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May 27, 2015

41st Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2015-May-27 (PDF)

L088 - Wed 27 May 2015 / Mer 27 mai 2015

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Wednesday 27 May 2015 Mercredi 27 mai 2015

Orders of the Day

Time allocation

Ontario Immigration Act, 2015 / Loi de 2015 sur l’immigration en Ontario

Introduction of Visitors

Wearing of carnations

Oral Questions

Teachers’ labour disputes

Hydro One

Teachers’ labour disputes

Privatization of public assets

Hydro One

Teachers’ labour disputes

Pan Am Games

Winter highway maintenance

Privatization of public assets

Greenhouse gas emissions

Ontario Drug Benefit Program

LGBT conversion therapy

La francophonie

Pan Am Games

Visitors

Deferred Votes

Agriculture Insurance Act (Amending the Crop Insurance Act, 1996), 2015 / Loi de 2015 sur l’assurance agricole (modifiant la Loi de 1996 sur l’assurance-récolte)

Introduction of Visitors

Members’ Statements

Multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis

Asian Heritage Month

Liberation of the Netherlands

Multiple sclerosis

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome

Neurofibromatosis

Beef Farmers of Ontario

Member’s grandchild

Reports by Committees

Standing Committee on Regulations and Private Bills

Introduction of Bills

1476263 Ontario Inc. Act, 2015

Ethnic Media Week Act, 2015 / Loi de 2015 sur la Semaine des médias ethniques

Protecting Condominium Owners Act, 2015 / Loi de 2015 sur la protection des propriétaires de condominiums

Motions

House sittings

Correction of record

Petitions

Privatization of public assets

Long-term care

Ontario Disability Support Program

Off-road vehicles

Water fluoridation

Wind turbines

Privatization of public assets

Credit unions

Automotive industry

Hydro rates

Privatization of public assets

Soins de longue durée

Landfill

Orders of the Day

Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Amendment Act, 2015 / Loi de 2015 modifiant la

Loi sur la Société de protection des animaux de l’Ontario

Order of business

Orders of the Day

Ontario Immigration Act, 2015 / Loi de 2015 sur l’immigration en Ontario

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

Time allocation

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: I move that, pursuant to standing order 47 and notwithstanding any other standing order or special order of the House relating to Bill 103,

An Act to resolve labour disputes between the Durham District School Board, Rainbow District School Board and Peel District School Board, and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, when Bill 103 is next called as a government order, the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill, without further debate or amendment, and at such time the bill shall be ordered for third reading, which order may then be immediately called; and

That, when the order for third reading is called, the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of this stage of the bill without further debate or amendment; and

That no deferral of the second or third reading votes pursuant to standing order 28(

h) shall be permitted; and

That, in the case of any division relating to any proceedings on the bill, the division bell shall be limited to five minutes.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The Minister of Labour has moved notice of motion number 39.

Minister of Labour.

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Thank you very much, Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this motion. I would like to say at the outset that our government—and I’m sure I speak for all members of the House—is always concerned when students are out of the classroom and not learning, for whatever reason. That is why the government asked the Education Relations Commission to advise as to whether this school year is in jeopardy in light of the strikes that were taking place in Durham, Sudbury and Peel.

Earlier this week, the Education Relations Commission advised that the school year is indeed in jeopardy for secondary students in Durham, Sudbury and Peel. In light of this advice, we introduced legislation that would have put our students back into the classroom yesterday, had the third party agreed to unanimous consent for speedy passage of this bill. This legislation is designed to get 72,000 students back into the classroom so that they can complete their studies for this year.

We did not and we do not take this decision lightly. It was informed by the advice of the Education Relations Commission, and it’s a real response to the concerns of students and their parents in these communities.

Mr. Speaker, as you would well be aware, the Ontario Labour Relations Board has weighed in on these matters, as well, and has also ruled now that the local strikes in Durham, in Sudbury and in Peel are indeed unlawful. Students and teachers are back in the classroom today. The OLRB has ordered that the local strikes in Durham, Sudbury and Peel must stop, and that stoppage involves a moratorium for at least two weeks.

Our proposed legislation will allow students the opportunity to successfully complete their school year without any further disruption. I think that’s what we all want. This legislation ensures that students remain in school for the rest of this school year. We must ensure that students in the affected school boards that I’ve mentioned have the same opportunity to complete their school year.

The Ministry of Education has been working with these boards on a daily basis to ensure the remaining days of the school year will be used for learning.

Our government believes this legislation is necessary because we do not want those strikes that have been deemed to be unlawful to continue after the two-week moratorium has expired.

This is about protecting the school year for students, ensuring our students continue to achieve excellence. It’s unfortunate that one party in the House continues to hold up that legislation, and I say that sincerely. I’m calling on the members of that party to help us protect the school year for students, join with the rest of us that are ready to move ahead, and make sure those students get back into the classrooms and stay there until the end of the school year.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Further debate?

Mr. Steve Clark: I’m probably going to be even shorter than the Minister of Labour. I remember—

Mr. Percy Hatfield: You are shorter.

Mr. Steve Clark: I am short. Thanks, Percy. I am shorter than the minister, probably by about six inches.

I’m a little shorter than you, Minister.

I worked for my predecessor, Bob Runciman, in 2009—

Hon. James J. Bradley: Good man.

Mr. Steve Clark: —thank you, Minister—when the House was recalled to deal with that strike. The three parties, by consent, moved that legislation forward. I think it was a Sunday afternoon when they got called back. I know there was a lot of negotiation between the three parties.

Our critic for education, Garfield Dunlop, the member for Simcoe North, has expressed concern for several months in this Legislature about this government and their handling of the situation in our classrooms and in our schools. Although in the past I haven’t been a big fan of closing off debate, I think our party has been very clear right from the start that we were prepared to move forward, act quickly, and have this piece of legislation passed.

This motion allows each party to speak for a period of time and then allows a vote on this bill. I’m not going to belabour the point. I was very honest with the New Democrats this morning that I wasn’t going to use my time. We want to see this move forward. I think it’s time for all three parties to come together. Let’s get the bill passed and let’s get it moving.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Further debate?

Mr. John Vanthof: As always, Speaker, it’s an honour to be able to stand in this House today and speak on this motion. I think, from all members and all sides of the House, the most important issue here is the families, the children, their parents and the educational system.

I’d like to comment on a few things that the government has said, not just over the course of this debate but over the course of this whole debacle with the kids being out of class because the teachers felt so aggrieved that they felt forced to strike.

First, the reason that this legislation was brought forward, Bill 103, as stated by the Minister of Labour, was to get the kids back to school. Well, the kids are back to school because of the OLRB decision. So we’re debating what is a moot law, in a way. But not altogether, Speaker, because what this law is now doing is, it’s back-to-work legislation in case the teachers go on strike again. That’s what this is.

So if you have pre-emptive back-to-work legislation, one has to ask the question: Is the government really serious about the negotiations? It’s hard to negotiate when one of the parties has, figuratively speaking, a gun to the other party’s head. In a way, this OLRB decision gives the government a second chance because now they have a bit of breathing room to actually truly negotiate. So in a way, this is a good thing.

One issue that we really take exception to—the Minister of Education, during question period a few days ago, basically lobbed it on to the third party that this was all our fault. The last time I checked, Speaker, this was a majority government. I can remember, when the Premier was campaigning for leader, that she was going to do things differently. I’d really like to make this clear: We are at the eleventh hour of this issue, but we are dealing with a majority government that seems to be spinning their wheels with these labour negotiations.

It’s this government, because of their lack of will of negotiation, that has kept the children from going to class. At the last minute, to say, “Well, it’s obviously the third party”—the third party in a majority government? Come on, now. We try and do as much as we can to make regulations and laws as effective as we can for the people who we represent; I think all members in the House do that. But let’s be clear: This is a majority government, a majority government whose Premier and whose Minister of Education could have fully seen this coming. This should not be news.

Quite frankly, Speaker, the idea that “Well, it’s obviously the third party because they wouldn’t support that unanimous consent motion”—we didn’t support unanimous consent because we believe that everything in this House, in a democratic society, should be debated. Should it be debated ad nauseam? That’s a point of contention, but it should be debated. Because the government had failed to conclude serious negotiations—

Miss Monique Taylor: To do their job.

Mr. John Vanthof: Yes—had failed to do their job. As a cover, as a decoy, they’re blaming the third party. That’s just not the way it works, Speaker.

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Do you want the kids in school or don’t you?

Mr. John Vanthof: We all want the kids in school.

As a majority government, you have been dealing with this since the election last June. We are not the people who are keeping the kids out of school, Minister. You’re the Minister of Labour; we’ve got the Minister of Education, the Premier—you have all the power. And that’s the way it is. Regrettably for the third party, that’s the fact. At this point, for the ministers and the government to blame the third party for their lack of negotiation is just disingenuous.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: And funny. It’s really funny.

Mr. John Vanthof: One of the members said it’s funny. It’s not really funny. It shows a lack of leadership. It shows a lack of leadership on the government’s side. A government takes credit for all kinds of things, but it also should take responsibility for its occasional, sometimes fairly frequent—in this case, absolute—failure to handle this issue. As I’ve previously stated, this OLRB hearing has given the government a bit of breathing room. Last night, when our party rang the bells, it wasn’t to be deleterious; it was to give the government breathing room to actually figure out what was going on with the OLRB hearing.

It’s quite simple. The government hasn’t done their job since being elected.

The government has been given this breathing room—

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Sit down.

Are we finished with the cross-floor dialogue? Thank you. You got the message. Good.

And when I’m standing, no one speaks. Thank you.

Continue.

Mr. John Vanthof: Thank you, Speaker.

The government has had the opportunity to deliver on their promise of being a different type of government, of providing actual, true negotiations. That’s one of the reasons why people voted for—regrettably, in our opinion—a majority Liberal government. But they haven’t delivered on this promise, because we see the same old same old. Negotiations have failed. The teachers were forced, basically, out on strike.

We’re talking about back-to-work legislation, which the government says is developed and is put in the House because of the ERC, and then, in the middle of all of this, the OLRB rules.

It is very complicated, but what it also shows is a total lack of planning on the government’s side. If the government continues on this haphazard, say-one-thing-and-do-something-else—and then if that doesn’t work, blame the third party, we are going to continue with crisis after crisis after crisis, and they are going to continue to impact one of the most important things in our province’s future, and that’s the education of our children.

They’ve got a second chance with this OLRB decision. There’s a time allocation motion we’re debating here to force this legislation through.

We are not here to obstruct this process. We are here to make sure that in a democratic system, we can put remarks on the record, Speaker, which need to be heard. And one remark that needs to be heard is that the most important thing to all of us is the children, the students, in this province.

For the government to blame the third party, when they’re a majority government, is a cop-out, when they should take responsibility and leadership. If the current people who are in negotiations can’t do it, maybe they have to replace the current negotiators. The government needs to move ahead and quit looking for cover and actually do its job on this.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Further debate?

Mr. Flynn has moved government motion number 39. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Motion agreed to.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Orders of the day.

