thousands of asthma attacks across America. Furthermore, the burning of coal is a leading cause of smog, and it contributes to climate change.

As a government, we made the decision to move away from coal and renew the electricity system, and that is the right thing to do. Our priority is to ensure our homes and businesses have the energy they need, and it is available whenever they require it.

Let us not forget the infamous blackout of 2003, where darkness affected thousands of Ontarians from Toronto all the way up to North Bay. How many people have been affected by the 2003—

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): I would just like to remind all members of the House that yesterday went very well, that when the speaker was speaking, everybody was listening. I think it applies to all speakers from both sides of the House that you are being given the opportunity to be heard.

Those who are heckling, I’d ask you to stop, because the next time I stand up, I’ll be warning you. Thank you.

Carry on.

Ms. Soo Wong: Thank you, Speaker.

Demand for energy is especially high in the greater Toronto area. Hence, the government decided to build these two natural gas facilities in Oakville and Mississauga. After lengthy consultation and review, it began to look like the facilities in Oakville and Mississauga may not be required for our energy plans, as previously thought. These kinds of decisions came before I became a member of provincial Parliament, and we have to look at and reflect on what has happened.

At the same time, there was significant opposition to locating the gas facilities in the Mississauga and Oakville areas. The government listened carefully to the community. We also reviewed the security of our energy supply and determined that these facilities could be relocated elsewhere in Ontario, and this is exactly what the government has done.

The Premier, on September 26, spoke at the Oakville Curling Club and acknowledged that “we didn’t get it right,” on the Mississauga and the Oakville power facilities.

The decision that the government made is no different than the previous ones. In my research on the previous governments’ conduct in decision-making, this is what I learned. In 1991, the then NDP government cancelled—cancelled—the Red Hill Creek Expressway. This proposed expressway is located in the region of Hamilton-Wentworth. For 25 years, the region has been trying to build this expressway. Only three months after the NDP took office, it cancelled the Red Hill Creek Expressway. This construction project was approved by a joint board decision in 1985. This decision was upheld by cabinet on March 12, 1987, and by the Supreme Court of Ontario in 1987.

The NDP government of the day spent $70 million when they cancelled the Red Hill Creek Expressway. At the time of the cancellation, the former member of Don Valley West, Mr. Turnbull, stated on October 1, 1991, that: “Governments have an obligation to make decisions that are seen to serve the best interests of its citizens.” This statement by Mr. Turnbull clearly illustrates that governments should make decisions in the best interests of their constituents—

Mr. Taras Natyshak: How many days before the election did that happen?

Ms. Soo Wong: It doesn’t matter. The fact is that Mr. Turnbull stated that we need to make decisions in the best interests of our constituents.

Our government did listen to the people and elected officials in the city of Mississauga and Oakville. Susan Hyatt, a member of Citizens for Clean Air, a group representing Mississauga and Oakville ratepayer associations, recently stated: “You have to look at the $40 million in the context of the safety and health issues … and the potential for injury to our families, our homes and our businesses if there was an explosion … or a train derailment at that site.

“That would have been catastrophic compared to $40 million….Was it a good decision to cancel the plant? I feel it was a good decision.”

I challenge anyone in this Legislature to say that they do not listen to their constituents, or, as elected officials, not try to do what Mr. Turnbull said: Governments should serve the best interests of our citizens.

I find the hypocrisy of the official opposition party in the tone and language used in debating the motion—

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, is “hypocrisy” a parliamentary word?

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): I listened to the member carefully and I will rule that’s not a point of order. Carry on.

Ms. Soo Wong: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I find the hypocrisy of the official opposition party in the tone and language used in debating the motion by the member from Cambridge—let me bring some history—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): I would ask the member to withdraw the comment.

Ms. Soo Wong: Okay, I withdraw.

Let me bring some history to the Legislature. On July 11, 1995, in an interview with the Toronto Star, the former Chair of Management Board, the Honourable Dave Johnson, indicated the cancellation of the Eglinton and Sheppard lines in the city of Toronto, even though the government of the day had spent approximately $260 million. About $123 million was already spent on the subway project, including the design and construction of two huge diggers to be used for boring tunnels beneath the road. About $136 million was already spent on the Sheppard line before it was cancelled.

The former mayor of Toronto, Mr. Lastman, commented that the building of the two subway lines and two additional lines would create 27,000 jobs. Hence, the former PC government not only failed to create jobs in the city of Toronto at that time; it also failed the people of Toronto. I know my residents in the riding of Scarborough–Agincourt would not be in the current traffic gridlock and transportation problems if the previous PC government had had the leadership and vision in the 1990s to address transportation needs in the city of Toronto. So let’s call it what it is.

These two examples demonstrate how previous governments, led by the other two parties in this Legislature, have cancelled projects that have had significant investment done. These actions are no different than the current decision in the cancellation and relocation of the Mississauga and Oakville facilities. All of the decisions have been made based on listening to constituents, reviewing new and existing information or evidence, and assessing new alternatives that may prove to be better in the long run. That’s what we are asked to do in this House.

All three parties recognize the concerns—recognize them; it’s not new—raised by the constituents of the city of Mississauga and Oakville, and all made the same commitment in the 2011 election to cancel these facilities.

According to Hansard, I believe the member from Halton said on June 1, 2010, “The people of Oakville … don’t want the proposed gas-fired power plant … and I agree with them.”

The leader of the official opposition party spoke to the Globe and Mail on September 25, 2011, and said, “We’ve opposed these” two “projects in Oakville and Mississauga.”

On October 7, 2010, the member from Toronto–Danforth told Inside Halton, “I don’t agree with the Oakville power plant. I don’t think it is necessary.”

The leader of the third party, on October 18, 2010, stated, “The New Democrats actually have thought for a long time that that plant should never have been built, and we have said so.”

So the accusations by the opposition parties of buying votes for members in the city of Mississauga and the Halton area are totally inaccurate.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: We never would have built it.

Ms. Soo Wong: Well, it depends on who you say it to. The Ontario Liberal Party made a commitment in response to mounting community concerns that, if re-elected, the government would relocate the Mississauga facility to another location—relocate, not just cancel, okay? We’re not just concerned about cancelling the plants, but making sure we have the electricity system and making sure there are also jobs attached to the cancellation.

Both the opposition parties, the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democratic Party, had made similar commitments during the course of the 2011 campaign. Let’s tell it as it is, okay? The cancellation and relocation of the Mississauga and Oakville facilities by the government is not a surprise to anyone in this House. The government clearly stated during the 2011 election that it would relocate this facility if re-elected. To date, our government has fulfilled our commitment to the people of Mississauga and Halton, and that is the right thing to do.

I recall the debates on the cancellation of both the Red Hill Creek Expressway and the Eglinton and Sheppard lines. I was a young registered nurse at that time, Mr. Speaker, and I’m telling you, I was following this House even then. At no time during those debates did I hear vicious, malicious character assassination of a member of the Legislature and a minister of the crown. I don’t recall hearing derogatory language used against a former Chair of Management Board, Mr. Johnson, nor did I hear a character attack on Mr. Pouliot, then the Minister of Transportation under former Premier Bob Rae.

These ministers were treated with the respect that they, as individuals in their position, deserved. To date, the choice of words used by the official opposition party against the Minister of Energy cannot be used outside this Legislature, and this is what I’m concerned about.

The opposition parties accused the Minister of Energy of not releasing the requested documents in a timely manner. Let me remind the members in the Legislature what the Auditor General of Ontario said on September 5 in the public accounts committee: “Some of this information could be subject to client-solicitor privilege, or even if we were to get it, in my opinion”—this is the opinion of the Auditor General—“it could be damaging to the province’s negotiating position.”

What does this mean? If the Minister of Energy had released the documents at the time requested by the opposition parties, we would have compromised our position and jeopardized our ability to seek a fair deal for the province. In addition, it may cause further liability for this province and put the province in a much worse position. I am completely puzzled why the opposition parties would want to compromise this province in this manner. We all know the Minister of Energy released the requested documents immediately following the conclusion of the negotiation and complied with the ruling of the Speaker.

In my short time at the Legislature and my brief encounters with the Minister of Energy, I find him to be a man of great integrity, commitment and dedication to the people of London West and to this great province. He has served with distinction as a former Attorney General for four years and an honourable member of this Legislature for nine years. He deserves the same respect that was paid to the minister that I’ve spoken of earlier. The words spoken in this Legislature by the official opposition parties were highly disrespectful and unacceptable to the people of this province.

As a new member of this Legislature, it is a great disappointment for me to witness this type of schoolyard behaviour and bullying and disrespect to the Legislature. One wonders why the official opposition party has come to such a low level of behaviour in comparison to the glory days of the former Premier Bill Davis.

My remarks on the motion by the member from Cambridge—let us all remember the words of Mr. Turnbull, the former MPP from Don Valley West: “Governments have an obligation to make decisions that are seen to serve the best interests of its citizens.”

I also want to share a lesson from my mentor, the Honourable Gerry Phillips, who served Ontario with great distinction for 24 years. He said to me, “There will be a time at the Legislature that you will have to make some tough decisions, Soo. And this will require you to do the right thing.” I believe the cancellation and relocation of the Mississauga and Oakville plant facilities is doing the right thing.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Further debate?

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: It’s the beginning of the hockey season, Mr. Speaker. This is a rare fall, of course, and I’m not referring to the NHL strike; I’m referring to the fact that here it is late September, and the Leafs aren’t being reported as winning the Stanley Cup already. So it does put a different perspective on hockey this season.

But it reminds me of when I was a kid. We used to head back very early in the winter, far too early, to the creek. We would pick out the shallowest part of the creek, which had some still water in it, and the ice was pretty thin when we started playing hockey. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the government here, using the facts they are, is skating on some pretty thin ice themselves. So it reminds me of the hockey season that’s starting.

I would remind the House of the motion that we’re debating here today. I’ll just go over it; it’s not too long: “that this House directs the Minister of Energy and the Ontario Power Authority to table immediately with the Clerk of the House all remaining documents ordered by the Standing Committee on Estimates on May 16, 2012….” We’re not talking about whether the plants should be cancelled or shouldn’t be cancelled or whether they made the right decision; we’re asking how that decision was made.

If the government is so proud of the fact that they closed that plant, Mr. Speaker, then why not release the documents and prove that they have made the right decision? Rather than give us 36,000 pages—25,000 or so or at least 25% of them, I understand, are redacted, crossed out, blank. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would suggest that these documents have been delivered in a fulfilled state. It certainly doesn’t fulfil the spirit of this motion. If the government wanted to act with integrity and prove the fact that they made the right decision, they would release those documents in full.

