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February 20, 2018

41st Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2018-Feb-20 (PDF)

L138 - Tue 20 Feb 2018 / Mar 20 fév 2018

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Tuesday 20 February 2018 Mardi 20 février 2018

Order of business

Orders of the Day

Concurrence in supply

Introduction of Visitors

Resignation of member for Parkdale–High Park

Tabling of sessional papers

Leader of the Opposition

Oral Questions

Employment

Mental health services

Hospital funding

Privatization of public assets

Cardiac care

Affordable housing

Minimum wage

Public transit

Long-term care

Climate change

Horse racing industry

Water quality

Homelessness

Indigenous economic development

Visitor

Introduction of Visitors

Members’ Statements

Childhood cancer

Community Living Oshawa/Clarington

Black History Month

Robert Lawn

Cardiac Fitness Institute

OHIP+

Sheetal Gill and Khushali Shah

Homelessness

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir

Visitors

Reports by Committees

Standing Committee on Government Agencies

Introduction of Bills

Fairness in Procurement Act, 2018 / Loi de 2018 sur l’équité en matière de marchés publics

Correctional Services Transformation Act, 2018 / Loi de 2018 sur la transformation des services correctionnels

Motions

Committee sittings

Private members’ public business

Committee membership

Petitions

Long-term care

Poet laureate

Transportation infrastructure

Anti-Semitism

Hospital funding

Long-term care

Dental care

Hospital funding

Landfill

Long-term care

Hospital funding

Orders of the Day

Rowan’s Law (Concussion Safety), 2018 / Loi Rowan de 2018 sur la sécurité en matière de commotions cérébrales

Request to the Integrity Commissioner

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

Order of business

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Orders of the day.

The Minister of Infrastructure.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I believe we have unanimous consent to put forward a motion without notice for the arrangement of proceedings for debate on concurrence in supply.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The Minister of Infrastructure is seeking unanimous consent to put forward a motion without notice for the arrangement of proceedings for debate on concurrence in supply. Do we agree? Agreed.

Minister?

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: Speaker, I move that, notwithstanding any standing order, the order for concurrence in supply for the various ministries and offices, as represented by government orders 25 through 33, inclusive, shall be called concurrently; and

That when such orders are called they shall be considered concurrently in a single debate; and

That two hours shall be allotted to the debate, divided equally among the recognized parties, at the end of which time the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and shall put every question necessary to dispose of the order for concurrence in supply for each of the ministries and offices referred to above; and

That any required divisions in the orders for concurrence in supply shall be deferred to deferred votes, such votes to be taken in succession, with one five-minute bell.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Mr. Chiarelli moves that notwithstanding any standing order—

Interjection: Dispense.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Dispense? Dispense.

Do we agree? Agreed. Carried.

Motion agreed to.

Orders of the Day

Concurrence in supply

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: I move concurrence in supply for the following ministries and offices: Treasury Board Secretariat; the Ministry of Energy; the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care; the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation; the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry; the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services; the Ministry of Infrastructure; the Ministry of Transportation; and the Office of Francophone Affairs.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Mr. Chiarelli has moved concurrence in supply of government orders 25 through 33, inclusive. I recognize the minister to lead off the debate.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: Good morning. Certainly, welcome back to everyone. We’ve had a nice respite and we’re back to work again. I’m pleased to rise today to speak in favour of concurrence in the estimates on behalf of the President of the Treasury Board. Should the House provide its concurrence with the estimates today, we would proceed with the introduction of the Supply Act to provide the final authorization of spending outlined in the estimates.

As you’re aware, the Supply Act authorizes expenditures as reflected in the estimates, which were introduced shortly after the 2017 budget, and concurrence must be obtained before the Supply Act can be introduced.

Passing the Supply Act is a critical part of our work, as it constitutes the final legal authority granted by the Legislature to the government’s program spending for this fiscal year. This gives the government the authority to finance its programs and honour the commitments we made to the people of Ontario. So, today’s discussion and vote are an important step in approving government spending for the current fiscal year, which is ending March 31, 2018.

I want to begin by urging all members to support concurrence in the estimates, so that the spending on important public services outlined in the budget can be approved. Make no mistake: Our spending plan and our policies are having a significant positive impact on Ontario’s economy and on the quality of life of all Ontarians.

The objective numbers and the evidence are clear and persuasive: Economic growth in our province is strong and sustained. In 2017 alone, Ontario created 176,000 jobs. That is double the growth rate in employment we saw in each of the previous two years. Our unemployment rate has been lower than the national average for 34 straight months. We’re outpacing all G7 nations, including the United States, in GDP growth.

All of this is not happenstance. It does not happen by accident. It is thanks to the resilience and hard work of the people of Ontario, the innovation of our businesses and the choice we made to invest in the things that matter most. When faced with the greatest economic circumstances since the Great Depression, we chose to invest in schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and public transit, and to invest in people. The result is the economic success I just described, topped off with a balanced budget. Our investments in Ontario are part of our plan to create fairness and opportunity during this period of rapid economic change, disruptive technologies and precarious employment.

Our plan is targeted, realistic, fair and effective. This plan includes a higher minimum wage and better working conditions, free tuition for hundreds of thousands of students, easier access to affordable child care, and free prescription drugs for everyone under 25, so the biggest expansion of medicare in a generation. But Speaker, our plan also includes unprecedented investments in critical public infrastructure.

Infrastructure is a big word, but it is much more than bricks and mortar. It’s about people. As was the case with choosing to pursue a higher minimum wage and youth pharmacare, fairness and opportunity inform our decisions about what to build and where to build it. Planning and building the right projects at the right time help people get ahead and also create thousands of jobs.

It is no secret that decades of underinvestment by previous governments has created a backlog of capital requirements for new buildings, transit, sewer and water, bridges and much-needed retrofits. That is thanks in no small part to the Conservatives, who in 2001-02 invested only $1.9 billion in our infrastructure and averaged over their last several years only $2.2 billion per year. That was not enough to maintain what we already had, let alone build the new infrastructure our growing population requires.

Our current budget commits us to directing over $20 billion to infrastructure in fiscal 2017-18. That is fully 10 times more than the Conservatives spent in their last year, in 2001-02. That $20 billion represents a significant chunk of our plan to invest an historic $190 billion in infrastructure over 13 years.

Speaker, in many ways, infrastructure is an equalizer. Smart, strategic investments in infrastructure can help communities compete for young families, job talent and business investment. By way of example, major LRT projects are under way in Ottawa, Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo. They are creating thousands of jobs, and when they are completed they will result in people spending less time commuting in their cars and more time doing the things they love most. They will have created quality of life.

The importance of those projects to the travelling public cannot be overstated. They will make those cities a more attractive place to settle down, take a job or start a business. Those projects will be part of an enormous network of public transit, making both intercity and inner-city travel more efficient and reliable.

We are investing $21.3 billion in the expansion of the GO Transit system, with $13.5 billion going towards regional express rail. And we worked closely with the federal government to bring a $1.5-billion investment in public transit to Ontario. To date, over 640 projects across the province have received approval through the Public Transit Infrastructure Fund. We are working with Infrastructure Canada for phase 2 on bringing an additional $11.8 billion in federal infrastructure investment to Ontario, including $8 billion to our province’s public transit systems.

Speaker, we all know that the majority of Ontario’s municipalities are small, rural and northern. Those municipalities have spoken just as loudly and clearly as our large urban cities. They want and they deserve a predictable, long-term commitment to infrastructure in their communities, and our government is delivering. When we announced the creation of the $100-million natural gas program, we became the first government in Ontario’s history to make a significant investment in rural natural gas.

This program was a direct response to what we heard from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and many rural residents, that families, farmers and rural small businesses want to cut their energy costs. So we took historic and decisive action to address that concern. The program was well received. There were $500 million worth of applications to the $100-million fund. We are expanding natural gas access in underserved rural communities, particularly in rural and northern Ontario.

This expansion will help people save up to $1,500 in heating costs each year for residential, and more savings for farms and small business.

I know how eager municipalities and utilities are to get shovels in the ground on this expansion. We have taken the first step of notifying the 12 successful proponents, 10 of which are in ridings held by the opposition. I’m looking forward to announcing the full list of successful proponents in the very near future.

In addition to that, for communities of under 100,000 population, we are tripling the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund—or OCIF, as it’s called—to $300 million annually starting in 2018-19. This is an unprecedented commitment to smaller communities in the history of this province. This means that the 426 communities receiving OCIF funding each year will be able to invest more in roads, bridges and water infrastructure, the majority of which are located in ridings held by the opposition.

In addition to each municipality receiving an automatic formula-based grant, to date, nearly 200 projects have been approved under OCIF’s application-based top-up stream, including $59 million worth last year alone.

Speaker, it is very clear that, time and again, we have demonstrated our commitment to achieving our $190-billion investment work for Ontario’s smaller communities.

We doubled down on that record by ensuring that $810 million in joint federal-provincial clean water and waste water funding was allocated on a formula basis, not application based, something the municipalities had asked for. This effectively guaranteed eligibility for all Ontario’s municipalities and ensured that no community, no matter how small, was left behind, no matter in which riding it was located: NDP, Conservative, or Liberal. To date, virtually all of the eligible projects—more than 1,300 in total—have been approved with funding already flowing and construction under way in many communities.

This is having a material impact in every corner of Ontario, from Windsor to Wawa, and in every riding.

One of the communities benefitting is Westport—the member from Leeds–Grenville will be interested in knowing that I’m bringing this to his attention—a village in Leeds–Grenville with a population of 700 people, represented by its tenacious mayor, Her Worship Robin Jones. When it comes to offering a warm, welcoming place to have a full and meaningful life, Westport checks all the boxes off that you can think of, but it had a significant public health issue with its waste water disposal system. Thanks in part to the relentless advocacy of Mayor Jones, we proudly invested $725 million Westport’s waste water project.

Applause.

Hon. Bob Chiarelli: The member is applauding and I thank him for his advocacy on behalf of Westport as well, so thank you very much.

We did so because we knew how important the project would be in maintaining the high quality of life people in Westport deserve. There are many, many other examples such as this as well. That is what our unprecedented $190-billion infrastructure investment is all about: building better life for people, no matter what town or city they call home.

Governing is about choices, and choices are what I have been speaking about at length this morning. Our government made a choice to invest in the critical public infrastructure people need and deserve in every town, village or city, regardless of size, regardless of geography and regardless of political persuasion.

Our budget directed $20 billion to infrastructure in fiscal 2017-18. It is absolutely critical that this money continues flowing to priority projects across the province. That is why I urge all members to support concurrence in the estimates, so that spending on critical public services can be approved. By voting for this, you are voting for your communities.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Further debate?

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: It’s my pleasure to be back here for the 2018 session, before the lead-up to the Ontario general election, to discuss concurrence in supply in the province of Ontario.

But before I get started, Speaker, may I congratulate you and your daughter, Brooke, on her becoming vocalist of the year in the Christian category for our nation’s singers. I think that Brooke has made an incredible mark in music and for that, I congratulate you.

I’d like to also welcome back all members of this assembly from their Christmas break, being with their communities, and of course, on the Family Day weekend, where we got to speak with so many people who are affected by what we do here in this Legislative Assembly.

