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June 12, 2012

40th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2012-Jun-12 (PDF)

L065 - Tue 12 Jun 2012 / Mar 12 jun 2012

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Tuesday 12 June 2012 Mardi 12 juin 2012

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ONTARIO ELECTRICITY SYSTEM

OPERATOR ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LA SOCIÉTÉ

D’EXPLOITATION DU RÉSEAU

D’ÉLECTRICITÉ DE L’ONTARIO

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

ONTARIO ECONOMY

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

JOB CREATION

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANT

JOB CREATION

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

DOCTORS’ SERVICES

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

SKILLED TRADES

BEDBUG INFESTATION

ICEWINE INDUSTRY

FAMILY HEALTH TEAMS

EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES

ABORIGINAL PROGRAMS AND SERVICES

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

GARY CROWELL

GLENN COCHRANE

COURCELETTE PUBLIC SCHOOL

VAIBHAVI “SONU” SOLANKI

LABOUR DISPUTE

ROAD MAINTENANCE

AL PETTIT

MONIKA WYRZYKOWSKA

CAREER SERVICES

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE

ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

STANDING COMMITTEE

ON SOCIAL POLICY

STANDING COMMITTEE

ON JUSTICE POLICY

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

TRANSPARENCY IN GOVERNMENT

BILLS ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LA TRANSPARENCE

DES PROJETS DE LOI ÉMANANT

DU GOUVERNEMENT

OMBUDSMAN AMENDMENT ACT

(CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETIES), 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR L’OMBUDSMAN

(SOCIÉTÉS D’AIDE À L’ENFANCE)

TAMIL HERITAGE MONTH ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LE MOIS

DU PATRIMOINE TAMOUL

OMBUDSMAN AMENDMENT ACT

(SCHOOL BOARDS), 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR L’OMBUDSMAN

(CONSEILS SCOLAIRES)

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AND RESPONSES

PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE DAY

TOURISM

TOURISM

PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE DAY

PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE DAY

TOURISM

PETITIONS

AIR QUALITY

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

ANTI-BULLYING INITIATIVES

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS TREATMENT

ONTARIO NORTHLAND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION

KIDNEY DISEASE

PROTECTION FOR

PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

HEALTH CARE FUNDING

CANADIAN BLOOD SERVICES

WIND TURBINES

DIAGNOSTIC SERVICES

SCHOOL FACILITIES

HEALTH CARE FUNDING

ANTI-BULLYING INITIATIVES

ORDERS OF THE DAY

RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES

AMENDMENT ACT (RENT

INCREASE GUIDELINE), 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR LA LOCATION

À USAGE D’HABITATION

(TAUX LÉGAL D’AUGMENTATION

DES LOYERS)

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ONTARIO ELECTRICITY SYSTEM

OPERATOR ACT, 2012 /

LOI DE 2012 SUR LA SOCIÉTÉ

D’EXPLOITATION DU RÉSEAU

D’ÉLECTRICITÉ DE L’ONTARIO

Resuming the debate adjourned on June 7, 2012, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 75,

An Act to amend the Electricity Act, 1998 to amalgamate the Independent Electricity System Operator and the Ontario Power Authority, to amend the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998 and to make complementary amendments to other Acts / Projet de loi 75, Loi modifiant la Loi de 1998 sur l’électricité pour fusionner la Société indépendante d’exploitation du réseau d’électricité et l’Office de l’électricité de l’Ontario, modifiant la Loi de 1998 sur la Commission de l’énergie de l’Ontario et apportant des modifications complémentaires à d’autres lois.

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

Mr. John O’Toole: I would like to pick up where I left off on June 7, I believe. To the viewer, I was giving a complete breakdown, from the Macdonald commission to where we are today.

I have the privilege in my riding of having three academic people who are experts in the area, plus a couple of former deputy ministers who have helped me understand this file. As I said before, let’s not be fooled. Tell us where we are today, and this will set it for the future. The real facts are that Premier McGuinty has pretty well ruined the entire electricity system in Ontario.

When I say that, the proof is in the price. At the end of the day, right now, the energy board and others have commented on the price of energy. The price of energy is up 46% in Ontario. It’s completely unacceptable. How do I know this? In fact, one of the things they introduced was a 10% rebate on seniors’ hydro bills. Really, what that is is an admission that they’d gone too far, too fast, on price. The consumers in all our ridings—and if they’re not saying so, they’re not listening to their consumers—are struggling when they open their hydro bill.

What’s really important, to bring it up to date: Tim Hudak and our critic Vic Fedeli—we’ve had some pretty important consultations to develop a draft paper. The draft paper the viewer should look up is Paths to Prosperity. It’s a fundamental difference of opinion between them and us, but it has, I think, five or six extremely important points for discussion. That’s what this discussion paper is about. In the few minutes that I have left, I’m just going to run through a couple of them.

One is to monetize Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One. That’s probably bringing public sector pensions into a very stable investment environment. I would suspect that less than 50% of that would be in public ownership, to the extent that it would be owned by public sector pensions.

Proposal number two is to abolish the 33% transfer tax to change cost efficiency of consolidations of the LDCs, the local distribution companies. I believe that process is sort of under way right now, in fact. I was talking to the Minister of Energy yesterday. He didn’t say the goal was to have fewer of them, but that’s clearly what the plan is.

Here’s another one: Establish a new power rate for manufacturing and resource-based industries, like mining and pulp and paper, and those industries that are struggling. It’s amazing. This morning, I believe the Minister of Energy as well as the Minister of Economic Development, Mr. Bentley and Mr. Duguid, are going to make an announcement very similar to this. They’re going to come up with an industrial hydro rate. I have it on good authority that’s going to happen this morning.

But this is what they do: They copy all of Tim Hudak’s ideas. We want the right amount of power in the right place at the right time at the right price. All I can say is this: The power rate in the McGuinty government is a social policy. A power rate under a Tim Hudak government would be an economic policy. That’s the meddling that has caused such grief in the system today—not to mention the unfortunate dilemma we find ourselves in with the whole global adjustment. People should look up the global adjustment and realize that industry in Ontario now is paying an exorbitant rate. What is it?

It’s the shortfall between the cost of energy and the price they’re paying for the FIT energy. This is a file that has been so mixed up and screwed up—pardon my language; I hope that’s in order—messed up, I can say, that they should actually withdraw what they’ve done and have a look at this proposal, this white paper.

The idea of Bill 75 is to merge the OPA and the IESO. We said in our election document that we’d get rid of the OPA—a complete waste of bureaucrats—toast. It’s saving money and saving the taxpayers and saving the electricity system of Ontario.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Comments and questions?

Mr. Jeff Leal: Thanks very much, Madam Speaker. I listened to my friend from Durham very carefully. Having had the opportunity to be the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy, we all are aware—I do have Bill 75 here. Take a look at Bill 75. We’re aware that on any given day in the province of Ontario we need 14,700 megawatts of baseload capacity—principally Darlington, Pickering and Bruce, the run-of-the-river, of course, at Beck and lower Temagami, those other opportunities.

I have always consulted widely on electricity, because of the great work that is done by the Peterborough Utilities services, one of the largest municipally owned public utilities in the province of Ontario. I would consult with the former CEO, Bob Lake; Larry Doran, who is a former vice-president of the old Ontario Hydro; and of course John Stephenson, who is the current CEO of Peterborough Utilities services. Plus we have GE Hitachi in Peterborough, and GE’s long tradition in the nuclear industry, and indeed the run-of-the-river development. They provide great insight. They’ve all provided insight on Bill 75 as a way to move forward.

The OPA, which has traditionally looked after the demand management file, is looking forward to the future and looking at the IESO, which is frankly like the general sitting in front of a grid in Maple, Ontario, looking at all the generators that are going on in terms of producing electricity, and matching demand and supply on any given day. There’s an opportunity to have a great discussion on this file.

I just want to note on Darlington, it’s interesting when you look at the debt profile of Darlington, which I have. The debt that was issued in 1979, 1980 and 1981 by the old Ontario Hydro were the long-term Ontario Hydro bonds. The rate of interest on those, you may want to know, is 19%, 20%, 21%, for 50 years, held by all the major banks—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. Further comments and questions? The member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Yes, a lovely place, Speaker. It’s my pleasure to comment on my colleague from Durham, Mr. O’Toole, on his address on Bill 75. This gentleman understands the electricity sector as well as anybody in this House. He was energy critic for a long time, and he also is home to the Darlington nuclear facility here in the Clarington district, so he understands this sector. What he talks about is exactly right. The failure of this government is what he talks a lot about, in fact not just on this bill, but on a lot of other bills.

When you look at Bill 75—and I’m going to have a chance to speak to this a little later myself, Madam Speaker—you really have to ask yourself, boy, are they on their game, these folks? You know, the game of deflection: When most people are asking themselves, “Why do we have the OPA?” asking themselves, “Why do we have this $400-million organization that started out as a virtual agency?

Why does it even exist here in the province of Ontario?”—the government knows they’re under a lot of heat for the mess that they’ve perpetrated on the people of Ontario with their screwball electricity policies that have driven up the price of hydro and driven industries out of this province, shut down jobs in this province, yet they persist, because they are so far down that road that they don’t know how to escape it themselves. They know it’s wrong—they know it’s wrong—but they can’t reverse course, because you know a Liberal cannot admit that they’re wrong.

All you’ve got to do, Madam Speaker, is look at Ornge. All you’ve got to do is look at Ornge and say, “Can a Liberal admit when they have messed up?” The answer is unequivocally no, and that’s what we’ve got here with Bill 75.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Comments and questions?

Mr. Mario Sergio: It’s very early in the morning, but I was listening to the member from Durham very carefully, and the last speaker as well. I have to say that what is being proposed—it is time. But what’s most important is, we have to realize that the time has come to have a good look at how to do it properly. Other members at different times, of different governments, decided overnight without any consultation, and they went ahead and did it. They would come back into this House week after week, trying to sell bits and pieces, and at the end, they spent five years. They ruined the situation and nothing happened.

At least we are saying, “We’re going to do it and we’re going to do it right. We’re going to take our time and we’re going to do it right. We’re going to do consultation, we’re going to see what is the best thing for the people of Ontario, and that’s what is going to happen.”

I think the members on the opposite side agree that something should be done. I was here at a time when—I remember my friend Mike Harris and the then minister. They were trying to split it. They were trying to cut it. They were trying to sell it. “What do you want to sell? Which part? What piece?” At the end, they created a real mess and nothing happened.

Because of that particular time, Speaker—I remember you were here—we had that wonderful day called the blackout. We all remember and we don’t want to go into that again. We said, “We are going to clean up the air as well,” so we started closing the coal-burning generation stations.

We are going to do it, but there is a way of doing it. We understand what is right. We believe in consultation and this is what’s going to happen. That’s how we’re going to do it, and we’re going to do it.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further comments or questions?

Mr. Todd Smith: It’s great to speak to Bill 75 today, another meaningless bill coming from the Liberal government. This is a bill that I believe is intended to save some money, and $25 million is what is saved as a result of this bill when this government has increased the cost of electricity for our consumers by much, much more than that.