I understand that the other word I was going to use, Mr. Speaker, you’ve ruled out of order, so I won’t use that word, given your finding.

I should comment a little bit on the coal-fired plants, which the previous speaker was talking about, and the power failure. The power failure in Ontario that she referred to, of course, occurred because of a failure in a plant in Ohio. It had nothing to do with the Ontario circuit. That blackout, which did affect a huge portion of Ontario, had nothing to do with the Ontario power grid. It had to do with the grid in Ohio, which backed up into Ontario and caused that failure.

Finally, I would comment that—she talked about closing the coal-fired plants. Yes, the only coal-fired plant that has been closed in Ontario is the Lakeview plant, and Elizabeth Witmer was Minister of Energy when that plant was closed. So the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario is the only party in this Legislature that has ever closed a coal-fired plant in the province of Ontario.

The Liberals, in the election of 2003, promised to close all coal-fired plants by 2007. In that same election, we promised to close them in 2014. The Liberals then reversed themselves and promised to close them in 2009. They reversed themselves again somewhat later and said they’d close them in 2012. They reversed themselves yet again when it was appropriate for their purposes and came to the same decision that we had come to originally: that the coal-fired plants would be closed in 2014. It took them a long time to get to that position.

In listening to this debate over the past week or so, over the last three or four days in the House, it strikes me that there’s a real disconnect, a real failure to communicate. That line, of course, came from a great movie, Hud, starring Paul Newman. There was a failure to communicate in that movie, and it seems to me that we’re talking about two different things in this House.

The Liberal government is trying to defend their actions in the closing of the coal plants and the closing of the Oakville plant and the Mississauga plant, and we’re trying to get to the bottom as to why those plants were closed—not the fact that they were closed, but the fact of why they were closed. We believe they were closed as a seat-saver during an election, when the decision was made.

The Liberal debate seems to be around the matter of whether the plants should have been closed or not closed. The Liberal House leader put out a letter on September 24, and he talked about partisan motives for this debate in the House. I’ve got to say, Mr. Speaker, that when there’s $640 million of taxpayers’ money at risk, there’s nothing partisan about this debate. This government has always been able to blame someone else for their problems. If there’s a hallmark of this government, it’s the fact that they can always blame someone else. They blamed the US for unemployment.

They blamed the US for the demise of our manufacturing industry. They blame the feds if something goes wrong here. They even blamed Alberta for the high exchange rate that we now enjoy in Ontario. It’s sad that somebody doesn’t take responsibility for their actions and that there’s always someone else to blame; it’s never, never their fault. This is very much your fault.

So this isn’t about a partisan act; this is about integrity. I think it’s about integrity, and the government is expressing itself in a way that would suggest that they fail to understand the issue. I believe you fail to understand the issue that is in front of this House, and that issue revolves around integrity. You took taxpayers’ money and used it for political purposes. That in itself is a sad thing to happen in Ontario. But in doing so, you have driven up the cost of electricity. That has had a huge effect on the industry of Ontario.

In the early 1920s, 1922 or 1923, Sir Adam Beck created the hydro projects in Niagara Falls. It’s interesting: If you’ve lived in other parts of North America, if you go and ask people what their hydro costs are, they kind of look at you funny. They don’t know what hydro costs are. They know what electricity costs are, but the hydro project in Niagara Falls so dominated this province that we refer to electricity in this province as hydro. It’s one of the few places in the world where that happens.

So when Adam Beck was initiated—was a motivator behind the creation of the electricity generation system in Niagara Falls—it provided cheap electricity to the province of Ontario on an ongoing and consistent basis, and that created an industry; it built up an industry.

Anything that uses large quantities of electricity came to Ontario. The steel industry is an example. It’s located in Hamilton, where there are no resources of coal; there are no resources of steel. Why would a steel industry locate in Hamilton without the two main components? Because Hamilton had a great port and it had access to cheap electricity costs on a consistent basis. That developed our steel industry, a steel industry that is very much in decline these days, struggling, hanging on by its fingertips, because our electricity costs are going through the roof.

They’re being driven up by a misguided green energy policy, wind and solar, which we’re paying huge prices for—three and four and five times what the going rate for electricity is. Projects like this, this seat-saver program, are driving up electricity costs in this province once again.

The pulp and paper industry across northern Ontario is a huge user of electricity. It’s being decimated. Half the mills in northern Ontario are closed because electricity costs are out of sight. That’s a sad day for Ontario. That’s the kind of thing that this event, this lack of integrity, is causing in the province of Ontario.

I believe that there are a number of things that this government has to do in order to get beyond this debate.

First, in a show of good faith, they should supply the unredacted papers that prove the case that they made the right decision on closing these two plants. That’s what they seem to believe. That’s what all their debate talks about, how they did the right thing in closing these two plants. Then you supply us 36,000 pages, most of which are blank or crossed out, illegible. It just doesn’t ring true. As the Auditor General says, it doesn’t pass the sniff test.

Secondly, I think there should be a very sincere apology by the Premier to the people of Ontario. He has abused their confidence and spent their tax dollars recklessly.

Thirdly, I think the committees of this House have to be reconstituted, as the motion says, as they were on September 9—all the committees. There was some debate the other day that talked about how this project is holding up the business of the House. I can tell the people of Ontario that there’s not a lot of business before the House right now. When bills are introduced for first reading, they go to printing. There’s no debate time. They come in on second reading, they’re debated, and then they go to committee.

But there are no committees. The government hasn’t reconstituted the committees, and they don’t want the committees because they don’t want these kinds of issues—the committee on Ornge, the committees looking into other aspects of the Liberal government, the ones that ask questions. They’re not asking them from the 30,000-foot level, as you will, as most of the debate in this House is. In committee is where they get into the weeds. They have people who are authorities in the areas come in and discuss what effect this legislation may have. The government doesn’t want to hear those kinds of intimate debate in committee.

They’ve come up with a rather short-sighted solution in not reconstituting the committees. In 17 years here, I’ve never experienced a government that didn’t reconstitute the committees automatically. It was never an issue; it just happened. One day there was an order that allowed the committees to continue to do their work. It never made the paper; in fact, most people in this Legislature wouldn’t have known that it even happened.

It’s difficult to imagine that this House will continue very much longer without reconstituting committees because there are very few bills. I think there are three bills waiting to go—three or four bills—

Interjection.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: Four bills. Our House leader tells me there are four bills waiting to go to committee. Well, they could go to committee in a very short period of time, three or four days. They’re not bills of great importance. They’re not bills of great content. I guess any bill going through this House does have some importance, but these are bills that do not have a great deal of content, and they could go through the House very, very quickly with all-party agreement. To suggest that we’re holding up the committees, holding up the business of the House, that argument doesn’t hold water because there’s no business to bring before the House.

Earlier in the week, leading off the debate, the member from St. Catharines talked about how we shouldn’t be picking on Minister Bentley. The previous speaker talked about the terrible things that we’re saying about Minister Bentley, the Minister of Energy. I haven’t heard us say anything detrimental about Chris Bentley. I think we all think he’s a pretty good guy. As was pointed out yesterday, he’s a family man. He’s a father. He has a distinguished legal career. But he made a decision—he made a strange decision, actually—to withhold these papers, which caused this whole avalanche of events that happened.

Chris Bentley, being a former Attorney General, knew the consequences of his actions. He was asked to do that—I’m sure he was asked to do that—by his government, probably his Premier, and he knew the consequences. I doubt if any backbencher over there knew the consequences. I’ll bet that half the cabinet didn’t know the consequences of that decision. But as a former Attorney General, he knew.

Now, I can say a lot of nice things about Mr. Bentley; I would never use his name in a derogatory fashion. He’s taking the hit. He has been thrown under the bus by this Liberal government, and not one member over there has bothered to phone a tow truck to haul the bus off him. You’re letting him stay under the bus.

You could do a lot to help a fine, upstanding member of this House. You could deliver unredacted papers that prove the case that you’ve been trying to make for the last three or four days, but you haven’t done that. You could apologize heartfeltly to the people of Ontario for abusing your power in this House and using funds for political purposes. You could do that, which would help the Minister of Energy, but you haven’t done that.

You could hold committee hearings, which would defray and bring the truth to the people of Ontario and restore some integrity to this place, this Legislature, that I believe we all love so well. You could suggest that you would pay—I don’t believe the Liberal Party could pay back $650 million, but you could make some reparations along that line. You could do a lot of things to help the Minister of Energy, and you’re doing none of them. You’re not even phoning for a tow truck.

When you go home tonight, since the House doesn’t sit on Friday; you’ll have three days—Friday, Saturday, Sunday—to think about this. Look deep into your conscience. Are you doing enough to help a fine member of this House? Did you know what you were doing at the time you did it? I can tell you, the boys in the backroom knew. The boys in the backroom knew. I sat in the backbenches over there. I know how much I knew about issues that came before the House. I knew exactly what they wanted me to know. You did not know what you were doing to Chris Bentley, and now you’re doing nothing to help him.

Mr. John O’Toole: He’s taking the bullet.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: He’s under the bus, and it’s a sad day. It’s a sad day when that’s the kind of integrity and the kind of camaraderie that rests in that party over there.

I’m almost out of time, Mr. Speaker, but the other thing that’s happening is the plant is being moved to Nanticoke from Oakville—

Interjection.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: Sorry, it’s being moved to Napanee, and it should be going to Nanticoke. Nanticoke already has the lines established. There are $200 million that are going to have to be spent on the building of power lines to bring that power to Toronto. Nanticoke already has the lines; it has a coal plant that is going to be shut down. You could replace it. You could replace it with a huge gas-fired power plant. That would be a good thing for Ontario. It would save you money. It’s a willing host community, which Oakville and Mississauga were not.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Further debate?

Mr. Jeff Leal: This is a very sobering and very serious debate that we’re dealing with this morning, of course: the issue of contempt that’s been raised against the Minister of Energy, my colleague Chris Bentley.

But first of all, this morning I’d like to start off on a more positive note to congratulate Ken Lewenza and his team at the Canadian Auto Workers and the management team of Chrysler Canada, Ford Canada and General Motors Canada in reaching collective agreements over the next four years, which will provide a great deal of stability to the auto manufacturing right here in Ontario.

Just to emphasize that point, I want to note that in a recent report that was put forward by the Royal Bank, talking about the auto sector in Ontario, they put forward a note here that says, “ ... assembly of light vehicles surged by more than 19% during the first seven months of 2012. New vehicle production has now virtually returned to the pre-recession levels.” That is a good thing for the province of Ontario, so I just want to congratulate everybody who was involved in those negotiations.