Ontario Immigration Act, 2015 / Loi de 2015 sur l’immigration en Ontario

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 12, 2015, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 49,

An Act with respect to immigration to Ontario and a related amendment to the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 / Projet de loi 49, Loi portant sur l’immigration en Ontario et apportant une modification connexe à la Loi de 1991 sur les professions de la santé réglementées.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Further debate.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Thank you, Speaker. Yes, I guess we are shuffling right along in the orders of the day today and we’re going to talk about immigration.

It is a pleasure to stand and bring the voices of Windsor–Tecumseh to this debate because, as many of you know, when it comes to a diverse population, the city of Windsor and the region and the county of Essex were the fifth most diverse area in all of Canada. Our immigrants have built our communities. It started quite a while ago, of course. We had a lot of European settlers come to work in our mines, to work in our car factories, to build our roads and high-rises, and we are a better community because of that.

We celebrate our diversity; we celebrate our immigrants; we celebrate our multiculturalism. We have great festivals in the summer, festivals such as the Carrousel of the Nations, which, no matter what ethnic group you may be from or what your roots are, there’s always an opportunity to get out with friends and family. They’ll enjoy the food, the music.

If it wasn’t for our immigrants and welcoming arms, this bill wouldn’t be needed.

Ontario is playing catch-up. Finally, we’re following in the footsteps of Quebec.

Hon. Michael Coteau: We’re the first province outside of Quebec to have that.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Outside of Quebec; that’s what I just said, Minister. I just said that: You’re following in the footsteps of Quebec, much like you are, in recent months, by having the Premier of Quebec come and address the Legislature, much like in recent months when you had discussions with the Premier of Quebec on any number of other things. I don’t see that as a negative, as a slam against the government, that you’re following in the footsteps of Quebec.

Hon. Michael Coteau: Or you could say we’re ahead of all the other provinces.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: The other provinces—if you want to talk about Alberta for a while, Minister, I’d gladly talk about recent events in Alberta. It is an interesting bill, but not quite as interesting as what New Democrats have recently accomplished in the great province of Alberta. If you want me to talk about other provinces, Minister, I’ll gladly lend a hand on that one.

Miss Monique Taylor: A majority.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: A majority government, New Democrats, province of Alberta?

Hon. Michael Coteau: Point of order.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): A point of order from the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport and responsible for the Pan Am/Parapan Am games.

Hon. Michael Coteau: Through the Speaker, I’d suggest that the member stick to the actual legislation that’s being debated.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): I’d like the minister’s input, but unfortunately the minister was in dialogue across the floor and got him off his game plan. So maybe if you were quiet, he’d get back to his issue.

Continue.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Thank you for that very unbiased ruling, Speaker. As a matter of fact, I was, I thought, talking about Bill 49. The minister kept giving me speaking notes across the aisle. I just happen to have about 15 minutes of notes on my desk upstairs, but I didn’t bring them down this morning because I thought my good friends in the Tory caucus were going to have more to say on the other orders that were called earlier today.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Are you going to blame Mike Harris?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: No, I won’t be blaming Mike Harris, or the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. I leave it to others to do that.

But I will say a few things, Minister; thank you for the reminder. I will say a few things about Bill 49, the Ontario Immigration Act. It would obviously, as we’ve already discussed across the floor, grant Ontario more control over immigration and settlement specifically as it concerns workforce placement and the setting of quotas.

Speaker, every now and again, I’ll take a cab from the Walkerville train station in Windsor when I get home at 11, 11:30 at night on a Thursday after leaving Queen’s Park. I’ll hop into the cab, strike up a dialogue with the driver and, more often than not, the driver of that cab is from another country and he came here for a better life. More often than not, that cab driver has not only one university degree but sometimes several. They’ve been trained in specific fields, but they come here and the jobs just aren’t there for them, so they end up driving a cab.

I know from time to time in this House we keep hearing about the shortage of skilled trades professionals and that, in the future, we’re going to have a real shortage of skilled tradespeople. I believe that is one of the objectives of the minister’s bill and what this is aimed at doing. If you’re going to set a quota, and you need welders, no matter what country they come from, you might just be looking for welders to come into the country and fill those jobs that are there.

Speaker, I was so thrown off by the minister’s comments earlier from across the floor, I don’t know if I forgot to mention that I’ll be sharing my time with the member from London–Fanshawe—now that she has arrived.

I just want to say, as the member is ready to roll I’m sure, that I hope to have more to say on this bill maybe later on today when I finally bring my notes down from upstairs.

So, thank you, Speaker, and with your permission, I’ll throw it over to the member from London–Fanshawe.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Further debate?

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Thanks so graciously to the member from Windsor–Tecumseh—

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Hold on. Sorry. We have to do questions and comments first. You can do a two-minute questions and comments—

Interjection: No. They’re sharing time.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Point of order.

Mr. John Vanthof: The member from Windsor–Tecumseh said he was going to share his time with the member from London–Fanshawe.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Well, I get direction from the Clerks’ table. Which way is it?

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Okay. Our mistake—I’ll share that.

Continue.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Good morning, Speaker. It’s very refreshing to be here this morning and see everybody working together so that we can actually debate this bill that’s been long overdue. It’s been over 10 years to get an immigration bill in Ontario, to move immigration forward and make sure people have the opportunity to come to Ontario, work here and hopefully plant their permanent roots here, raise their family and be part of our great province.

It’s my pleasure once again to rise in this House and speak in my capacity as New Democratic critic for immigration on third reading of Bill 49, the Ontario Immigration Act. I’ve also been able to speak for my party and on behalf of immigration advocates on Bill 49 previously in debate in this House and at committee. I was pleasantly surprised that in this majority environment that a couple of my amendments—New Democratic amendments—were actually passed through committee. That was a pleasant surprise.

We’ve said it before: This bill can be seen as a good step in the right direction. Ontario has been waiting for this bill, and it’s long overdue. It’s been over 10 years and, finally, we have an immigration strategy from this government. While this bill does take action on some important issues, the reality is, the big picture hasn’t really changed at all. Primarily, this bill is meant to align Ontario’s Immigration Strategy with the Harper Conservatives’ federal legislative changes to immigration programs and services.

Speaker, let’s face it. It no longer comes as a shock or surprise for the Ontario Liberals to be taking plays right out of the Stephen Harper playbook. It’s the same play they are using in their attempts to ram the sale of Hydro One through the Legislature with no consultation throughout the province and, worse, no mandate from the people of the province.

I will acknowledge that our provincial Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade has undertaken to seek support for this bill and has reached across the floor in his efforts to do so.

Again, I was surprised to see that two NDP amendments were accepted in committee. I was disappointed that of the 13 amendments we proposed, only two were supported, because those other 11 amendments were very pertinent to this bill. But we got traction on two, so two out of 13, I guess, is better than none out of 13.

Miss Monique Taylor: In a majority, when they have all the power.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: That’s right, in a majority, when they can kind of dictate.

Bill 49, while a step in the right direction, is missing vital components that would truly allow Ontario to take the lead in immigration standards. Instead, we continue to give that lead over to other provinces.

New Democrats have long called for updates to Ontario’s lagging immigration policies. For more than 10 years, this province has sat on its hands and done nothing in this area. Our previous critic, from Beaches–East York, talked about how this has been long overdue. He was a very passionate member. We truly miss him on this side, and we miss his insight on immigration. This is not the first time that I have mentioned this. I’m sure this government isn’t surprised about that comment.

Even though Ontario receives more immigrants than all the western provinces, all the Atlantic provinces and the three territories combined, Ontario has been lacking in a comprehensive immigration strategy that takes into account the challenges we face as a province as well as those faced by newcomers.

So, Speaker, what’s in the bill? Let’s take a look at what’s in the bill and what this bill actually does, before we talk about it and what it excludes or ignores.

The bill proposes to give authority to the province to establish and govern immigrant selection programs for both temporary and permanent immigrants. It further permits Ontario to set the target levels for the number of persons chosen by Ontario selection programs. It invests new powers in the minister to conduct research, organize educational and training programs, and appoint committees on immigration-related issues.

It allows the minister to establish registries for both employers and recruiters that are interested in participating in the Ontario selection programs under the Ontario Immigration Act. It sets out some guidelines to monitor and detect possible contraventions of the Ontario Immigration Act in order to prevent immigration fraud and to protect program integrity. It sets out guidelines in that regard.

The minister is also permitted to collect, use, and disclose personal information in order to carry out these functions.

The OIA also allows the minister to enter into agreements with the federal government, other provinces, and even municipalities. The bill lays out a compliance and enforcement regime, including inspection and investigation powers. Offences and penalties for both individuals and organizations wold require regulatory change and federal buy-in.

Under the OIA, applicants to employer registries can request an internal review regarding a decision made. The bill aligns requirements under the Regulated Health Professions Act with those in the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act in terms of timelines in decisions-making and access to records. This fulfills a request by the office of the Fairness Commissioner.

The act allows for regulation-making authority in areas such as program administration, program eligibility, compliance, internal review and payment of fees.

These new powers for the minister contained within the act appear to be relatively harmless and almost appropriate.

I am especially eager to see Ontario become an active agent in conducting our own research, organizing educational programs and appointing committees.

My only question is—

Hon. Michael Coteau: When I was the minister of citizenship and immigration, I didn’t have a question the whole time—not one.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: And this is not a question-and-answer period, Speaker—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Minister, you forgot about me. You’re supposed to go through me, if you want. You’re not even in a debate on this one.

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): You. Yes, you. You’re having an ongoing conversation with the presenter.

Hon. Michael Coteau: I was just talking to my friend—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Well, talk to your friend. Don’t talk to the one across the road. And if you want to talk to your friend, take your friend outside and talk to him.

Go ahead.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Speaker, if the minister would like to speak to me later, I’d be happy to have a conversation outside the Legislature. As you mentioned, he’s not even here to address it.

Back to the debate, Speaker—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Who wasn’t here? You know we’re not supposed to say—

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Oh, yes—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): You’ll withdraw that.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Speaker, I respectfully withdraw.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): Thank you. It’s going to be a good day.

Interjection: It’s going to be a long day.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Yes, it’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it? Until midnight.

My only question is exactly to what end these endeavours will be undertaken by the ministry. The ministry has not shown any form of leadership around the current plight facing Ontario’s immigrants, and this bill seems more interested in conferring powers to the minister than changing the landscape. It’s clear: Federal power over immigration remains paramount.

So what should we do in the face of such a paradox? My NDP colleagues and I agree that in light of federal authority in this area, we are afforded the luxury of moving forward with legislation that is meaningful, legislation that tempers our economic needs with our moral and ethical obligations to provide newcomers with the supports they need to help this province grow. Quite frankly, the facts are in and the results are plain: We need newcomers as much as they need us. We are asking people to come from around the world to become members of our family, to help our province grow and achieve our goals, but what are we doing to welcome, protect and see newcomers thrive in this province?