Of course, we heard loud and clear from them on the direction of this province. We have consistently heard in the opposition that the direction this Liberal government is going in is not the direction that many in our communities want. Now, the government can come up and say on these one-offs that they have allowed for this particular program, or that particular program. In many cases, we may agree with that program. In other cases, we may not.

Having said that, I think it’s really important that the things that I heard when I was back in Nepean–Carleton and in the city of Ottawa during this period were basically five things. The people of Ontario, particularly our small businesses, are very concerned about the impacts of Bill 148, and the regulatory regime it brought with it, in addition to the rapidity of the increase in the minimum wage.

We were told by Statistics Canada, just a week or two ago, that that cost us over 50,000 jobs in the province of Ontario, the largest single job loss in the province’s history, indeed, likely in the nation’s history as well. If we cannot support our job creators, whether they are in Nepean–Carleton or elsewhere, we’re not going to have the jobs to sustain the tax base that is required for us to have valued public services in our provinces.

I’m going to give you an example, Speaker. I had the opportunity to do two events in my community, one in Barrhaven with about 50 small business owners who were very concerned about a variety of different things. They spoke to me, loud and clear, that they had to lay off workers, and that as a result of laying off workers, they were either closing early or they were working longer hours themselves. So I will be an advocate for those small business owners.

A day later, I actually had a small business round table with our interim leader, Vic Fedeli, in Bells Corners with the Bells Corners Business Improvement Area, and the same types of concerns were brought up. How are we going to continue to support our valued public services if we don’t have job creators providing that base of monetary support to the province of Ontario through their taxation?

Now, the government likes to play shell games and move things around, and that’s indeed what they’ve done with the fair hydro plan. But the reality is, if you’re going to continue to make it unbearable for small business owners to run a business and employ people, then we are going to be in a great deal of hurt.

In addition, one of the big things that came up during my break in my constituency, as well as with my colleagues, is the need for improvements in our health care system. I’ll go to you, Speaker, in terms of mental health but also in terms of long-term care. I have been an advocate in this Legislature on mental health as well as long-term care. I had the opportunity to do a number of meetings in my community, but also with my colleagues, as the new finance critic to talk about some of our priorities and what we think could alleviate our health care system.

On the one hand, if we invest close to $2 billion in addition to the existing funds into mental health, we will be able to alleviate some of the strains on our emergency rooms across the province and even provide more people with some front-line services.

If I may just say, through my own personal experience in the last couple of weeks, I was visiting with the Youth Services Bureau and their walk-in clinic—their tremendous ability, two times a week, to be able to open their doors to the community and provide an hour’s worth of counselling to those youth who may need it and to provide their families with an ability and a road map for resiliency and support, to build character, to build self-esteem and to really build the self-esteem of young children.

I think when I look at some of the investments we can make if we don’t have a structural deficit and we have an ability to allocate funds where they’re required, places like the Youth Services Bureau in the city of Ottawa are exceptional. That is a good use of public funding for a major social issue. That can only be done, as I said, if we have job creators who are paying their taxes to go up through our system so that we do have that sustainability. That sustainability is absolutely crucial. It is absolutely key.

One area of mental health I think we also have to talk about is the addictions piece and the ability for us in our communities to have that level of support to those who may be suffering from mental illness and who therefore also have an addictions issue. I think when you look at that, for example—and I have spoken many times in this assembly, as has our interim leader, Vic Fedeli, our health critic, Jeff Yurek, Michael Harris from Kitchener–Conestoga and a number of others—we have all been very clear that more needs to be done in dealing with this opioid crisis that we have in the province of Ontario.

There have been far too many fatalities and overdoses in Ontario for us not to take this issue seriously. I think the reality is that that has got to be a key for this government. I believe they have done some work on it, and I’ve been encouraged by it, but at the same time, I do think it took them a great deal of time in order to get there. When you look at it, I think there is a really big motivation on behalf of the official opposition to talk about this mental health issue in the province of Ontario and the opioid crisis, and I’m very pleased to have been part of that.

I want to move on a little bit, because I had the opportunity to have Bill Walker, who is the member for Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound, join me in Nepean–Carleton to do two things. One, we visited the Perley Rideau, which is in Ottawa South. My colleague from Ottawa South is very much aware of the Perley Rideau. It’s a home for veterans, but it’s also open to the public, so they do get some funding from Veterans Affairs. And I took him to the Osgoode Care Centre.

It was very interesting because, on the one hand, you’re looking at a very urban long-term-care facility and, on the other hand, you’re looking at a very rural long-term-care facility. So when I was able to take my colleague from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound into the city of Ottawa, he was able to see the challenges and the pressures faced on our long-term-care facilities in Ottawa, and to understand that in order to look after our senior population, we need not only to have an aging-at-home strategy but also to invest in more long-term-care beds.

One of the things that we saw and were really impressed with at the Perley Rideau was their commitment to veterans. However, when we went to the Osgoode Care Centre, there was a great deal of concern whether they were going to be able to even continue their operations. Being in a small, rural community, the only rural long-term-care facility inside the city of Ottawa, my colleague was able to advise us on some steps that we might be able to take. He has offered graciously—and I am taking him up on that—for us to be able to work with the minister and my community in the best way that we can, to retain and save those rural long-term-care beds.

Speaker, I just want to recap where we’re at: We’ve got a jobs crisis in Ontario; we lost 50,000 jobs. When you lose 50,000 jobs, you lose part of the taxpaying base that funds important and critical infrastructure, as well as public services.

And then I just talked about mental health and long-term care. In the Ontario PC Party, we are big believers that if we alleviate some of the mental health challenges in our emergency rooms, and if we alleviate some of the challenges with the bed blocking that’s happening, where people are in hospitals rather than in long-term-care beds, then we’re going to see less strain on our hospitals. I think that’s really an important issue.

The next area I would like to talk about is child care. Child care has obviously been a very important issue for me. I see my friend Robert Benzie’s son Reed is here. Robert, of course, is a Toronto Star reporter, and Reed is one of our pages here. I’ve known Reed since he was just a year or two old, because he’s about the same age as my daughter, Victoria, and they used to play here at Queen’s Park. Most people who know me—I have been here for 12 years now—know my daughter is 12. She sort of grew up here. Always, child care was an issue of concern for me, and it was right up until, effectively, she went to junior high, which was this year, at Sir Robert Borden High School.

So child care is always a big issue for me and it’s one that I am very concerned about, because sometimes in the government they want this one-size-fits-all, big-box institution that perhaps works very well in really urban settings, but perhaps not so much in rural or suburban communities. Also, for people like me who have a job that is not really 9 to 5, child care needs to be a bit more flexible, so I have often been an advocate for choice in child care. The government here hasn’t done that.

They often say that they are going to bring in 100,000 new spaces or they’re going to do this—they’re going to make child care more affordable. What we heard when I met with child care advocates in January and in February and talked to them about child care is that many of them said that, as a result of the rapid increase in the minimum wage and some of the regulatory changes as a result of Bill 148, child care costs were actually going to increase. One of my constituents said his child care was going to increase by $600 a month. Unfortunately for the father, his paycheque wasn’t going to increase by that much, so his family was put into a substantial conundrum.

I know our colleague from Thornhill, Gila Martow, has been working very hard in coming up with a strategy for child care in the province of Ontario. I know in the next month or so, as we sit here in the lead-up to the election, she is going to be a strong advocate for choice in child care and more child care spots available, and making sure that when there are more available, that there is more affordability for all of us. That’s very, very key, so I think that continuing to talk about child care is important.

Going right back to that jobs plan that we were talking about: Bill 148 has affected that. You don’t have to take my word for it, Speaker. You don’t even have to take Statistics Canada’s word for it, or the independent Auditor General’s, or the Financial Accountability Officer’s. Whose word you really should take for it is the Bank of Canada. It came out of the last recession as one of the most respected monetary institutions in the world.

Again, you don’t have to take the chamber of commerce, the independent Auditor General, the Financial Accountability Officer or Statistics Canada—you don’t even have to listen to us on this side of the House. The Bank of Canada has said that this job-killing policy over there was going to increase the price of almost everything else.

Here is an issue I’ve had the opportunity to consult all of my colleagues on, and it’s one that is absolutely critical for all of us who live in urban and rural communities: transportation and transit. Right now I happen to represent a riding that will be split in three in a couple of months. It has a high population base, but I have a strong rural community. My colleague Ernie Hardeman from Oxford has been there before. He saw the urban side when we were in, effectively, an urban fire hall. And he has been to the most remote, rural part of my riding, where he has seen some robotic milkers for some cows—all still in the city of Ottawa.

Just a lesson to the young people here—you’ve all heard of Ottawa. Ottawa used to have 11 municipalities until it was amalgamated into one big city. It is now larger than Prince Edward Island. In fact, the city of Ottawa is now larger than the cities of Montreal, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria. That’s how big it is geographically, and we have almost a million people.

When I stand up here and talk about transportation and transit, I actually have to talk about both, because as much as we need LRT and bus rapid transit in the city and in the urban part of my community, we also need a transportation network that includes roads, bridges, highways—that type of infrastructure.

Sometimes I find that this government, as it relates to concurrence in supply, is a bit more skewed toward urban transit rather than understanding that we need a good transportation network across all of Ontario. To me, that’s key.

My colleague from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke has been one of the most effective advocates for rural transportation networks in the province. He has had a few private member’s bills—I can’t remember how many—with respect to giving the gas tax to the municipalities. He has been really effective in trying to say that rural communities deserve to be seen in this as well.

That said, when you look at some of the our cities and the gridlock that we’re dealing with—I don’t know about you, Speaker, but whenever I come in from the city of Ottawa and I’m driving my car, I know that the longest part of my drive is not going to be from Nepean to Pickering; I know the longest part of my drive is what I call the Don Valley parking lot. I think that the government needs to address this.

I think that they have to listen to their stakeholders here in the city of Toronto, but also understand that when we’re trying to get goods to market, some of these areas are very important in order for us to be much more effective. We can’t pay for that infrastructure if we don’t have a good private sector economy that is bolstering the finances of this province. I think that is absolutely critical.

I just want to recap. We lost 51,000 jobs last month as a result of the disastrous job-killing policies of this government. When that happens, it becomes more difficult to invest in mental health, the opioid crisis, the long-term-care facilities that we so desperately need. It makes child care in the province inaccessible and unaffordable, and puts in jeopardy infrastructure funding that we would want to put into transportation and transit.

The other area I want to talk about is the fair hydro plan and the fact that this government, according to the Financial Accountability Officer just last week, has added an additional $1.8 billion in debt than had they actually borrowed money to fund infrastructure. We already know there’s a $4-billion hole in their budget as a result of the fair hydro plan, but now we know that in addition to that, it’s going to cost us $1.8 billion more to deal with the fair hydro plan and how it pretends to fund infrastructure, while at the same time it would have been $1.8 billion less expensive had they gone the other route and just simply borrowed the money.

The Financial Accountability Officer was also interesting when he said of the fair hydro plan that right now our shares have diluted by 5% because the Liberals bought a coal plant in the United States. As a result, if they make another acquisition similar to what they did with the coal plant in the United States, our shares could drop below 40%. If that happens, by legislation, we’re required to buy back those shares.