I want to spend some time this morning—there’s been a great deal of talk about political calls that are made during election campaigns, prior to a campaign or during a campaign, that may have some impact on the results of the campaign.

I took some time yesterday to do a little research on the Spadina Expressway issue, and it’s interesting that, way back in the early 1960s, Metro council and the government of Ontario of course started to put together a plan to build the Spadina expressway, and it was going to be built in Toronto to move vehicles in a more effective fashion, and indeed Metro council, of course, had spent a lot of time expropriating a lot of properties and shelling out big dollars to make that happen.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Order.

Mr. Jeff Leal: And then, of course, there was a change of leadership in Ontario. Mr. Robarts announced his resignation, and then the new team came over—

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke, you were not here before—we’ve had many speakers—and there was total quietness in the House, without heckling. So I would ask you to observe that. The next time I stand, it will be a warning. Thank you.

Carry on.

Mr. Jeff Leal: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Indeed, Mr. Robarts retired after a very distinguished career as Premier of the province of Ontario, and then he was succeeded by one William Grenville Davis. At that particular time, if you read a couple of the books of the day—look, I just got this one last night; interesting reading. It’s Jonathan Manthorpe, The Power and the Tories. And in that book, of course, the advice that was provided to Mr. Davis by Dalton Camp, Ross “the boss” DeGeer, Norm “the mechanic” Atkins, Clare Westcott and others—who said, “Mr. Davis, you’ve got to distinguish yourself from the former administration.”

Now, one of the ways they did that very, very quickly was through the suspension of the Spadina expressway, done in the summer of 1971, leading up to the campaign of 1971. In fact, I’d like to quote Mr. Davis, because he made a very interesting comment, and I’m quoting from Hansard of June 3, 1971. Mr. Davis said:

“It is our conclusion that if we are to serve adequately and sensibly the transportation needs of the Toronto area, both in the suburbs and the downtown, we must place our reliance on means and methods other than those which will encourage and proliferate the use of the passenger car as the basic means of transportation.

“In my judgment, there has been a growing evidence and accumulative experience gathered elsewhere on this continent which demonstrates the ultimate futility of giving priority to the passenger car as a means of transportation into and out of the cities.

“Further, Mr. Speaker, the government cannot help but heed the rising public anxiety and concern in questions relating to pollution and environmental control.

“I have no doubt that while the estimated cost of this expressway has doubled over the past seven years, the numbers of the general public opposed to the undertaking have multiplied many times over....I am confident that if the people of Toronto tomorrow were consulted, they would give overwhelming approval to the decision their government has taken today.”

Interesting enough, I want to make some reference—

Mr. Randy Hillier: Speaker, on a point of order.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Point of order.

Mr. Randy Hillier: The member clearly is not speaking to the motion that’s on the floor of the House.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): I’m listening very carefully and I’ll make that decision.

Carry on.

Mr. Jeff Leal: The issue of seat-saver has been discussed broadly here, so I’m just putting this in some historical context. If you look at page 209 of Manthorpe’s book The Power and the Tories, he talks about the 1971 election and how the Tories won five additional—

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Stop the clock. I will warn the opposition one more time. The next time I stand up, I’ll warn individual members. I’ve had co-operation all morning and I expect it to continue.

Carry on.

Mr. Jeff Leal: Mr. Speaker, when you look at page 209, the facts are clear. The Conservatives in that election in 1971 won five additional seats in Toronto—

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Halton, come to order.

Mr. Jeff Leal: —and consequently, where were those five seats? Within the Spadina expressway route that was cancelled—very interesting.

Let’s move forward to 1999. I want to talk about a very interesting individual, Mr. Schad. Mr. Schad is a multi-millionaire, has the Schad Foundation; he has been very involved in a wide variety of issues over many years. As we came up to the 1999 campaign, he was very concerned about what he considered a very barbaric spring bear hunt.

Let me tell you what happened there. I’m sure Mr. Giorno and Leslie Noble and others huddled in room 210 right down the hallway up there to decide what they were going to do. If you recall, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Schad had threatened that he was going to run a multimedia campaign in southern Ontario showing very graphic pictures of the spring bear hunt. What happened? Pow—they decided to suspend the spring bear hunt.

Mr. John O’Toole: Point of order?

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Point of order: The member for Durham.

Mr. John O’Toole: Speaker, with all due respect, he’s referring to documents that none of us are privy to and some of them are dating back before 1970. I would ask that you require him to share these documents with the House, to validate these arguments he’s making.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): I will advise the member, who is a long-standing member of this Legislature, that that’s not a point of order because there’s no requirement to share documents in this particular situation.

Mr. Jeff Leal: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would advise my friend from Durham that he just has to contact Andrew McNaught, a research officer with the legislative library; I’m sure he will give him the same information I have. The library will certainly provide a large number of books; any member can go there and get them.

Let me talk about Mr. Schad for a moment—a very interesting guy. He decided that he’s going to get rid of the spring bear hunt in the province of Ontario; threatened the government of the day that he would run a multimedia campaign, particularly in urban Ontario, which perhaps may have had some impact on the electoral outcome in 1999. Hocus-pocus, the spring bear hunt is gone, and we know the results of the 1999 campaign.

The other one that’s most interesting that I’ve taken a great interest in—and by the way, if you ask the Minister of Natural Resources for a cost-benefit analysis about the suspension of the spring bear hunt, none of that material exists. So that was a decision that was made—a political call.

The second one during the same campaign was the sale of the 407. Let me get into that for a moment. The sale of 407 was interesting. The government is facing the electorate in 1999. The Common Sense Revolution said that we’re going to be in a balanced budget position. They had an asset that was conservatively valued between $6 billion and $7 billion. It was sold to a Spanish consortium for $3 billion, on a 99-year lease—

Interjection.

Mr. Jeff Leal: Oh, sorry, I thought somebody was—

Interjection.

Mr. Jeff Leal: No, no. I thought somebody was—if I could continue, thanks, Mr. Speaker.

In fact—

Mr. John Yakabuski: Point of order, Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Renfrew.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Speaker, I distinctly saw, as every member in this House and you as well, that the member from Peterborough took his seat. In this House, when a member takes their seat, they have relinquished the floor. It is time to move on to another speaker.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): I take the member’s comment seriously. I believe the member believed there was a point of order because someone here stood and said some words.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): I made my decision.

Mr. John Yakabuski: To that point of order, Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Renfrew–Nipissing, I made my decision. I would ask you to take your seat.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Peterborough, carry on.

Mr. Jeff Leal: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to finish on the 407. A decision was made to sell that very valuable asset off for $3 billion in order for—that would be a plug number in the 1999 provincial budget, in order that a balanced budget would be perceived. It was a 99-year lease. We all know that there are people sitting in Madrid, Spain, today, in what I call the second Ontario Place, enjoying their pina coladas with the little umbrellas on their drink and getting every month their revenue cheques courtesy of the province of Ontario.

So to say that there have never been political calls during a campaign is just not a fact. That has been an issue that the opposition has been hanging their hats on. I think I clearly demonstrated this morning that, over a long period of time, there have been political calls during election campaigns.

In fact, it’s interesting enough; I want to support a decision that was made by the member from Simcoe–Grey when he was the very distinguished Minister of Energy. I have great respect for him, and I supported his position. If you look at the Globe and Mail back on January 16, 2002:

“Energy Minister Jim Wilson is not able to speak freely about Ontario Power Generation, the main company he oversees as the province’s electricity czar, because he has signed an unusual gag agreement.

“Under the agreement, he is to keep confidential any information the government-owned company tells him should be kept secret….

“The minister signed the pledge on September 24, 1999, nearly six months after the government created Ontario Power, one of the two main successor companies to Ontario Hydro.

“Mike Krizanc, a spokesman for Mr. Wilson, defended the agreement, saying it protects Ontario Power in a competitive electricity market,” and he went on to say that it was the right thing to do. Indeed, it goes on to say that the government refused to divulge “most of its 42 studies and other records on the lease, citing cabinet secrecy and a fear that disclosure would damage the province financially.”

Those of us, Mr. Speaker, as you have, who have served in municipal politics know full well, know very well that when things are discussed in caucus, particularly development matters, we’re always cautioned that part of the discussion deals with commercially sensitive issues. That is a standard which all governments have applied in the province of Ontario in dealing with issues that could be commercially sensitive in nature. Revealing documents, in fact, may expose the province to legal issues down the road.

I want to talk about a former Speaker this morning, Gary Carr. Gary Carr was a former member of this House and a very, very fine individual who had a reputation next to none when he was Speaker. He did provide a ruling back in the spring of 2003 dealing with the Magna budget, and I just want to quote:

“Before turning to those arguments, I want to explain the meaning of ‘contempt,’ and the best way for me to do that is to first explain the meaning of ‘privilege.’ Parliamentary privilege is defined at page 65 of the 22nd edition of Erskine May. Like Erskine May, standing order 21(

a) indicates that there are two overarching categories of privilege. The first category consists of privileges that are enjoyed by the House collectively: the power to discipline—that is, the right to punish persons guilty of breach of privilege or contempts and the power to expel members; the right to regulate its own internal affairs; the authority to maintain the attendance and service of its members; the right to institute inquiries and to call witnesses and demand papers; the right to administer oaths to witnesses; and the right to publish papers containing defamatory materials.

The second category consists of privileges that are enjoyed by individual members: freedom of speech; freedom from arrest in civil actions; exemption from jury duty; and exemption from attendance as a witness in the courts.”

He goes on, and he also goes back to a ruling that was made by a former Speaker from Peterborough, the Honourable John Turner, on May 9, 1983, with regard to privilege and contempt. I think it’s worthwhile if all members would take the opportunity to read what Speaker Carr issued in 2003 in the spring with regard to the issue of privileges and contempt related to the delivery of the budget that was done at a Magna auto manufacturing plant. It was my understanding that there were gift bags that day, plastic fenders provided by Frank Stronach, as members exited on that famous day.

In fact, we should take the time to look at those issues very clearly, the issues of both privileges and contempt, as they were outlined in the ruling by Speaker Carr in the spring of 2003.

I’d like to take a moment now in terms of Mr. Bentley. I have a copy here of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, and I wanted to give a definition of “attest.” The Oxford dictionary says that “attest” means to “confirm to the validity or truth” that evidence or proof has been delivered. “Attestation” is “the act of attesting” to the truth.

It is my view that by signing statements of attestation that were done by the head of the OPA and indeed Minister Bentley, all of the documents that have been requested have certainly been delivered. It seems to me that that is the crux of the problem: all 36,000 pages of documents that have been delivered, and the opportunity for the members of the opposition to go through those documents.