I want to spend some time talking about the reality of immigration by taking a moment to look at the numbers and current trends. Over the past 20 years, Ontario has welcomed more than 2.4 million landed immigrants, which signifies almost 52% of all immigrants coming to Canada. This number also illustrates that Ontario continues to be the first choice for immigrants coming to Canada. That’s really something to be proud of. To have people come from countries all over the world and settle in Ontario is a testament to what Ontario has to offer to its citizens in many ways. We’re talking about health care, education—at one time, there were job opportunities that were very plentiful.

We saw our share of immigrants to Canada drop by almost one third. Markedly, in 2010, Ontario received 118,114 permanent residents, representing 42.1% of total admissions to Canada, which was well below our historical average. This was Ontario’s lowest share in 30 years, from a high of almost 60% in 2001 to 40% in 2011.

Toronto, in particular, seems to have the greatest draw for those immigrating to Canada. According to Statistics Canada, Toronto’s metro population has now surpassed six million people, meaning that Toronto alone accounts for 17% of Canada’s 35 million people. They further claim that the main driver of this growth was foreign immigrants. In fact, every Canadian city with a population over one million can attribute most of its population growth to international migration. About half of the people living in Toronto were born in other countries, and this city is said to be the most multicultural city in the world.

In spite of this uptake in immigration numbers in our major cities, it is estimated that Ontario will face a shortage of 364,000 skilled workers by the year 2025. That translates into an immigration demand that exceeds our current intake by more than twice over in order to offset the decline in Ontario’s labour force.

What is behind this decline in Ontario’s labour force? Well, the answer is socially driven. Our baby boomers are coming of retirement age at a rate we simply can’t keep up with. Combine that with our historical decline in fertility rates and the picture becomes a little clearer, all of which points to a steady decline of Canadian participation in our own labour force.

Historically, economic growth has been the key driver behind labour requirements in Canada. However, it will no longer be the case in the coming years. Instead, job openings due to retirement will be the major driver behind labour demand in the future, far outpacing the number of new jobs created by economic expansion. Projections from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada indicate that roughly 6.4 million jobs will open up in the coming decade. Roughly 70% of these jobs will be due to replacement demand, primarily as a result of retirements, deaths and emigration, while the remaining 30% will come from new economic activity and the demand for new labour requirements.

Simply stated, this trend is driven by our changing societal demographics. The slowing in our overall population expansion and the aging of the population are clearly beginning—and will continue—to negatively impact our labour force growth.

In the coming decade, we will need to recognize the labour market challenges of replacement demand. In the coming decade, there will be a need for approximately 4.4 million jobs. Some 3.7 million vacancies will be caused by retirements. It is estimated that the number of Canadians expecting to retire is going to increase steadily over the next decade. In 2010, we experienced approximately 300,000 retirements. By 2010, it is estimated that number will rise to more than 415,000. Further, it is estimated that an additional 700,000 positions will need to be filled due to death prior to retirement, and to emigration.

Therefore, it is vital that we appreciate and understand the importance of our immigration strategy beyond our labour market demand, but our socio-cultural needs as well.

Our demographics and populations are changing, and immigration will play a vital role in supplementing our workforce. Researchers have estimated that within this decade, immigration will account for all the net growth in our working-age population. By that, I don’t mean to infer that Canadian-born individuals will not make any contributions to our labour force, because, Speaker, we know we have highly educated, highly trained people in Canada and in Ontario as well. The majority of the new entrants into the labour force will be made up of those who are leaving school.

While newcomers will continue to be a vital aspect of our labour supply in Ontario, it has also been noted that recent immigrants seem to have the weakest economic outcomes, despite having very high levels of education attainment.

These concerns are significant. If declining financial outcomes among recent immigrants persist, we must be ready to respond. Whether it is a moral imperative that drives us to address those needs, or an economic inclination, it is clear that it serves us well as a province to ensure that immigrants in Ontario are provided with every opportunity to succeed.

The growing demands in health care, specifically in the caregiver program, highlight our need for an adaptive immigration strategy. We have seen some changes to policy, specifically the provincial nominee program, which is designed to facilitate immigration of foreign nationals to specific provinces and territories in Canada in order to target explicit economic needs.

Yet we struggle to adapt to our policy changes. While seeking to facilitate this immigration, we have yet to move towards a fully comprehensive system of recognition of foreign-trained professionals and their credentials. Individuals who immigrate to Canada under the provincial nominee program have the skills, education and work experience needed to make an immediate economic contribution to the province or territory which nominates them. Since the inception of this program, the focus has been on immediate occupational needs identified by the participating provinces.

The provincial nominee program rules recognize that provincial governments are best positioned to determine their own specific economic needs with respect to immigration. Labour market needs vary over time due to a number of factors, such as general economic cycles, rates of growth in particular sectors and demographics in particular occupations. Generally, the program is viewed as being more responsive to more immediate needs in the labour market as compared to the Federal Skilled Worker program.

PNP applicants receive priority processing while most FSW applicants do not, and the PNP is broader based in terms of the occupational labour market field. Since the inception of the PNP, comparisons regarding labour market outcomes of the FSW program are often made. However, one must remember important differences between the two economic streams of immigration. The FSW program addresses knowledge-based and longer-term needs for skilled professionals,

whereas the PNP tends to focus on short-term occupational and specific labour needs identified by a province.

Speaker, there’s something too I want to share, and I did touch on it when I debated earlier. It was some information that was gathered through the Auditor General’s report, so I just want to read from that. Some of them are quotes that we got from the Auditor General’s report.

Last year, the Auditor General did a comprehensive review of Ontario’s provincial nominee program and, quite frankly, uncovered some serious issues in the ministry. I’ll read the quote from the report, which I’ve written out here:

“The provincial nominee program ... is delivered by the Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade. Through the program, immigrants are nominated, or recommended, to the federal government based on their potential economic contributions to the province. Since the program’s inception in 2007, the province has nominated about 6,600 people. As of April 30, 2014, 3,900 nominees and 3,200 of their family members have become permanent residents through the program.

“Other significant findings included the following:

“The ministry delayed formally reporting potential abuse of the program to the federal government and the appropriate law enforcement agencies.” So that was a concern. “This potentially delayed any action against people who might have been abusing the program.

“Program staff did not follow up on questionable files that were approved but flagged for follow-up. About 260 files were flagged between October 2011 and November 2013, but only 8% had been followed up on at the time of our audit.” That’s the Auditor General. “As of April 2014, 71% of all nominees flagged for follow-up had become landed immigrants.

“Thirty immigrant representatives submitted applications that were denied on the basis that they contained misleading or fraudulent information.

“On a follow-up of previous approved foreign worker nominees who had become landed immigrants to Ontario, 38% of the sampled nominees were suspected to have misrepresented themselves.

“Even though the ministry says publicly that the applications are processed on a first-come, first-served basis, certain applications were given priority and processed at least three times faster than others.

“There are significant data integrity issues with the program’s computer system. Controls over the case management system and nomination certificates need to be strengthened.” This is what the Auditor General is talking about, Speaker.

“In 2013, two thirds of the nominees were international students who obtained a post-secondary degree in Ontario but did not have a job offer at the time of nomination.”

Of specific note for me were the “significant data integrity issues with the program’s computer system” coupled with the fact that there was no privacy officer assigned to work with the program. Bill 49 is seeking to allow the minister to have access to highly confidential and personal information, and yet neither the government nor this ministry demonstrated that they have the capacity to protect the privacy of the individuals participating in the program.

In fact, this government program can’t even report on the effectiveness of the program, nor can it speak to the experience of those people who have previously been nominated through the program.

The Auditor General also found “there is a significant risk that the program might not always be nominating qualified individuals who can be of economic benefit to Ontario. This is because it lacks the necessary tools, including policies, procedures and training, to guide program staff to make consistent and sound selection decisions, especially in a work environment that relies heavily on temporary staff and where turnover is high.”

This is, again, what the Auditor General has identified as problematic to delivering this program.

They also found “that the ministry did not share program integrity concerns with both internal staff and external parties”—including law enforcement and regulators—“who needed to know and could act on them accordingly.”

Furthermore, they found “that program staff had not been provided with clear guidelines on how to deal with potentially fraudulent situations, and the program had not established anti-fraud mechanisms. The program lacks a strong data management system and program integrity function that would help detect high-risk applications. The program’s evaluations have not been thorough and current enough to track what happens to nominees from the various program components after they are selected.”

So it’s almost like there was never any follow-up to this program to see if it was working, if it was successful or what the outcomes were for people who entered through this program.

“Furthermore, the ministry does not have strong monitoring procedures to ensure that” all “nominees are indeed working in skilled occupations contributing to the economy after arrival”—so, again, checks and balances.

These are fairly damning findings to overcome while asking for our support in this chamber to afford greater powers to this unproven ministry. Yes, you’re asking for all kinds of extra authority, but the track record that has been reported by the Auditor General is not a glowing report.

This Premier and this government tout themselves as champions of transparency and accountability. We all know where we can go with that, but I’m going to stay here on the debate. Yet the Auditor General went on to say, “The program lacks processes to ensure transparency and avoid actual or perceived conflicts of interest: Even though the ministry states publicly that applications are processed on a first-come, first-served basis, certain applications are given priority and processed at least three times faster than non-prioritized files.

Although there might be instances where this practice would be justified, for example, when an applicant’s legal status to stay in Canada is about to lapse,” they noted “one situation where files submitted by a certain representative were prioritized. In this case, the representative was a former program employee. In addition, some representatives were contacting program staff directly to ask for extensions in submitting documents or to request that their clients’ applications be prioritized.” It sounds like one process for the well-connected and another for the rest of us.

“In contrast, at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, only a small number of people deal with representatives, and representatives can only make inquiries in writing.”

These were the kinds of proposals my party sought to introduce through the committee, proposals that would help instill fairness and transparency while creating a level playing field for all. Yet once again, only two out of our 13 amendments were accepted.

It’s very ironic that the ministry responsible for helping immigrants land and find employment are themselves, in many cases, temporary employees. I’ll illustrate that, in my debate, from the Auditor General’s findings. According to the Auditor General’s report, many staff received no written guidance or job training, and turnover is quite high.

“As of March 31, 2014, only 20% of program staff were permanent full-time ministry employees.... From January 2012 to June 2014, 31 staff left the program and 59 started with the program.” There’s that high turnover rate.

The program “is heavily staffed with temporary or short-term employees. This has contributed to increased turnover and the risk of inconsistent decision-making, which in turn requires increased oversight and continual training.

“When the program began, it was approved to hire up to nine full-time positions or the equivalent” of full-time employees (FTEs). “At that time, the nomination limit was 500.”

So you’d have your nine full-time employees and your nomination limit was 500 applicants coming in.

“In 2014, approved staffing increased to 16 FTEs when the nomination limit reached 2,500.” That’s a huge number. You’re going from 500 as a nomination limit to 2,500 as a nomination limit, and the increment in employees didn’t really proportion out that increase in nomination limit. At the time of the audit, the program was only utilizing nine of the 16 FTEs, so again, these people were obviously very overworked.