So there really is a shell game going on here in hydro. While people may see some lower hydro bills—and that remains to be seen—the reality is, the tax burden and the debt burden is increasing in the province of Ontario as a result of this shell game. It’s very difficult.

One of the things that I found was very interesting was, the money from the sale of Hydro One and the money from GM apparently went into the Trillium Trust. Speaker, you and I would think, “There’s a Trillium Trust. That means there would be about $5 billion that will be there to allocate funding.” No, no, no. It’s not a trust as we would know it; in fact, it is a tracker. What happens is that all of this money goes into the general revenues—and this is what we warned about back in 2003-04, when the Liberals brought in their—remember the health premium?

Interjection: Yes.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Remember that? It’s a health tax. We actually felt it was a health tax because it didn’t go into the betterment of health care; it went into the general revenues, which is the roads-and-sewers fund. It goes right into that big basket.

That’s exactly what happened with the sale of Hydro One shares. Instead, they said that they had this trust where they were able to allocate money. You don’t have to take my word for it; the Financial Accountability Officer was there. In fact, it would have been good if someone from the government had actually attended that briefing, like myself and the member from Toronto–Danforth did, but they didn’t. The Financial Accountability Officer then tells us that there’s this money that is really almost unaccounted for in the sense that it’s promised into this trust, but the trust really doesn’t exist as a trust.

Therefore, the government has only spent about $600 million in infrastructure, not the $5 billion that they have made a commitment to.

When you look at that and you talk about transportation and transit, there is a major flaw in how the government is pursuing that funding mechanism and how they’re pursuing building infrastructure in the province of Ontario and where that money is actually going. So I think that that’s pretty key, and it’s one of those things that we have to look at.

But one of the things that I would like to do as I conclude is to talk a little bit more about value-for-money audits in the province of Ontario and where we can find waste. We know, for example—Speaker, as you know, I’m the Vice-Chair of the public accounts committee and I’m the Treasury Board critic, as well as the finance critic—that one of the things that we see each and every time that there is an auditor’s report is, sometimes, billions in waste.

Before we left at Christmas, a few days before we left and recessed for the time being, the Auditor General came out—an independent officer of this Legislative Assembly—and indicated to all of us that there was at least $1 billion in waste throughout the system that could be absorbed in other ways and in better spending in the province of Ontario for programs. That, I believe, was only 15 programs of all of the programs that we deal with in the province of Ontario. If you find $1 billion in waste there, where else can we find efficiencies that would make government run more effectively in the best interest of the population, with a lesser cost as an end result?

I think one of the things that I noticed—and I’m sure my colleagues noticed, as well—is that the government doesn’t want to initiate any of those value-for-money audits because Kathleen Wynne said herself that there’s no more waste in the province of Ontario. Yet the auditor found $1 billion in just 15 different areas—

Interjection: Fourteen.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Excuse me, in 14 different areas.

One of the things that I think would be a show of good faith while we discuss these concurrence-in-supply motions is actually to look at some of the programs and see if they’re continuing to work.

You will recall, Speaker, that this is a government that brought in Don Drummond. Don Drummond came in and he had a number of recommendations on how to make Ontario a very effective government. I don’t even know how many recommendations they actually implemented. I think they turned their back on most of them. Therefore, we continue to have a bloated government that really isn’t in the best interest of the province of Ontario.

As a result of that, we’re servicing the debt right now. It’s the third-largest spending priority in all of government, right behind health care and education. We spend more servicing the debt and the deficit in this province than we do on community and correctional services. We spend more on the debt and the deficit in this province than we do on our colleges and universities. We spend more on the debt and the deficit in the province of Ontario than we do on indigenous relations. That is a reality. Kathleen Wynne has not paid anything down on the debt—not a dime. It just continues to grow. In fact, it has doubled since they took office 14 years ago.

It’s going to be very difficult for Progressive Conservatives in this House to support concurrence in supply, given everything we know. We know, for example, that this is a government that continues to throw money at insiders—big pay increases for CEOs and other executives—but at the same time, when you look back at the little guy who’s working in Oakville or Brampton or Belleville or Tweed, they’re losing their jobs. They’re not seeing their pay increase, but the costs for them to live in the province of Ontario are getting higher and higher and higher.

Speaker, I’m going to bring you back to where I began, which is in my community in the great riding of Nepean–Carleton in the city of Ottawa, where I spent the last three weeks mostly dedicated to coaching my daughter’s hockey team, meeting with parents, going to the rink, going for free skates and all that sort of stuff. Parents are finding it more difficult today than ever before to raise children in the province of Ontario—many of whom are not only raising their children but also trying to protect their parents, who may not have a pension or who may have to work well into the future.

One of our dear Nepean Wildcats bantam players is a page here from Ottawa Centre. I’m a Nepean Wildcat myself, Speaker, as you know, because I think you’re probably tired of me talking about the Nepean Wildcats. I have a little bit of liberty on concurrence in supply, so I just have to tell you a little bit about this Nepean Wildcat tournament that we had on the weekend. We played in Ottawa. We won the first game 8-0, we won the second game 5-0, we won the third game 6-2, and had a bye to the semis.

And Speaker, in the last three minutes of play, after outshooting Kingston 30-3, Kingston got a goal and sent our team home packing, and we didn’t get a medal. But that’s hockey. So if there’s no crying in hockey, there’s definitely no crying in politics.

What was interesting is—and any kid that plays any sport will know this: When you are playing sports, you spend a lot of time with your teammates, and therefore your parents spend a lot of time with other parents. So I had the opportunity this past weekend to really work alongside not only my fellow coaches, but listening to the parents and the concerns that they have.

I’ve got to say that, consistently, with the regular people—not just the political people, the regular people—they kept saying to me, “Lisa, you’ve got to go to Queen’s Park and you’ve got to fix this mess.” “Lisa, we need a change in government.” “Lisa, this Bill 148 is hurting my business. How do we help?” That’s consistently what’s coming up.

I think, as we proceed through the next six weeks—I don’t know if the government is going to be here much after the Easter break; I suspect we’ll be going to the polls. I suspect we’ll probably go the same day, June 7, but I suspect we’re going to be back in our communities—

Ms. Catherine Fife: I say let’s go.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Pardon me?

Ms. Catherine Fife: Let’s go.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: You want to go to the polls right now?

Mr. Taras Natyshak: Right now.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Oh, that might be a little difficult for us at the moment, but on March 10, we’ll take you up on that offer.

Speaker, the reality is, we really have to focus on restoring our economy. You have heard me say this many, many times. I grew up in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, a town of 10,000 people, where I don’t know how many people would have made more than $40,000 or $45,000 in their life. Then I moved to Ottawa after I graduated university. I remember walking down Elgin Street and seeing all of the “help wanted” signs, in the late part of the 1990s, and the jobs that were being created. The starting wage at the time, interestingly enough, was about five bucks higher than the minimum wage. Why?

Because there were so many jobs that the job creators were competing for the talented and skilled workers. So I think we need to be in a position where we’re competing for the skilled workers and we’re driving up the starting wage instead of the government picking winners and losers as they have done here.

With that, I want to say thank you for the opportunity to address you all today. These are indeed challenging and exciting times ahead. Therefore, I will commit, on behalf of the Progressive Conservative caucus, not to support the concurrence in supply and that we will be the voice of small businesses, child care operators, families, those who need mental health support, those who have to put their loved one in a long-term-care facility, and any of those people who are stuck on the Don Valley parking lot instead of being at home or coaching soccer or getting to work on time.

Thank you very much, Speaker—my appreciation.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Further debate? I recognize the member from—

Mr. John Vanthof: Timiskaming–Cochrane.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Timiskaming–Cochrane.

Mr. John Vanthof: Thank you. It’s great to be back, actually, after the break. I was listening all morning intently to this debate on concurrence in supply, and there are some points that I’m going to—the reason that we’re standing here in debate is that there are some points I’m going to debate, because I don’t agree with some of them. That’s actually what our job is. Often, I’m disappointed when our debates are just scripted notes, and you hear the same debate over and over. That’s not the purpose of this House. That’s not why our democracy was created.

Hopefully we can go back to actually debating the issues and working against each other—that’s the way partisan politics works—but with each other, on behalf of the people who live in our ridings.

One of them in concurrence in supply is energy. The fair hydro plan came up a couple of times in the debate from both the government and the opposition. We are totally opposed to the fair hydro plan, because it’s like putting a minimum payment on your credit card. It’s your hydro credit card. Eventually, we all know that bill is going to come due, and it’s going to come due with interest.

So the government is taking the political approach. They got a lot of heat on hydro, so they are dropping hydro costs, and, yes, it’s working politically. I can attest. In my office, the complaints on hydro are going down. They are going down.

Hon. Bill Mauro: So tell us how you’re going to cut it a further 30%.

Mr. John Vanthof: The folks across are heckling me. Tell the people of Ontario in three or four years how much their bills are going to go up because all you’re doing is borrowing money to delay the pain.

Now, interestingly enough, the Conservatives are also complaining about the fair hydro plan, but what’s even more interesting is they are planning to keep it in their platform.

Mr. Taras Natyshak: They like your plan.

Mr. John Vanthof: At least the platform that they had. We don’t really know what the platform is now, but in their platform, they were going to keep the fair hydro plan. Well, you can’t complain. You have a right to disagree if you put something forward that’s different. You don’t really have a right to disagree if you put forward something that’s exactly the same. In their platform, they are going to keep the fair hydro plan. They talk a good game about how it’s up front and how they are going to bring down debt and deficit. Another issue in their platform: The deficit is actually going to go up.

Again, I have no problem with politicians taking credit for what they do, but you also have to take responsibility for the other things and tell the whole story. In this case, on the fair hydro plan, it’s a short-term fix. It’s a political fix. It does bring down rates short-term, but it’s not a long-term fix. Eventually the debt is going to have to be paid, and it’s going to be paid by the people who pay the hydro bills.

Ms. Catherine Fife: And it doesn’t fix the problem it created.

Mr. John Vanthof: It doesn’t fix the problem.

Another issue that has come up was the sale of Hydro One, which we think is—again, we totally disagree. We have said that from day one, that we totally disagree with the sale of Hydro One, especially because Hydro One is infrastructure that belongs to the public, and it’s a tool that can be used when it belongs to the public, by the public, for the public good. Besides that, it also brought dividends to the province. It actually makes money.

In my former life as a farmer—I like talking about farms. You don’t sell the things that make money, because when you start selling the things that make money, eventually you’ll lose your business. If you’re having a tough time on the farm, there are certain things you can forego, but once you start selling the cows and quota, you know the end is near. That’s what the sale of Hydro One is doing: It’s selling the infrastructure that was built publicly, that’s vital to this province.

I distinctly remember the day—this has happened several times—that the government said, “Well, no, we still will have control. We will still have control, folks, because we’re selling 60%, and we’re keeping 40%. So we are the biggest shareholder, and we’ve got rules and regulations in place that no other shareholder can hold more than 10%. Therefore, we are going to control the destiny of Hydro One.” Well, do you know what? I didn’t go to kindergarten, but back in grade 1, the team with six always beat the team with four. You can put all the rules and regulations you want.