As I said, I want to get back to the issue of when you deal with things in municipal council, when you deal with things in caucus—when there’s economic development—the issue of keeping commercially sensitive issues that are not broadly broadcast because of the unintended consequences that may exist if that information was revealed. That has been the standard of cabinets in this Parliament for many, many years.

I said this morning I supported exactly what Minister Wilson did back in 2002. As the energy minister, as related to 1999, he was dealing with some very commercially sensitive information related to Ontario Power, which he said he couldn’t divulge. I respect that. He is an honourable man. He made the right decision back in 1999, not unlike the same decision that was made by Minister Bentley. “We’ll provide all the documents in detail”—the only ones that were not divulged were ones that may relate to some commercially sensitive issues that could potentially expose the people of Ontario to litigation down the road, something we won’t want.

When it comes to energy, it’s very interesting. Everybody talks about how our energy system is in a state of chaos in the province of Ontario. Mr. Speaker, I know I can’t use props, but I just want to make reference to a Globe and Mail

article of Wednesday, September 26, 2012. It’s an ad that was taken out by our friends in the Power Workers’ Union and said, “Ontario’s energy advantages can help make Canada a diverse energy superpower.”

I ask all members to take the opportunity to read this article. It certainly is, from Don MacKinnon’s point of view, the president of the Power Workers’ Union, what is going on in the energy sector here in the province of Ontario. It’s not the doom and gloom that has been put forward by the members opposite. In fact, it’s a very good article, a very detailed

article that takes the opportunity to—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Point of order, the member for Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

Mr. John Yakabuski: You know that the members of this assembly are not allowed to use props. I consider that that is a prop, Mr. Speaker.

Secondly, I would ask him to read the article. If he’s going to use it, I would ask him to actually read the

article to the members of this assembly and let them hear what Don MacKinnon had to say about the energy policy of this government.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Thank you very much for your point of order. I don’t think it’s a point of order. I’ve seen many members read articles referring to their comments.

The member from Peterborough.

Mr. Jeff Leal: Well, in fact, Mr. Speaker, the article’s available. I don’t mind quoting from it. He’s talking about our work in the nuclear field, and he says, “In Ontario, new nuclear reactors will create tens of thousands of person years of new employment, billions of dollars in economic spinoffs, and additional environmental benefits.” I agree, because the GE Hitachi nuclear division is headquartered in my riding of Peterborough. I’ve visited them on many occasions and I can certainly echo what Mr. MacKinnon says in this article, as it’s quite relevant to what goes on in my riding of Peterborough, so I agree with him.

He talks about two particular areas of our energy sector where he thinks that we can make good advances. Our government policy is that generation from nuclear resources will be about 50% to 52% of our base load capacity going into the future, so that’s a given. He, in fact, is supporting what we’re doing in one sector of the energy field.

Mr. Speaker, with my last minute and 38 seconds, I just want to spend some time talking about the quality of a man, Chris Bentley, a gentleman who has had an exemplary legal career in London, Ontario. He spent a lot of his time volunteering to set up legal clinics in the London area. He had a great reputation as a labour lawyer, in fact, doing a lot of pro bono legal work for many, many years for the citizens in London, Ontario. Those citizens perhaps didn’t get the opportunity to acquire legal services, but Mr. Bentley was there to provide it.

We are today, of course, supporting Mr. Bentley, a man of great integrity. This is not an issue of putting him under the bus. It’s not an issue of getting a tow truck to pull the bus from underneath him. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it is here to support an honourable member, an honourable member who has distinguished himself day in and day out in this Legislature. Our side will continue to make sure that the arguments are made on behalf of Mr. Bentley because he deserves that support.

I’m appalled. I’m appalled, Mr. Speaker, at some of the character assassination that’s been going on with regard to Mr. Bentley. We’ll continue this debate next week. We’ll continue debate the week after that, and we can continue the debate all the way to Christmas if we want. But I just want to conclude this morning with a quote from John Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy said, “If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place”—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Thank you. Further debate?

Mr. Randy Hillier: We’re speaking to the motion on the production of documents here to the Standing Committee on Estimates. At the root of this breach of privilege is not just a failure by the minister to heed the warnings of the standing committee of this House, or the ruling by Speaker Levac, to bring forth the requested documentation.

No, what’s at the real root of this motion of privilege is a government that is lost and that is wandering around in the political hinterlands without purpose or direction; a government that clings to power, no matter what and without purpose; a government that is no longer interested in the public interest, but only in their own self-interest; a government that is not interested in the commonwealth of our citizens, but in their own wealth; a government who no longer seeks power to advance public policy, a public policy agenda or a political ideology, but a government who seeks to advance their own personal entitlements, to enlarge their own perks and to expand their own privileges.

The Dalton McGuinty Liberals are neither the first and I’m sure not the last government to fall into this trap and this downward spiral into that deep, dark well of political power. We have seen this political death wish from all parties in the past. This is not an exclusive Liberal death wish by any means. It often happens to all parties.

Unless there is a strong and determined caucus, a caucus with fundamental resolve to serve their constituents; a caucus with a backbone made of principle and a caucus with an indefatigable commitment to purpose over power, and undaunted courage to realize that ethics must trump entitlements. Sadly, Speaker, this government lacks these traits and characteristics. They may have had them at one time—I’m not sure—but it is obvious they no longer do.

While I’ve been intently listening to and watching this debate, this debate on the breach of privilege, I cannot help but conclude what I believe is self-evident: We have a government and a party that is both in disarray and in decline. Their lust for power has become so all-important that decisions are made not for the people but to keep their hands on the levers of power.

The caucus has begun to consume their individual members now, which is what is happening to this current Minister of Energy. He must be sacrificed so that the collective may continue to hold on to their entitlements and their perks. It’s as if a political cannibalization has begun.

I’d like to ask the members here: Where is the member from Oakville, and where is the former Minister of Energy, whose fingerprints are all over this crime scene? And where are they in—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): I would remind the member, who is fully aware, that we’re not supposed to mention members who are not in the Legislature.

Mr. Randy Hillier: Pardon me, Speaker. I was not mentioning today, but their defence of the Minister of Energy through this debate.

I can assure all members of the government that you will not feel satisfied or satiated when this deed is complete. Your appetite for power will require the sacrifice of others. It might be your seatmate beside you, behind you, and maybe yourself. You will find no redemption in defending the indefensible. It can only be found by seeking out and defending your constituents, their interests and their commonwealth.

I watched earnestly as the dean of the Legislature spoke—the Minister of the Environment and the member for St. Catharines. He had a powerful message in his delivery. I’m sure that there were others who read between the lines of the minister’s debate and his comments as he spoke of past ministers, ministers of all parties, ministers of the crown who had recognized they had erred and had offered their resignations. The minister spoke of how members from opposite sides of the House spoke highly of those fallen ministers and strongly encouraged the Premier of the day not to accept those resignations.

But those ministers remained true and stoic and left their ministerial posts. They kept their integrity, they kept their credibility and they kept their honour.

The Minister of the Environment’s message to all of us and to his cabinet colleagues, the energy minister, and I think, also the health minister was that they ought to have offered their resignations. Had this been done, or if the minister had complied with his duty and obligation to this House, we would not be here today with the Minister of Energy facing the possibility of being held in contempt and being censured.

Thomas Jefferson summed this all up in a short phrase, “Nobody can acquire honour by doing what is wrong”—a powerful, short statement that sums it all up, that quote from Thomas Jefferson. It’s time that they stopped doing what is wrong.

The minister may still have a window to regain some stature and re-establish some semblance of honour and integrity, but he’d best not wait till he gets to the top of the 39th step. He must find the courage to honour this House before he takes more steps.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Seeing the time on the clock, this House stands recessed until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1015 to 1030.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Can I assume the member from Parkdale–High Park has a point of order? I need to know.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: Yes.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Point of order.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I just wanted to make sure the House is aware that we’ve got Phil Demers, Brendan Kelly, Brett Whitty, Glen Owen and Angela Bentivegna, who are all former Marineland trainers and employees; Rob Laidlaw, from Zoocheck; and Lauryn Drainie, a campaigner for Change.org here. They’re all concerned about the animals left to suffer at Marineland, and they wish to deliver the signatures of 80,000 people who feel the same way to the Premier. So I would ask for a page to come over.

Miss Monique Taylor: Point of order.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Point of order from the member from Hamilton Mountain.

Miss Monique Taylor: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to make a quick acknowledgement to all the folks who are here today—because the reading of my bill was supposed to happen today, Bill 110. There will be a rally on the front lawn today. I welcome them all to Queen’s Park and all MPPs to join the rally at 1 o’clock at the front.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Member from Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry—and I remembered.

Mr. Jim McDonell: Point of order, Speaker: I’d like to introduce two members from my riding: Ronald Grant and his wife. Ronald is a cancer survivor. He spoke this morning at the prostate cancer breakfast. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): As I’ve stated in the past, these are not points of order, but we definitely welcome all of our guests, and I thank you for your patience.

It is now time for further debate. The member from Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington.

Mr. Randy Hillier: Thank you, Speaker. I left off earlier this morning, commenting and reflecting on the Minister of the Environment’s comments on this debate on the privilege motion. Now, I want to contrast those profound statements of our most senior colleague here in this House with those of other members of his caucus. We have seen often some cavalier chatter by many. We’ve seen those members of the government benches who are despondent and clearly with heavy hearts on this matter, but we’ve also seen and heard those lame excuses by members from Guelph, Thunder Bay–Atikokan, Mississauga–Streetsville and others.

But we’ve also heard from the Attorney General, who represents Kingston and the Islands, as he gave a historical perspective of this House and spoke highly of past Premiers, especially Premiers Robarts and Davis. The Attorney General presupposed that those Premiers would not have engaged in this activity, and they would not have been involved in a breach-of-privilege motion.

Speaker, I too hold many past Premiers in high regard. The Liberal Oliver Mowat is one of those. His legendary battles to protect the constitutional jurisdiction of the provinces are legendary. But would he have allowed his ministers to willfully dismiss a lawful request from the assembly or its committee? I think not. Laurier is another historical Liberal that I am very fond of, and he stands out larger than life as a statesman.

His hallmark, “Freedom for all, privilege for none,” seems to be long lost and forgotten by this McGuinty Liberal government, which much prefers “Freedom for none and privilege for us few” as their hallmark. Laurier or Mowat would never have allowed their campaign teams to supplant the administration of government. They would not have tolerated disrespect for our Parliament.