It’s interesting to note that the member across the way talked about the fact that they’re phasing out coal-fired power plants. We haven’t had a single coal-fired power plant phased out by this government in nine years, and that’s nine years of promising to do just that. Yesterday, here in Toronto, we had another smog day. We’ve had four smog days already this year in the province of Ontario, and you claim that you’re cleaning up the air. Well, you’re not doing a very good job, and you’re certainly not doing a very good job at managing the fiscal responsibilities of the Ontario government. It’s been a complete disaster.

As I pointed out a couple of times yesterday in talking to another bill, Bill 11, in May we lost 31,000 full-time jobs in the province of Ontario. There are a number of reasons for that, but one of the big reasons for that is the cost of electricity, which has soared under this government. The Minister of Energy, Chris Bentley, is here, and he’s watched hydro rates soar because of an unaffordable FIT program that’s producing huge subsidies. It’s paying out huge subsidies to producers. At the same time, while it’s paying out huge subsidies to green energy projects, it’s cancelling million-dollar—perhaps even billion-dollar—power plants in Oakville and Mississauga.

This is the strategy that this government has? This is a failed strategy. The whole thing is a debacle, it’s an embarrassment, it’s an energy boondoggle, and it’s time that this government woke up and started to make some significant changes to the pattern they have taken. It’s driving manufacturers out of the province of Ontario. They’re going to the United States, many different states, where the power is cheaper. It used to be the cheapest place in North America to produce right here in Ontario—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. The member for Durham has two minutes to respond.

Mr. John O’Toole: I very much appreciate the member from Peterborough, also a good friend. But when he mentioned the Beck tunnel, it just typifies the scandalous waste in this government’s project. Look at the numbers on the Beck project. The member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke is right on many things. He was a very successful energy critic, as our party is. Our party believes it’s an economic policy, as opposed to a social policy. The member from York West was agreeing, we need change—but not the way you’re changing it.

But also, the member from Prince Edward–Hastings put it all together: Really, this is about jobs and the economy, and they’ve got it wrong. We’re shedding jobs. One of the reasons is this failed energy policy.

It’s not just me saying it. Just this past week—I’m going to read this, and people will—this is a quiz. Here’s the quote; I want to start by introducing it. When you hear the name George Smitherman, remember eHealth, remember the Green Energy Act, and remember the Ornge helicopter scandal. He was in charge of all of them, and all of them are failed policies. So here’s one here; this is a quote: “When the” Green Energy Act “was introduced the” McGuinty “government said that fostering a ‘culture of conservation’ was just as important as increasing the amount of renewable energy.

But three years after its passage, many of the bill’s conservation promises remain unfulfilled,” and some completely abandoned. That’s Gord Miller, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, in his report from last week. They haven’t saved one electron; they’ve probably squandered it all.

The real bottom line here is, be prepared for a government that has lost its focus. In fairness, it’s in its third term. It really shouldn’t be in its third term, but that’s a whole other discussion. I would say this: They have tried, and they have failed.

The real issue here is, without a plan for the future, including renewable energy—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. Further debate?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: I think the member from Durham has it right: We do have a failed energy policy in place, and it began a long time ago. That’s something that the Conservatives don’t want to speak about, nor my good friend from Durham, because the failed energy policy started a long time ago. The thing is that once the Conservatives are in opposition, they say, “Stop talking about the past. Focus on the present.” I understand that; I do.

We used to have what was called Ontario Hydro. Everybody understood it. It was called Ontario Hydro. There was no confusion about its role. It provided hydro at affordable rates both to serve the citizens of Ontario and to serve our manufacturing industry, on which we depend. It was simple.

When mon ami Mike Harris got elected—God bless—he changed everything around. He turned everything upside down. He wanted to create a market system out of hydro. He felt Ontario hydro was simply too public and too inefficient and, lo and behold, he creates a privatized market. Out of that came all these different names of different functions in Ontario Hydro. He created Hydro One, he created the electricity system operator, he created some other board, whose name escapes me. Then the Liberals came along and say, “No, we’ve got to try to fix that,” and they created the Ontario Power Authority.

So many different bodies doing different things. The public is so utterly confused about who does what, when and how. Imagine that I can’t even remember the fourth body, entity, that was created by the previous regime. There’s just so many. How do you keep track?

Lo and behold, my Conservative friends all of a sudden say, “We have too many of these bodies.” That’s why I keep saying, “God bless.” They create the mess, and then they say, “We need to solve the mess,” and it goes back and forth. It’s just like bankers: They create the mess and then they say, “You need us to help solve the mess,” and on and on it goes. Like bankers, they create the mess, and then they say, “But you need us to solve the mess,” and on and on.

Mr. John Yakabuski: What about Amazon hydro? Tell us about it.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Mon ami John Yakabuski from—it’s such a long, long riding—Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke. My good friend.

Interjection.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: You will have an opportunity for two minutes soon. Don’t rush. Take your time.

It used to be so simple. Yes, Darlington was a huge mistake, first of all because some of us believe that nuclear isn’t entirely safe—and, by the way, Minister, it ain’t cheap. If you’ll recall, Darlington was started by the Tories, completed by the Liberals, and then we land on to it in 1990. It was created by both of you—14 billion bucks. Think about that number. My little mind just can’t fathom those big numbers; it just doesn’t, because it’s just a little mind, right? But 14 billion bucks—we’re still paying for it; since 1989 to this day, we’re still paying for Darlington. Something is wrong with that.

I know it’s a long time ago and whatever the Tories did is irrelevant now. I understand that. But could they not have just warned us a little bit and said, “By the way, this is going to cost you, citizens and taxpayers”—because Tories love to talk about taxpayers. Taxpayers are on the hook and have been on the hook forever, and it’s not safe and it’s really costly.

So we had Hydro One, simple to understand, and then Mike Harris privatizes the system.

Mr. John Yakabuski: So should we shut it down, Rosie? Tomorrow? Next week?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Member from Renfrew, please. You’ll have two minutes in a second, or at least in 15 minutes or so.

You privatized the system because you said, “No, we have to let the private market get in because they know how to do it better.” Oh, yes, the private sector knows how to do it better. I can tell you what they know how to do better. They know how to take money from the taxpayers and the citizens of Ontario. They know how to take money and put it in their pockets. They love that. Tories love the private sector when they take the citizens’ money out of their pockets.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): I’d remind the member to speak to the bill.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: It’s absolutely connected to the bill, Madam Speaker. Everything I’ve said is connected to the bill. Why else would I be saying these things? I do, from time to time, reach deep into the recesses of history as a way of making these links, because without the connection to history you wouldn’t understand why we are here, Madam Speaker, through you to the others. When people have a sense of that history, they remember.

They say, “Yes, my God, it did start then, didn’t it?” It started in 1995 when they, the fine Tories of the time, decided a privatized system works, that to put electricity on the spot market was the way to go, connected to markets and the vagaries of markets—the vagaries of markets that do well for the private sector but not for the citizens of Ontario.

Prices shot through the roof. Why? Because every little private sector that had a piece of it wanted a piece of it for their own gain. No one talks about that in the Conservative ranks, and no one talks about that from the Liberal ranks either. Money is being sifted away, taken out to be given to those who will profit from public power, something our former leader, Howard Hampton, used to talk about. Ontario Hydro was about public power, public in the sense that it belonged to the people of Ontario, public in the sense that we wanted hydro to be produced at affordable rates for the people of Ontario.

When you don’t have somebody making money out of it, that’s when you make it more affordable.

When we call for the elimination of many of these boards—Ontario Power Authority and the Independent Electricity System Operator—we think and we thought that that was good, and that’s why we pushed for it years ago. Howard Hampton, our leader, did that for many, many years, when he pointed out that all these multiple entities are simply sucking up so much energy, and money to boot. Then the Tories followed suit and they thought it was a good idea to merge some of these bodies. Merging these two entities New Democrats believe is a good thing.

There are some problems that I think are negatives, and they’re connected to the merger of these two bills because something else is happening. The merger allows for clarity, for better efficiencies and for savings, because you don’t have two different entities making loads of money doing different things. There are savings to be had, and we agree with that. New Democrats believe there are savings to be had, and we agree with that. But the government is doing something else in the bill that we think has negatives that need to be debated and need to be sent to committee for discussion and clarity.

The way they’ve gone about doing the bill, it removes the independent planning and review required by the present supply planning regime. This is something the NDP does not support. I would like the Liberals to speak to this idea of what has happened to that independent planning and review.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: But you wanted it to be simpler.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Sorry?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: You wanted it to be simpler.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: You’re quite right. But we don’t want the independent planning and review to disappear. You will agree with that, Minister, I think.

Those are the matters that we want to talk about, the merger to form the Ontario Electricity System Operator—look how difficult it is just to pronounce these names. You can’t even get it out of your lips, so difficult they are. We are creating now the Ontario Electricity System Operator. You, good citizens: You figure it out. It’s a good idea, but we feel strongly that by eliminating what’s called the integrated power system plan—yet another acronym, IPSP; look at all these acronyms. The government is eliminating the current integrated power system plan, which gives the public an opportunity to be able to participate in the energy planning process.

The involvement of citizens, the involvement of their environmental groups, is greatly reduced by its elimination. “Why is the government doing that?” is the question that New Democrats have and that citizens who are following this particular merger have raised with us, and I’m sure they’ve raised it with you as well. The government hasn’t spoken to this yet that I am aware of.

Bill 75 removes the Ontario Power Authority’s power and duty to develop an integrated power system plan for approval by the Ontario Energy Board, and the Ontario Energy Board’s power and duty to review that plan for economic prudence, cost effectiveness and regulatory compliance. The integrated power system plan is now replaced by the ministerial energy plans—which sounds good, because if the minister is doing them, one would say, “It must be okay.” The problem is, it’s a question of who is in power. You might have good people in that position who might want to do the right thing, but you never know who’s going to be there from time to time.

“So when the minister is now in control and is the one who has control of the energy plan, what happens?” is the question we ask. The minister must consult with the Ontario Energy Board on the impact of the energy plan on consumers, electricity bills and on methods of managing that impact. The minister must also refer the plan to the Ontario Energy Board for a review of the estimated capital costs in the plan, in accordance with the referral. This is what we say is a far cry from the independent review—my God, these names—of the IPSP by the Ontario Energy Board that is presently required.

It deprives the stakeholders of the ability to test in a proceeding before the Ontario Energy Board the government’s energy and procurement plans and the consequent effects of those plans on rates.

By removing the Ontario Energy Board explicitly in the energy planning process, Bill 75 blurs the distinction between the functions of the OESO and the Ontario Energy Board. The OESO is the new Ontario Electricity System Operator. You people have to just really pay close attention to these functions because I forget them, and I have to keep referring to all these different bodies.

The NDP is worried about the merger of these functions under one roof. For example, the Ontario Power Authority currently has the responsibility to make and implement procurement processes for the integrated power system plan, and the Independent Electricity System Operator’s regulation of market participants includes potential parties to the Ontario Power Authority procurement. Therein lies the potential for conflict of interest. How does the government deal with the fact that these two functions are under the same roof, managed by one operator?

We think it’s possible to separate the two, but it’s probably not that easy, and we want the government to comment on how they’re going to be able to do that. The minister understands this and does say that he or she will take back the responsibility for procurement decisions, and then adds that “The board of directors of the OESO is required to ensure that there is an effective separation of functions and activities of the OESO relating to its market operations and its procurement and contract management activities.