“In order to meet staffing needs, the ministry redeployed its staff from other programs and staff from one other ministry. In addition, in 2010, the program began seconding people from the federal government, and in 2012, it began to hire seasonal employees,” and that is full-time employees on annually recurring fixed-term contracts who work 10 months of the year. “These temporary staff are not included in the approved staffing complement of 16, but the ministry has obtained funding to cover the costs of the temporary workforce.

“As of March 31, 2014, the program had 45 staff in total” and “expects to continue to employ a mix of permanent and seasonal staff, but dependence on a temporary workforce could result in more turnover because staff may leave, as has happened, for more permanent positions elsewhere.” More secure jobs: That’s what people are looking for.

“From January 2012 to June 2014, 31 staff left the program. In the same period, 59 individuals started with the program, excluding returning seasonal staff.” This illustrates that instability created a risk “to the program of inconsistency in decision-making, which warrants increased oversight and constant training of staff.” Again, the irony of the employees to this program working under precarious employment conditions themselves while helping newcomers to find good, stable employment would be amusing if it wasn’t so unfair.

In addition, although the program has existed for more than eight years, the ministry still does “not have an operating manual to guide processing staff in making consistent eligibility decisions.” That was something that was very much brought to the forefront from the Auditor General: training and guidelines for staff who are actually going through these nomination applications. Moreover, at the start of the audit, none of the application-processing staff who assessed files had received any training specific to the program. So you’re thrown in the job.

What has changed that will inspire Ontarians and newcomers alike to trust your leadership and program management abilities? That would be something I would actually like to talk to the minister about, or even get something in writing: What steps has he taken from the Auditor General’s findings to get his ministry clerically up to date, training his staff and to ensure people are going to, first of all—hopefully, when they come to work there—gain skills and experience? That’s what makes the employee valuable, or someone who works for you: The longer they’re there, the better they are at their job.

So it would be nice to know what steps they’ve taken to ensure that when people get that job, they are willing to stay for the long haul. That also asks: What will be different under Bill 49? What is the government’s response to its own shortcomings as an employer?

I’d like to talk a little bit about caregivers because, again, in Ontario we have a need for caregivers. Many, many of those caregivers come to Ontario; they immigrate here. I think that’s something that we need to highlight in Ontario and talk about, and make sure that it’s on record.

When we talk about caregivers, we want to know what answers this government has for their own employees, let alone those newcomers facing the precarious work that we talked about, as in the case of Ontario’s live-in caregivers. Live-in caregivers are predominantly immigrant women, coming to us from countries around the world. They work in people’s homes providing vital care and nurturing our aging population, young children and people with disabilities. They come here as temporary foreign workers, without access to full immigration status.

On one hand, we are clearly aware of the needs and demands of our aging population, yet our federal counterparts have approved fewer than 10% of requests by potential employers to bring in foreign caregivers under their revised program. They face enormous challenges, and in some cases abuse, while our labour laws exclude many of their working conditions. Last November in Ontario, there was an on-the-job death of a Filipino nanny, Marites Angana. Marites came to Ontario to take a job as a live-in caregiver but suffered a head injury from a fall in her employer’s garage on November 28.

She died of a brain hemorrhage on December 2 at Toronto Western Hospital, leaving behind a 13-year-old son in the Philippines.

Speaker, this is not an unusual story for a foreign caregiver coming into Ontario. As I have said, the majority of caregivers are women. Many of them come here to support their extended family or their own immediate children, who are left at home in their countries. To listen to this story—to have Marites fall in the garage and end up suffering death because of this, and leaving her 13-year-old son, certainly isn’t the only story in Ontario with regard to caregivers.

My office met with friends of Marites and several groups who were seeking to help with repatriation of her body and wanting to prevent this needless tragedy from happening again. We challenged Ontario’s Ministry of Labour to look into the circumstances of Marites, even going as far as to call for a coroner’s inquest into the death, but have heard nothing but silence in return. We haven’t heard any response to that request.

According to the International Labour Organization, “Domestic workers are frequently expected to work longer hours than other workers and do not have the same rights to weekly rest that are enjoyed by other workers.” They go on to state that some 83% of domestic workers are women.

We know that live-in caregivers are playing a key role in providing this care in Ontario, yet they are treated unfairly by both federal and provincial governments. This begs the question I referred to earlier about what kind of immigration strategies are we promoting here in Ontario. This government continues to refuse to bring legislation forward that protects temporary foreign workers in their work environments.

There has been no action taken by the Ministry of Labour in regard to protecting the workplaces of Ontario’s live-in caregivers, or to address the precarious nature of their work, yet we have very high expectations for the people we charge to care for our children and our aging parents.

Speaker, if you were going to have a caregiver—I’ll speak from my personal experience. If I was going to have a caregiver in my home looking after my parents or my children, I certainly would want to make sure that they were happy in what they did and that they had all the rights of someone working in another workplace, because their role—you can’t have a more important career or work than looking after someone who is a child or a vulnerable senior, because your care is in their hands. So I think it’s so important that we actually look at foreign caregivers and try to make their workplaces fair.

With the care of caregivers, we know that they are predominantly women, as we’ve said, and yet where is our moral obligation to promote their well-being and the status of all women in Ontario? Under the new rules, caregivers will no longer have universal access to permanent resident status after working in Canada for two years—again, a change like that isn’t helping. They must now apply under two categories: those caring for children, and those caring for people with high medical needs.

Ottawa will now allow 2,750 caregivers under both new streams to access permanent residency, for a total of 5,500 applicants a year. The annual average of caregivers who came to Canada over the past five years is over 8,000. That’s well above the cap that Ottawa has set.

So how will Ontario seek to reconcile the federal regulations with the needs of Ontarians? A recent study shows that today as much as 80% of the home care services provided to older adults come from caregivers. However, as the baby boomer generation ages and as they didn’t have as many children as their parents, the same in-family resources will simply not be available.

I know that my parents, when they came to Canada with five children—yes, it was five—they came to Ontario. We lived here in Ontario with five children.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Where did they come from?

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Portugal.

Interjection.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Yes.

Mrs. Cristina Martins: Great country.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Yes, it is. It’s a wonderful country. Everybody who visits there just comes back with raving reviews about how they want to go back.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Weren’t you the first Portuguese woman to be elected?

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: I was the first Portuguese woman to be elected to the Ontario Legislature. That is correct, yes.

Applause.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Thank you.

If I could actually talk to that at this point, because—

Mrs. Cristina Martins: First Portuguese woman elected to government.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: We know that another member, the member from Davenport, is the first Portuguese woman to be elected to government, because she mentioned that in one of her debates. So congratulations to her, too.

But under this program nomination act, the Ontario Immigration Act, they’re going to zero in on economic class, immigrants coming to Ontario who are going to fill job positions—which is great: they want high-skilled workers. So I’m going to speak from my perspective. When my father came to Canada and Ontario, and my uncles and all kinds of relatives, they didn’t have any skills. They were labourers, they were farmers, back in their country. Things were a little different then. They came to Ontario, and thank goodness that was allowed, because you guys wouldn’t have me here today if that wasn’t the case.

Despite the fact that they didn’t have any high skills to fill the labour market that they’re going to be doing research and developing programs for—and that is certainly something we need to do—they had a role to fill in this province. They contributed to the workforce and they actually helped build Ontario, specifically in the construction trade that my family was able to enter. So if it wasn’t for that opportunity for immigrants who came here without skills, they couldn’t have helped contribute to the economy.

And they thrived. My father bought a home. He bought a car. He contributed back to society. We brought five over. My youngest brother was born here. He raised six kids here. We’re all here. We have children. We’re all working and contributing. So that’s something, Speaker, that they’re talking about, this bill, the provincial nominee program, as looking at economic class drivers for nominating people coming to Ontario. I think there should be some room in here for people who come here who perhaps don’t have those skills that they’re looking for but can contribute in other ways.

Back to home care: We know that Ontarians are already confronting wait-lists for home care, bed shortages in our long-term-care facilities. The federal government claimed that noticeable decreases in the number of applicants were due to higher proportions of the applications returned as incomplete. That’s what they’re saying about the caregiver applications limit that they changed, too.

Harper seems adept at posturing on the case of the Filipino immigration while he’s actively seeking new trade deals with their country’s leaders, all of which will result in increased demand for government and private home care services and, ultimately, caregivers.

Yet this government has been silent on the cuts to the caregiver programs. There is no evidence that advocacy of any kind has taken place to protect either the caregivers or those Ontarians who are in need of their services. This Liberal government needs to accept the consequences for their

part in creating and establishing a permanent group of second-class citizens. If they don’t react now, it’s just going to keep growing.

Speaker, we talked about the Auditor General’s report and how there’s a fluctuation of staff in and out of the door, how there are people on contract. The ministry’s own staff are facing precarious employment.

From the

article I read last week, precarious employment is on the rise. It was in our legislative clippings.

The

article goes on to say, “Precarious employment is here to stay, a new study shows, and Toronto’s new economic reality impacts everyone from the working poor to the middle class.

“The research confirms United Way and McMaster University’s groundbreaking 2013 findings that fewer than half of workers in the GTA and Hamilton are in permanent, full-time jobs.” That’s pretty surprising.

“Instead, about 52% of workers are in temporary, contract or part-time positions.”

Miss Monique Taylor: Precarious.

Ms. Teresa J. Armstrong: Yes, precarious, and we talked about precarious work here on this side of the House. It doesn’t help to stabilize our economy.

“‘All the indicators suggest that this is the trend of the new labour market,’ said Wayne Lewchuk, the report’s lead researcher.

“‘This is the new form of employment.’”

Personally, I was moved by this one particular story: “Diana Mavunduse, 41, who spent most of the past seven years knitting together various part-time and contract jobs to make ends meet, admits she hasn’t even thought about starting a family.

“‘Back home, I would be married already with children,’ she says of life in her native Zimbabwe.”

Diana goes on to talk about the immigrant experience in Ontario: “‘A lot of them are doctors and engineers who come with their families,’ she says. ‘They study for years for a career, but end up coming here and getting a (menial) job. They end up focusing on their children.’

“As a result, the pressure on families is immense....”

In Diana’s case, that’s what happened, Speaker. They’re trying to survive every day, and they can’t find permanent work.

“The report, entitled The Precarity Penalty, warns that without such action, precarious work will ‘not only affect the ability of people to build stable and fulfilling lives, but it will threaten our region’s capacity to develop a competitive workforce.’”

In short, this story successfully reminds us that a poorly implemented immigration policy can be devastating to people who are caught up in this credentials issue. They come to Ontario, or Canada at large, with degrees and they can’t find work in their professions.

The degree to which we can successfully integrate new arrivals into Ontario’s labour market and social fabric does have a significant effect on our own fiscal fortunes. Immigration has always been the lifeblood of Canada, stretching back into our past, when we recruited immigrants to help populate this country.

It’s a reality that we need to have people come to Ontario, for many reasons: population reasons, economic reasons. We just need the numbers. As I mentioned before, our demographics don’t show that that’s going to be the case for us in 2025.