Yesterday afternoon, I found myself fascinated with the member for Mississauga South, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, and his endearing endorsement of the virtues of democracy. I listened intently as he elucidated to this House his and his party’s listening to the people and how it was this government who had found the strength to make the necessary hard choices with the cancellation of the Oakville plant.

But those were not tears of quietly shared sentiments that choked at my heart. They were tears for all those communities who have been calling out loudly and in great numbers against an industrial wind turbine or solar project in their communities, who found their voices quashed under the heavy fist of this government’s Green Energy Act that stripped them of their democratic rights because their community was not so deserving of the member from Mississauga South’s admiration for democracy.

Tell the people of Amherst Island that the people have a voice in McGuinty’s democracy and they will very readily prove to you otherwise. Ask the people of Huron–Bruce, Chatham–Kent–Essex, Prince Edward–Hastings or Durham, just to name a few. Ask them where their democracy is, and the answer is clear: There’s no Liberal seat to be saved or won there, so their voices do not matter.

The member from Mississauga South would like us to believe he and his party have affection for democracy. But it’s all a charade to them, a shell game for power, thinly veiled with redacted contracts, blanked-out emails and secret friends. Now we have the government’s Minister of Energy called upon the altar of sacrifice by his party for withholding documents, which everyone in this House knows only proves the self-evident: that this government has been caught in their lust for power, having democracy for some when it serves them, but securing it for none when it doesn’t.

But it was the government House leader’s comments that provided real clarity to the failings of this government. As the government House leader spoke in glowing terms of this august institution and the honour and integrity of its members, the feint and the pretext of his disregard became apparent in his subsequent sentence as he referred to us all as a court of marsupials and was quickly admonished by the Speaker. Is it any wonder that the House leaders could not agree when the government House leader refers to honourable members of this House as kangaroos?

Mr. Speaker, a breach of privilege—and this is a breach of privilege—is a most egregious abuse and demonstration of disrespect. The continued failure of the Liberals to have regard for this assembly will invariably lead to a contempt or censure motion. I ask them to do the right thing, not for us here in the opposition benches but for themselves, and, more importantly, for the people of Ontario and for this institution that is built to protect our freedoms and to guard against injustice.

Mr. Speaker, this Oakville plant is being relocated to my riding. It’s being relocated to the existing Lennox generating station. The Lennox generating station is a 2,100-megawatt gas-fired power plant. Last year, it operated at less than 1% capacity. Last year, it operated for a couple of days, mostly in a maintenance role and to provide power for its own systems. It’s 2,100 megawatts. It’s more than double the proposed new billion-dollar plant to be built beside us. I ask the Speaker and I ask this House if indeed this is a good and proper place for this new gas-fired power plant, beside the existing one. If this is good and proper, then why wasn’t it done originally?

Even more importantly, if indeed we can generate power there cost-effectively and deliver it to Oakville, where it is needed, why didn’t they just turn the switch on at Lennox and ramp up from their 1% operations to 50%? That’s all.

We have heard from this Liberal government that there is no other need, no costs other than the $40 million in unrecoverables for their breach of the contract with TransCanada. Something doesn’t smell right here, Speaker. If indeed that is truthful, they would have been total incompetents not to put that plant there in the first place, or to turn the switch on at the seldom-used Lennox station. We are going into billions of dollars of new expenses and costs for our taxpayers, and for what? For what?

A 2,100-megawatt gas-fired plant that sits idle in eastern Ontario, and a brand new billion-dollar-plus plant being built on the same property. I don’t know what OPG has sold the property for, but I think it’s probably somewhat less than the billion dollars that it’s going to cost us to build this plant.

There are more important details to come. This standing committee of the House, the Standing Committee on Finance, must be aware of what is going on behind the cloaks and behind the scenes of this power plant fiasco. We cannot, in all good conscience, make decisions and hold each other to account when there are such blatant, blatant contradictions and hypocrisies that are being put forth.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): You do have to withdraw.

Mr. Randy Hillier: I withdraw—such blatant contradictions between what is said and what is known to be truthful.

It surprised me, Speaker. I am quite surprised, and I’ll share this. I spoke with the Attorney General during this debate because, as the Attorney General said in his comments, he can see the smokestacks of the Lennox generating station from his house. Lennox is in his backyard. It has been in his backyard since the 1970s. The Attorney General said to me, “Well, that’s an oil plant, an oil-fired generating station.” I said, “No, Attorney General. It is indeed a gas-fired plant.” Clearly, even he was very puzzled that they’re building a new gas-fired plant right next door on the same property as an idled gas-fired generating plant which is more than twice the size of the new one.

And I would ask this House and ask the members to take a look at the information provided by OPG on their production levels out of Lennox. It’s on the public record: less than 1%. So 2,000 megawatts of capacity sits there doing nothing as we save the seats for Kevin Flynn, the member from Oakville, and a few others.

This has got to stop, Speaker. The Standing Committee on Estimates must get to the bottom of this.

Again, I’ll say, you can acquire no honour by doing the wrong thing. Acquire some honour.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you—

Hon. Charles Sousa: Point of order.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): A point of order for the minister.

Hon. Charles Sousa: Speaker, to the members of the Legislative Assembly, I’d like for us to take a moment to honour the parents of page Jasper Hébert from Mississauga South. We have Eva Bak-Hébert and Brad Hébert here with us. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I have indicated that I’ve been trying to be lenient, as all members have been pretty reasonable, but we would like to make sure that if these introductions are going to take place, they take place at the beginning or at the end. This is a matter on which I want to stay focused and fluid, please.

Further debate? The Minister of Natural Resources.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, I won’t begin by saying it’s a pleasure to be speaking on this motion—I guess we’re speaking on the sub-amendment to the amendment to the motion—but I do feel it’s an honour to have an opportunity to stand up and speak about the situation that we’ve seen developing here in the Legislature over the last number of days, if not the last number of weeks. I hope to use my time, as much as possible, to put some facts on the table that perhaps have gotten lost with some of the discussions that have gone on previously.

Like many members in the Legislature, I have listened to the remarks and the speeches made by my colleagues from all sides of the House, and again I think it’s important that we make sure that everyone understands the situation as it truly should be put forward. It’s important for the people who are attending in the gallery today, important for those people who are visiting the Legislature and watching on TV and others.

I am certainly very, very proud of the relationship that I have with my colleague the Minister of Energy, Mr. Bentley. I think we all know him well and respect him well. He is a man of the highest integrity, and I think he handled the situation in a fashion that truly showed respect for the parliamentary process, in light of the challenges that were being faced and the questions that he was being asked under those particular circumstances.

As a gentleman who was elected in 2003 and served in a number of ministry positions prior to his position of Minister of Energy—I know that I’ve had a great opportunity to work with him in some of those portfolios very, very closely, and I can only say that it has been an honour to work with him. I know how much the role of an MPP and the role of minister means to him.

I do think that perhaps the most important thing we can do is to, again, remind everyone of the exact circumstances that transpired. Let me try to run through those for everyone who is listening today. We do know that since this particular debate started on the motion and, prior to that, over the last number of weeks, the official opposition and the third party have attempted to create, I think, what is a myth, and that myth is that the Minister of Energy has willfully attempted to hide or conceal these documents from the Legislature. Quite frankly, I think nothing could be further from the truth, and that’s why I think it’s important for us to work our way through the process.

On May 9, Minister Bentley appeared before the estimates committee. Between May 9 and July 11, he was there on a number of occasions. He appeared before the committee, and of course the purpose of appearing for estimates—others of us in cabinet have had that opportunity to appear before estimates as well. This was regarding the 2012-13 estimates of the Ministry of Energy.

While the minister was answering questions related to a number of issues—certainly there’s no question, particularly if one looks at the Hansard—committee members from the official opposition spent considerable time asking the minister questions specifically related to the two gas plants which were to have been built in Oakville and Mississauga respectively. I don’t think there is any argument that while he was before the committee, the minister was certainly being placed in a very, very difficult position. He was repeatedly asked to answer questions related to those two facilities.

The overwhelming majority of the questions related to the outstanding legal proceedings and the confidential negotiations that were under way.

From my perspective, Mr. Speaker, and I think from the perspective of many of us in the Legislature, the Minister of Energy attempted, as best he could, to strike an effective balance between respecting the estimates committee’s authority to ask those questions—which included them requesting those documents—and the minister’s obligation and his need to protect the public interest in the midst of what were highly sensitive commercial negotiations and litigation. There’s no doubt that the minister had a responsibility as a minister of the crown, and those responsibilities are different than the responsibilities that we have as members of the provincial Legislature.

Again, it’s important to point out that the Chair of the committee, the member for Beaches–East York, certainly recognized, as Chair, the rather delicate, if not precarious, situation the Minister of Energy was in. In fact, the Chair, the member for Beaches–East York, repeatedly ruled that while the committee members were permitted to ask such questions, the minister was able to exercise his discretion and respond to such questions in a manner that would protect or could protect the interests of the province.

Let me just quote the Chair’s remarks. Mr. Prue said, “The minister has the right to decline either giving that documentation or giving voice to that documentation during his answering of the questions.” That was one segment that I saw from Hansard, Mr. Speaker.

Another

section that’s important for I think all members to be reminded of is that the Chair said on the same day, May 16, “I would advise that I’m going to allow the motion to proceed, but I would also advise—and I think the minister, being a lawyer himself, knows full well that he may choose to answer the question in such a way as not to prejudice the province in any way, and I would expect him to do so. That would be my ruling.”

Certainly, Mr. Speaker, the minister relied on the Chair’s repeated statements and rulings that the minister was permitted to respond to questions and document requests from committee members in a manner that did protect the interests of the province.

Following that, the minister wrote to the committee on May 30 and advised the committee that he was exercising his discretion and would not be able to produce the requested documentation as they were confidential, subject to solicitor-client privilege, litigation privilege or highly commercially sensitive.

The fact is, Mr. Speaker, the opposition chose to ignore the flags that were raised by the minister. They certainly chose to show no restraint. That isn’t something we’ve seen in the past, and it was unfortunate. We know, of course, that on June 5 the member for Cambridge moved a motion to report to the House the minister’s failure to produce all the records, pursuant to the motion of May 16, and that of course began this process related to the contempt proceedings.

What I think is so disturbing to many of us and, obviously, particularly those of us on this side of the House, is that the official opposition and the third party, in their attempt, quite frankly, to vilify the Minister of Energy, a man of extraordinary integrity, and I think also, may I say, to score political points, will try to tell you and the public that the minister hid or concealed these records. Clearly, that is simply not true. We need to deal with the facts. I think that’s incredibly important.