The OESO is prohibited from conducting itself in a manner that could unduly advantage or disadvantage any market participant or any party to a procurement contract or interfere with, reduce or impede a market participant’s non-discriminatory access to transmission systems or distribution systems. The board of directors is also required to ensure that confidentiality is maintained.” However, this new entity will still have the power and responsibility to implement the minister’s procurement decisions.

It is not immediately clear how the board of directors of the OESO will keep these conflicting functions separate without in effect keeping the two former organizations separate under one roof.

These are some of the conflicts that we believe need to be sorted out by the government and need to be sorted out in committee. What we need are plenty of public hearings to hear what the environmentalists, in particular, have to say about the loss of the independent review. Without that, we feel we could be committing an error as we do something good. As we merge these two bodies we could, by either intentional or unintentional purposes, create problems that we need to deal with.

I’m not quite sure whether the minister knows that or he feels that somehow these two functions can be dealt with appropriately under this new board, but we don’t see that yet. So if the minister has a better sense of how we can separate these two functions so that we do not create a conflict of interest, I would love to hear that.

Madam Speaker, these are the comments that I have. I know that our critic will have a lot more to say when he does his lead, but we wanted to be able to put this on the record for the moment. We think that by having the public hearings, some of this will be sorted out and the merger, in the end, will be a public good for all.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Comments and questions?

Mr. Mario Sergio: It was a pleasure to listen, as it always is, to my colleague the member from Trinity–Spadina. What we are dealing with today, Madam Speaker, is second reading of Bill 75,

An Act to amend the Electricity Act, 1998 to amalgamate the Independent Electricity System Operator and the Ontario Power Authority, to amend the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998 and to make complementary amendments to other Acts. I think this is exactly what is being discussed today, and nothing else. Listening to the member from Trinity–Spadina, this is exactly what we are doing today. He’s asking for expansive consultation, public consultation, to send it to a committee, and I think if we can move the bill from the House to do that, then we are on our way to providing the people of Ontario with a very transparent method of dealing with a very important issue.

This has been on the books for quite some time. It didn’t begin with us today; this began years ago. As my friend says, let’s delve into the past a little bit.

I have to say that this heading here is quite appropriate: “Cuts to Our Past Harm Our Future.” Wow. If this had been a [inaudible] maybe 20 years ago, we would have said “Nuts.” But looking at the past, today we are seeing how true it was, and all the cuts that were effected years and years ago we are paying for today.

We are paying, still, the so-called stranded debt. How did we accumulate the stranded debt? We are paying it today, and it is because of the cuts of yesterday, but we don’t want to leave them anymore for tomorrow. So, Speaker—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you.

The member for Parry Sound–Muskoka.

Mr. Norm Miller: I’m pleased to have a chance to comment on Bill 75, the Ontario Electricity System Operator Act, 2012. As you’ve heard, this bill is about joining a couple of agencies, the Independent Electricity System Operator, the IESO, and the Ontario Power Authority.

Of course, we know that the Ontario Power Authority was a new agency created by the McGuinty government that was supposed to be a transitional agency, but as we now see, it has grown, so that it now has gone through some $375 million in the last number of years. It has 87 people making over $100,000 a year.

So our party’s position is that we shouldn’t be joining this with another agency; we should be just doing away with the Ontario Power Authority. We made that very clear in the past election. That’s our policy: We should just do away with it and save all the money.

The issue that certainly you hear about if you’re back in your riding is energy prices, and the huge driver of that is this government’s feed-in tariff program, the green energy program, where they just come up with these crazy subsidies where they’re paying so much for electricity that’s really not playing any significant role in the electricity needs across the province, and you sure hear about it when you go around to your riding and talk to people who just don’t understand why their electricity bills have gone up so dramatically under the McGuinty government.

Our solution to this debate today, though, is just to do away with the Ontario Power Authority. Don’t join it with another agency.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Comments and questions?

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: It’s always fun to listen to my friend from Trinity–Spadina. I think he did a very good job of delineating a fundamental ideological difference that exists in this House, and that is between the public ownership of necessities for the province and the people of Ontario and the privatization of those same necessities.

You know, there’s a real myth about privatization—that it’s more efficient. It’s not, and we’ve proven it over and over again in this House. The recent example that comes to mind is Ornge, of course, but there have been many over the years. Private is not cheaper, and it is not more efficient. In fact, when you think about it—I used to be in business—the very essence of business is to make a profit. Now, if you’re going to charge the same, the profit has to come from somewhere, so you either dampen wages or the product you produce or the profit doesn’t come. So an efficient public service is absolutely what we need.

For my friends on the right here, quite ideologically and also literally, all you have to do is look at a time in history when everything was private to see how that looks. And that time, we know very well, was the time of Charles Dickens. If you want to go that route, with child labour and everything else—I mean, that’s libertarianism, truly. That’s what it looks like. We’ve done that experiment and it failed—I think we can all agree on that—so obviously we need to move forward from that.

My friend delineated what are some of the problems in this way of moving forward, but the bottom line is, necessities should be public. That’s our DNA in the NDP. From medicare to power, they should be public. Now, just because they’re public doesn’t mean they’re efficient either, so obviously oversight has to happen.

We have also been very critical of bodies like the LHINs, for example. We don’t need new levels of bureaucracy; we don’t need overpaid—and by overpaid public servants, I’m not talking about the people who are making $60,000 a year; I’m talking about the people who are making $6 million a year. Those should not exist.

That’s where we stand, and I thank the member from Trinity–Spadina for delineating that.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further comments and questions?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: It’s a pleasure to rise to speak to the comments by the member for Trinity–Spadina. I think the most important thing that we can do in this discussion around electricity is actually move away from ideology altogether. What we want is a system that’s well run and what we want is a system that’s clean and efficient.

I can remember, when I was campaigning for the election in the fall of 2003, that the thing that was on people’s minds most of all was power. The energy supply was not working; there were brownouts, blackouts; it was a very bad time for power in the province. I heard over and over again that we need more clean energy generation in Ontario. That was probably the thing I heard most frequently.

The first part of what I want to say is that we have moved on that. We have created a new culture of green energy and conservation in Ontario that was not here previously. I think that we’ve responded to what Ontarians were calling for.

The second piece that I want to talk about is this change that we’re proposing here. The member for Trinity–Spadina talked about the complexity. He also talked about the desire—or certainly the third party has talked about the desire—to have simplicity. You can’t get rid of functions; functions have to land somewhere. So we have to be clear that the functions that are necessary go on.

In this scheme, the government will prepare the plan that the member for Trinity–Spadina was talking about, in broad consultation with experts with the new entity if we choose, but the plan will be prepared by the government. Then, the new entity, the OESO, as it’s called in the bill, will be engaged in—

Mr. John Yakabuski: IESO.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: No, the new entity in the bill is the OESO. That new entity will be involved in the plan preparation—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you.

The member for Trinity–Spadina has two minutes to respond.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: To the Minister of Housing: The simplicity I was looking for was public power. It’s not so much the confusion of language and entities that the Tories created, but rather the simplicity of having to produce power at rates that we can afford, where there is no private sector siphoning of money. That’s the simplicity I was talking about. All the other stuff—I was just commenting on the creation of so many acronyms that are just so confusing for everybody. That’s a different matter.

Moving away from ideology, it would be lovely to move away from a private market to a public power system, but we’re not likely to have it. The Minister of Housing: What you created was, in addition to what they started, the Ontario Power Authority. You compounded the confusion by adding yet another entity into the mix. Yes, you’ve moved on by creating up to 2% of green energy, which New Democrats support, even though you’ve done it at feed-in tariffs that were so incredibly high that you got criticized, in some cases for good reason.

In relation to this bill, what you have done in Bill 75 is to eliminate the integrated power system plan, which gave the opportunity for public and stakeholder participation in energy planning. That is something you need to look at.

Further, although the short- and long-term forecasting functions of the IESO and the OPA should integrate well, it will be more difficult to integrate the Ontario Power Authority’s planning and procurement functions with the Independent Electricity System Operator’s responsibility to administer and enforce the market rules. We think you need to look at that in committee. That’s why we want committees: because we want to be able to address the negatives, the fallout, of Bill 75.

On the whole, we support integration, because integration will not only make it easier for people to understand, but we’re going to save money, and that’s good for citizens.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further debate?

Mrs. Liz Sandals: I’m very pleased to be able to rise and speak this morning on Bill 75, the Ontario Electricity System Operator Act, which, if passed, as you’ve heard already this morning, would amalgamate two of Ontario’s electricity agencies—and as my colleague across the way has explained, two of the many.

First of all, it would amalgamate the Independent Electricity System Operator, which is known as the IESO—as the name implies, that’s the system operator—and the Ontario Power Authority, or OPA, which is the system planner.

What does that mean? The IESO is the agency that is responsible for making the minute-to-minute, hour-by-hour decisions about how much generation we need at any one time, because the tricky thing about electricity is, you can’t store it. As it’s produced, you need to use it. So operating the system is very, very tricky because we, as consumers, change our usage hourly, daily, weekly, monthly.

If you pick a day in the middle of the winter, when the days are short and we turn the lights on early and leave them on through the morning because it’s dark when we get up for breakfast, and we have all sorts of appliances and things that involve generating heat, we’re burning electricity like mad. When we’re in the spring and it’s just nice, moderate weather, and when we’re in the fall, we don’t use as much electricity. When you get hot, steamy days like we’ve had the last few days, the electricity use goes way up again as everybody starts to turn on their air conditioners.

Operating the system is non-trivial. The system operator has to make decisions about the base supply, the nuclear generators and then bringing other generators in and out of the mix literally on a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour basis. That’s the function of the system operator.

The Ontario Power Authority is taking a more long-term view of things, which is, in order to satisfy that minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour demand, what generation do we need immediately? How much of it is base operation that’s hydroelectric and nuclear that’s there all the time? How much is electricity supply that we can turn on and off at a minute’s notice as we need it? They have to think forward into the future to plan for the mix of generators that would be available.

It is true that the function of the OPA has increased, but that’s because we have a much more diverse mix of energy generators now than we used to have. We now have all those green energy supplies. We have the wind, we have the solar, we have small hydroelectric. In Guelph, we actually have a closed landfill where we’re capturing the gases coming from the closed landfill and using that to generate electricity. OPA, the planner, has a contract with the city to produce electricity from the gas from the old landfill. So, what OPA is doing has become much more complicated.

Nevertheless, the functions of the independent system operator and the OPA, the power authority, overlap somewhat, and we think we could make the whole system more efficient, save $25 million, Madam Speaker, by amalgamating those two functions and getting rid of the duplication, because there is definitely some duplication in carrying out those functions. There are some advantages in having those experts seated together as they do the planning and look at how we make sure that we have the right supply.

Some of the Conservatives across the way—the member for Parry Sound–Muskoka and the member for Durham talked about the fact that if the Conservatives had their druthers, part of their plan is to get rid of the OPA. Think back to what I just said about the function of the OPA. It’s the OPA that contracts for green energy: for wind, for solar, for small hydroelectric projects, for biogas, for all these new forms of energy that we have brought into the system. Getting rid of the OPA is code for getting rid of green energy, and we absolutely, totally disagree with that position.