Evidence of that is that the privatized Hydro One bought a coal-fired plant, a hydro company in the States that has a huge component of coal-fired power and electricity. Is that good for the people of Ontario? So where was the 40% share that said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, we’d better not do that”? I didn’t see that 40% share doing that. We didn’t hear anything about that, right? So, really, that didn’t work.

Yes, we have a plan for that. We are going to take the dividends that we still get from Hydro One, and we’re slowly going to buy back the shares so that we once again can control our destiny on the transmission of hydro in this province. We put that out. We have been consistent in that.

The Tories are going to take the dividends from the shares we have left and give them out in tax rebates. That’s their plan. And they’re going to keep the fair hydro plan. On their current platform, the People’s Guarantee, currently, that’s what it is. And currently—we’re going to be heavy on the “currently.” I’m not trying to be—really, that’s the case. They put it out there—

Interjection.

Mr. John Vanthof: Again, you have your time to debate; I have mine.

So, currently, that’s the issue because the People’s Guarantee is based on—what is the People’s Guarantee based on?

Ms. Catherine Fife: Carbon tax.

Mr. John Vanthof: Carbon tax, right? The Libs have cap-and-trade. We support cap-and-trade. There are some problems. We’ve been very definite about what we think the problems are with the Libs’ cap-and-trade.

Ms. Catherine Fife: Like accountability and transparency.

Mr. John Vanthof: Accountability and transparency and a couple of others, and I’m going to keep going on that. But the Tories, under the current platform, are all carbon tax, all the time. Under the current platform. What the platform is going to be next week or next month, we don’t know. But right now, Tories are all carbon tax, all the time.

With the cap-and-trade that the Liberals have passed, there are a few things that are missing. I’d like to give a shout-out to Mark Wales from the Ontario Agricultural Commodity Council, which I spoke at, I believe, last week. He asked a question about cap-and-trade. It was regarding whether farmers should get a rebate on cap-and-trade on diesel fuel. It got me to thinking that what’s wrong with the Liberals’ proposal is there’s no structure on what is the best way to use the money they’re getting.

Right now, the GreenON Ontario fund to get new windows, I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know exactly how much carbon that’s going to take out of the environment, and that’s the issue. There is no formula that you can plug in saying this many dollars is going to take out this much carbon. It could just as well be this many dollars is going to get this many votes.

Electric cars are great. I don’t know if the rebate on electric cars is actually going to take out as much carbon as a rebate on cover crops for farms, because there’s no actual formula. We don’t see anything other than a political formula of: How is that going to affect us electorally? No one is going to accuse the government of using taxpayers’ money or cap-and-trade money on things that are politically motivated, because obviously the fair hydro plan wasn’t politically motivated at all. But that’s one of the things wrong with cap-and-trade.

The second thing wrong is, the cap-and-trade formula is modelled after California legislation, right? Except in the California legislation, 25% of the proceeds are directed to areas and communities that can’t compete under the regime. We put that forward, and the government voted against it. We put it forward several times. Why that’s there is because there are going to be places in this province that cannot compete.

I’m going to be self-serving on behalf of my constituents. One of those places is northern Ontario, where I live. There is no public transportation. Distances are far. There are not going to be, in the foreseeable future, very many car-charging stations in northern Ontario. We depend on gasoline because there’s no choice. Everything is distant, right? Our temperature is very—you know, it’s supposed to be 15 here today. We’re having a heat wave at home too. It’s like minus 5—a heat wave. That is a heat wave. Everyone at home is shocked about it and we’re losing our Ski-Doo trails.

But again, we put that forward several times and each time it was defeated. You say, “We’ve modelled it after the California legislation.” Actually, we’re going to go into an auction with California, yet the rules are different. That just doesn’t work. We told you that and you voted against it.

We’ve got the yes carbon tax, no carbon tax over here. We’ve got cap-and-trade, which we support in principle, but we want it to work. We want to actually take carbon out of the atmosphere, because you know what? I am certainly not a Flat Earth Society, non-climate change believer because the conditions in my home area are much different than they were 30 years ago. Yes, sometimes it still gets to be 40 below, but overall, our conditions are changing.

We have to have policies that actually work and they have to work in the long term. Implementing a cap-and-trade regime without safeguards, where people who actually can’t compete are going to be unduly penalized, what you’re going to get—and I don’t use this lightly. You’re going to get climate change refugees in our own province. We’re sitting here and we’re not—we’re acknowledging it. It’s a huge issue. Climate change is one of the biggest issues—maybe the biggest—impacting this country, this world, and we know that this is happening.

We look to California, we model our legislation after California. But one of the most important parts of that legislation, we leave out. Why? It’s a legitimate question. Why? Don’t we care about that 25%? Are there no votes there? That gets back to my original contention: There has to be a formula that X amount of dollars has this much impact on carbon; not X amount of dollars buys this many electric cars, which might do well here. I don’t know that. There’s no formula. Show me the formula. Show me why those 25% shouldn’t be compensated somehow.

You live in an area like mine—and I’m going to get to natural gas in a second—where natural gas is not available, where you have to drive to work, where gas when I left was $1.30-something a litre. You know what? You have to heat with oil. There’s no natural gas. You can’t heat with electricity. Even with the fair hydro plan you can’t heat with electricity. And yet, “everything is okay.”

I’m going to switch gears to another issue that’s very—the concurrence in supply also deals with transportation. I had the opportunity to speak to the Ontario Road Builders’ Association last week. We had a discussion about the Auditor General coming out with a report on—I’m going to talk about two issues. I’m going to talk about infrastructure—one of them is pavement—and winter road maintenance.

The Auditor General came out with a report and it turns out that the money the government is spending, a lot of that is on roads, and our asphalt isn’t lasting as long as it should in many cases. The government is now looking at ways to change this. I made a very—and I’m going to do it again in the Legislature—simple analogy. On my farm, we hire custom workers to run combines—contractors. There are good ones and not-so-good ones, but on my farm, the not-so-good ones don’t get hired again. Why the Ontario government continues to give contracts to companies that do substandard work is beyond me.

The vast majority of these companies do excellent work, and they should be rewarded for that. A problem can happen to anyone, but there are companies who continue to do substandard work and they continue to get contracts.

You want to fix the problem of—you’re claiming to spend so much money on infrastructure, and that’s contentious as well; but okay, as a taxpayer, as a finance critic and as a resident of Ontario, I want good value for money, and sometimes the cheapest bid isn’t the best one. Pavements should last 15 years. On some of these roads, it’s lasting two years. This, again, is not that complicated. It’s a business, a big business. If someone is doing substandard work on a regular basis, they don’t get the contract.

Another big issue, specifically—I think it’s across Ontario, but it’s a core issue in my part of the world—is winter road maintenance. The last week the Legislature was sitting, I asked the question to the former Minister of Transportation, and I’m hoping to work with the new Minister of Transportation—congratulations on her appointment—on this issue. I brought up last—and I brought this up at the Road Builders’ too—that my riding has a distinction, and it’s not a very good one.

If your vehicle is registered in the district of Timiskaming and it is involved in an accident on a provincial road in Timiskaming, it’s four times as likely that that accident is lethal than in any other area in the province. That is a fact. That’s a fact.

Now, are there more accidents on the 400? Yes, but there are not very many fender-benders in the district of Timiskaming. Why is that? Because we have the Trans-Canada Highway going through our riding. It’s a two-lane, the 11 is windy, and we have severe winter conditions.

Over the last few years, we have had substandard winter road maintenance. Why it became substandard—and I got elected in—what year did I get elected in?

Mr. Taras Natyshak: In 2011.

Mr. John Vanthof: In 2011. You too, eh?

Mr. Taras Natyshak: Yes.

Mr. John Vanthof: Yes; okay.

We got elected. The first issue was that we got call after call after call after call on winter road maintenance. I do what you’re supposed to do. I called up the MTO; we had a meeting. I still work with the MTO and I have respect for these folks. They do what they can. They said, “We’re meeting our goals 95% of the time. We’re meeting our road maintenance standards.” I’m not going to go really deep into it but the four-lane highways are class 1, Highway 11 is class 2, secondary highways are 3, and then 4 and then 5. “We’re meeting our standards 95% of the time, so you know what? What your people are telling you—they’re out to lunch.”

So we created the northern road report, and what the northern road report did was you could contact us, phone or email, and give us conditions as they were happening, because we needed our own body of evidence to tell the MTO, “Well, what about this? What about this?”

I’ll give you an example. We had a little girl—I believe she was 12. Unfortunately, I can’t remember her name; I’d love to give her a shout-out. She went on a family trip with her parents. They left from Charlton and went to Toronto, and that’s about eight hours. This kid did an online—she left and there was six inches of snow. Half an hour later, there’s eight. She named the highways. It was this, this, this, this—but what made that so powerful was that someone was killed that day half an hour after she did a text.

Then we went to the MTO and we said, “Okay, was that road up to standard at that point?” Then, all of a sudden, things started to change a little bit, because they realized—and it wasn’t the MTO’s fault. It’s the way the contracts are put out.

But you know what the government’s response was? I learned something that day. The then-Minister of Transportation sent me a letter demanding that we take down the northern road report, because it was confusing people. I have that letter and someday I’m going to put it in a frame. That was their response.

Do you know what? There is no crime in making a mistake or in admitting a mistake, but there is when you know something is wrong and you’re trying to—that just spurred us on to keep it going. We kept it going for a couple of years and, as a result, the government gave the contractors more money and they put on more plows. It’s a constant battle. We’re still having that battle. There are a couple of corners on Highway 11 where people have died—trucks—the same place, the same time, year after year.

The government is saying they’re spending $190 billion on infrastructure and, again, when governments say that, that’s over 13 years. Everybody always inflates their numbers by saying over a longer period. Some of that money should be spent actually making the Trans-Canada Highway through northern Ontario safe.

I’m going to say something about the contractors, because I don’t want to leave the impression that I am attacking the contractors; I’m not, they do good work. The issue is the way the contracts for winter maintenance are issued. You bid on a contract for—I can’t remember how many years—10 or 12 years. It’s an overall bid for everything. The company is responsible to keep the roads up to certain standards, and the MTO inspects after the fact. It’s a conflict of interest because the government forces the contracting companies to lowball the bid to get the contract and then they expect them to meet the standards.

And then people like me, when the standards aren’t being met, raise a rightful stink, which we should. That’s my job. Then, all of a sudden, the contractor is in a Catch-22. The government knows this. They know this. As a result now, some of the contracts are failing, so the government is changing this in some contracts.

Overall, people say, “Well, it was the privatization of road maintenance.” Yes, that’s a big problem. But the biggest problem is the privatization of the standards, of the management. We always had a hybrid system. If you had snowplows, if you had gravel trucks in the wintertime, you could put blades on the gravel trucks in the summertime; you could put blades on in the winter and bid to work for the MTO. We’ve always done that.

Where it changed is where MTO no longer actively manages the roads. That’s up to the contractor. Then they don’t make the grade and then after the fact they come and issue fines to the contractor. It just doesn’t make any sense. That’s why you get failures of safety and why you get contractors failing. It’s not the contractor, it’s the government. They designed the contracting process to nickel-and-dime and chisel every cent out of it and then they wonder what’s happening with safety.