Our immigration history is rife with examples as well. I’m going to talk about this particular area, because it’s about immigration. It’s not something we should be proud of, of course, but it needs to be said, being the citizenship and immigration critic. Our Canadian history is rife with examples—there are some dark periods where we got it wrong. In the 19th century, we implemented the highly racist Chinese head tax, to discourage Asians from gaining citizenship, just as we discouraged Jews from entering Canada between World War I and World War II. I reference these rather painful examples from our past in order to demonstrate the need for sound legislation.

The Ontario Immigration Act is specifically designed to increase class of economic immigrants. At the same time, the profile of immigrants to Ontario has changed. The percentage of economic-class immigrants coming to Ontario has dropped by nearly 20%, from 64% in 2001 to 52% in 2011. This figure is the lowest in the country. On average, 71% of immigrants arriving to provinces outside of Ontario were economic—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): I’ll have to cut you off at this point. It is 10:15. We’ll continue again when you get the floor.

Third reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paul Miller): This House stands recessed until 10:30 this morning.

The House recessed from 1015 to 1030.

Introduction of Visitors

Mr. Bill Walker: I’d like to welcome members of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada to Queen’s Park for World MS Day: Lisa McCoy, Abidah Shamji, Andrea Strath, Joanne Ticknor, Andrea Butcher-Milne, Gregory Bourne, Stella Rose, James Jackson, Marni Wolfe, and John Duffy. Welcome.

Ms. Catherine Fife: I hope everyone will join me in welcoming a group of girls who have travelled here this morning from Waterloo, My Girls Government group—first time on the GO train, first time on the TTC. From Lester B. Pearson Public School: Claudia Heeney, Maria Faroga, Faiza Haque, Erika Schneider, Ally Horne, Jessica Martin, Sapna Tripathi, Abigail Persaud, their teacher Laura Teskey, and parent volunteer Chris Martin.

From St. Luke Catholic Elementary School: Maddie Swart, Nicole Posluszny, Tamara McMahon, Tabatha Obermeyer, Natalia Benavides, Alexxis Armstrong, Rachel Williams, Jenna Langelaan, and their vice-principal Carla Santomero. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Michael Coteau: It gives me great pleasure to welcome Leslie Pringle to the Legislature today. She is the mother of Jesse Wright, my legislative assistant. Welcome to the Legislature.

Mr. Monte McNaughton: I’d like to welcome back to the Legislature Jeff Koller from ISCA.

Hon. Jeff Leal: I’m very pleased to introduce the following people from the Beef Farmers of Ontario—and I welcome members to join the BFO barbecue lunch at Queen’s Park’s lobby today between noon and 2.

I’d like to introduce Bob Gordanier, who is the BFO president; Matt Bowman, Beef Farmers of Ontario vice-president; Dave Stewart, executive director of Beef Farmers of Ontario; and Garnet Toms, who is the director of Beef Farmers of Ontario for the wonderful riding of Peterborough

Just to let everybody know, the menu includes some of the best Ontario corn-fed beef tenderloin, smoked on-site, served on a bun with side salads.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: It’s a great day today to be from Nepean–Carleton because it’s our day to have the page captain. I’d like to congratulate Brady Sterling, and of course, we all know that his grandfather is former MPP Norm Sterling, and of course often in the gallery is his grandmother Joan Sterling. Let’s give him a really big round of applause.

Applause.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: I just wanted to introduce Heather Shand, a wonderful volunteer from the riding of Parkdale–High Park.

Hon. Reza Moridi: It’s my pleasure to welcome members of the College Student Alliance visiting Queen’s Park. They’re represented by Matt Caron, Shannon Pollard and John Horrox. Please join me in welcoming them.

Mrs. Julia Munro: I’m pleased to welcome Kelly and Michael Gibney from York–Simcoe, who are here today as part of the Canadian PKU and allied disorders group for advocacy day. Welcome to all of you who are there on a very important mission.

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: It’s my pleasure to welcome a fairly large contingent of CUPE members who work in our education sector.

Mr. Peter Z. Milczyn: It’s my pleasure to welcome, in the west gallery, a group from Primerica Canada. They’re at Queen’s Park today providing information about their services: John Adams, Hande Bilhan, Rosie Orlando, Bobby Gocool, my resident from Etobicoke–Lakeshore Lincoln Nadarajah, Darren Stephenson, David Grad, Roy House, Franco Delilo and Daniel Pirillo. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Jim McDonell: I want to welcome Arden Schneckenburger from my riding. He’s here with the Beef Farmers of Ontario, and it’s great to see them this morning.

M me France Gélinas: It’s my pleasure to introduce Norma Beauchamp, president and CEO of Cystic Fibrosis Canada. She is there with her chief scientific officer, Dr. John Wallenburg, Chris MacLeod, as well as Anchalee Srisombun. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mrs. Cristina Martins: It gives me great pleasure this morning to introduce to the Legislature, in the members’ gallery, the participants in my Girls Government mentorship program from Rawlinson public school in my riding of Davenport. With us we have Ryann Hoxsey-Pilon, Sana Khan, Alyssa Diseko, Cheyenne Williams and teacher Emily Praamsma. Welcome, ladies.

Ms. Sylvia Jones: Please join me in welcoming, from Dufferin–Caledon, Frances and Helen Goodfellow, and Jim MacKenzie, who actually worked at Queen’s Park during the Davis era. They’re here to advocate on behalf of PKU and allied diseases.

Mr. John Vanthof: I would like to welcome the Beef Farmers of Ontario here today. I met with their vice-president, Matt Bowman, who is from my riding. I’d like to invite you all to the barbeque this afternoon.

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: I’d like Queen’s Park to give a warm welcome to Jane Bullbrook from Oakville, from a wonderful organization that helps a lot of people called Unshippable.

Mr. Bill Walker: I’d like to introduce Rob Lipsett, a great farmer from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound and a director with the Beef Farmers of Ontario. Again, I’d welcome everyone to lunch out on the grounds.

Mr. Mike Colle: I’d like to welcome, from the capital city of Ontario, former Toronto city councillor John Adams, who has also done some great work in newborn screening and on sickle-cell anemia. Welcome, John Adams.

Mrs. Marie-France Lalonde: As I mentioned earlier this week, Ottawa–Orléans is proud to welcome Robert Heckbert, our page in the Legislature. I would like to re-welcome his mother, Susan Bellamy, who is here in the gallery again today.

Mr. Granville Anderson: I would like to welcome Maryll Alcala-Hao, a co-op student from St. Stephen secondary school. She currently works in my office as a co-op student.

I would also like to welcome Justin MacLean, who is a member of the staff in my office.

Welcome.

Hon. Mitzie Hunter: I’m pleased to introduce Gregory Bourne, from my riding of Scarborough–Guildwood, and Abidah Shamji. Both are visiting Queen’s Park today with the MS Society for World MS Day.

Mr. Arthur Potts: It’s a great pleasure for me to introduce Jim MacKenzie, a great political operative in the Bill Davis and Brian Mulroney years. He’s here with the Canadian PKU group, along with John Adams, who is the president and a former councillor, and John Adams’s son, who is a PKU patient, John Adams Jr.

We also have with us Nicole Pallone, who is a vice-president of CanPKU; Tatiana Dociu, founder of CanPKU, and her son and a PKU patient, Radu Dociu.

We have Cristian Baigorria, who is the former chair and a founder of CanPKU, and his wife Paola and daughter Cande; and also Dr. Bill Hanley, the first doctor to treat PKU patients in Toronto.

We also have Mary Louise Sukman and Frances Grove.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mrs. Kathryn McGarry: It’s my pleasure to welcome today my friends and supporters Anne Groulx and Cheryl MacInnes in the east members’ gallery. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I’d also like to welcome a number of representatives from the Johnson and Johnson family of companies who are back at Queen’s Park today. They’re in the gallery with us. Welcome to question period.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: On behalf of the member from Toronto–Danforth, I want to introduce the page captain today, Madeleine Randmaa; her mother, JoAnn Purcell; her father, Ric Randmaa; and brother Luc Randmaa, a former page. They’re in the members’ gallery this morning.

Hon. Michael Coteau: It’s my pleasure to welcome students from Don Mills Collegiate to the Legislature today.

Wearing of carnations

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Halton on a point of order.

Ms. Indira Naidoo-Harris: I believe you will find that we have unanimous consent for members to wear carnations in recognition of World MS Day.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Halton is seeking unanimous consent to wear carnations. Do we agree? Agreed.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The leader of the third party on a point of order.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to have speedy hearing and third reading passage for Bill 77, the Affirming Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Act, by June 4, 2015.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The leader of the third party is seeking unanimous consent to declare third reading on Bill 77. Do we agree? I heard a no.

It is now time for question period.

Oral Questions

Teachers’ labour disputes

Mr. Jim Wilson: My question is for the Premier. In the case of the teachers’ strikes in Peel, Durham and Sudbury, the fact that 72,000 high school students were severely impacted had absolutely no effect on this government. Settlement talks were sporadic at best and the education minister seemed thoroughly confused. The reality is these students are back in class today because of the Ontario Labour Relations Board decision, not because of any positive action taken by this government. Now 800,000 elementary students are going to be held hostage unless this government gets serious about reaching a settlement.

Premier, is 800,000 a big enough number for you to finally get serious about doing your job and negotiating a settlement with the elementary school teachers?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Education.

Hon. Liz Sandals: I want to say how pleased I am this morning that the students in Durham, Rainbow and Peel are back in school today. I want to thank the Labour Relations Board for pointing out what we’ve said all along, which is that central strikes need to be about central issues, and local strikes, which are what these were, should be about local issues. The Labour Relations Board confirmed what I’ve said all along, that this was, in fact, an unlawful strike in the sense that it was local but based on central issues.

I do want to thank the Labour Relations Board for their ruling, because had it not been for the OLRB ruling—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. Supplementary? The member from Simcoe North.

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: This question is to the Premier as well. The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario will ramp up their work-to-rule job action on June 1. Teachers will no longer make themselves available to meet with parents to discuss students’ transitions to the next grade. Field trips for the next school year will not be booked. Teachers will not participate in professional development activities.

Premier, you’ve been preaching to us in this House for weeks about your commitment to negotiated settlements, but now we hear that you’re not even at the table with the Elementary Teachers’ Federation trying to negotiate a settlement.

Premier, where is your sense of urgency? When are you going to get back to the negotiating table and end the chaos you’ve created in Ontario’s education system?

Hon. Liz Sandals: I think this issue of a sense of urgency is really important because we had a sense of urgency that we needed to go to the Education Relations Commission, get the ruling that the school year was in jeopardy and table back-to-work legislation. The kids could have been back in school even earlier in the week had it not been for the NDP blocking the legislation.

I would like to thank the three school boards that got the cease-and-desist order very late in the day yesterday—I would like to thank the three school boards for working very hard yesterday evening to make sure that the school boards actually do have students back in the classroom today. So thank you to the boards for that hard work.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Final supplementary?