It’s interesting, when the leader of the Conservatives came to Guelph a few weeks ago he had a breakfast meeting, and not too many people showed up. In fact, maybe they weren’t even serving breakfast; I don’t know. But the media reaction was interesting because one of the things he focused on was the Conservatives’ energy plan, and my local media’s reaction was, “What was he thinking? Why would you come to Guelph and talk about getting rid of green energy? Do you know how many jobs that creates in Guelph?” So he was totally dismissed by the local media.

At any rate, let’s get back to the legislation that we’re having a look at this morning, Madam Speaker. The proposed amalgamation is actually required because each of these bodies, the IESO and the OPA, was created with legislation. In order to do this amalgamation, we actually require this legislation to move forward. While this legislation is going through the process of second reading, committee hearings and third reading, those two entities will continue to operate as they do now, because that is the current state of the legislation in Ontario.

However, if the legislation is passed, some of the features of the legislation include outlining the governance structure of the proposed new independent—sorry; see, we all have trouble with the alphabet soup—the Ontario Electricity System Operator. It sets out the governance structure for that. The Ministry of Energy will continue to appoint the board of directors. The Minister of Energy will appoint the first executive officer or CEO, and then for subsequent rounds it will operate like a normal board of directors of other corporations, and the board of directors will select the new CEO.

There is a need, as my colleague from Trinity–Spadina pointed out, to maintain some independence in the functions, and in particular there will be a requirement to maintain independent market operations and to separate market operations from contract management with the various generators with whom we have contracts, big and small.

In terms of the energy planning process, there still will be a requirement for issuing energy plans, and those would be approved by cabinet. The Ontario Energy Board, which is another member of the alphabet soup, will still continue to do its role. The Ontario Energy Board is responsible for reviewing rate proposals from all the various entities, and it also will be looking at the plan’s capital costs. As the plans are tabled, the OEB will be responsible for reviewing the estimated capital costs that are involved in that.

We understand that the whole issue of electricity pricing is a very delicate matter. One doesn’t want to have electricity priced so low that—we all think it’s good to have things really, really low. The reality is, if the price is too low, people do not conserve energy. But we also know that if the price is too high, that can create economic difficulties for both families and businesses. This business of constraining the cost of electricity, we understand, is very important. We need to keep that at a reasonable cost. The amalgamation of the IESO and the OPA is one of the things we’re doing to manage costs.

But that’s not the only thing. We have been quite aggressive with two of the other members of the alphabet soup: Hydro One, which is responsible for transmission and distribution, the provincial transmission grid and, in some cases, local distribution in more rural parts of the province; and Ontario Power Generation, which owns and operates the big provincial generators—that would be the nuclear generators and the big hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls and the coal-fired generators.

We have been very aggressive with them in saying, “You must control your costs.” Traditionally, those entities have not necessarily had that as their top priority, controlling costs. So far, I’m pleased to report that they have saved half a billion dollars, and we will be asking them to save more.

We have also had a very thorough review of the feed-in tariff program. This is the one where people who are going to produce green energy locally are guaranteed—have a contract for a certain amount for a fixed number of years.

I think we need to stop and take a look at what happens when you have a new technology, a new product in the market. When you had desktop computers originally, personal computers, they cost thousands of dollars. When big-screen TVs first came on the market, they cost an arm and a leg. When you first started to get these BlackBerrys, with which we all live, they were quite expensive.

You’re not going to steal that, are you? It didn’t go off. We’re not really supposed to have these, but we all sneak them in, as long as we have them on quiet. But I digress.

All these products, when they’re first introduced, are quite expensive. As we get more experience with the technology, we gain efficiencies. Solar and wind power, but particularly solar, are no different. When we first introduced it to Ontario, it was a new thing.

We said we need to have Ontario manufacturers manufacturing equipment for wind power and solar power. We don’t want to import it from Asia or Europe. We want to build it right here. With the start-up costs and the learning curve, there was a requirement for the market to start at a higher price, but now that we do have local manufacturers who are experienced, local installers who are experienced, as we get more experience with the technology—like any other new technology—we lower the price.

That’s exactly what we have done, Madam Speaker, with the green energy prices. In fact, some of the solar energy prices have been lowered twice now. With those greater efficiencies of Ontario manufacturers coming to the market, we’ve been able to do that because so much more of the production and the expertise is now locally available right here in Ontario and, I’m pleased to say, right in Guelph, in my own riding.

We also announced in the 2012 budget that Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One will be benchmarked against national and international peers. One of the things that has been a complaint is that those two entities, which were the big pieces of the old Ontario Hydro, have costs per unit of generation and costs per unit of transmission which seemed to be out of line somewhat with other provinces or other states, in some cases. We want to make sure they are performing at the same level as their counterparts in other jurisdictions.

We have also set up the Ontario Distribution Sector Panel, which will look at what are formally known as local distribution companies, but what you would just think of as your local hydro company. In my case, it would be Guelph Hydro, but depending on where you live, it will be someone different.

That panel will be consulting with the electricity sector and looking at how the local distribution companies can achieve long- and short-term financial savings—in some cases, that may mean consolidation; in others, it won’t—and how they can gain some operational efficiencies. That panel will be reporting back to the Minister of Energy within a year.

I think it’s important to think about where we’ve come from and where we are now. As we’ve mentioned, the Conservative government broke up the old Ontario Hydro and created this alphabet soup of agencies, and we haven’t even mentioned all of them. There are some other bits and pieces out there that are trying to manage the stranded debt that was left and which we are all still trying to manage down.

One of the really, really significant things that happened during the Conservative reign was, because they broke Ontario Hydro up and thought they could sell it all, they were not prepared to put money into fixing things so that our transmission system, our provincial trunk transmission system, became very fragile. When nuclear generators were in need of repair, they just sort of parked them, waiting for some private sector person to come along and do the repairs.

Oddly enough, what we found during the Harris era and the Eves era was that the demand for hydro, for electricity, continued to go up, but the capacity to produce electricity actually decreased, so we had a bigger and bigger gap here in Ontario between the capacity to produce and the consumption.

What happened out of that was two things. First of all, we became more and more reliant on coal. Coal became one of our biggest producers of electricity. Of course, that meant a lot of smog, a lot of air pollution. The other thing that happened was that we became more and more reliant on importing energy rather than exporting it, so that Ontario became a big net importer of electricity, and that gave us the brownouts. It complicated the blackout.

In Guelph, when we had the big blackout that summer, we were out longer than just about any other place in Ontario. So when my constituents think about Tory energy policy, what they think about is a four-day blackout in the middle of a heat wave—not a brownout, a blackout, in the middle of a heat wave. That’s what my constituents think about, and that’s maybe why my constituents have been so—

Interjection.

Mrs. Liz Sandals: Well, they certainly didn’t like the idea of diesel generators on the street corners.

That’s why my constituents have been so excited to be able to have rooftop solar generation, because they understand the fragile nature that the Conservatives left us with.

That’s why we fixed the nuclear generation. That’s why we are bringing on big hydroelectric projects. Just think of that tunnel that Big Becky is digging in Niagara Falls, that has been completed now. They’re in the process of installing the generators so we can get more power out of Niagara Falls. We have another big project that will be done in the James Bay basin. We’ve been closing down the coal and replacing it with other forms of energy, and that includes green energy.

This bill will help us save money so we can have good, clean energy in Ontario that consumers find affordable. Thank you.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Comments and questions? The member for Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

Mr. John Yakabuski: Very good, Speaker. Thank you very much.

It’s a pleasure to comment on the address by the member from Guelph. It is clear that she has not only drunk the Liberal Kool-Aid; she is intoxicated on it. It is just unbelievable how she just buys the entire package of messaging coming out of the Premier’s corner office, and the Minister of Energy across the way, and how they are able to revise history, with no concern for the accuracy of what they’re saying.

Let’s make one thing clear about the blackout of August 17, 2003. There was much investigation done on the happenings of that very, very difficult event here in Ontario’s history that cost the province close to $1 billion at the end of the day. It was traced absolutely, clearly and definitively to a switching station in Ohio that malfunctioned. It caused a cascading knockout of switch after switch after switch up the line, knocking out the entire northeastern states and most of Ontario.

Madam Speaker, this is the kind of irresponsible politicking that goes on in this government when they’ve got themselves caught in a mess because of their irresponsible energy policy. They try to go back to an incident in 2003 when categorically, when the investigation was completed, it made it crystal clear that there were no issues in the Ontario electrical system that contributed to or caused that blackout.

There were changes made since then to ensure that that could not be repeated by changing the way—there are now checks and balances and stops in place so that this cannot happen. But when members across the way try to make politics out of one of the great disasters in history, on August 17, 2003, and play politics with it, it just shows how bad this government is. It’s time to go.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further comments and questions?

Mr. Rosario Marchese: I just want to comment on a couple of things that the member from Guelph said. She spoke about the feed-in tariff. I have to say, I supported the feed-in tariff. We support small and medium-sized operators to get into the transmission system that we have in this province. We thought that was good. But the rates that you gave out were so incredibly high that you left yourself open to criticism and abuse. In Manitoba, the highest rate that was given as a feed-in tariff was five cents.

So when you realize that the Liberal government gave up to 85 or 86 cents, the disparity between these two jurisdictions ought to be alarming to you, but it didn’t occur to you that that was a problem. In my view, you should have thought of that in the beginning, and you didn’t. To a lot of operators, you gave a whole lot of money. That’s why they jumped into the market: because it was a good way to make a few dollars. While it was a good thing to do because the more of these small independent operators we have producing green energy—while that is good, we lost a whole lot of money in the process.

Yes, you’ve got to pay in the beginning, but boy, did we pay a huge price.

I’ve got to tell you: What this government is not doing, neither your government nor the previous government, is to talk about conservation. Your commitment ought to be on conserving energy, not producing more energy. Your commitment to building more nuclear power is wrong. We should be focused on conservation. That ought to be the policy of any government of the day, because producing more power means we will pay more, and conserving means we would pay less. That should be the focus.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further comments?

Mr. Jeff Leal: I did appreciate the comments from the minister of Guelph—

Mr. John Yakabuski: The minister of Guelph?

Mr. Jeff Leal: The member from Guelph.

Interjections.

Mr. Jeff Leal: Well, she does such a great job representing Guelph.

Let me shed a little light on what the history is in

chapter 2 of August 17, 2003. After the free trade agreement in 1988—prior to 1988, Canada’s electricity system functioned on an east-west grid. After the free trade agreement in 1988, it went to a north-south grid, so it was totally integrated. When a switching system went down in Ohio, because of the orientation of the north-south grid, everything went down in the province of Ontario.

That’s exactly what happened. That was reviewed by a number of experts, including the CEO of Peterborough Utility Services, Bob Lake, who was a former vice-president of Ontario Hydro. Let me tell you, Bob Lake has somewhat of an insight into how the electricity system operated in North America through the IESO. So if there were any problems in the States, it was going to directly impact in the province of Ontario. Madam Speaker, those are the facts.