Again, I’ve got a couple of minutes. I’m going to use a farm analogy of how that works. On a farm we also hire contractors, just like I said. The biggest contractors are custom combiners. If you’ve never seen combines, for those from the city, they’re the big machines that actually harvest the grain. They’re expensive machines, north of half a million apiece if you’re getting new ones. So average farmers don’t buy them, we hire them. There are two ways to hire them: by the hour or by the acre. If you hire them by the acre, then you can chisel against each other and you can get a cheaper deal per acre.

But in most cases, they’re going to go too fast and you will lose grain. So in the end, the contractor loses money, but you also lose money because you get less grain in the tank to sell.

Well, grain has a monetary value, the safest prices, and the government is doing the same thing with road contractors: They’re chiselling them down by the set time, where they should just be paying by the hour and saying, “MTO should be making the calls when the salt trucks go out and when the sand trucks go out.”

In the case of Highway 11, we got a letter from someone in my constituency—again, his name escapes me; when I get the letter, I will read it in the Legislature if I have the chance. An 80-year-old man, a diabetic, was stuck on the highway for 12 hours, because there are no detours on Highway 11. On Highway 11, once you pass North Bay, once you pass the Field cut-off, you are stuck. If there is a fatal accident and the investigation takes 12 hours, you’re stuck.

This happens regularly on the Trans-Canada Highway, so it kind of sticks in the craw of people in northern Ontario when they hear of all these billions of dollars being spent on infrastructure, yet on the Trans-Canada Highway in northeastern Ontario, if there’s an accident—and they happen on a regular basis—you’re not going anywhere for hours and hours and hours. That includes medical appointments.

We used to have an option, at least to move people. It was a passenger train called the Northlander. The Northlander cost about $12 million a year to subsidize, to run in northeastern Ontario from Cochrane to Toronto. This government cut it. They have no problem spending, and I’ve got no problem either; we believe that the government needs to spend big dollars on infrastructure. I wouldn’t have said that in 2010, because I didn’t know anything about the GTA, because I come from northern Ontario. But now I live here six months a year, and there are huge challenges here. Is anybody going to dispute that? No, but there are also challenges in northern Ontario.

Since they cut the train, we’ve had seniors move away, because most of our medical services are in southern Ontario. If you’re 80, you can’t be on the bus if the highway is closed. We used to have a train. Nope, no train. They’ve made it very clear they’re never going to bring it back, and then they wonder why people in other parts of the province feel alienated. We will forever be alienated until somebody—we’ve committed to bringing it back; I actually believe the Tories have too, but again, we don’t know what’s in their platform right now—because it is vital. If you talk about the province, you need to serve everyone in the province.

It’s a big issue in rural Ontario. Our population is going down, but our productivity is going up. So if you look at the mines, the mills, the farms or tourism, it doesn’t take as many people to do that, but it still needs to be done, and we still need services, but this government only seems to be willing to spend money on places where the population is going up. Places where the population is rising have huge challenges—I’m not disputing that—but you just can’t let the social infrastructure in the rest of the province disappear, because there will come a point where you won’t get people.

In my part of the province, there are jobs, but it’s hard to get people to come there, because there aren’t services. There is no public transportation. Internet is kind of iffy. You’re fairly likely to buy a house in a small town, and then find out the school is closing. You cannot do that. You cannot expect people to be treated differently in different parts of the province and expect those parts of the province to flourish.

Somebody’s going to have a few more minutes. I regret that I don’t have more time to talk on this, but we also will be opposing this concurrence in supply, basically because we don’t think this province is serving the whole province.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): Thank you.

Debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rick Nicholls): It is now 10:15. This House stands recessed until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1014 to 1030.

Introduction of Visitors

The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Soo Wong): Welcome back. I’d like to introduce a former member, Cheri DiNovo, the member from Parkdale–High Park in the 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st Parliaments. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Ms. Lisa M. Thompson: It’s my pleasure today to welcome Matthew Klassen to the great riding of Huron–Bruce. He’s going to be working with us as an Ontario legislative intern. Thank you very much.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: We have a number of people here, along with Patrick Dillon, James Hogarth and others, who are here for the fair wage lobby day. I’m sure we’re all going to get a chance to talk to them today.

Hon. Helena Jaczek: I’d like to introduce representatives from 211 agencies from across Ontario, including the executive director of 211 Ontario, Karen Milligan.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: Today, I’m pleased to welcome a new page from my riding of Sudbury, Audrey Dini, who is a grade 8 student at Marymount Academy. I’d also like to welcome Audrey’s mother, Courtney, and Audrey’s aunt, Cassandra, seated in the members’ gallery. Welcome to the Legislature, and best of luck, Audrey.

Mrs. Cristina Martins: It gives me great pleasure to introduce here today Jean Stevenson, the executive director of Madison Community Services. Welcome, Jean.

Ms. Ann Hoggarth: Welcome back to everyone. Today I would like to welcome, from St. Paul’s, my new legislative intern, Kassandra Loewen.

Mr. Mike Colle: I would like to introduce the members of the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario who are here for the fair wage lobby day. By the way, everybody is invited to a reception hosted by the building trades downstairs in the main restaurant at 5 o’clock. Everybody is invited.

The members of the trades are Patrick Dillon, Jim Hogarth, John Grimshaw, Cosmo Mannella and Steve Marshall. Welcome.

Hon. Chris Ballard: I have someone very important to introduce today. My wife, Audrey Ballard, is in the gallery today to keep an eye on things.

Ms. Catherine Fife: I’m happy to welcome Michael Sullivan from Lester B. Pearson Public School to the Legislature today. He’s a page from my riding. Welcome, Michael.

Mr. Arthur Potts: It’s my pleasure to welcome the parents of page captain Jamie Rygiel-Baban. His mother, Kim Rygiel, is here and his father, Feyzi Baban. Welcome. Delighted to have you here today.

Hon. Mitzie Hunter: It is my pleasure to welcome a member from my great riding of Scarborough–Guildwood, Dr. Sylvain Roy, who is joined here by a number of people. They’re holding a reception this evening at 5:30, focusing on homelessness. I just want to welcome them to the Legislature—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. You have another one?

Hon. Mitzie Hunter: Speaker, I would like to welcome Patrick Dillon, who is with the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario. It’s really great to see you.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: It’s a great pleasure today to not only have a page for Nepean–Carleton, but also his mother joining us here from Barrhaven today in the great riding of Nepean–Carleton. I’d like to welcome you, Fauzia Syed, for being here at Queen’s Park today.

Hon. Indira Naidoo-Harris: I’d like to welcome the president of the OSSTF, Harvey Bischof, to the House this morning. Please help me give him a warm reception.

Hon. Kathryn McGarry: It gives me great pleasure to welcome my federal colleague today in the members’ east gallery, the member of Parliament for Cambridge, Bryan May. Welcome.

Ms. Sophie Kiwala: I would like to extend a warm welcome to Kaitlin Salole and her partner, Mike. She works in my constituency office.

Also, I would like to welcome Silvain Roy, the president of the Ontario Psychological Association, as well as Jean Stevenson, Paul Van de Laar, Jo Connelly, Keith Hambly and Matt Ostergard. They are also here for the reception this evening on chronic homelessness. It’s my pleasure to welcome you to that reception.

I would also like to extend a warm welcome to Klara Sulek-Popov, my page from Kingston and the Islands. It’s such a pleasure to have you here.

Mr. Mike Colle: It’s my pleasure to welcome to the Legislature a former city councillor in the city of York and a former federal member of the Legislature from York South–Weston, John Nunziata. Welcome, John.

Mr. Harinder S. Takhar: I would like to extend a very warm welcome to the grade 5 students of Brookmede Public School from my riding. Their teacher, Jennifer Parker, is here as well. I hope they will enjoy their tour of Queen’s Park.

Ms. Deborah Matthews: I’m delighted to welcome my new OLIP intern, Ana Qarri. She is joined by my staff member Neil Wereley.

I also want to acknowledge that London is doing its fair share of work at the Olympics: two-time gold winners in figure skating, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, and another gold medal for a Londoner, in the two-man bobsled, Alexander Kopacz. Congratulations to them all, Speaker.

Hon. David Zimmer: I would like to welcome Grand Chief Ogichidaa Francis Kavanaugh. He’s the grand chief of Treaty 3 area, which covers all of northwestern Ontario.

Mr. Arthur Potts: I would also like to introduce Mackenzie Taylor, who is an intern working in my office this week. Thank you for being in the House.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): In the Speaker’s gallery today we have a guest of mine, Kaitlin Salole, a student from Queen’s University who was my student intern in the summertime, and her guest, Mike Cavanaugh. Welcome, and thank you for being here.

Resignation of member for Parkdale–High Park

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I also beg to inform the House that, during the adjournment, a vacancy has occurred in the membership of the House by reason of the resignation of Cheri DiNovo as the member for the electoral district of Parkdale–High Park, effective December 31, 2017. Accordingly, I have issued my warrant to the Chief Electoral Officer for the issue of a writ for a by-election.

Tabling of sessional papers

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I also beg to inform the House that, during the adjournment, the following documents were tabled:

—the 2017 annual report from the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth;

—the annual Greenhouse Gas Progress Report 2017 from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario;

—the report from the Office of the Integrity Commissioner of Ontario concerning the review of expense claims under the Cabinet Ministers’ and Opposition Leaders’ Expenses Review and Accountability Act, 2002, for submissions received in July, August, and September 2017 and complete as of December 15, 2017; and

—a report entitled Hydro One: Updated Financial Analysis of the Partial Sale of Hydro One, Winter 2018, from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario.

Leader of the Opposition

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I also beg to inform the House that Mr. Fedeli, the member from the electoral district of Nipissing, is recognized as the leader of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition.

Oral Questions

Employment

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Premier.

Fifty-one thousand jobs—51,000 jobs—were lost in the month of January. That is the largest number of jobs lost in one month since 2009. This is proof that the economic policies of this government are reckless and unfair. This isn’t change that works for families; it’s actually hurting families.

What does the government say to the 51,000 families who lost their jobs last month?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I want to welcome everyone back and add my congratulations to the member from Nipissing for being appointed the Leader of the Opposition, and to thank him for that question.

Mr. Speaker, I know that the Leader of the Opposition knows that Ontario’s economy is growing. Whenever there is a job loss in the province, the families who are affected, the individuals who are affected—that is a very hard thing to deal with. I understand that. But I know that the Leader of the Opposition understands that the economy is growing, that in fact our unemployment rate is at a 17-year low, and that Ontario has led the growth in G7 countries. We have outstripped the growth across the country. I recognize that even though all of that is happening, there are still people who are not sharing in that growth, and I’ll speak to that in the supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Back to the Premier: Years of Liberal policy have led to the worst month for jobs since this Premier took office. The FAO pointed out that entire regions of the province were being unfairly left behind last year. Southwestern, eastern and northern Ontario saw only 1,600 jobs combined.

Just look at what economist Philip Cross had to say about these newest numbers:

“The January drop shows that gushing reports about ... ‘booming’ economy were wildly overstated....

“The underpinnings to the Ontario economy have looked increasingly shaky for some time.”

But this government will cherry-pick statistics and tell everyone that everything is rosy.

Mr. Speaker, everything isn’t rosy.

Interjections.

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

I haven’t forgotten what I’ve been doing before we left.