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: Speaker, you know she hasn’t answered either one of the questions.

Back to the Premier: The job action announced by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario will have an immediate impact on students. Special-needs students will suffer because teachers will no longer make themselves available to talk about students’ transitions to the next grade. Field trips for the next school year won’t be booked.

Premier, your education minister has had over a year to negotiate collective agreements with all of these unions. In that time, she has made absolutely no progress and it is the—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Two different conversations are going on, other than the person putting the question, including members from that side as well. It stops.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Whoever said that is close to getting turfed too. I’m standing.

Please carry on.

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: Premier, it is the students and their parents who are suffering. You’ve got three months left until the beginning of September when the kids go back to school. We know we have chaos now. Premier, will you fire this education minister and put someone competent in there who can get the job done and end the anxiety for Ontario’s parents and students?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Be seated, please. Thank you.

Minister.

Hon. Liz Sandals: As the member just pointed out, we have three months left to negotiate with ETFO, and we will do that. But we only have 10 days left to make sure that, now that the students are back in class, they stay in class. That’s why we need to go ahead and pass our Protecting the School Year Act, to make sure that those students who are back in class today stay in class for the rest of the school year.

That is exactly what we intend to do: to make sure, as our top priority, that we get our legislation passed so that the kids who have gone back today can stay there and benefit from teaching for the next month, get their school year completed, and graduate, for those who are in grade 12. That is our priority.

Hydro One

Mr. Jim Wilson: Back to the Premier, Mr. Speaker: When the Ombudsman released his report on the billing practices of Hydro One, the findings were astonishing and astounding, to say the least. Mistreatment, abuse, deceit and deception: just a few of the words that describe Hydro One’s business practice as outlined in the Ombudsman’s report.

For now, Hydro One is a crown corporation for which the Minister of Energy is ultimately responsible. It appears no one was held accountable for the findings of the Ombudsman’s report.

Premier, will you hold the minister responsible? Will you fire your Minister of Energy for his complete incompetence on this file, apologize to the tens of thousands of Ontario Hydro One customers who were misled, apologize to the officers of this House who were deceived and lied to, and put a new minister in place that we can have confidence in?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. Be seated, please.

The member from Hamilton Mountain needs to be reminded: You’re even a little closer now, and I can hear you. With that, I will also ask the deputy House leader, when I’m standing, to stop. I’m going to put in the new rule that I’ve been working with, that if I’m standing and you want to chirp, you’re gone.

Premier.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Mr. Speaker, I want to again thank the Ombudsman for his report and for his recommendations. We’ve acknowledged that during the transition to the new billing system there was an unacceptable number of mistakes, that there were too many customers who experienced service issues. In fact, the CEO of Hydro One has apologized to all customers.

Prior to the review by the Ombudsman, Hydro One had begun to make changes, so there was already an acknowledgement that there was a problem, and there were changes put in place. Having said that, we’re pleased that the Ombudsman has done the review and there are more recommendations that have come forward.

But, Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Leader of the Opposition is aware of the fact that, as we talk about broadening the ownership of Hydro One, one of the things that needs to happen is that it needs to be a better-run company. I think this latest incident makes that very clear.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Jim Wilson: Back to the Premier, Mr. Speaker: I don’t think selling Hydro One is going to give you the oversight and the accountability that you should be exercising today. In fact, you’ll lose majority control and you’ll lose oversight—no more Ombudsman, no more freedom of information. And we won’t even know, because you won’t put this before the parliamentary budget office or the auditor prior to signing the deals with your new private sector partners, whether or not we’re getting a good deal for the people of Ontario, who own that company that you’re giving away in a fire sale. Shame on you.

When are you going to have somebody take responsibility for the billing errors at Hydro One, for the months and months that they deceived the officers of this Legislature, that they deceived the members of this Legislature and impeded our ability to serve our constituents properly because we didn’t have honest and direct information? No one seems to ever take responsibility in your government. No one at Hydro One has been dismissed.

I ask you again today: At least dismiss the minister. Show that you care about—

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Be seated, please. Be seated, please. Start the clock.

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I am so pleased that the Leader of the Opposition raised the issue of a fire sale, because it was the fire sale of the 407 that was the backdrop against which we made our decision vis-à-vis our assets.

The fact is that the 407 sell-off, which retained no ongoing—

Interjections.

Ms. Sylvia Jones: The difference is choice and not.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Oh, that was so close—and I don’t say that with a smile.

Carry on.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition knows full well we are retaining 40% ownership of Hydro One. He knows that the regulatory controls that are in place now are going to continue to be in place. He knows that the setting of prices—the process that is in place now will continue to be in place. He knows that we will have control over the appointment of the CEOs.

I think that the Leader of the Opposition needs to understand that the way the 407 was sold off, with no ongoing revenue to the people of Ontario, with no control over that road and an undervaluation of that asset—that’s the backdrop against which we made decisions, and we did it differently.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Final supplementary? The member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

Mr. John Yakabuski: You know, when the Liberals are in a mess, they dodge, deflect and deny. That’s their modus operandi. But they’ve failed to answer the question and failed to be accountable to the people of Ontario.

Back to the Premier: On December 17, 2013, the Minister of Energy’s office wrote to the Hydro One CEO, asking about the absurdly high number of complaints about Hydro One service. The CEO responded that everything was good, and the level of complaints was nothing to be concerned about. He told the Minister of Energy’s office that, despite senior officials at Hydro One referring to the organization as being in “crisis mode” over the level of complaints.

Premier, has the CEO of Hydro One been held accountable for lying to the minister’s office?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: We know that Hydro One has been working hard to resolve outstanding issues, and Hydro One has outlined that work in detail. However, further work and remediation is still clearly required, and that’s why I’ve asked the chair of Hydro One, David Denison, to report back to me within 40 days with a detailed action plan describing how Hydro One can further address the recommendations in the Ombudsman’s report.

But what we need to say is that this government has provided more additional oversight than any other government in the history of this province. We created the position of Financial Accountability Officer, made the French Language Services Commissioner independent, put into place a Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth, allocated new powers to the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth, and expanded the Ombudsman’s role to include oversight of municipalities, school boards and publicly funded universities—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. New question.

Teachers’ labour disputes

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier. On Tuesday, the Minister of Education stood in her place and said, “The act that we will be introducing this afternoon is obviously designed to get kids back into the classroom. We want the kids back in the classroom as quickly as possible.”

Well, kids are back in the classroom. Why is the Premier stopping a strike that isn’t even happening when, instead, she should be stopping the chaos in the schools?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Yes, the kids are back in the classroom. They could have been back in the classroom two days ago if it hadn’t been for the NDP.

The fact is that it’s very important that we make sure those students stay in the classroom until the end of the year, as the Minister of Education has outlined. There’s no guarantee that that would be the case, so we need to continue to work to put the legislation in place so that there will be a guarantee that the students in those three boards, in Rainbow, in Durham and in—what’s the third one?

Hon. Charles Sousa: Peel.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Peel—and Peel, that they are in school for the duration of the school year.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: On Tuesday, the Premier said, “We want those kids back in school. We want the collective bargaining process to continue.”

In 2013, the Premier said her style is “collaborative, which is leading from within a team, bringing people to the table.”

In 2014, she wrote to her labour minister and told him to “uphold and respect the collective bargaining process” and “maintain a respectful labour relations climate.”

The strike is over, Speaker. The kids are back in school. It’s time for this Premier to keep her word. Respect the process. Bring the people to the table and get an agreement with the teachers.

Will this Premier stop making things worse by continuing with Bill 103 and, instead, end the chaos by spending the next little while at the negotiating table trying to get a collective agreement?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Be seated, please. Thank you.

Mr. Taras Natyshak: Are you too occupied with—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Essex is inches away. I’d like an acknowledgement from the member from Essex that I spoke to him. Thank you.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Education.

Hon. Liz Sandals: I think we actually need to look at the ruling from the OLRB. What the OLRB has said is, “I direct that these strikes cease at least two weeks from the date of this decision.” In other words, the strikes can resume with different signs on June 10.

Now, if the leader of the NDP would actually read the legislation, she would discover that the legislation not only brings people back to school, it keeps them there for the rest of the year. There will be no more strikes in Durham, no more strikes in Peel and no more strikes in Rainbow for the rest of the year. We need to pass the legislation so that kids stay in school.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Final supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: I find it amazing that the Liberal government takes no responsibility whatsoever for the chaos that’s happening in our schools. It’s because they’re refusing to bargain at the bargaining table that we’re in this mess in the first place. They lost kids six weeks of their education because they are not being serious in terms of their obligation to bargain.

But you know what? Apparently, the Premier doesn’t have any confidence in her minister to get a deal, which is why she’s using her majority to stop a strike that isn’t even happening. The only way we can get stability is with a deal. But instead of bringing people together, the Liberals are driving the sides further apart and inflaming an already very bad situation.

Will this Premier pull her bill and focus on getting an agreement that will end the uncertainty and the chaos in our education system?

Hon. Liz Sandals: I find it quite appalling that the leader of the party opposite, first of all, wanted to maintain and continue what has turned out to be an unlawful strike. Now she doesn’t want to make sure that the strike doesn’t resume in two weeks. We want to keep the kids in the strike—keep the kids out of—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order.

Please finish.

Hon. Liz Sandals: It’s also important to note that the legislation before the House actually sets up a scheme to continue negotiations, to have mediation, and if either negotiations or mediations are successful—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Wrap-up sentence, please.

Hon. Liz Sandals: The bill actually does ensure that negotiations, mediation and, if necessary, arbitration take place and that’s exactly what—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. New question?

Privatization of public assets

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is for the Premier. On October 20, the Premier stood in her place and said that Ed Clark said “quite clearly that he doesn’t believe that selling those assets is the right answer. He has said that.

“I believe that the leader of the third party is probably having a bit of a hard time framing the question because in fact Ed Clark had said he agrees that selling those assets is not the right thing to do.”

Six months later, here we are, Speaker, and the Premier is selling off Hydro One. How can the Premier say people knew what her plan was—because she keeps saying that; everybody knew what her plan was, apparently. But not only did she not run on that plan, but she spent months after the election denying that plan. Even Ed Clark had no plan to do this a couple of months ago. Where is the Premier coming from?

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Eglinton–Lawrence, come to order.

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Let me once again go through what we are proposing to do and what was in Ed Clark’s final report, which is that we need—

Ms. Andrea Horwath: No, we’re talking about the interim report.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I know you’re talking about the interim report, but there was a final report, and the recommendations in the final report are the recommendations that we are going to implement, which means that—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I would ask that the leader of the third party listen to the answer of the question that you put.

Carry on.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: In order to be able to make the investments in infrastructure, in transportation infrastructure, roads, bridges and transit, in order to be able to do that—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Renfrew, come to order—second time.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: In order to be able to make those investments, we are broadening the ownership of Hydro One. We are retaining 40% ownership, Mr. Speaker. No individual or entity will be able to own more than 10%. The regulatory controls and price controls will remain in place. The ability of the government to determine where a line will be built will remain in place.