Since 2003 we have gone forward to put a number of failsafe technologies into the system to make sure that, if a small switch failed in Ohio—I’ve got to tell you, it probably wasn’t a General Electric product manufactured in Peterborough, that switching system in Ohio, because it would have been much more reliable if it was a made-in-Peterborough, made-in-Ontario product.

There are briefings available that could give you the orientation about how the electricity system operates in North America. Indeed, the fellow at Maple, Ontario, who sits by the monitor, the IESO, can look at all generation aspects of electricity in North America to pinpoint. Those are the—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. The member for Durham.

Mr. John O’Toole: I was very raised to the challenge from the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke, where he was categorically explaining for the member from Guelph.

The member from Peterborough adds another dimension. There has never been an east-west grid in Canada—ever.

Interjection.

Mr. John O’Toole: No, there isn’t. In fact, the east grid was always integrated because Quebec was selling all their power to New York long before free trade. It was formally integrated, but there has always been the north-east grid. Ontario’s problem in the overall system is that it has very limited—about 3,000 megawatts—interconnect capacity. Why? It’s hydroelectricity in Quebec, and it’s hydroelectricity in Manitoba. Both are five times cheaper than ours. They don’t want to—we should be buying their power.

What you say from Peterborough is absolutely wrong. It’s another statement that they don’t understand the system.

Interjection.

Mr. John O’Toole: Look, Jeff, I will send you a report. You send me a report—

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Comments through the Chair.

Mr. John O’Toole: The member from Guelph is putting information on the table, as is the member from Peterborough, that is not correct. Ontario was always the leader in electricity generation.

If you put some context around it, after the NDP, we started the refurbishment of the Pickering plant. That Pickering nuclear plant was down. That was another part down. You guys had promised to eliminate the coal plant, which you never did. You still haven’t closed a coal plant; Elizabeth Witmer did. The whole point is, every time you talk about this file, the file that is completely messed up, you try to blame it on someone else. What the conservation commissioner said in his report—remember the conservation culture? You have done nothing on conservation.

Please explain your lack of a plan and the lack of execution of a plan, and explain why the taxpayers of Ontario are paying more and getting less from the McGuinty government.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member from Guelph has two minutes to respond.

Mrs. Liz Sandals: Thank you to the members from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke, Trinity–Spadina, Peterborough and Durham.

I’d like to talk a little bit about this blackout. In fact, I didn’t say that the blackout was caused in Ontario. I totally accept that it was caused by a switching device in Ohio which took down the whole of northeast America. What I talked about was the fact that it took four days to get Guelph back up—

Mr. John Yakabuski: We had nuclear plants. They don’t start instantly, Liz. You’ve got to cool them down, and you’ve got to start them back up.

Mrs. Liz Sandals: I know that. I’m a physicist’s daughter. For heaven’s sake, don’t try to teach me that.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Order.

The member for Guelph.

Mrs. Liz Sandals: Not everywhere in Ontario took four days to come back up. That’s the problem: Coming back up effectively, efficiently and quickly had to do with the fact that Ontario did not have enough generating capacity to meet its own supply, and we had to wait for others to get back online. It had to do with the transmission grid, a trunk transmission grid, which was fragile. It was the recovery that was caused by your neglect.

Secondly, with respect to the member from Durham’s comments, 90% of coal use has been—

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Order.

Mrs. Liz Sandals: —will be eliminated by 2014. That will be all coal shut down.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The time for this session has ended. This House stands recessed until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1015 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Hon. Michael Chan: I would like to introduce members of A Cappella Showcase. This ladies’ chorus will be representing Ontario and Canada at the World Choir Games this July in Cincinnati, Ohio. Please join me in welcoming them to Queen’s Park.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): If they break out in song, I’m not going to consider that heckling.

The member from Bramalea–Gore–Malton.

Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I invite the entire assembly to join me in welcoming members of the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association. I have Nick Gurevich, Patricia Howell, Robert Stephens, Niki Kerimova, Jaisa Sulit, Dino Le Donne, Andrew Murray, John Karapita, Linda Langston and Brian Patterson. All of them are not here yet, but they’ll be here soon.

M me France Gélinas: It is my pleasure to introduce people from Sudbury who came all the way down to listen to introduction of bills this afternoon. Their names are Neil and Tabatha Haskett. They brought their three children, Clarisse, Natalia and Aiden. I also want to mention the grandmother, who is a good friend of mine, Desneiges Labonté. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

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

In the east members’ gallery we have, from St. Joseph’s College School, interning at Queen’s Park, Theodora Kyriakakos. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

The Minister of Labour.

Hon. Linda Jeffrey: Thank you, Speaker. I would just like to introduce a former intern who was with me when I was in natural resources and now has joined me in the Ministry of Labour: Caleb Groen, my intern for the summer.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ONTARIO ECONOMY

Mrs. Christine Elliott: My question is to the Premier. Premier, for the 65th straight month, Ontario’s unemployment rate has been higher than the national average. In May alone, while Ontario lost 31,000 full-time jobs, the rest of the country added 32,000 full-time jobs. Only Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have yet to recover the private sector jobs lost during the last recession. Premier, can you explain why Ontario continues to lag behind the rest of the country?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Finance.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: I refer the official opposition to a report that came out this morning from Royal Bank. Let me read what Royal Bank has to say: “Ontario’s economic growth rate will close much of the gap with the national average this year. We expect real GDP growth in Ontario to accelerate to 2.5%....”

I’ve got some more quotes—but to the opposition: Yesterday they talked about Ontario’s challenges, Mr. Speaker. GDP is up. Employment is up. Unemployment is down. Retail sales are improving. Housing starts are up. Consumer prices are growing less in the country. Ontario is the best place in Canada. We’re going to lead Canada again. We’re going to lead it under the leadership of Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario Liberal party. Stop denigrating our province and start celebrating our success.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Be seated, please. Be seated, please. As I am—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Now that I have a moment, with all members in their seats properly, if they’re going to make any comments, I will move right into identifying individual members during question period.

Supplementary.

Mrs. Christine Elliott: Well, with respect, the facts tell a different story. Let’s look at reality here: 600 jobs in Timmins have left for Quebec; 190 jobs from St. Thomas have moved to Ohio; another 600 jobs in Chatham have moved to Indiana. Ontario has lost almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs since 2003. Clearly, manufacturers are leaving Ontario for friendlier business climates, and one of the reasons that they are is because of your unaffordable energy policies.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Minister of the Environment.

Mrs. Christine Elliott: Your energy experiments have driven up hydro rates and driven good jobs out of Ontario in droves. Premier, when will you stop experimenting with—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Peterborough.

Mrs. Christine Elliott: —the livelihoods of Ontarians?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Here’s what the Royal Bank says about manufacturing and auto manufacturing this morning: “New motor vehicle production ... for all intents and purposes, entirely in Ontario ... stepped up significantly since the recession lows and, following a strong push since late last year, has now ... returned to pre-recession levels. In the first four months of 2012, auto production averaged a little more than 2.5 million units,” which is up over the period of 10 years ago.

This government stood behind the auto sector, behind General Motors and Chrysler when they were in trouble. But guess where the member is having her fundraiser—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Peterborough.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: —later this month? She’s having it at Downtown Porsche—

Interjection.

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

Hon. Dwight Duncan: —in Toronto. Imagine that. We ought to be supporting Canadian manufacturers. You’re out singing a song about manufacturing—

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

Hon. Dwight Duncan: —you’re slowing down the southwest Ontario economic development fund—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): I would offer a general warning: Do not test my resolve.

Final supplementary.

Mrs. Christine Elliott: Again to the Minister of Finance: I would suggest you tell all of that to the 500,000-plus people in Ontario who still don’t have jobs.

Since 2003, Ontario has had the worst private sector growth outside of Atlantic Canada, sitting at a pitiful 4%. Meanwhile, the public sector has grown by a whopping 22%.

Premier, when will you understand that you can’t spend your way out of this jobs crisis? When will you realize you can’t grow our economy by growing the public sector? It simply doesn’t work that way. When will you commit yourself to scrapping your energy experiments and make good policy decisions instead of good political decisions, which seems to be the case these days? When will you take a fair and balanced and sensible approach, get your spending under control, build your province and make Ontario again the best place in the world to live, work and raise a family?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Again, let me refer the member opposite—they’re just presenting factual errors. Here’s what the Royal Bank said this morning. There’s declining public sector employment in Ontario since last year as a result of very significant federal cuts as well as what this government has done. In fact, the growth in employment has been in the private sector.

I would ask the official opposition to stand up for Ontario. Recognize that it’s not what we’re doing or what they’re doing; it’s what businesses are doing across this province. It’s what working men and women across this province are doing. It’s what our schools are doing. It’s implementing a policy that will make Ontario number one now that the global recession is over, now that we’ve absorbed the dollar going from 62 cents to $1. We’re going to have a bright future. We’ve got the right policies to achieve it—

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

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mr. Frank Klees: My question is to the Minister of Health. Ornge front-line staff have been watching the minister read inflated pilot and paramedic numbers from her Ornge news release.

Here’s what Ornge helicopter pilot Bruce Wade from Thunder Bay told the minister in his email to her on June 7 about that Ornge press release that she has been reading from: “Ornge claims to the press and others the base is staffed 24 hours per day. This statement, while technically correct, is less than honest.

“The actual facts remain: Medics are routinely, chronically and, without regard to proper medevac capability, removed or just not available for the trauma helicopter in Thunder Bay.... We are fully grounded without medics.”

“Less than honest”: That’s how the front lines are describing this Ornge press release. Speaker, when will the minister realize that it’s her responsibility to defend the people of Ontario, not Ornge?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I would like to ask the member opposite: When is he going to take his responsibility as a member of this Legislature seriously and actually be part of the solution when it comes to improving oversight at Ornge? I think it’s important that we look at yet the latest in a series of almost, partly, a little bit true, but not completely true, information that the member—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member is getting desperately close to doing what I think she’s trying to do, which means you should not be doing that. If you catch my drift, I think you’ll stop.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Yesterday the member opposite raised an issue. I looked into that issue, and what I found was that the allegations were not actually correct. So let me share the facts with the House. The use of a directive is one of last resort. The opposition is incorrect to allege that the use of a directive was—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Answer.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: The ministry has been working very closely with Ornge to ensure they comply with the new performance agreement. Since the new leadership has been installed, we’ve seen tremendous progress in the information we get.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary.

Mr. Frank Klees: Speaker, here’s why Mr. Wade and his fellow pilots and paramedics are so frustrated with this minister and her government. The fact is that her response now is, in fact, disrespectful of Mr. Wade and his front-line employees and staff.

Here’s what the latest downtime report for the Thunder Bay base for just the past 11 days shows: nine incidents totalling 44 hours where there were no paramedics at the base; two incidents totalling 21 hours where there were no pilots. These are statistics that represent lives at risk. When will the minister recognize that the numbers that count are not the numbers of the patients who were transferred successfully? That’s the expectation.

It’s the number of calls that we can’t respond to that represent lives at risk. When will the minister assume her responsibility and become part of the solution rather than defend the indefensible?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, I do understand that the member opposite is doing everything he can to dismiss the progress at Ornge. I think that’s very unfortunate.

The fact is, because of the new performance agreement, we are now collecting information that we did not have access to before, exactly the kind of information that the member opposite is suggesting that we do collect. We do have a new performance agreement in place. It does mean we have more information. It means we can act on that information.