The record absolutely shows that the Minister of Energy at all times was trying to balance—one of the great challenges that many of us have—two important yet competing public interests: the supremacy of Parliament versus the protection of taxpayer interests. As the process unfolded over the summer, I think there was further proof of the minister doing just exactly that.

On July 10, the minister announced that the Ontario Power Authority had reached an agreement with Greenfield to relocate the Mississauga facility and that the government had accepted the OPA’s recommendation to relocate it to the Lambton station in Sarnia. In addition, the minister announced a few other aspects related to some other civil proceedings.

With the legal matters pertaining to the Mississauga gas plant having been settled, the minister then directed his ministry to provide the committee with all correspondence related to the Mississauga facility that was responsive to the motion of May 16, except for the records that were subject to solicitor-client privilege. Those documents were indeed provided to the committee.

Certainly, if the minister was in any way trying to conceal those documents, you have to ask the question: Why would he have released them the moment he had a settlement with respect to the Mississauga gas plant? Again, I think it’s important that we continue to deal with the facts of the matter.

Speaker, if I may, I’ll move on to the ruling that you made on September 13, which related also to the negotiations with TransCanada regarding the Oakville plant. They were still ongoing. As they were still ongoing, the minister was not in a position to produce the documents prior to the Speaker’s ruling. On September 13, Speaker, you ruled that while a prima facie breach of privilege had been established, you would set aside the matter. You asked the three House leaders to take it upon themselves to find a path that would satisfy the request of the estimates committee.

Generally speaking, I know the member could have moved his motion forward, but in this matter, with your ruling, you exercised your discretion to follow the approach—and I think it was an approach adopted by Speaker Milliken in the Afghan detainee matter—of setting aside your ruling to allow the House leaders to get together to devise a means where both concerns were met—certainly challenging, but one, indeed, where we’d like to think it could happen.

I think, quite frankly, Mr. Speaker—and I trust you will agree with what I’m saying—that what you were doing was recognizing that there were two competing public interests at play: the interests of the committee in exercising its parliamentary privilege, unquestionably, and the interests of the government and the Minister of Energy, in temporarily refraining from the disclosure of sensitive information in the midst of commercial negotiations and related proceedings. Certainly, that gave an opportunity for all three parties, the House leaders, to talk very frankly about how we could get to come to that ruling.

Again, Speaker, you laid out that this was a pretty unique situation. It was a unique situation, unlike various other cases of privilege, and in that case, it did warrant a unique solution.

The House leaders did meet on I think four separate occasions, actually, to determine whether a solution could be found. We certainly had high hopes that the parties would ultimately reach a solution that struck a balance between the competing public interests identified in the Speaker’s ruling. We tabled two separate proposals and we asked for a number of meetings. A couple of times the leaders chose not to continue to meet to discuss it. Certainly, we heard many things publicly as well.

This past Monday—you made it clear you needed a resolution by, I believe, the end of the day on Monday, September 24—the minister was able to announce the completion of the negotiations, the settlement of the Oakville matter. When that was announced, the minister complied. The government complied, the minister complied, and released all 36,000 pages of the records that were responsive to the original motion of the estimates committee.

The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that the request of the committee has been standing here, so one has to ask the question: Why are we here today having this debate? I think it’s not inappropriate to say that there is a political agenda at work here. There’s no other way to put it other than the fact that the opposition, particularly the Conservatives, has made a decision to stop the regular business of the Ontario Legislature, bringing it to a halt. We saw it in the spring, when they were ringing bells all spring long, and now we have this process under way.

A couple of days ago, we completed debate on a very important piece of legislation, the home renovation tax credit, something that we completed third reading debate on, I believe, Monday. We could have and we should have had a vote on this, Mr. Speaker, but we are not able to do so. Here is a piece of legislation that will help improve Ontarians’ lives and certainly help our seniors in a specific way, and that is being held up.

We’ve seen the Legislature being hijacked by this, ultimately to debate the nuance of documents that I don’t think all the members have even tried to tell us they’ve actually read in full.

Again, I think it’s just so important to remember actually what has happened here. We have a minister of the crown, Minister Bentley, again, a man of extraordinary integrity, somebody I think really, truly—if you ask each of the members individually, they would tell you they admire and respect very much and appreciate working with him incredibly closely. It’s just so true. I believe that every member across the floor would say the same thing. But we have them moving forward on a motion when the minister actually has complied with the request.

The official opposition asked for the documents. We certainly made the case that releasing those documents at that time would compromise our ability to negotiate with the company. We concluded those negotiations; 36,000 pages of documents were then provided to the opposition. We complied with their request. We followed through, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Energy followed through.

Now we have—I want to be careful with the words that I use, Mr. Speaker, because you will upbraid me if I don’t—a startling process. The member for Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington was referencing remarks made by the Minister of the Environment, Minister Bradley, earlier this week. I think he misunderstood them, misinterpreted them.

Minister Bradley, with the benefit of the long history he has had in the Legislature, was truly trying to alert us to the dangerous process that we were going down with this particular motion. He also was able to give examples—again, with that extraordinary benefit of history—of how parties have worked their way through these kinds of challenges and how members from different sides of the House have responded differently.

Nobody argues at all with the fact that, as elected officials, we must always balance the supremacy of Parliament with the public interest. There are circumstances—and I think they’ve been well established and I think Minister Bentley established them very well. We were in a very difficult position in terms of sensitive negotiations, but there was always a recognition that indeed it was our goal to release those documents.

What are we seeing? We’re seeing the opposition throwing mud against the wall to see, quite frankly, if anything sticks. This is about partisan politics. This is not about a minister of the crown not responding to the will of the Legislature. Indeed, when he was able to do so, he has, and quite frankly it’s discouraging to see this kind of process under way, particularly when we’re seeing the work of the Legislature truly ground to a halt.

There are a number of issues, I think we would all agree—I just heard one of the members across the floor from Hamilton Mountain talking about a private member’s bill that she was hoping to bring forward today, and I don’t know what will happen this afternoon.

The fact is that we are very committed to the supremacy of Parliament. We are certainly very supportive of Minister Bentley. I will acknowledge that Minister Bentley is a dear personal friend of mine, but he’s also somebody I’ve learned a great deal from. He has served the province of Ontario in an extraordinarily positive way. This is not a process that should be carrying on in our Legislature anymore.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Further debate.

Mr. Ted Arnott: Mr. Speaker, we participate in this debate cognizant of the fact that when it concludes with the vote that must ensue, in the final analysis, we are sitting in judgment of our colleague, the Minister of Energy. The actual wording of the motion that we are debating stands in the name of the member for Cambridge, because it was his point of privilege—acknowledged by you, Mr. Speaker—that we are technically debating. The motion reads as follows:

“That this House directs the Minister of Energy and the Ontario Power Authority to table immediately with the Clerk of the House all remaining documents ordered by the Standing Committee on Estimates on May 16, 2012; and

“That the matter of the Speaker’s finding of a prima facie case of privilege, with respect to the production of documents by the Minister of Energy and the Ontario Power Authority to the Standing Committee on Estimates, be referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, which is hereby re-constituted as it existed on September 9, 2012; and

“That the committee shall be authorized to meet at the call of the Chair, and shall report back its findings and recommendations no later than November 19, 2012.”

An amendment to that motion has already been moved, and it reads as follows:

“That the words ‘November 19th, 2012’ be deleted and the following added ‘November 23rd, 2012’.”

A motion to amend that amendment has also been moved, and it reads as follows:

“That, the words ‘November 23rd, 2012’ be removed and the following be added, ‘November 26th, 2012’.”

You’d have to be an expert on Robert’s Rules of Order to understand all that, Mr. Speaker, but thank goodness we have the professional expertise of the table staff to help us make sense of it all—and you, Mr. Speaker, your

interpretation, which we highly value.

As we know, this debate has larger implications. I did not seek the opportunity to speak to this motion. I was asked to do so. My reticence was, in a sense, understandable. I know the Minister of Energy, not as well as I know some honourable members, but as well as I know many of the members across the aisle. I always say in my riding and I will say here today, Mr. Speaker, there are good people in all three parties in this House, and while we may differ in philosophy and in policy, we can agree on the ends we would hope to achieve for the province that we are all privileged to serve.

I must acknowledge that I like the minister, Chris Bentley. I have nothing against him personally, and of course, we are all honourable members in the parliamentary tradition and, more precisely, in the tradition of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Listening to his colleagues on the government side come to his defence during the course of this debate, there is no question that he is well liked and held in high regard by his colleagues in his own party, who know him best, and his constituents in London West, who know him best of all. They’ve sent him here in 2003, 2007 and 2011 in the 38th, 39th and 40th provincial Parliaments.

I must say that I do not profess to have the wisdom to be absolutely certain of what the House should decide on the question before it. When I began writing these remarks last night—believe it or not, on my BlackBerry—I tried to begin with a blank canvas and tried to do so without prejudice. I reviewed again the material and the documents relating to this matter that I’d taken back to my apartment and I began to write. By 11 p.m. last night, I was finished and I’d drawn my conclusion.

On the face of it, Mr. Speaker, as you had ruled, in the Latin, prima facie, the minister has breached—or in other words has flouted and disregarded—the privileges of members of provincial Parliament because he refused to release documents to the Standing Committee on Estimates when the committee had duly requested that he do so.

Parliament is supreme. The government of the day is not, and no one, not even the Premier or one of his ministers, can thumb their nose at a parliamentary committee. The government strategists apparently didn’t know this at the time of the Speaker’s ruling, but they understand it now. Perhaps if they had studied parliamentary tradition to the same extent as they’ve obviously memorized Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, this debate would not be taking place today.

We know well the government’s reasons for its refusal to release the documents. Negotiations were ongoing, we were told, with the private company that the province had contracted to build the gas-fired electricity generation plant before they cancelled it. “In light of the confidential, privileged and highly commercially sensitive nature of these issues, it would not be appropriate for my office or the ministry to disclose information that would prejudice these ongoing negotiations and litigation,” the Minister of Energy wrote to the committee. Over and over and over again, month after month after month, this was the excuse.

Of course, the people of Ontario have been disappointed and angered to learn of the politically motivated decisions to cancel gas plants in Oakville in 2010 and, even more cynically, if that’s possible, in Mississauga in the midst of the provincial election one year ago.

They’d like us to believe, I’m sure, that it’s sheer coincidence that they were able to come to a mutually satisfactory agreement with TransCanada—after months and months of negotiations that they initially intended to carry on past the by-elections and possibly even after the general election, whenever it comes—to move the gas plant to the Kingston area, nail down the agreement last weekend and announce it this Monday. They would want us to believe that it will cost taxpayers and/or hydro ratepayers only $40 million, assuming that people won’t think that’s a big deal.