Finish, please.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Thank you, Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, everything isn’t rosy. Will the Premier admit that the cumulative impact of her government policy is costing hard-working Ontarians their jobs and that’s just not fair?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Leader of the Opposition, but we do have to look at the whole picture. We have to look at the fact that, since the recession, 800,000 new jobs have been created in this province. We have to recognize that since I’ve been Premier 400,000 new jobs have been created.

Having said that, we’re seeing that growth, but it is not being shared evenly, which is exactly why free tuition, OHIP+, an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour—which, unfortunately, all of the leadership candidates in the race for the Conservatives have said they don’t support—those initiatives that support people, that actually help people to deal with global uncertainty, are the things that we are putting in place because we’re actually fighting for the people of Ontario, to make sure they have what they need.

Interjections.

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

Final supplementary.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Back to the Premier: The Liberals have been warned by experts that their too-fast, too-soon anti-business policies would put people out of work. The Premier was warned, warned again, warned again and warned again, yet she ignored the warnings for purely political purposes. The numbers are staggering. Youth lost jobs at a rate six and a half times higher than the rest of the population. Women saw their employment drop four times the rate of Ontario’s men. Single moms and children trying to earn a living have been targeted by this Liberal government’s too-fast, too-soon, anti-business, anti-jobs policies.

Can the Liberals explain how this is possibly fair for Ontario?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: What I hear the Leader of the Opposition say when he says too fast, too soon—the subscript to that is the minimum wage increase. And what I hear him say is not now, not ever. That’s exactly what I hear him say.

The people he’s talking about, the people who are cleaning our institutions, the people who are serving us in all of the businesses across this province, if those people had continued to earn $11.60 an hour—they had to go to the food bank at the end of the month, Mr. Speaker. That is the reality that the Leader of the Opposition is supporting when he says not now, not ever.

We believe that in a province as wealthy as Ontario, in a province—

Mr. John Yakabuski: Have the food banks shut down, Premier? Have they closed the food banks?

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

Finish, please.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: In a province as wealthy as Ontario, where there are so many people who are doing so well, and corporate profits are at an all-time high, it is time that we make sure that people have what they need to look after their families.

Mental health services

Mr. Victor Fedeli: My question, again, is for the Premier. We heard a common theme at almost every meeting of the pre-budget consultations throughout Ontario last month. We heard that this government is not doing enough for mental health treatment. The words of a 17-year-old student in Sudbury left a lasting impression on me and all of us at that committee. He said, “I attempted suicide. I’m extremely fortunate to be here today. I felt utterly alone.” He told the committee, “Most youth are unsure of what to do and where to go when they’re faced with depression and low mental wellness.

They don’t know of ... resources ... available to them, and sometimes they can’t even access these resources.”

Mr. Speaker, why has this government failed to provide resources for mental health our youth so desperately need?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I know that the Minister of Children and Youth Services is going to want to follow up. Let me just say to the Leader of the Opposition, to the Legislature and the people of Ontario, we recognize that there is more that needs to be done. We have been making huge investments.

I just returned from a campus tour. I went around the province visiting college and university campuses—and a high school stop. At every single stop the issue of mental health came up, and I think that is a very good thing in the sense that people are talking about it. I said to these young people, “You know, 35 years ago we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You would not be raising this issue because there was not the awareness that there is now.”

We have put resources into school boards, we have put resources on campuses, but I am the first to agree that there is more that we need to do to make sure that there’s coordination of services, to make sure that there are more services in terms of counselling and professionals. We’re setting up youth hubs so that there’s an interdisciplinary model. But there is more to be done and we are going to make those investments.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Back to the Premier: Another youth advocate told our committee about his battle with mental health. He said of his battle with depression, “That took me down a really dark road for about eight months. I couldn’t handle the pain anymore and I tried to take my own life.” But he added, “I am here in front of you today to talk to you about a broken system—not just a broken system that almost claimed my life, but a broken system that has taken lives and will continue to take more lives if we don’t start acting now.”

He was so brave to come forward to this committee. They are very poignant words from a very strong individual. We cannot and we must not let his words ring hollow. The government must act. How much longer will this government accept this broken system?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Children and Youth Services.

Hon. Michael Coteau: I want to take a moment to thank the member opposite for the question. We’ve gone around the province, many members in our caucus here and the Minister of Health, to speak to young people, and we’re aware that there’s more work that needs to be done when it comes to helping young people with mental health challenges.

As a government, we have continuously invested money into mental health since 2008—in fact, $10 billion more since 2008. Minister Hoskins, myself, this government and our Premier have said, and we’ve made a commitment, that we will increase funding to mental health here in the province of Ontario.

The party opposite says they’ll invest $1.9 billion over 10 years. It’s simply not enough. It’s not just about the money; it’s about changing the system. That’s why we’ve dedicated a lot of time and energy to Moving on Mental Health, which is a new system we’re putting in place where we’re putting in lead agencies right across the province to better coordinate services.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Elgin–Middlesex–London will come to order.

Final supplementary?

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Back to the Premier: There were so many courageous individuals who shared their stories and their fight with our committee. However, maybe the most impactful story was about one individual who couldn’t share that day. A London health care worker said he has witnessed some pretty tragic instances. He shared this very disheartening story: “We’ve had people turned away from the doors in the urgent care department at St. Joe’s. One of those poor souls committed suicide in the parking lot. No services, no psychiatric services that can be attained in a timely manner—this is unacceptable.”

That’s what we heard at the committee. Mr. Speaker, this is unacceptable. No matter any numbers that we’re hearing from the Liberals, whatever dollar amount they claim to invest is simply not enough. Why are the resources to support those struggling with mental health not available?

Hon. Michael Coteau: Minister of Health and Long-Term Care.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: This is such an important issue. I do want to commend the member opposite for raising not only the issue, but two very real examples that demonstrate the work that still needs to be done.

All of us here in this Legislature are so committed to improving mental health in this province. I think all of us understand that mental health and physical health are two sides of the same coin. We need to demonstrate that same vigour, intent and determination on mental health as we do in providing health services for those with physical ailments.

This government, over the past number of years, has been every single year increasing those investments, and in fact, doing some things unprecedented in this country. Introducing structured psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy: We’re the first province in the country to do that. We’re creating a network of youth wellness hubs. Every hospital around this province has—and this was done together with the OHA—a suicide prevention plan and a plan to address the tragic circumstances of individuals who are in that difficult circumstance. There’s a lot more work to be done.

Hospital funding

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier. On January 14, Toronto east hospital had 161 patients in its medical unit but only 135 funded beds. That’s a 119% occupancy rate. Now, the Premier knows that experts consider a safe occupancy rate for hospitals to be 85%. Clearly, the Premier’s temporary funding is not solving the hospital overcrowding and hallway medicine crisis that has been decades in the making in this province.

When will this Premier acknowledge the damage that she and her Liberal Party have been doing to our hospitals?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I thank the leader of the third party for the question. We recognize that our hospitals are facing increased capacity demands. It’s exactly why we’ve increased the capacity across the continuum of care by adding 1,200 additional beds. I know that the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care will want to speak to those beds and how those resources are going to continue to be available to our hospitals.

But having said that, we recognize there is more that needs to be done. We increased hospital budgets by $500 million in the last budget. We recognize, with this particular influx of need, that there’s more that needs to be done. We will continue to work to support hospitals across the province.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: In January, the Scarborough Hospital’s Birchmount site reached an alarmingly high occupancy rate of 147%. The hospital actually had 25 fewer beds to tend to patients than at this time last year.

Why is this Premier still ignoring the crisis that we have in our hospital system?

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

Hon. Eric Hoskins: First of all, I want to acknowledge and recognize our front-line health care workers and the health care leadership across this province, who have been doing an absolutely exceptional job in the face of what we commonly and regularly see during these months: not only flu but other respiratory illnesses. It has been a particularly bad year—we know that—both here in Ontario, across Canada and across North America.

The reference that was made to Toronto East Health Network, the Michael Garron Hospital—in fact, their occupancy in October was 83%. In November, it was 84%. In December, it was 83%. In January, Mr. Speaker, it was 88%—and that in the face of a very bad flu and respiratory season. Fortunately, we’re over the top of that curve with flu, at least with influenza A.

But, Mr. Speaker, part of the reason I think our hospitals have been able to accommodate these pressures are the 1,200 additional beds, the equivalent of six community hospitals, that we announced last fall.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, the crisis in our hospitals has been in the making for quite some time, and the responsibility for it lies at the feet of this government that has been in office for 15 years.

The problem in our hospital system didn’t start with the flu season, and you can ask any expert in the hospital system and they’ll tell you. They have been in crisis for years now. That’s why the Ontario Hospital Association has been begging this government to properly fund our hospital systems. They have ignored them time and time again.

The last Conservative government closed 28 hospitals, and they laid off 6,000 nurses. The Premier has continued down a path of cuts and budget freezes in our hospitals.

Lying on gurneys in makeshift spaces like hospital hallways and waiting rooms is not the place where Ontarians should be, but it is now the norm for patients in Ontario. Why is the Premier okay with that?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Mr. Speaker, not only did we add the equivalent of six community hospitals—1,200 acute care beds—last fall and through this winter season to the end of the fiscal year, but we also recently announced even more funds for the upcoming fiscal year—I think it’s just under $200 million—a new investment to maintain many of those beds that were opened up, but also to work closely with the Ontario Hospital Association and all of those hospitals, so that we allocate them so they make the greatest possible impact.

But I’d be remiss—and I know the leader of the third party referenced the PCs closing, 10,000 hospital beds, I think they said—

Interjections.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Ninety-six hundred, Mr. Speaker, was the NDP record. They closed 13%, I think it was, of the mental health beds in this province and almost a quarter of all the acute care beds.

I can only imagine, if they were in power, with their commitment to find $600 million in cuts, that it would be a desperate situation right now.

Privatization of public assets

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is for the Premier, but I’m glad the Minister of Health talked about the Liberal who was in charge at the time.

The Premier and the Conservative Party are in lockstep when it comes to underfunding our hospitals as well. They also agree that selling off pieces of Hydro One and our hydro system is the right thing to do.

But the Financial Accountability Officer in fact disagrees. Just last week, the Financial Accountability Officer said that the sell-off of Hydro One will cost Ontario families nearly $300 million a year.

Doesn’t the Premier think that $300 million a year would be better off in the hands of Ontario families, funding things like hospitals and schools?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Minister of Finance.

Hon. Charles Sousa: I appreciate the question, recognizing the importance for us to ensure that we continue to support our companies so that they can outperform in the marketplace. Certainly the way hydro was being acted upon, it wasn’t providing the proper receipts, the proper revenues and the proper controls and mechanisms. Now we’ve got much more discipline in the operation.

We still own over 44% of the company. It still provides tremendous amounts of revenues to the province and, more importantly, it paid down some needed debt in the system. And of course, we now have proceeds to the tune of $5 billion and going up further as we put it in the Trillium Trust to invest in new opportunities to provide even greater revenues and greater opportunities for the people of Ontario.

We’ll continue to invest where we can produce more value and help the people of Ontario.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, the Premier said she sold off Hydro One to fund her many infrastructure promises, but the FAO says that the funding of infrastructure in this way will actually cost Ontarians $1.8 billion more than had the government simply financed those projects themselves. So can the Premier tell Ontarians who exactly benefits from the $1.8 billion of Liberal overspending this time?