If the member opposite and his party would quit blocking Bill 50, we actually would be able to make the progress that we need to. Bill 50 would give the minister the authority to issue a directive.

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

Mr. Frank Klees: Let’s get one thing straight, Speaker. If the government had wanted to pass Bill 50, they would have included it in to the programming motion that was tabled here. It was not. This is nothing more than rhetoric.

I’m going to send across to the minister both the downtime report as well as the email from Mr. Wade, because she obviously doesn’t understand it and certainly hasn’t read it.

I’m going to make a proposal to the minister right now. Rather than have front-line staff resorting to sending us brown envelopes, why don’t we reserve one special day of hearings for all of those front-line staff who want to come forward? Let’s provide them with a written guarantee of immunity from—

Interjection.

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

Mr. Frank Klees: —against reprisal so that they can all come forward and tell us what’s going on at Ornge, tell us what’s going on at the Ministry of Health. Will the minister, will the Premier, agree to that proposal?

Interjections.

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

Minister of Health.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, Mr. Klees himself today acknowledges that the facts in the press release are accurate, so let me repeat those facts in the press release. Ten more paramedics are working at Ornge now than a year ago. As far as airplane pilots, by mid-July we’ll be at 98% of a full complement of airplane pilots. We have 69 helicopter pilots; we’ve recently hired five more, bringing the total to 74 in July. At that time it will be at 75%.

This is good news. This is movement in the right direction. I know it’s not good news for the member opposite, but it sure is good news for the people of Ontario.

JOB CREATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is to the Premier. Last week, StatsCan reported that Ontario lost 19,000 jobs last month. Once again, Ontario is lagging the national economy. Nearly 15% of young people in this province are unemployed. The Premier’s old solution was to insist that his unfair HST and corporate tax giveaways would create jobs. Now, nobody believes that anymore, so is the Premier ready to consider new ideas to create and protect jobs in this province?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Economic Development and Innovation.

Hon. Brad Duguid: Of course we’re ready to consider new ideas. We always do, and the Premier is always open to new ideas. That’s why he’s setting up the Jobs and Prosperity Council: to bring some of the brightest minds in Ontario together around a table, looking to our future, to work with this government, to continue to tackle some of the challenges that exist, not only here in Ontario but in economies right around the world—challenges like skill shortages, challenges like productivity enhancements and improvements and productivity gaps that have existed here in Canada and in many jurisdictions around the world for a long time.

We’re going to continue to work very closely with our business community, with our labour community and with Ontarians to build on the good work we’ve done to date in building a very strong economy, the good work we’ve done to date in putting the fundamentals in place to build that strong economy.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The government says their jobs council is going to come up with their next batch of ideas, but it looks like a recipe for more of the same old ideas. The Premier promised “solid representation” from business, labour, academics and government representatives on the Jobs and Prosperity Council, but the bankers and CEOs outnumber labour 10 to 1. According to a report today, the chair, Gord Nixon, took home $26 million in options over the past couple of years. Now, that’s great for him, but it leaves everyday people wondering if he’s going to understand at all the challenges that they’re facing.

Does the Premier think that’s a balanced group of people, capable of understanding the urgent need for a job creation program that actually puts people first?

Hon. Brad Duguid: It’s kind of ironic. The PCs think there’s too much labour representation on the council, and the NDP think there’s too little. I think, Mr. Speaker, that’s an indication that we probably have it just about right.

There are a lot of talented people in this province, and the Premier and I have talked about this. We could have probably put together 10 councils representing hundreds of Ontarians who are qualified to give us this advice, but we didn’t want to set up a congress. We needed to set up a council that can work together, of the right size—and I think this is about the right size—bringing together some of the best minds in this province.

I think if you look at the individuals on this council—who, incidentally, are doing this as a public service—these are people with great responsibilities. Their time is very valuable. They’re donating their time so that they can help us build a stronger economy. Rather than denigrating the individuals on that council, I think the NDP should be joining us in praising them for stepping up.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, I don’t know what planet the minister is from, but 10 to 1 doesn’t sound like balance to me and probably doesn’t sound like balance to a lot of Ontarians. And do you know what? I’ve met with some of these people before. They’re nice people, and I do not doubt their sincerity, but everyday people who are looking for work were hoping for some different views, to bring some new ideas, and instead we see a lot of the same old CEOs with the same old solutions.

We’ve put forward positive ideas to protect and create jobs, like a jobs creation tax credit, for example. Is the government ready to start listening, or are we just going to see more of the same failure?

Hon. Brad Duguid: Mr. Speaker, this government doesn’t just listen; we act. That’s why we’ve put in place in Ontario the fundamentals critical to building a strong economy: investing in our people, investing in the education of our young people: 81% of our young people now graduate to post-secondary education, the best in the OECD, one of the best in the world. We’ve built one of the best workforces. We’ve invested in infrastructure, critical to building a strong economy, in record amounts.

We’ve lowered the tax rates here for businesses in this province, helping to ensure that we’re one of the best locations for foreign direct investment in all of North America. And Mr. Speaker, because of the vision of our Premier, who has put his passion behind investing in innovation, we’ve doubled the investments in research; we’ve made Ontario a virtual research and innovation hotbed.

Those initiatives are paying off in building a strong economy in this province.

We’re not satisfied. We want to do more, and the jobs and prosperity task force will help us get there.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is for the Premier. In 2010, with much fanfare, the government rejigged Ontario’s auto insurance rules. As a result, insurance companies are making even bigger profits because they’re saving $350 in medical and rehabilitation benefits for every single car that they insure. Can the Premier tell us why drivers pay more and are getting less in this province?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Speaker, I’ll be pleased to take the first question and refer the subsequent ones to my colleague the Minister of Finance.

What I can say is, it’s important to take a look at our record when it comes to automobile insurance. The fact of the matter is that we have kept rates below the increase in inflation, or the cost of living. We have the most comprehensive coverage in the country. In the last period where we look at—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Member from Hamilton East–Stoney Creek, come to order.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: —in fact, overall, come down.

So we are working very hard to continue to strike the right balance between the cost of premiums and the coverage that—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Member from Durham, come to order.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: —have to be able to count on. I think to this point in time, we’ve been striking the right balance.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Gee, Speaker, today seems to be morning of the Liberals deciding that they don’t know what balance is all about. That’s what we see over here. They do not know what balance is all about.

You know what? The government’s reforms make life very profitable for some, but they leave everyday drivers with the worst—worst—of both worlds. Drivers pay auto insurance with the reasonable expectation that they’re going to be covered in case they have an accident. Now we learn that those who are injured the most severely will see their benefits axed, and yet Ontario drivers are still paying the highest rates in Canada. That is not balanced, Speaker. That is not a balanced system. How can this government call that a fair system?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Finance.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Mr. Speaker, let’s just put some facts into the debate. We’ve released a report today to get public comment about catastrophic injury, based on a panel of experts that have made recommendations to the government. None of those is being proposed to be implemented today, so I’d recommend that you withdraw the rhetoric associated with that, number one.

Number two: Rates in Ontario have gone up slower than virtually everywhere else in the country since we took office. They went down the last quarter on regulated rate increases.

We’ve improved benefits. Our benefits are comparable to every province in the country.

What the leader of the third party and her party want to do is raise premiums in northern Ontario, they want to raise them in eastern Ontario, they want to raise them in southwestern Ontario. They want to make good drivers subsidize bad drivers. They want to make good drivers subsidize people who get convicted of things like drunk driving, Mr. Speaker. That’s why a number of groups—and we’ll share their quotes in a moment—reject your concept.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, what the finance minister is not telling anybody is that Ontario premiums were 3.5% higher in 2011 than they were in 2010. What this government wants to do is just protect the status quo that isn’t working for drivers and has us paying the highest rates across the country.

As the government knows, we get letters over here. John in Brampton writes this: “In 2003 I paid about $700 for car insurance. Today almost $2,000. I am 65 and retired, living on around $25,000 per year. Due to the punishing cost of insurance…I no longer can afford to live in a city and area that I have resided in my whole life.”

April writes: “Not only is the auto insurance industry in Ontario discriminatory, it is a scam that is making a few people very, very rich.”

Is the government ready to admit that they have failed drivers, that their status quo isn’t working and it’s time for a plan that gets costs under control, not just time for good profits for the companies that sell insurance?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Mr. Speaker, when those rates went up 3.5%, we took action with a package of reforms that are now bringing rates down again.

I’d like to remind the leader of the opposition, who doesn’t seem to think about public safety—I don’t have an anonymous quote from a first-name unidentified individual; I have a quote from a group that wants to put its name on the public record, and a very reputable group. Here’s what Mothers Against Drunk Driving says about the NDP’s insurance policy: “MADD Canada would strongly advocate that” it “be rejected.

In our view,” it “sends all the wrong messages, punishes responsible drivers, rewards dangerous drivers, and will increase the risk to Ontario road users.” In the short, you are threatening public safety with an ill-thought-out, ill-conceived plan that will raise premiums for the very people you purport to represent.

This government has a plan that’s lowering rates. It’s the right plan, and the people of Ontario understand that.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mr. Ted Arnott: My question is for the Minister of Health. In an attempt to defend her lack of appropriate action and her failure to restore confidence in Ontario’s air ambulance service, the minister has recently taken to reciting a litany of statistics related to Ornge. The minister has recounted the number of patients Ornge transfers, the number of vehicles Ornge owns and the number of staff that she’s recently hired. Since the minister is seemingly up to date on her numbers, I would like to ask her this question: Can she inform the House of the total number of minutes Ornge helicopters at the London base have been unavailable to respond to emergencies so far this calendar year?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, I actually do have some good numbers for today because I know the people of this House do want to know how Ornge is doing. Yesterday at Ornge, there were 37 patients transferred; 71 hours flown; three rotor scene patients transported; 30 inter-facility transports; four by land; and seven little babies, pediatric patients, got to the care they needed.

We are addressing the challenges at Ornge. We’re hiring more paramedics—

Interjection.

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

Hon. Deborah Matthews: —we’re hiring more pilots—

Interjection.

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

Hon. Deborah Matthews: We’re moving in the right direction, and I think the people of Ontario expect to see that progress.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Ted Arnott: We’ve been advised that the base in London responds to emergencies throughout southwestern Ontario, including Wellington county, Halton region and Waterloo region. The minister seems to be unaware of the serious situation that is occurring throughout Ontario, and she has been rather selective in the data she chooses to share with this House.

The PC caucus has obtained yet more leaked information from insiders that reveal that from January 1 of this year to yesterday, June 11, helicopters at the Ornge base in London have been unable to respond to emergencies for 10,224 minutes. That’s 170 hours, or the equivalent of a full week of downtime—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): He’s asking the question, member from Renfrew.

Mr. Ted Arnott: —and we’re not even halfway through the year.

Will she now admit that the air ambulance service the people in southwestern Ontario rely upon in a life-or-death crisis often cannot even be deployed?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: It’s no secret that there have been staffing issues at Ornge. It’s also no secret that we are addressing those challenges. We have very good news—very good news. We’ve got 38 pilots—seven more coming on board by mid-July—that will take us to 98%. When it comes to helicopter pilots, we’ve got 69—recently hired five more—bringing it to 74 by July; we’ll be at 95%—

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Renfrew has been eyeballing the eagle.