They expect us to believe all that? Contempt for Parliament? Where I come from, it’s more like contempt for the people of Ontario.

I was at the estimates committee that day along with the members for Cambridge, Kitchener–Conestoga and Chatham–Kent–Essex. We all asked pointed questions to the Minister of Energy. To say that he was uncomfortable would be like saying Ontario needs affordable electricity for its economic development—an understatement in the extreme. The next day, it must have been very humiliating for the Minister of Energy when his colleague and erstwhile leadership rival the Minister of Finance publicly corrected him, saying that the actual cost of relocating the Mississauga plant was $190 million, not $180 million, as the minister had said the day before.

What’s a million? Indeed, what’s $10 million to a Liberal when you can blame it on some 60 years of inflation? In my riding in 2012, $1 million is still a lot of money. We in Wellington–Halton Hills know that $190 million, the cost of cancelling the Mississauga plant, is a ton of money, money that could have been used to begin to pay down the provincial debt, cut taxes to stimulate the economy, encourage job creation or invest in infrastructure projects that strengthen our long-term economic competitiveness, and protect our environment.

Alternatively, $190 million would easily build and largely equip a brand-new 60-bed hospital in Wellington–Halton Hills, or it could pay the salaries and overhead for about 380 new doctors for a year. Also, $190 million could pay the costs associated with hiring approximately 1,900 new police officers for a year.

Let’s remember another fact that the government chooses to omit from the present debate: Their rush to build natural gas-fired electricity generation plants is a direct consequence of their flawed and mistaken Green Energy Act and the feed-in tariff and microFIT programs that have followed, paying up to 80 cents a kilowatt hour for power that they in turn sell to the market for five cents a kilowatt hour or less.

Approving wind farms in rural Ontario, ignoring the wishes of local residents, dismissing the legitimate health concerns, giving short shrift to the Health Canada study that was announced in July—what if the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining and the power is still needed? Of course, you need backup that you can fire up real fast, thus the need for new natural gas-fired electricity generating capacity.

Let’s talk about the need for electricity at the moment. When the government initially made plans to site gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga, they correctly pointed out that it made sense to build the plants close to where the demand for electricity was growing, for a long list of good economic reasons. The cost of transmitting electricity over great distances is very high and contributes to upward pressure on our hydro prices, upward pressure on the hydro bill. You need the lines and towers in place, and those lines and towers need to have the capacity to transmit the electricity to where it’s needed.

If you don’t have the lines and towers, you need to build them, again, at great cost. There’s also the reality of loss of voltage when electricity is transmitted, which the industry refers to as “line loss.” Another big factor in siting gas-fired electricity generating plants is, of course, the availability of the quantity of natural gas that you’ll need. Again, if the gas isn’t available, new gas mains have to be built to bring the gas to the plant. You can’t build a gas plant where there isn’t gas to fire it up.

How does it make economic sense to relocate the plants to Lambton and Lennox? Where are the electricity demand studies that show that this makes any sense whatsoever? We’ve heard in this debate—and the government has not yet uttered a single word to refute it—that the existing Lennox station, an oil- and gas-fired electricity generating station, is almost never fired up. That means the power it can generate is rarely needed in that part of the province, and yet this week they announced they’ll build a new gas-fired plant alongside it as part of the settlement with TransCanada.

So we build a new plant beside the one that we hardly ever use. It’s like having a barbecue on your backyard deck that you almost never use, and in spite of that, going out and buying a second brand new barbecue to put beside it, knowing you’ll never use it. But it will sit there and rust, and as the years pass, eventually it will go in the garbage. That’s essentially what they’re doing.

Let’s return now to the documents that the government released this past week. My colleague the member for Nipissing has shown me a couple of them that he made reference to earlier this week in the context of his remarks, and we see of course that there is a lot of blank—a lot of whiteout has been used. Of course, many of these documents are internal communications going back and forth in communications departments. They’re not legal documents, Mr. Speaker.

They have nothing to do with the legal aspects of this issue; they have everything to do with the spin that the government would hope to put on the issue and how they’re going to manage the communications. That’s why they’ve whited so much of it out.

We have seen boxes and boxes of paper and, for the media, the USB clip. Our staff has spent many hours, and into the evenings, going through these documents, and this is what we see: page upon page that has been whited out. But what the government would have described as a sincere effort to respond to the Speaker’s ruling is blown away by the whiteout on so many of the documents, and all of that whiteout in a futile effort to whitewash the role of the Liberal campaign team—Greg Sorbara, Don Guy and the others—in the decision to cancel the Mississauga plant, and likely the Premier, other Liberal Ministers of Energy perhaps and Liberal MPPs.

The truth will come out at committee in due course, as it must if anything good is to come out of this mess. It is indeed a tragedy that the Minister of Energy, a good man, is forced to take the fall for all this. If William Shakespeare were here today, he’d wonder if anyone in the government had read his works, if anyone in the government understood the themes of his tragedies, or had even spent a moment thinking of the meaning of what he had written. Themes like pride and vanity evolving—even degenerating—into arrogance, the pursuit of power at all costs, the willingness to sacrifice all principles in the name of keeping power and, subsequently, the inevitable fall.

That, in the final analysis, Mr. Speaker, is why this matter must be reviewed and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, to get the answers that Ontarians deserve, and that’s why this House must support this motion.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Further debate.

Hon. Margarett R. Best: Mr. Speaker, I am certainly pleased to rise and speak about my honourable colleague and friend the Minister of Energy.

The Minister of Energy, as I know him, is a person of great integrity and professionalism. He has had an illustrious career as a lawyer, an MPP and a minister of the crown, and certainly his career as the Attorney General was impeccable.

I know that today we are here because of this motion. I do not want to repeat many of the facts which I have heard in here already, but I know that the question of privilege concerning the request for documents of the government and the delay in producing the documents requested has led to this most unfortunate motion. Proceedings in this House have come to a grinding halt. It is something that I feel is important for me to speak on as a friend and colleague of the Minister of Energy.

Mr. Speaker, I reference the Speaker’s ruling that a prima facie case of privilege has been established and the motion that is before the House. According to Joseph Maingot in Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, and as was referenced by the Speaker, “It is the House alone that decides whether a breach of privilege or a contempt has occurred, for only the House has the power to commit or punish for contempt.”

Mr. Speaker, I will vote against the motion, and I urge all members of this House to do so. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. In this case, the documents requested have been delivered. Was there a delay? Yes. Was there an occasion for this delay?

The Minister of Energy is a thoughtful person. As a minister of the crown, he was handling a request for highly sensitive information. He is someone who understands that the unfettered release of information which will be prejudicial to negotiations into the continuation of the plants would be an issue, and, prudent person that he is, he knew that he had to proceed with caution.

Mr. Speaker, in your own ruling on the point of privilege, you stated that the “House and its committees often accommodate or respect security, legal and public policy considerations; they often accept reasonable excuses for non-production.”

Let us not forget: We are speaking about the very plant that the parties opposite insisted that we move. Did they know that there would be costs associated with their request? Of course they knew; we all knew. We knew there would be costs associated with the cancellation and relocation of the plants, and that did not deter them. They wanted it done at all costs. And of course they knew that the costs would be significant.

This certainly was not a decision to be taken lightly or hastily, and so we have to say that—and I refer to the committee Chair’s acknowledgement of the competing public interest, and of course these interests weighed heavily on the mind of the minister and the minister’s decision, and his decision was to proceed cautiously.

Mr. Speaker, again I refer back to your ruling. You said, “The Standing Committee on Estimates was unquestionably entitled to request the documents sought from the Minister of Energy.…

“I am therefore satisfied that a prima facie case of privilege has been established.”

Mr. Speaker, you yourself quoted from Speaker Milliken’s April 27, 2010, Afghan detainee ruling: “It seems to me, that the issue before us is this: Is it possible to put into place a mechanism by which these documents could be made available to the House without compromising the security and confidentiality of the information they contain? In other words, is it possible for the two sides, working together in the best interest of the Canadians they serve, to devise a means where both their concerns are met? Surely that is not too much to hope for.” And I repeat: “Surely that is not too much to hope for.”

Mr. Speaker, it is that hope on which I speak today, the hope that we can come to a conclusion that is going to, at the end of the day, work for this House and for all parties involved, and that is not going to tarnish the reputation of a person of this Legislature who is a person of utmost integrity and professionalism.

Again, let us be clear: The documents have been produced. The government House leader has stated in this honourable House that every single document requested was released. But it appears that the main opposition—and I heard someone speak about Shakespeare just a moment ago. It appears that over there, on the other side of this House, the main opposition, akin to Shylock in William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, is insistent on their pound of flesh.

I would urge the members of the opposition to put a stop to this motion. In appealing to the good in you, I urge you to look inside of yourselves—and yes, I’m asking you to dig deep down in your hearts and ask yourselves, “Is this about justice?” Ask yourselves if this is what we’re here to do. Ask yourselves, “Can I go home to sleep at night knowing that I have taken

part in destroying the reputation, the character”—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Be seated, please. Excuse me.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Excuse me.

To the last minute, we had respect on both sides for each person speaking. Let’s keep it that way.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I will tell the member from Durham, who has been spoken to several times about his interjections, when I’m standing, to stop.

Carry on.

Hon. Margarett R. Best: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is not my intention to insult anyone; it is my intention to put my piece on the record about what I feel about this minister.

Ask yourselves, “Is this what we came here to do?” Ask yourselves, “How do I feel in taking

part in destroying the reputation, the character and the integrity of the Minister of Energy, all in the name of getting a political advantage?” I don’t think any of you can answer “yes” to those questions. I don’t think any of the members opposite can have any peace if you allow this motion to proceed.

I tell you, I haven’t been sleeping lately, and I can assure you that I usually sleep like a baby. But why can’t I sleep? Because these last few days have been the darkest days for me in this Legislature, seeing a motion that is so frivolous and vexatious before this Legislature and, more particularly, against one of the finest members of this Legislature.

I heard one member opposite, over there mention the Latin phrase “audi alteram partem,” the words written over the doors of this great chamber. That phrase was my favourite Latin phrase in law school, and when I walked into this chamber and I looked over those doors and saw that, I felt good to be here. I felt proud to be here. It had true meaning for me. But today, I feel deeply saddened, because I believe in justice, and I believe justice should be the fundamental tenet upon which decisions in this House are made. I must say to you that while the words “audi alteram partem” denote the right to be heard, implicit in that phrase is the right to be treated fairly and justly upon being heard.