Hon. Charles Sousa: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the reports that are made by our independent agents, but they also don’t mention, and they should, with regard to what is being invested and what are the receipts coming back to the province as a result.

As you know, during that transaction, we have paid down debt by $5.1 billion. We have over $6.2 billion in the Trillium Trust to engage and to invest. Furthermore, the actions of the operations are now enhanced, providing even greater value for the shareholders, which is the province of Ontario and the people of Ontario.

But going forward, we’re going to continue to invest. We know that the investments we make in roads, bridges, schools and hospitals bring back seven times more value than what was initially invested. That, too, is critical to the people of Ontario.

Furthermore, the opposition makes it sound as though we’re selling off Niagara Falls. Mr. Speaker, we’re talking about transmission, and that is all we’re doing. We recognize the operations of the power generation still continue to be held by the public purse and we’ll continue to support those initiatives for the benefit of all the people of Ontario.

Interjections.

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

Final supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The Premier’s wrong-headed decision to sell off Hydro One means billions of dollars less for the services that matter the most for families. Revenue from Hydro One should be going directly into patient care in overcrowded hospitals and into our children’s classrooms. But the Liberals and Conservatives won’t bring Hydro One back into public hands.

How can this Premier continue to defend the wrong-headed and financially damaging decision to sell off Hydro One?

Hon. Charles Sousa: Minister of Energy.

Hon. Glenn Thibeault: Our goal, as we’ve always said, is to get the best possible value for the people of Ontario and invest billions in transit, transportation and infrastructure through the Trillium Trust. That includes GO regional express, LRT projects in multiple communities, and the Ring of Fire in the north, just to name a few.

Looking at the FAO’s report, it confirms that as a publicly traded company, Hydro One is in a position to achieve efficiencies that will create savings for Ontario ratepayers and a boost to the province’s revenues.

The NDP’s biggest idea is to buy back shares of Hydro One at a cost of billions of dollars, using money that would otherwise go to funding hospitals and schools. Maybe they can explain what schools they will close, how many nurses they will fire once again. The worst

part is that won’t even take one cent off any bill. It is this government that brought forward the fair hydro plan, taking 25% off everyone’s bills across the province and building infrastructure.

Cardiac care

Mr. Jeff Yurek: My question is to the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. Last month, London Health Sciences Centre announced that the Cardiac Fitness Institute will close this spring. It was established in 1981. The CFI provides rehabilitation and fitness education for patients who have suffered from serious heart problems. It serves roughly 1,600 people a year. It only costs about $150,000, and the hospital cited the reason for its closure as a funding environment that has become increasingly challenging, resulting in their inability to fund the program further. You need to look no further than this to see how this government has damaged our health care system in Ontario.

My question is to the minister. Do you agree with removing this important service from serious cardiac heart patients?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Of course, fundamentally, our government is absolutely committed to ensuring that Ontarians receive the highest-quality, evidence-based care. We know and I understand and we’re monitoring closely that the London Health Sciences Centre has taken a decision that is based upon, as they say, the best evidence with regard to post-cardiac-incident care, and they’ve made a decision that, as of the end of March, at that particular site, they will no longer be accepting cardiac patients who have had a cardiac event.

But despite making that decision to end further patient referrals—referrals which amounted to under 10 per month—we’re confident, as London Health Sciences Centre is currently working with St. Joe’s, that the patients currently going to London Health Sciences Centre will continue to receive their full evidence-based cardiac rehabilitation care through that program at St. Joseph’s in London.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Mr. Jeff Yurek: Back to the minister: It’s of note, though, that the St. Joe’s program kicks the patients out after six months, which really doesn’t rely on the information that’s available from Britain that shows the advantage of continuing this program at LHSC.

Through underfunding over the years, this government has caused many programs throughout the system to become defunct. Through years of their failed funding of the hospital system, patients aren’t getting the resources they need.

Backed by scientific evidence, the preventative care provided by the CFI has been shown to both reduce the number readmitted due to heart problems, as well as saving the health care system millions of dollars. These services are available in Windsor, Toronto and Ottawa, but no longer in London after March.

Considering how low-cost this program is and how many lives it positively impacts, will the minister commit to funding this program further?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I know that, as a fellow health care professional, the member opposite appreciates and, I would hope, agrees that we need to allow our front-line health care providers, our physicians and the entire complement to make the best decisions based on evidence and quality of care. In fact, after March 18, all of those patients enrolled in London through their cardiac rehab program will continue to receive, as they do in the entire rest of the province, six months of post-cardiac care.

I don’t know if the member opposite is suggesting that we should create a system that is unbalanced and inequitable for a small minority, which runs contrary to the best evidence that exists—and the evidence, by the way, is endorsed by cardiac care Ontario and present through the entire cardiac system in this province.

Affordable housing

Mr. Peter Tabuns: My question is for the Minister of Housing. Housing and rental costs in Toronto have reached a tipping point. Families are being priced out of their neighbourhoods, and many have lost hope that they’ll be able to raise their children in the communities that they know and love.

Premier Wynne had the opportunity to ease this affordable housing crisis with inclusionary zoning and set aside an adequate number of residential developments to become affordable housing. But instead, the Premier decide to cap the number of affordable units to just 5%, compared to the 30% recommended by experts.

Will the minister reverse this short-sighted, developer-friendly cap, and instead strengthen inclusionary zoning to help people put a roof over their heads?

Hon. Peter Z. Milczyn: I want to thank the member for the question. Under our Fair Housing Plan, we’ve taken a number of steps to make housing more affordable for Ontarians. Whether it’s increasing the rebate for first-time homebuyers on the land transfer tax, extending rent control to all Ontario tenants, capping the ability of landlords to evict tenants when they’re simply pretending to use it for their own use or, most recently, introducing a standard lease, we’re making important steps to improve the affordability of housing.

On inclusionary zoning, we released a framework for consultation with Ontario municipalities and all stakeholders. I’m having ongoing discussions with stakeholders on a daily basis on how to implement that at a local level, which is where it will be implemented by municipalities, to create thousands of new affordable units across this province.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Peter Tabuns: Again to the minister: These are just empty words from the minister. His actions and the actions of his Premier time and again show where the priorities lie. They lie with big banks, with big developers and with big business.

Only New Democrats are committed to strengthening inclusionary zoning and repairing our crumbling social housing units. Toronto families need action on affordable housing, and they need it now—not more developer-friendly regulations from a government that continues to let them down. Will the minister commit to remove the cap on affordable housing units now so that Toronto families can have an affordable place to live?

Hon. Peter Z. Milczyn: We put forward a framework for consultation. As part of that consultation, we’re getting excellent feedback from municipalities and other stakeholders. In fact, it’s not a cap of 5%, even in the draft; it was up to 10%. But we are looking at the rate of set-aside to increase that. We’re looking at how development could be incented.

The purpose of inclusionary zoning is to create more housing and ensure that that additional housing supply is affordable. Mr. Speaker, I put that forward as a private member’s bill. I’ve taken the mandate from Premier Wynne on this. We will deliver an inclusionary zoning framework that’s going to create tens of thousands of affordable units across this province.

Minimum wage

Mr. Arthur Potts: My question is to the Minister of Labour. As we ushered in the new year, we also entered a new era for workplaces in Beaches–East York and across the province. January 1 was a day for our working people and those across the province—because, over the number of years that I’ve served, I’ve spoken with countless families about how the nature of their work has changed in the province. These families are working hard to put food on the table and take care of their children, but they often find that the money runs out before the month is over.

While this opinion may not be shared by all members opposite, I firmly believe that everyone who works 35 or 40 hours a week shouldn’t have to struggle to get by. That’s why I’m so pleased, Speaker, that our government has made such prolific changes to our workplace laws. This includes, of course, an increase to the minimum wage, taking it to a living wage of $14 this year and $15 next year.

Speaker, can the minister please inform the House about these changes and what employees and employers can expect as a result?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Thank you very much to the member from Beaches–East York for this excellent question. The conversations that he outlined in his question that he has had in his own community echo what we’ve all heard across the province over the past two or three years. We embarked on a very extensive and comprehensive review of employment laws, and we realized that change is needed to be made to bring those laws up to date to 2018.

That’s why we moved forward with a plan. We made changes so that employees in the province of Ontario will see an increase to the minimum wage, two paid personal emergency leave days, increased vacation, and equal pay for equal work. For those going through the living hell of domestic and sexual violence, they won’t have to worry about their jobs while they’re dealing with that situation.

We didn’t have support from everybody in this House, but I’m so proud that, on this side of the House, we’re on the side of Ontario workers.

Interjections.

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

Supplementary?

Mr. Arthur Potts: I would like to personally thank the Minister of Labour not only for his answer but for his very progressive advocacy on this file. We know, Speaker, that the province’s economy is doing very well. We have led the G7 in economic growth for the past three years. Since the recession, we’ve created almost 800,000 new jobs. Our unemployment rate has been lower than the national average for the last 34 months and now stands at a record low, hovering around 5.5%.

Our businesses are expanding and creating wealth, and I believe that everyone deserves to share in that prosperity. And yet, there are those across the hall who believe it’s still not time for these changes. They keep saying that this is too much, too soon. Is $15 really too much, Speaker? They believe that the working people in this province should wait, although they won’t say for how long.

I know that the families of Beaches–East York can’t wait. They want these changes now. Will the minister please explain how his plan will give a $15 minimum wage for all workers?

Hon. Kevin Daniel Flynn: Thank you for that excellent supplementary. It’s very simple: We increased the minimum wage on January 1 of this year to $14 an hour. On January 1, 2019, it goes to $15 an hour. Speaker, anybody that tells you any different, anybody that tries to delay that, is simply denying that to the people in the province of Ontario. Any attempt to roll back or cancel the increase to $15 an hour takes money away from Ontario workers.

Speaker, that’s important money. That’s money they rely on for food, for rent, for transit, for buying clothes for their kids. I don’t think that it’s fair. I don’t think it’s right. Ontarians can’t afford to wait any longer. We’ve phased the plan in over 18 months. More workers are benefiting now, more fairly, from Ontario’s incredible economic growth. Free tuition, rent control—we’re standing up for Ontario workers. We’ve got their backs. We’re not backing down from that commitment, Speaker.

Interjections.

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

New question.

Public transit

Mr. Michael Harris: To the Minister of Transportation: As the opposition transport critic, I want to welcome the member for Cambridge to her new role as Minister of Transportation. But now, let’s get down to business.

Would the minister tell me why she used her first opportunity as minister to go back to the old Liberal playbook and hand out another high-speed rail patronage appointment to former Liberal minister David Collenette?

Hon. Kathryn McGarry: Thank you very much to the member opposite and my critic in this role, another member from Waterloo region. Thank you very much for the question this morning. High-speed rail is incredibly important to the economy of Ontario. We’re delighted to have David Collenette, with all of his expertise, now be the chair of our new advisory committee, while we continue to do some of the preliminary work in order to deliver this incredibly important role.

While preparing the preliminary business case, as the special adviser at that point, David Collenette met with many different stakeholders, including indigenous communities, to make sure that the business case was solid for high-speed rail. We have affirmed that there is a really great business case.