Minister of Health.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: So, Speaker, this is good news.

I really would like to ask the member opposite if he will volunteer to be the whip in his caucus to get support for Bill 50 so we can get that passed and get moved on with the changes that need to be made at Ornge.

NORTHERN HEALTH TRAVEL GRANT

Mr. Michael Mantha: My question is to the Premier. A constituent of mine from Chapleau, Debby Pellow, must travel to Timmins for dialysis three times a week. This forces her to drive 12 hours a week and stay in Timmins overnight when roads are bad. This is exhausting, stressful and very difficult for her to accomplish. But to make matters worse, Ms. Pellow is waiting as long as three months to be reimbursed through the northern health travel grant, and she is going deep into debt waiting.

Does the Premier remember his promise to simplify this program with online applications with a three-week limit on reimbursement?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Health.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: What I can say is that we have really speeded up the process for the northern Ontario travel grant. I will more than happily look into this particular case, Speaker.

We think it’s important that people get to the care they need, regardless of how far they are from the care that they need, and that’s why we have quite a robust northern Ontario travel grant. We are working hard to streamline it. We’ve made some terrific headway, but I will certainly look into this particular constituent.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Michael Mantha: My question again is to the Premier. Speaker, the sad fact is, last summer the Premier made his third promise to fix the broken northern health travel grant with a three-week service guarantee. When an election is around the corner, the Premier is ready to acknowledge how broken this travel grant system is and gives his word that it will be fixed. But once re-elected, it is constituents like mine, Mrs. Pellow, who are left to deal with a program that treats their access to health care services as an afterthought.

Speaker, why should people like Mrs. Pellow continue with hardship and trust this Premier to deliver on health care promises when year after year those promises are broken?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: What I can tell you is that in 2007 we improved the eligibility criteria. We’ve made the program more accessible. We’ve raised the accommodation allowances, making the needed travel more affordable. We have improved the processes pretty dramatically, but I will go back and check to make sure that we are actually meeting our target. I can tell you that as of February 2011, 98% of applicants were processed within six weeks, Speaker. I will undertake to ensure that we are still meeting a very high standard.

JOB CREATION

Mr. Bob Delaney: This question is for the Minister of Economic Development and Innovation. Minister, on Friday, Statistics Canada released its monthly job numbers. While year to date Ontario is up in overall net jobs, I share the concern of our residents in Mississauga who see swings in employment month to month: up full-time jobs and down part-time in one month, and up part-time and down full-time jobs in the next month.

Families are nervous about the instability and the unpredictability of our economic future and also our potential for job growth here in Ontario. Minister, how is Ontario tackling this issue, and what steps has the province taken to combat this concern among Ontarians?

Hon. Brad Duguid: I thank the member very much for that question. Really, those are the questions that have been consuming this government for the last eight or nine years as we’ve made important investments in the fundamentals of building of a strong economy.

But, Mr. Speaker, we want to go even further. We want to look at some of the key challenges that our economy and others are going to face over the coming years. We want to take a look at our business support programs, for instance, to ensure we’re getting the best possible value for those programs, so we’ve set up the Jobs and Prosperity Council, which will provide us with some advice on that. We also want to look, Mr. Speaker, at ways to improve productivity and competitiveness so we can continue to compete in that fiercely competitive global economy. The council will give us advice on that.

We want to also look at the skills shortage that we see happening in Ontario and globally. We’ll look for their advice on that.

We’ll also look at the job creator tax credit that the NDP is proposing.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Bob Delaney: Minister, the new Jobs and Prosperity Council will provide the Premier and this House with sound advice on job creation. The minister has spoken about the qualifications of Gord Nixon, who is set to be the chair of the council. As head of the Royal Bank of Canada, Mr. Nixon has an impressive resumé.

It’s nice that the council has a strong chair, but my question is about the balance of those who are going to serve on the Jobs and Prosperity Council. Would the minister give the House an overview of the backgrounds of the remainder of the council?

Interjections.

Hon. Brad Duguid: The member heckles the question, and it’s actually almost identical to a question that came earlier from the NDP. It’s a good question because balance is really important, Mr. Speaker. We’re going to be counting on these individuals to provide us with the best possible advice.

As I said, we would have liked to have had sectors right across the board represented, but you’ve got to be practical; you’ve got to be realistic.

But we do have a lot of sectors in our economy represented. For instance, there’s Jim Stanford. He represents the CAW. He is a very well-thought-of economist. He’ll be providing us with some assistance. The retail sector is represented by Bonnie Brooks of the Hudson’s Bay Co. Northern Ontario is represented by a gentleman by the name of Darryl Lake, the food processing industry by Maple Leaf Foods president Michael McCain, and the auto parts industry by Linda Hasenfratz. There are entrepreneurs, forestry representatives and many others. I’ll wrap up by saying we’re looking forward to their advice.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mrs. Jane McKenna: My question is for the Minister of Health. The minister has made numerous claims to have fixed the problem at Ornge. She likes to call on numbers as proof of the progress that she has made, so I’d like to share some relevant numbers with the minister—numbers that have come directly from Ornge; numbers leaked by concerned front-line staff.

On February 13, 2012, the primary helicopter at the Toronto Island base was out of service for 12 hours, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. The very next day, the same helicopter was out of service for another 12 hours. On April 22, the primary helicopter was out of service for six hours and 45 minutes. May 26, 2012: again out of service for another 12 hours.

I ask the minister: Given these numbers, will she admit that the people of Toronto and the GTA do not have access to a safe and reliable air ambulance service?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I do have a couple of more numbers that I would love to share with the member opposite. One of those numbers is 36; 36 is the number of votes that I think we should get from the party opposite to vote for a bill with another number, and that number is 50. If the members opposite are so concerned and want to be part of the solution when it comes to Ornge, I would really support the notion that 36 members vote for Bill 50.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Jane McKenna: Minister, everyone has five minutes of truth a day. Hopefully, you’ll have them in here.

The minister owes the people of Burlington and the GTA a credible explanation for her failure to address the serious operational gaps at Ornge. From January 1, 2012, to yesterday, the Ornge base on Toronto Island has struggled with an out-of-service helicopter for 26,420 minutes—440 hours in the last six months when an air ambulance was totally unavailable in the GTA. Given this information, will the minister admit that she has failed the residents of the GTA, that she has put patients at risk and that she will hold a special day of hearings with immunity for front-line staff at Ornge?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaking of front-line staff at Ornge, I think it’s really important that we take this opportunity to say thank you to the extraordinary men and women who work at Ornge who do everything they possibly can every day to provide the best possible care to the people who are trusting them to get them to where they need to go.

I am enormously proud of the people at Ornge. These have been difficult times because they’ve been under attack from the party opposite. But I can tell you, I am very, very pleased to see, despite the attempts of the members opposite, that more people are actually joining the Ornge team. We’ve got 10 more paramedics working at Ornge, we’ve got seven more airplane pilots and we’ve got five more helicopter pilots joining the team at Ornge. This is great news, and I am delighted to see the changes at Ornge.

DOCTORS’ SERVICES

M me France Gélinas: Ma question est pour la ministre de la Santé et des Soins de longue durée. Yet again, we are hearing that talks with the Ontario Medical Association have broken down. The minister and her government seem to be kind of happy to play the blaming game, yet a very simple step would go a long way to bring the two sides together: the use of a conciliator.

Will the minister finally agree to use a conciliator so that progress can finally be made in the OMA negotiations?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: We are so blessed in this province to have the doctors we have. We have extraordinary doctors. I’m enormously proud of the work they do every day in our hospitals, in our communities, in our long-term-care homes. We are blessed to have superb physicians.

We are attempting to have negotiations on fees. That is the work of government. I stand by our decision, which is to really focus on community care and home care, services that can take people out of hospital and back home where they want to be. We’re asking physicians to be part of the transformation in health care, and I’m confident and hopeful that we’ll get back to the table, and we’ll get there soon.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

M me France Gélinas: Speaker, the question I asked was a simple one, but the minister seems so determined not to budge an inch that she’s losing sight of her responsibility, the responsibility to put people and patient care first. Refusing to talk to Ontario physicians puts us in a lose-lose-lose: the government loses, the physicians lose and every patient in Ontario also loses.

Why won’t the minister agree to this simple step and ask for a conciliator so that both parties can negotiate a fair agreement?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: There are conversations that are going on between government and the OMA. Those conversations, I hope, will continue and, indeed, accelerate.

What I can tell you, Speaker, is that we have 3,400 more doctors working in this province than when we took office. I can tell you we’ve increased compensation to physicians by 85% over the past eight years. In 2003, we inherited a very serious problem from the party opposite. Ontario doctors were leaving Ontario. They were moving to other jurisdictions. We did have a problem: Ontario doctors were underpaid. That is no longer the problem.

In our health care system, we have to set priorities. Our clear priority is getting people out of hospitals and back home where they want to be, where they’ll receive the best possible care.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Mr. Phil McNeely: My question is to the Minister of the Environment. I understand that Corporate Knights, a Canadian company focused on green industries, recently released their third biannual Green Provincial Report Card. The report card evaluated provinces and territories on their progress in seven categories: air and climate, water, nature, transportation, waste, energy and buildings, and innovation.

Interjections.

Mr. Phil McNeely: They didn’t check us out to see if we’re supporting your pro-pesticide ban across the hall here.

Speaker, through you, I’m wondering if the minister could please speak to the details of this recent report and, specifically, how Ontario fared in comparison to the rest of Canada.

Hon. James J. Bradley: The member obviously stole the next Tory question.

I’m pleased to inform the House that Corporate Knights has found Ontario to be Canada’s greenest province in the latest Green Provincial Report Card. Ontario earned the highest grade in the 2012 report with an A minus. The province was recognized for our success in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the phasing out of coal-fired electricity generation, the single-largest greenhouse gas reduction initiative in Canada.

Earlier this year, Ontario got top marks in Canada from Ecojustice when that uncompromising environmental group looked at how well provinces protect drinking water.

Last week, our government introduced the proposed Great Lakes Protection Act that, if passed, would ensure a cleaner Great Lakes for the future.

It’s an honour for Ontario to be recognized for our success in building a greener province, and I know that all members of the Legislature will applaud that particular recognition by Corporate Knights.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Phil McNeely: Minister, thank you for the detailed reply. My next question is more focused on our emissions and air quality as we move forward into the future of energy supply.

A

section of the Green Provincial Report Card discussed energy and emissions, which are typically an area of discussion on an international level. Many international jurisdictions are looking for cleaner sources of power like wind and solar to help bring down their impact on the environment. My constituents in particular have been wondering what Ontario has been doing to ensure that the health of our families are a primary focus of our energy—

Interjections.

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

I’ve tried to be patient, and that one was a shot at an individual, so the member is warned, the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

Hon. James J. Bradley: To the Minister of Energy.

Hon. Christopher Bentley: The member from Ottawa–Orléans, a great champion of green, is very correct. We’ve made it a determined policy to get out of coal. We’re making a lot of progress. We’ve shut down 10 of the 19 coal units. Of course, burning coal creates dirty air. It’s now less than 3% of our power supply; under the PCs, it was 25% of the power supply and increasing.