Those controls were very important to us, as well as the retention of—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: On October 27, the Minister of Finance said, “We have made it clear that we are not going to sell off our assets.” Here we are, six months later, and the Premier is selling off Hydro One.

One of these things is not like the other. It seems not only did the Premier keep Ontarians in the dark about her plan to sell off Hydro One, but she kept her Minister of Finance in the dark as well. How can the Premier say people actually knew about her plan when, as of October 27, even her own Minister of Finance had no idea?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Mr. Speaker, we said that we were going to review the assets owned by the people of Ontario in order to be able to invest in the new—

Mr. John Yakabuski: Come on. Release Charles from the root cellar. Release him from that root cellar and let him have some light.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke is warned.

Finish, please.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: —in order to be able to invest in the assets and the infrastructure that are needed for the 21st century. That’s what we ran on. That’s what we said we were going to do. We said we were going to ask Ed Clark to give us advice. He did that, and those recommendations are the recommendations that we’re going to invest in, that we’re going to implement.

I would ask the leader of the third party which projects that we are implementing she would cancel. Would she cancel the Hamilton LRT? Would she cancel the expansion of Highway 7 to Kitchener-Waterloo? Would she cancel the Eglinton Crosstown? Would she cancel—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. Final supplementary.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: In October of last year, the Premier stood here and I stood here, and the Premier said to me, “It must actually be very hard for the leader of the third party to ask these questions. She knows that we’re not selling off the assets. She knows perfectly well that that was one of the parameters as Ed Clark went into this review. She knows that we are keeping these assets in public hands.”

Well, here we are. Here we are. The Premier is selling Hydro One. But six months ago, she looked at me in this chamber—she looked me in the eye and she said that she was not selling off our assets.

How can the Premier of this province say that she has been upfront with Ontarians, let alone this Legislature, when six short months ago she insisted that Hydro One was not going to be sold?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Be seated, please. Thank you.

Premier?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I would say to the leader of the third party today that it must be equally hard for her to ask questions that she knows perfectly well undermine a plan to invest in the people of this province, to invest in the infrastructure of this province, to invest in the transit in her own hometown, Mr. Speaker. She has no plan to do that. She has no way that she can look the people of Ontario in the face and say, “This is how I would do it,” because she has no plan to make those investments, Mr. Speaker, and apparently—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I’m standing.

Finish, please.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Apparently, she thinks it’s just fine to step back and say, “We don’t need to make investments in infrastructure. We don’t need to build the roads and the bridges and the transit”—in her own hometown—“that are so vitally necessary for the future economic health of this province.” She thinks that’s fine. We don’t. We have a plan to build that infrastructure, and we’re going—

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Hamilton East–Stoney Creek, second time.

Hydro One

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): New question. The member for Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

Mr. John Yakabuski: I’m glad I’m still here.

To the Premier: The Ombudsman’s report said that they learned from internal emails that Hydro One deliberately sanitized the script it used at that meeting with the Ombudsman. A Hydro One official wrote in an email, “If we simply state that we’re essentially in line with expected customer reaction ... that’s a healthy story.” That official was deliberately misleading an independent officer of the Legislature. They tried to hide the truth.

Premier, has the Hydro One official been fired for misleading and obstructing the Ombudsman?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: Mr. Speaker, we know that the Ombudsman did a very comprehensive and thorough study of this particular issue. We have accepted his report. We’re also proceeding on the basis of having asked the current chair of Hydro One, David Denison, to follow up on the Ombudsman’s report, to report back publicly within 40 days, looking into all of the recommendations as well as any other relevant matters around the billing issue. We will have a thorough report from the current chair. We will assess the situation at that particular time.

There were three senior officers of the corporation who were associated with the IT system who are no longer with the corporation. They left the corporation around the time that the extent of the billing errors came to light.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Again to the Premier: The Ombudsman’s office called Hydro One to ask about a billing issue. When that conversation ended, the employee emailed their manager. The manager replied, “If you get the feeling that they’re going to investigate more aggressively or escalate, let us know,” and “Good warning in case they come knocking. Please keep holding the line with messages like you conveyed.” It is obvious that the manager knew something wasn’t right and instructed their staff to at the very least bend the truth or perhaps outright lie.

Premier, has that manager been fired for instructing their staff to mislead the Ombudsman?

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: I’ll just repeat what I said—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Finish, please.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: I’ll just repeat what I said in the main question.

It’s very clear that Hydro One has been working to address the outstanding issues, but we’re going further than that. We want to make it perfectly clear that we’re going to be receiving a report from the new chair of Hydro One. The newly appointed chair of Hydro One, David Denison, is overseeing a process to select a CEO moving forward, Mr. Speaker. The chair and the Minister of Energy are in the process of restructuring the board of directors. It’s going to be a better company. It’s going to be a more efficient company. It will be a very accountable company.

Teachers’ labour disputes

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: My question is to the education Premier. The Liberal government’s—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock.

I’m going to offer some advice, and that is: Just the title. Just as we’ve done before. And it’ll stay that way. That’s the last time it’s said.

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: My question is to the Premier: The Liberal government’s chronic underfunding of education in our province has left our schools in chaos. The Minister of Education actually boasts about the fact that she cut $250 million from education over 2014—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): It goes both ways.

Finish, please.

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: The Minister of Education actually boasts about the fact that she cut $250 million from education over 2014-15. The minister boasts about the fact that her government has closed 88 good neighbourhood schools. The minister is proud of her record of cutting $7 million from the Geographic Circumstances Grant which supports small, rural and isolated boards. All of this, and the minister is perplexed about the unrest in the education sector.

The minister was given a simple task—get a deal with the teachers—and she failed. Speaker, will the Premier fire the Minister of Education immediately?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Education.

Hon. Liz Sandals: I think maybe we should start by reminding the members opposite about the plan that they ran on for education and health. The plan they ran on for education and health said that they’d start with the budget that we had last year and then they would take out $600 million from the budget we had. It would seem to me that might have been about $250 million out of education and about $350 million out of health, because health has the bigger budget. So, in fact, their platform was to take $250 million out of the education budget beyond the $22.5 billion that we started with. So I’m quite surprised that this is somehow now a problem, because a year ago that’s what—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. Be seated.

Supplementary?

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: Back to the Premier: The Minister of Education has been sitting on the sidelines not taking this seriously for weeks. The minister has been playing the blame game, desperately trying to skirt responsibility for the mess that her government has made of education. The minister has insulted families and students by saying, “I had protests outside my office before the last election and I seem to have gotten re-elected.”

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Trinity–Spadina, second time.

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: It’s obvious she’s more interested in playing political games than getting a deal. The minister was responsible for getting a deal with teachers, and she has failed, leaving parents and families to pay the price. We have members of CUPE here from the education sector, and she’s not taking bargaining with them seriously either. They’ve been waiting since June.

Speaker, will the Premier take responsibility for this mess and fire the Minister of Education?

Hon. Liz Sandals: My question, actually, is, when are the NDP going to stop blocking the legislation that enables us to make sure that now that the students are back in their classes in Durham, in Peel, in Rainbow, they’ll stay there? Because the OLRB ruling did issue a cease-and-desist and got the kids back into class, but it doesn’t keep them there. It says a strike can restart on June 10. We need to pass the legislation quickly that will ensure that the—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Essex, second time.

Wrap-up sentence.

Hon. Liz Sandals: The legislation that is before the House will ensure that students stay in their classes in those three boards for the rest of the school year.

Pan Am Games

Mr. Glenn Thibeault: My question is to the minister responsible for the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games. On May 30, in just three days, the Pan Am torch will be arriving in Toronto where it will begin its 41-day journey. I was excited to learn that on June 2, as one of its first stops, the torch will be arriving in my riding of Sudbury. I know many of my constituents are getting excited to welcome the torch and the Pan Am spirit to Sudbury, and there will be a celebration in Bell Park.

After it leaves Sudbury, the torch will begin the journey across beautiful northern Ontario—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. That’s enough. The comments I’m hearing are just way over the top. It’s not the place for this.

Finish, please.

Mr. Glenn Thibeault: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It will make stops in Thessalon, Blind River and North Bay, just to name a few of those beautiful places. From the north, the torch will travel around the province until it reaches the opening ceremonies on July 7.

Speaker, through you to the minister: Minister, can you tell us about the torch relay and the journey the Pan Am flame will make across our great province of Ontario?

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Hamilton Mountain—second time.

Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, responsible for the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games.

Hon. Michael Coteau: I’d like to thank the member for the question.

I’m so excited to know that the flame is going to arrive here in Ontario this week. There have been so many people involved in the planning of these games, and I think the arrival of the torch really captures the momentum we’re building here in Ontario.

As the member mentioned, the torch will arrive in Toronto on Saturday, and it will travel to northern Ontario this Sunday, landing in the beautiful city of Thunder Bay.

We wanted to make sure that everyone in this province has an opportunity to participate in these games, and that’s why we made sure that there would be 130 stops throughout the province, and then the opening ceremonies will take place on July 10.

I encourage all members of this Legislature to join in the celebration and to participate at these 130 locations. I’ll give some more information in the supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Glenn Thibeault: Thank you, Minister, and thank you, Speaker. Torchbearers include Canadian icons such as Chris Hadfield, Alex Bilodeau and Simon Whitfield. They’re among the over 3,000 torchbearers who will be carrying the torch during the relay. Citizens from all walks of life will get to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it’s great that so many people will get to participate. And let’s not forget that people from around the province will come out to witness this incredible event happening in over 100 communities.

I know that all communities are planning unique cultural and sporting events to celebrate their connection to the games. Can the minister tell the members of this House about how our government is supporting communities in their efforts to celebrate the games?

Hon. Michael Coteau: Again, I’d like to thank the member for the question.

I’m happy to tell the members of this House about a great program that I had the opportunity to announce in Milton. Our government has developed the torch relay community grant to support the arrival of the Pan Am/Parapan Am flame in local communities. The torch relay community grant is part of Ontario’s $40-million strategy to ensure everyone in this province has the opportunity to benefit from these games. Funding is being made available to municipalities and band councils undertaking a torch relay community stop or celebration, or communities hosting an official torch relay event.

Winter highway maintenance

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Good morning, Speaker. My question is for the Premier.

On January 2, 2012, 18-year-old Torry McIntyre-Courville phoned her mom to tell her she loved her and that she’d be home. The next day, Torry and three teenaged friends were all killed in a horrific crash in Parry Sound.

It appears that the roads were not safe for travel, and it took the Auditor General to tell us why: In 2009, to save $36 million, winter road maintenance was drastically reduced, but the public was never told.

Ministry officials were not only aware of this—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Deputy House leader—second time.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: —but they complained to senior levels.

Premier, you took over as transport minister in 2010. What did you know about this major reduction—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The deputy House leader is warned.

Finish, please.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: You took over as transport minister in 2010. What did you know about this major reduction in safety, and what did you do about it?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Transportation.