High-speed rail will have an immense impact on Ontario’s economy. It will be continuing to be built in the coming weeks and months. We will be continuing to provide an initial $15 million in a comprehensive environmental assessment, to finally get some of the routes started in this very important process.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Michael Harris: Well, I suppose you all still agree that he is still entitled to those entitlements. Speaker, this is electioneering at its worst. It’s the second election in a row that the Wynne Liberals have attempted to lure voters with high-speed dreams, of course at taxpayers’ expense.

Last election, they had a UK consultant slap together a report based on Google Maps. Four years later, they’re back at it again. Another taxpayer-subsidized appointment for their old pal David Collenette as high-speed rail chair—in fact, the same David Collenette who just left his previous Liberal-appointed role as high-speed rail adviser.

Speaker, as the government spins its wheels, will the minister admit that this Liberal high-speed rail sequel is just another taxpayer-funded, desperate attempt to hold or cling to power?

Hon. Kathryn McGarry: In his new role, we know that Mr. Collenette will continue to provide—

Mr. John Yakabuski: David Collenette wants to know where the good restaurants in Kitchener are.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke, second time.

Finish, please.

Hon. Kathryn McGarry: Thank you. We know he’ll continue to provide excellent strategic advice moving forward on this landmark project. We need his experience to move forward. His skills will be very helpful to see this project through.

What I would point out is that the member opposite has made sure that any time he has the ability to vote on our government budget which provides the investments needed to bring a project forward, he has consistently, with his party, voted against these investments.

So let me be clear: I don’t believe that his party would ever support high-speed rail or provide some of the infrastructure money in order to move forward with an important project like this. It takes longer than four years to do it.

Long-term care

M me France Gélinas: Ma question est pour le ministre de la Santé et des Soins de longue durée.

Minister, I’ve written to you about 91-year-old Gottfried Adler and his 88-year-old wife, Hildegard, of Sudbury. They have been separated since August 2017. Last week was their first-ever Valentine’s Day apart in 67 years of marriage. Now that they need long-term care, they’ve been separated by a system that doesn’t care about keeping couples together and by a government that won’t fix it.

Hildegard and Gottfried miss each other every day. The minister says that spousal reunification is a top priority, but it has been six months and nothing has happened. Why won’t this Liberal government stop the forced separation of couples needing long-term care and reunite Hildegard and Gottfried today?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: First of all, I want to affirm and express my concern with regard to this couple, and any couple across this province who, for whatever reason—but particularly when it comes to long-term-care home placements, where they’re unable to receive and obtain those placements together. I find it unimaginable. I can’t imagine the stress that they’re going through. Mr. Speaker, that’s why I’m so grateful that the member opposite has raised this today.

In fact, the changes that we made in the legislation last fall, which create a separate category for spousal reunification and require long-term-care homes to set aside specific, dedicated beds for spousal reunification—that legislation and those regulations actually now are in place as of today.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

M me France Gélinas: Speaker, the minister knows full well that crisis will always take priority, and the crisis list in Sudbury will never end. They will never be together.

This 91-year-old man and his 88-year-old wife lie alone crying at night. Consider the stress for those two elderly people. Their health is declining. Their mental health suffers. They just want to be together.

The minister says that spousal reunification in long-term care is a top priority, but clearly it is not, because Hildegard and Gottfried have been forced to live apart for six long months. When you’re 91 years old, six months is a long time.

When will this Liberal government stop making excuses and do what they say they will do and get Hildegard and Gottfried back together?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Well, Mr. Speaker, we did what we said we would do. Last fall—perhaps the member wasn’t focused on the legislation, but it created outside of crisis. This has nothing to do with crisis, as opposed to what the member is trying to suggest. Every single long-term-care home in this province, for the first time in history, as of today, is required to set aside specific, dedicated beds for spousal reunification.

I would hope for the first time that the member would work together with me, as some of her colleagues have, on this specific case to see if they can now take advantage of a law and regulations specifically set up to aid in this very challenging situation.

Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity here. This has nothing to do with crisis designation. This is in response to many, many stakeholders and families coming forward, and us finding a way to create a better system.

Climate change

M. Shafiq Qaadri: Ma question est pour le ministre de l’Environnement et de l’Action en matière de changement climatique, l’honorable Chris Ballard.

Speaker, our government is aware that Ontarians are concerned and want to see real action on climate change. That’s why we’ve taken the initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially. In 2014, we shut down dirty coal-fired plants, reducing nearly one quarter of the sulphur dioxide emissions in the province. I can attest in a professional capacity about the health benefits of that particular initiative.

In 2016, we implemented our climate change action plan that includes our best-in-class cap-and-trade program. Last month, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario recognized that we had exceeded our 2014 greenhouse gas reduction goals and are on track to meet our 2020 goal.

My question is this, Speaker: Can the minister please further explain what our government is doing to address climate change while making life more affordable for the province of Ontario?

Hon. Chris Ballard: Thank you to the member from Etobicoke North for that important question. Being a medical practitioner, he, like the government of Ontario, recognizes how critical it is that Ontario tackles climate change head-on. We don’t take that responsibility lightly. That’s why we’re limiting the amount of greenhouse gas pollution businesses can emit each year, and we’re reducing that cap each year.

That’s not all. Last year our cap-and-trade auctions generated $1.9 billion in proceeds. We’re reinvesting every dollar of those proceeds into green programs that are helping Ontario businesses and Ontario homeowners to fight climate change and save money. These investments include hundreds of thousands of dollars for bike lanes and energy retrofits for homes, hospitals and social housing. I would like to make one thing clear: All of these—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Thank you. You can do that at the supplementary.

Supplementary?

Mr. Shafiq Qaadri: Minister, I’d like to thank you on behalf of everyone who breathes in the province of Ontario.

Climate change should no longer be seen as a question, a supposition or a speculation. On this side of the House, the governing side, we know that climate change is a reality that we can’t overlook. We have to face climate change with real solutions at affordable costs. That’s why we’ve implemented a cap-and-trade program that is recognized by third-party experts as the most effective way to reduce emissions.

In addition to promising to scrap our cap-and-trade program, the current, but fluctuating, roster of PC leadership candidates would axe the carbon tax which is the funding basis of their entire program, which blows a $9-billion-plus hole in their platform. And that’s just this week. It’s clear the party opposite doesn’t take climate change and protecting our environment seriously.

Can the minister please explain—

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

Minister of the Environment and Climate Change.

Hon. Chris Ballard: It’s obvious the PCs refuse to take fighting climate change and protecting our environment seriously. Let’s not forget that this is the party that voted against our climate action plan, the Greenbelt Act and the Great Lakes Protection Act.

What’s unclear is how they plan to fund their platform promises without money from their carbon tax scheme. This means that in order to fund what they have promised in their glossy magazine, they will have to make billions of dollars in cuts. We can be certain that, if elected, the PCs would be making billions of dollars of cuts in critical social programs that Ontarians rely on—things like OHIP+, things like free tuition and the $15 minimum wage.

Meanwhile, our government is investing in Ontarians by funding programs that make it easy and affordable for them to make greener choices.

Horse racing industry

Mr. Randy Pettapiece: My question is to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs about his job loss policy.

Last week, the minister let the horse out of the barn. He revealed that the OLG will be shutting down the Ajax casino, threatening the future of horse racing in Ajax Downs. This news caught the town of Ajax totally by surprise. The minister left them to read about it in the Peterborough newspaper.

The mayor of Ajax, Steve Parish, put out a statement saying, “I think the government has been caught red-handed in their deception. It is amazing how far they will go to cover up their backroom deal.”

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. The member will withdraw. He knows he cannot say indirectly what he cannot say directly. Withdraw.

Mr. Randy Pettapiece: Withdraw.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Finish your question.

Mr. Randy Pettapiece: To the minister: Why are you putting 1,700 jobs in rural Ontario in jeopardy with a secret deal to shut down Ajax’s casino?

Hon. Jeff Leal: To the Minister of Finance.

Hon. Charles Sousa: Let’s be clear, the member opposite is asking a question knowing full well that no decision has been made. We’ve issued off a release to comment on the fact that a fairness monitor is involved to maintain fairness and transparency throughout the entire process.

The member opposite also knows that the candidate running in that riding is also the former head of the OLG—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): No matter where he sits, the member from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound will come to order.

Carry on.

Hon. Charles Sousa: —who himself had initiated this modernization process to remove slots from some of these racetracks. We, on this side of the House, have been committed and will continue to commit to support horse racing in our province. We have a procurement process that must be followed appropriately, but we also have an agreement with the racing community to ensure we provide support for these racetracks and, especially, the horsemen so that they can plan their breeding cycle on an ongoing basis.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Randy Pettapiece: Perhaps the finance minister didn’t read the Peterborough newspaper.

Back to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. The sudden move to shut down the slots at Ajax Downs is the latest example of this government’s reckless approach to horse racing and rural affairs. We already know the Liberals secretly planned to kill the Slots at Racetracks Program, fully aware it would collapse the industry. Now we discover that the government has apparently cut a secret deal that will likely destroy quarter horse racing in the province.

Speaker, that minister is big on talk but his actions show a real lack of respect for rural communities. My question: Will the government support the town of Ajax’s call for an independent, fair, public review of the decision? Yes or no?

Hon. Charles Sousa: Absolutely we will maintain fairness and transparency. We’ve said that from the start. But that member opposite and that party voted against the measures to provide full, accurate and sustainable funding for the horse racing industry. We’re putting that in place. The member opposite can’t say we’re not. We’re providing those very opportunities, those very dollars that the horse racing community requires.

That member opposite also knows that his candidate, who is running in that party, is the man that masterminded this process from the beginning.

We will do what’s necessary to support. Joe Dickson, the member of that riding, has been fighting hard and—

Interjections.

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

New question.

Water quality

Mr. Taras Natyshak: My question is to the Acting Premier. Water is a fundamental element of life. Without water, nothing survives. Rural residents have been able to draw clean well water for their families and for their farms for over 100 years in southwestern Ontario.

However, there are wells contaminated in Chatham–Kent with sediments that the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change refuses to collect and analyze. Residents suspect that this as a result of pile-driving through the aquifer that has released sediments. Local residents collected and analyzed the sediments and found them to contain black shale, which is known as an environmental hazard because it contains heavy metals.

Last week, the Premier held a town hall meeting in Windsor, saw the black shale contaminated water—black like coffee—and told the residents that it was safe to drink without the benefit of a health hazard investigation. Will the Premier back up her claim and direct the Minister of the Environment to collect and analyze these sediments in order to conduct a proper and impartial scientific investigation?

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: To the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change.

Hon. Chris Ballard: The ministry takes concerns regarding groundwater quality very seriously. We’re holding the company accountable for addressing complaints related to changes, if any, in well-water quality. We have undertaken a review of water quality data to ensure residents’ water is safe to drink. Thus far, I will say, the analysis has not shown a connection between water quality and construction activity. Further, the Chatham-Kent medical officer of health has confirmed that the water particulates do not pose a health risk to residents.

The ministry understands that the pile-driving has now finished, and we’re also planning to meet with Water Wells First this week to discuss their data. We’re going to continue to require that the company continue to monitor well impacts and—

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

Mr. Taras Natyshak: Speaker,