Not only is this the largest climate improvement initiative in North America—greenhouse gas reduction initiative—it saves billions of dollars in health care costs; it saves thousands of illnesses.

Let’s be clear: We’re getting out of coal; the two parties opposite are going to put it on standby. We all know that the only reason you put something on standby is so that you can secretly bring it back. So we call on the parties opposite: Shut it down, take it out of service, do what we’re doing, get out of coal by 2014.

SKILLED TRADES

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: My question is for the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, and it’s about your newly formed boondoggle, the Ontario College of Trades.

Minister, the first part of my question is about the newest McGuinty tax grab. The new trades tax for membership fees is something that Ontario trades workers do not need or even know is occurring. As I visit organizations across the province, I am finding that the vast majority of the construction industry has no idea what your College of Trades even is. Those who do know are deeply concerned with the direction it is headed, primarily because of the biased governance and now the trades tax.

Construction associations are estimating that your new trades tax will collect a minimum of $84 million in the first year from the trades workers.

Minister, can you tell this House and the hard-working tradespeople in Ontario what they are getting from the College of Trades for their 84 million trades tax dollars?

Hon. Glen R. Murray: It’s a delight. I’m glad the member opposite has switched to tea from coffee.

The trades council is a very critical part of building a successful apprenticeship strategy, and let’s just start with what the results of that have been. We have 120,000 students now in apprenticeships and trades. That’s twice as many as we had only eight years ago.

I want to pay tribute to all of those families and parents who are understanding that carpenters and pipefitters and folks are part of this extraordinary construction boom that’s going on out there, where 140 towers are going up in my city alone, a level of economic success and demand for trades that was never seen when the party opposite—and we’ve been governing through difficult times, Mr. Speaker.

We are upskilling our workforce. The college oversees ratios, it oversees standards, it oversees safety, and it brings the same level of professionalism that our teachers, lawyers and other professions have had, and most people in the field are excited about it.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: I don’t think you understood the question. I asked you what the $84 million was going to get the trades workers.

Minister, the secrecy around your College of Trades is actually deafening. Their website claims, “The college is committed to an open and accountable consultation process.” That’s what they actually say, and yet we now learn the details from the submissions for consultations on your trades tax, the $84 million in membership fees, will not be made until possibly later this summer. From this, we conclude that there is a massive opposition to these trade tax fees.

Clearly, there is a lack of accountability and transparency. I know that the Ontario Working Families Coalition won’t agree with us, but it is time for you to show leadership and to stand up with Tim Hudak and the Ontario PCs and scrap not only your trades tax but also scrap this real mistake that is the College of Trades. Minister, will you scrap it?

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Mr. Speaker, I’m going to take a guess that my friend is more familiar with Mr. Johnson than I am, since he served in caucus—I know he wasn’t here as long as Mr. Bradley. I’ve always viewed Mr. Johnson as an ethical, transparent, accountable person, and I think the leadership that he is providing right now to the College of Trades is critically important.

This government, unlike the party opposite, has governed in a very non-partisan way. We have invited members on almost every committee—from the horse issues to this—we have invited former cabinet ministers from governments opposite and brought forward a good balance between labour and business, because we’re trying to govern for all Ontarians, not some subset.

We realize that sometimes we have to be Ontarians before we’re partisans. Certainly, the success we’ve had now with 30,000 folks is partly because of people like Mr. Johnson. This government has reached out—

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

BEDBUG INFESTATION

Mr. Jonah Schein: My question is to the Minister of Health. Last year, Toronto Public Health’s bedbug unit inspected almost 5,000 apartment units and helped hundreds of households get rid of bedbugs. But the province cut funding for this program in March, and now there’s only one bedbug inspector for our entire city.

Last week, council committed $250,000 to partially reinstate its bedbug program. Council is asking the Ministry of Health to provide matching funding so that the bedbug prevention efforts can be fully reinstated. Why is the province refusing?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Thank you for the question. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the very fine work of the member from Eglinton–Lawrence on this issue. He raised this issue, and he spurred the action that came out of that.

The member opposite knows that the funding we supplied was one-time funding. We were abundantly clear that it was one-time funding. The city of Toronto received $1.2 million. We’re also prepared to flow an additional $255,000 to Toronto for three new public health nurses.

We launched a public education campaign to help Ontarians fight bedbugs. The website, bedbugsinfo.ca, is one of the legacy pieces of that initial investment and it is helping people every day.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Jonah Schein: Back to the minister: You speak as if the bedbug problem has been solved, and it simply has not. This is a provincial issue. The minister wrote to the city in April and you said, minister, that you “recognize the resurgence of bedbug infestations in Toronto is an important issue.” But so far, Speaker, the minister has refused to offer a single penny of support. Worse, the McGuinty government has cancelled the community start-up and maintenance program, which helped families on social assistance pay for emergency repairs related to bedbug infestations.

A small amount of funding for inspection and support can help families avoid significant health issues and even homelessness. Why is the government so stubbornly refusing to partner with the city of Toronto in tackling the current bedbug infestation?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: As I said, we made it very, very clear that our investment of $5 million last year to fight bedbugs was one-time funding. All of our partners knew it was one-time funding. The city of Toronto is enjoying a magnificent surplus; we are not. We urge Toronto Public Health to do their job to help their residents fight bedbugs. We’ve done our part. We have increased base funding to Toronto Public Health by 90%; we’ve almost doubled funding to Toronto Public Health since we were elected in 2003.

ICEWINE INDUSTRY

Mr. Kim Craitor: My question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Minister, Canada enjoys a fine international reputation for its icewine production. This is a sector which exports over $12 million annually, over 80% of which comes from Ontario. I am extremely pleased to say that a large portion of that is from my riding, from Niagara-on-the-Lake. Over 675,000 litres of icewine were produced in Ontario in 2011. In fact, about 30% of Ontario’s 103 wineries produce icewine.

Mr. Speaker, through you to the minister, can the minister outline the importance of the icewine sector’s high standards that need to continue in order to succeed?

Hon. Ted McMeekin: Yes, I can, Mr. Speaker. I want to first thank the member from Niagara Falls for his question.

Ontario growers should be tremendously pleased with the praise that their icewine receives. The distinctiveness, quality and authenticity of Ontario icewine have been central to its success as a signature Canadian export. This reputation is our most valued asset, developed principally by Ontario grape and wine industry stakeholders, and any downgrading of the standard upon which this reputation has been built would constitute a considerable blow to the industry.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Kim Craitor: My question is again to the Minister of Agriculture. I was contacted by the Grape Growers of Ontario recently about concerns they had with the identification of our locally produced icewine.

As I’m sure you’re aware, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency currently has a proposal to develop a national standard for icewine production. Minister, establishing a standard that requires icewine to be made only from grapes naturally frozen on the vine is critical to maintaining Canada’s reputation as a world leader in icewine.

Through you, Mr. Speaker: Minister, could you inform this House of any communications you may have had with the federal government with regard to their ongoing discussions on icewine standards?

Hon. Ted McMeekin: I’m delighted to respond to the member, and I’m pleased to indicate that I have written to my federal colleague Minister Ritz with respect to adopting a national standard.

We believe in Ontario that adopting this standard would be consistent with the standard we already have in place here in the province. So I’ve urged Minister Ritz to adopt strong national standards of production in order to maintain our hard-won reputation. I’ll be having the next of several periodic consultations by phone this afternoon with Minister Ritz, and I’ll be driving that point home then.

FAMILY HEALTH TEAMS

Ms. Sylvia Jones: My question is to the Minister of Health. The residents of North Dufferin have been struggling to find primary care since a number of physicians and nurse practitioners resigned from the family health team last year.

Minister, I wrote you in March, asking that the audit be released so the public knows what has been happening at the Shelburne family health team. Will you commit today, in the name of transparency, to release that audit?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I do want to thank the member opposite for bringing this issue to my attention some time ago. As she does know, there is an audit, and I will undertake to release that audit. In fact, I believe that I can do that today.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Sylvia Jones: Thank you, Minister. I do appreciate that. It’s unfortunate that we were reading excerpts of that audit on the weekend in the newspaper, but I appreciate the offer to release the audit.

The reality is that the Shelburne health centre, the county of Dufferin, the Headwaters Health Care Centre all want to work together to ensure that my residents in North Dufferin and Shelburne get the services they need. I’m sure, and I’m hopeful, that as a result of the audits, we will finally get some action on primary care in Shelburne, because, as you know, we’ve struggled for many, many years to get primary physicians and nurse practitioners to come and stay in our community.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I think on this issue, the member opposite and I are completely aligned. I think there are 4,400 patients being served by the Mel Lloyd family health team. We know that it is a challenge getting those health professionals in rural areas. That’s why we treasure them so much.

I look forward to working with the member opposite to make sure the people in her community do get access to the primary care they need—

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

EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES

Mr. Michael Prue: My question is to the Minister of Labour. Yesterday the Minister of Labour seemed misinformed or didn’t understand her own ministry and their guidelines. She said that servers in Ontario could call her ministry for help if they are being treated unfairly by their bosses.

It seemed at that time that the minister did not know that her Employment Standards Act does not cover employees’ tips. And she did not understand that in Ontario, it is not illegal for employers to help themselves to servers’ tips.

Now that the minister understands that the Employment Standards Act does not prevent bosses from taking their workers’ tip money, will she work with us to prepare

an act that will actually help employees?

Hon. Linda Jeffrey: Maintaining a fair and balanced relationship between employers and employees in all industries, including hospitality, is one that our government feels is important. Our government is always willing to listen to ideas on how we can improve the lives of workers in our province.

This issue is a little more complicated than the member would lead us to believe, and this one-sentence amendment wouldn’t actually achieve what I think he wants it to.

For example, many establishments’ tip-outs are collected from servers and are shared with dishwashers, hosts and bussers, who help the restaurant function. This strategy is implemented by restaurants as a means to ensure that the support staff take home more than the minimum wage. The language used in the bill suggests that the owners may be forbidden from collecting tip-outs and distributing them to hard-working members of the support staff.

Clearly, the member has good intentions, but the bill has some unintended consequences. I know that debate will help that conversation, and I look forward to working with the member to ensure fairness in the industry.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Michael Prue: Perhaps the minister is not aware of how widespread this is. One Toronto restaurant even gave their manager the tip-outs in lieu of Christmas bonuses. That’s how widespread this is.

The jury is out. The public and members of this House agree that bosses should not be allowed to help themselves to tip money meant for employees. Thousands of employees are legally being ripped off by their employers. It is wrong. It is egregious.

Instead of the minister telling servers to find another job if they don’t like tipping out to their bosses, will she act quickly to protect Ontario’s servers and support Bill 107 or, if she wants, bring in her own bill?

Hon. Linda Jeffrey: I want to reiterate that waiters and waitresses and bartenders work hard to earn a decent living and they deserve to be treated fairly by their employers. So I want to thank the member for his advocacy. Our government, again, is always willing to listen to new ideas on how we can improve the lives of workers in the province.

I know that tip-outs are a contentious issue within the hospitality industry. What is considered a tip-out in one business may be considered tip-sharing in another. I actually did my own poll last night and talked to my son, who ha