Ask yourselves, “Is this fair and just treatment of the Minister of Energy?” And let me point out to you that the answer to that question does not only affect him; it will affect his family and his children; it will affect his legacy. Think about your families and how hard you have worked to build your reputations to leave a legacy for your children, just to have it taken away by partisan policy. I say it’s bad, very bad—not good.

The Minister of Energy should not have his reputation, his character and his integrity impugned because he dared to act responsibly, given the position he was placed in, in waiting for the ruling of this esteemed Speaker of the Legislature and in acting within the time period prescribed by the Speaker.

The important business of this honourable House has been disrupted long enough by this unfortunate debate, not to mention the continuous ringing of the bells to stop the people’s business earlier this year. The work of the people of Ontario has to go on. They send us here to do it. We should not cast it aside due to the pursuit of partisan politics. Important business of this esteemed Legislature is at a standstill.

I was looking forward today to the debate of my proposed Wireless Services Agreements Act this afternoon, but, no, this House is today tied up with this frivolous and vexatious motion. What has occurred is unfortunate, and it is not reflective of true—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Minister.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’ll just take a moment. Thank you.

It being 11:30, this House is recessed until 1 p.m. this afternoon.

The House recessed from 1131 to 1300.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Further debate.

Hon. Margarett R. Best: As I rise again today, Mr. Speaker, I think it is apropos in the matter at hand to refer to a quote from the late Viscount Hewart, a former Liberal member of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom, a member of the Privy Council and former Attorney General, like my friend and colleague was. He said, and I quote, “Not only must justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.”

That is why I rise in this House to speak against this frivolous and vexatious motion. I have stood up for justice all my life. Knowing the Minister of Energy and the relationship I have had with him since I was elected in 2007, the character, integrity and plain decency of this person, if I did not stand up when I see a miscarriage of justice in the making right here in this Legislature, I would be remiss and irresponsible.

When I was first elected to this esteemed Legislature, Mr. Speaker—and I speak personally now—I was new to politics, a neophyte whose only claim to power was having been elected by the people of Scarborough–Guildwood. There was much transitioning to do, and as I tried to find my way, there was one person in this Legislature who stood out in my mind. It was the then Attorney General, now Minister of Energy. He sat to my left, in this very seat where I now sit, and he always had an encouraging word for me.

When I went to cabinet and I was nervous about a presentation that I had to make, he would come over to my chair and talk to me about my presentation before, and he would give me some encouraging words at the end of cabinet. He would come over and he would put his hand on my shoulder and say, “You did good,” even when I didn’t do so good. There was one time when I presented and someone asked me a very difficult technical question, and before it came back to me, he addressed the question.

It was as if he knew that I may have some difficulty with the question and he wanted to pre-empt it—a selfless and empowering act of kindness, I would say.

I would dare to say, Mr. Speaker, much like how Daniel Kahneman speaks of his friend and collaborator in his Nobel Prize winning book Thinking, Fast and Slow—and I paraphrase—I found in the collaboration that the minister “frequently saw the point of my sometimes-vague ideas more than I did,” and he provided “an unfailing sense of direction. “

Those are but a few examples of the minister’s selfless and empowering acts of kindness. That is why I stand here and make these statements today, Mr. Speaker, among so many other things that I said before.

While some may look at me just as a neophyte, a black woman who came not from money or power, the minister saw in me a person worthy of his attention. But that was not all. He saw a little bit more. He saw how difficult it must have been for me to be the only black person in the Ontario Legislature and a neophyte here, and the best part about all of this was I never had to say anything to him. He knew, as if he had a sixth sense.

He had a sense of decency that I needed some help, someone to uplift and empower me, and I felt his acts of kindness were like he was saying to me, “I know that you can be just as good as me if I give you a hand up.” He voluntarily took on the job of being there for me, much like a guardian angel. For that I thank him, and I say that he demonstrated to me, beyond the shadow of a doubt, what a kind and decent person he is.

On a professional level, I saw the minister as a person of the utmost integrity and sound judgment. When he spoke at cabinet, it was well reasoned and with much confidence. I saw the respect that other members accorded him and felt he was someone to emulate.

My feelings in this regard remain the same today as each and every day that I have been in this Legislature since 2007. Mr. Speaker, I am deeply saddened that I have to be here in this Legislature speaking to a frivolous and vexatious motion against someone who is a truly decent and respectable person of the utmost integrity. I beseech you to reconsider this motion in the interests of justice.

I would remind you that both the opposition and the third party did not just ask, but demanded, the cancellation of the plants. The residents of Oakville and Mississauga wanted the plants cancelled. The people spoke; we listened. That, Mr. Speaker, is the foundation on which democracy is built: listening to the people. We listened to the opposition party, too, and they all knew there was a cost to taking that step, but the principle of democracy triumphed.

It is time to stop the partisan games and get on with the people’s business. This House has ground to a halt. The Tories spent all spring delaying—

Interjection: Who wrote this?

Hon. Margarett R. Best: I wrote it myself, thank you very much. I speak from the passion that I believe is the truth.

The Tories spent all spring delaying the people’s business. You have delayed the business of the House by ringing the bells ad nauseam and prevented this House from conducting the people’s business. You asked for documents. We concluded the negotiations and we delivered the documents to you in compliance with the request. The document request has been satisfied. Now you’re making a mockery of the institution of Parliament by impugning the reputation of an honourable minister, an honourable man who has served this province with distinction, to gain political advantage. That is not good.

What is occurring is unfortunate and not reflective of true justice. To my friends—and, yes, that includes all of you over there on the opposite side of this House—I know you have heard this phrase before, and I quote: “Be careful of the power you wield.” Today I say to you, do not rise up with a sword to strike our friend, our esteemed colleague, a person of great integrity and character, but rather rise above partisan politics and wield the sword of justice.

I would close by quoting someone I have truly admired, one of the greatest freedom fighters of all time and a person who truly understood justice, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, who once said, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” In this House, justice should prevail.

Thank you very much.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Further debate?

Mrs. Jane McKenna: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now back to reality. I rise today to speak to the very serious matters before us and, like many who have spoken before me, I do so with purpose but without pleasure.

This time last year, my days were spent going door to door in my community of Burlington, talking to everyone I could about what mattered most to them: the issues and interests that gave them reason to get out of bed in the morning, the concerns that nagged them, the worries that kept them up at night. Going day to day and door to door, I never took anything for granted. I understood that long hours, challenging work and devotion to your constituents is what makes it possible for us to be here in this place. We are their allies and their advocates. We are guardians of their trust, and, together, of the trust of all the people of the great province of Ontario.

I will not claim that it is easy work, Mr. Speaker. I doubt any of us would, however long would have been served in this place. Politicians as a group have never had a smooth relationship with the people they serve. I know that from campaigning and from constituency work since being elected. Some people have very intense feelings about the work that we do, and not always in the way you would hope. But I am grateful for all political conversations, pleased to be in this House, and honoured as always to be working for the people of Burlington and Ontario.

That said, Mr. Speaker, I am deeply disappointed and saddened to be debating this matter. I am disappointed and saddened to have to plead the case that the people deserve to know what is done in their name, on their behalf, with their money. I am disappointed and saddened to have to argue that needless secrecy should be weeded out wherever it appears. I am disappointed and saddened to have to insist that when a government talks about its commitments to transparency and accountability, it means just that, full stop.

In its words and in its actions, this government has shown that it has no real commitment to transparency, that it apparently doesn’t feel answerable to the people of Ontario. It pains me to say it, but that’s where we are today. The government has not made a sincere and full disclosure.

Once again, we are dealing with something that should, in a better world, be unthinkable: the political motivations surrounding the cancellation of two gas plants. We are trying to get to the bottom of a series of events surrounding the abuse of taxpayers’ resources for nakedly political ends.

Speaker, we pursue this matter in order to fulfil our responsibilities as the official opposition and to ensure that the public interest is upheld. It is not a personal matter. It is not a partisan matter. It is a procedural matter. The Legislature has a right to these documents, and yet the Liberals continue to show disdain for these rights and privileges.

Commenting on this very serious debate, the Premier remarked to the Canadian Press that, “I’m hoping that the opposition will have their fun, come to their senses and recognize that we’ve got to move beyond this.” Speaker, this is not a matter of having fun, and I am frankly dismayed that the Premier views this matter so lightly.

The principle of responsible government is one where we charge cabinet to make decisions on behalf of the people of Ontario. In turn, the cabinet must be held accountable to the Legislature. This is a principle that goes to the very heart of our democratic system. No member, no minister, no party, no government can claim that it has a monopoly on the public interest. This is a matter that must be dealt with by the House as a whole, which can debate and decide this matter once and for all. The Speaker said as much when he noted that, “a decision to be selective with respect to production is a decision for the House or the committee.”

We do not pretend to know what exactly is missing from the package, but it is clear that it is far from complete. It is clear that the package does not comply with the Speaker’s ruling and that the government’s actions run counter to ancient parliamentary rights.

And it is equally clear that a point of privilege remains and we debate this matter here today because of the minister’s conscious decision. The minister would have understood his decision challenged the rights and privileges of the Legislature and its members. It is a decision that the former Attorney General would have understood better than most; he would have known that he was courting a contempt ruling.

His refusal to fully disclose the request details took place on multiple occasions over several months, and every step of the way, he understood the road he was on. For reasons we cannot guess at, the minister has chosen to take the hit for his government. That is his choice and his choice only. This is a cabinet minister who has refused to completely disclose information related to the partisan cancellation of power plants and carefree spending of taxpayers’ money. They cannot go unchallenged.

Restoring the people’s faith in government is without question the defining challenge of 21st-century politics. That’s true around the world, but it is especially true in Ontario, a province whose government has spent most of the last decade reeling from scandal to scandal.

For the last nine years, the government opposite has demonstrated most of the worst habits of modern democracy. The people want to believe in better, and in order for us to transform this province into the Ontario that we know it can be, we need to do better.

Ontarians care about integrity. They want bold leadership, capable of making decisions that are courageous, necessary and right, and they expect their elected representatives to be true to more than just partisan lines and the politics of convenience. We are caretakers of a fragile trust, and each of us plays a very important role.

We must take steps to regain and maintain the confidence of our communities, and we must rebuild civic engagement among young Canadians who continue to feel the system neither speaks to them nor represents them. We must take steps to regain or maintain the trust of our constituents and our communities, because it is only through recapturing the respect and admiration of our citizens that we will restore Ontario to true greatness.

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