Hon. Steven Del Duca: I thank the member from Nipissing for this question. I’ve had the opportunity to say a number of times here in the Legislature that, as Minister of Transportation, whenever I hear of an injury or a fatality on any of Ontario’s highways throughout any season over the course of the year, of course I offer my heartfelt condolences and I feel deep sympathy for the family and friends of those that have been impacted.

The auditor did come forward with her report. There were eight recommendations contained in her report. The Ministry of Transportation has accepted all eight of those recommendations. And I gladly accept the responsibility for making sure that, going forward, we continue to improve this program so that it provides the people of every corner of this province with the kind of highway maintenance that they expect and deserve.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Premier, not only were those four teenagers killed, there were 10 deaths within eight days, all kids under the age of 20. In fact, one was eight years old.

You changed the winter maintenance rules and didn’t tell anybody about it. You cut back on winter maintenance to save money. You put people’s lives at risk, and for five years you and your government said that that never happened. Everyone up north kept saying, “Something is different. Something is not right with our roads.” It took the Auditor General to come out and tell us the truth.

I first called for a coroner’s inquest in 2012. Premier, will you finally do the right thing and ask the coroner to hold an inquest into these terrible deaths?

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. Be seated, please. Thank you.

Minister?

Hon. Steven Del Duca: Thanks again, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the member for the follow-up question.

Before the auditor was asked to go in and conduct her review, back in 2013 the Ministry of Transportation did conduct its own internal review of the winter maintenance program. As a result of that internal review, 105 pieces of additional equipment have been deployed both in southern Ontario and also northern Ontario—specifically in the north for truck climbing and passing lanes. In addition, more inspectors were brought to bear in every region of this province to help us with oversight.

The other aspect of the auditor’s report that the member opposite doesn’t reference is that she acknowledges that the ministry’s moves with respect to improving this program deserve some recognition. In addition to that, it’s also important to point out that over the last 13 years, the province of Ontario has consistently ranked first or second in North America for highway safety, and we will continue to work on this program going forward.

Privatization of public assets

Mr. Peter Tabuns: My question to the Premier: Can the Premier tell Ontarians whether there will be any review of selling off Hydro One to foreign owners?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: To the Minister of Finance.

Hon. Charles Sousa: We’ve been talking about the review of a number of assets. Actually, we’ve been talking about this review since April 2014, when we brought forward the most progressive budget in Ontario’s history, which was denied by the opposition, who didn’t even show up for lock-up. In it, we discussed a number of initiatives going forward.

We’re talking about broad ownership of Hydro One at this stage, recognizing that it’s about giving opportunities for our retail and certain institutions. But it’s broadly based in Ontario. We’ll further discuss it in the months to come.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Mr. Peter Tabuns: So I guess that’s a no. The Premier knows that foreign owners can litigate under NAFTA. They can litigate under the WTO. Independent research from the legislative library confirms that any amount of foreign ownership can open the door to litigation, and legal experts confirm that investors have the right to sue the government if the government gets in the way of maximizing their profits. They specifically say, “The balance between the public interest and the rights of foreign investors would be tipped decidedly in favour of” foreign investors.

Why is the Premier handing away control of a strategic asset like Hydro One to foreign investors?

Hon. Charles Sousa: Hydro One will be one of the biggest companies in Canada. It’s going to enable us to have a progressive and growing corporation, housed right here in Ontario, and owned by Ontarians. It’s going to enable us to provide an even greater increase in dividends and opportunities for the public, who will be able to have the opportunity to buy into the company.

It is about protecting the public interest as well. We’ll continue to do that with the opportunities that will exist, as we do with other major corporations in Canada. We’re talking about the first tranche being only 15%. The public and Ontario will still have 85% of the company this year as we proceed forward to assess the dynamics of what will perhaps occur thereafter, all with the intention of protecting the public interest, and more importantly reinvesting the money into infrastructure to earn even greater value for the province and for the people of Ontario.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Mrs. Kathryn McGarry: My question is to the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Recently, our government announced that Ontario will be working towards a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 37% below 1990 levels by 2030. This ambitious but achievable target keeps our province on track to reach our 2050 target of 80% below 1990 levels.

On April 15, the federal government announced a 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target of 30% below 2005 levels, which is equivalent to only 14% below 1990 levels. This is less than half of Ontario’s commitment to fighting climate change. Yesterday, the federal government had some difficulty explaining to a House of Commons committee how much Canada would have to reduce its emissions to reach their 2030 emissions target.

Speaker, through you: Could the minister please tell the House how many megatonnes Ontario will need to reduce its emissions by to reach our 2030 emission targets and how we’ll reach that?

Hon. Glen R. Murray: It is challenging right now. All of the weight of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada has fallen on the backs of the provinces to do that. Our coal plant closures, amazing programs in Quebec and British Columbia—provinces have stepped up to actually reduce emissions.

It was disappointing to see that the federal minister couldn’t even tell us what the numbers were in their plan—well, they don’t have a plan, which is probably why they can’t tell us what the numbers are.

Our commitment is consistent with other jurisdictions, which is 37% by 2030. That actually is a 65.5-megatonne reduction, which will be one of the most significant. The introduction of initiatives like our carbon market, working with California and Quebec, are the kinds of hard, practical policies that will actually get us there.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Kathryn McGarry: Thank you, Minister. I’m really pleased to hear that our government is taking the issue of climate change so seriously and has a firm grasp of the reductions we will have to achieve to reach our important greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Many constituents in my riding of Cambridge, North Dumfries and indeed Waterloo region recognize climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and poses a threat to our infrastructure, food supply, drinking water and economic competitiveness. Increasingly, provinces and states have stepped up to provide leadership where national governments have failed to take meaningful action on one of the most important issues of our time. This is especially clear when we see the federal government announcing a 2030 GHG emissions reduction target which amounts to less than half of what Ontario has committed to.

Speaker, through you: Could the minister inform this House on the ways in which Ontario is working with other jurisdictions to take action on climate change?

Hon. Glen R. Murray: You can’t just pull numbers out of the air. The reason that we chose 37% is because that’s what we’re tracking to, Mr. Speaker.

I’m very proud to be part of a government, with Premier Wynne, that’s actually continuing to meet our commitments. We met our 2014 target. Our five-year plan said we’d be at 6% by 2014. We know we’ve met that and may have actually exceeded that. We’re now developing our next five-year plan, for 15% by 2020.

These numbers are important because they have to be sufficient to keep us under two degrees Celsius. I was just signing the under-two MOU with Governor Brown and others—progressive governments.

Ontario Drug Benefit Program

Mr. Michael Harris: My question is to the Premier. This morning in the media studio, we heard heartbreaking stories detailing life-changing impacts to the small number of Ontarians suffering from PKU, a rare, inherited brain-damaging disorder that can lead to severe intellectual disability without treatment.

Every province began testing for PKU in the 1960s, but the families of the few hundred who suffer across Ontario are asking why this province is denying access to one of the only medications available. Extreme restrictive criteria you’ve set out has meant that two years after being cleared for managed access, not a single patient has received publicly funded access.

Premier, do you think it is fair that PKU sufferers are forced to come, cap in hand, like so many before them, to plead to your government for medication that will change and often save their lives?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Health and Long-Term Care.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I greatly appreciate the question from the member opposite. I also appreciate the fact that John Adams and his colleague are here from the association representing those families and individuals who are suffering from PKU, which is an absolutely devastating disease and illness, particularly if it’s not detected very early on in life.

That being said, it is a challenging process to determine which drugs to provide public funding for and which not to, and we rely on our clinical experts. We, in fact, have depoliticized the process so that we get the best possible scientific and clinical evidence to determine whether a specific drug is effective or not.

I’m pleased to say that in this interim period, because there is a national process under way to review this drug, through the Exceptional Access Program we do, on a limited basis, provide funding for this drug Kuvan, which is incredibly important in this condition.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Michael Harris: Premier, people with rare diseases can’t wait. Madi Vanstone couldn’t wait, the aHUS sufferers who were here a month ago can’t wait as you make feel-good announcements when they’re facing you but continue to force them to jump through hoops for access when they leave the building. It’s not right, and you know it.

At the end of question period, I will be asking for unanimous consent to introduce a motion to strike a select committee into funding for rare diseases in Ontario and that the House leaders determine composition of that committee before the end of this calendar year.

Premier, will you join me in doing the right thing? Support the creation of a select committee into funding for rare diseases and end the suffering for those forced to plead with you for life-altering medication.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I’m absolutely certain the member opposite agrees with me that this shouldn’t be a process which is politicized. It should be based on the best scientific and clinical evidence possible.

Ontario has asked the national process, the Common Drug Review, to revisit this drug, Kuvan, to actually help us establish the clinical criteria that will allow us to provide it to those individuals who will benefit from it.

I have to say that this drug was reviewed by the Common Drug Review on a national basis. It was not recommended for public funding. Despite that, Ontario and one other jurisdiction—I believe Saskatchewan—went ahead and put it on its Exceptional Access Program.

As I mentioned, we’ve gone back to the federal process and asked them to review the clinical criteria. In fact, through the conversation I had this morning with the advocates for those suffering from this disease, I will be asking our ministry to review those clinical criteria again.

LGBT conversion therapy

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier. Conversion therapy has caused far too much pain for far too many Ontarians. It needs to stop, and it needs to stop now. We can do that by passing Bill 77, but the government seems to be stalling. The government House leader has asked for a number of government bills to pass before he calls Bill 77. Many of those bills have already passed. The remainder are scheduled to pass and, still, the government refuses to pass Bill 77. But every day that the Premier forces Bill 77 to sit in limbo is another day that conversion therapy is practised here in the province of Ontario.

Why won’t the Premier stop the political games, do the right thing and call Bill 77 to committee and third reading now?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Health and Long-Term Care.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I and this government, this party, fundamentally believe that Ontarians deserve the right to be treated with dignity and respect in support of their human rights and defending those human rights.

The leader of the third party knows this well. In fact, the Premier of this province herself spoke in this Legislature directly in support of the private member’s bill that’s coming from the member of Parkdale–High Park. I appreciate—we all appreciate—the work that the member from Parkdale–High Park is doing on this.

It’s also important to reference the fact that I have had my ministry working hard on this private member’s bill with the member from Parkdale–High Park. She met with them last week to go over the proposed legislation, the bill itself, to make—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Answer?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: —it even stronger so that we can all be proud when it comes to that moment in time when we’re able to debate it in the Legislature and pass it, so that conversion therapy is no longer permitted anywhere in this province.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, I’m now even more confused than I was before. Everybody in this Legislature actually supports the bill—

Interjections.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Everybody in this Legislature supports the bill. The Liberals profess over and over again that they think conversion therapy is wrong and it doesn’t belong in the province of Ontario.

We have an opportunity in these next few days to get through that third reading process, to get through the committee process and put those amendments forward that the Minister of Health talks about. Let’s get it done. Every day that we wait, another young person is in jeopardy of having their life ruined from conversion therapy.

This is a Liberal majority government. They need to take this on. They need to take it seriously. If the health minister supports this and knows that there