role="main" class="main-container container js-quickedit-main-content" id="main-content">

November 3, 2009

39th Parliament, 1st Session

< Previous sitting day

Next sitting day >

Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2009-Nov-03 (PDF)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L'ONTARIO

Tuesday 3 November 2009 Mardi 3 novembre 2009

ORDERS OF THE DAY

GOOD GOVERNMENT ACT, 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 SUR LA SAINE

GESTION PUBLIQUE

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

FLU IMMUNIZATION

FLU IMMUNIZATION

FLU IMMUNIZATION

FLU IMMUNIZATION

FLU IMMUNIZATION

ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION

RURAL HEALTH SERVICES

ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

TAXATION

DRIVER EXAMINATION CENTRES

DRIVER EXAMINATION CENTRES

TIRE DISPOSAL

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

DRIVER EXAMINATION CENTRES

ACCESSIBILITÉ POUR LES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

MARKDALE HOSPITAL

FLU PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS

DAVID BANNISTER

GRAIN FARMERS OF ONTARIO

CPR MONTH

JOAN KIMBALL

MARKHAM STOUFFVILLE HOSPITAL

FLU IMMUNIZATION

GRAIN FARMERS OF ONTARIO

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE

ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

PUBLIC HOSPITALS

AMENDMENT ACT, 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LES HÔPITAUX PUBLICS

PLANNING AMENDMENT ACT

(COMMUNITY GARDENS), 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR L'AMÉNAGEMENT

DU TERRITOIRE

(JARDINS COMMUNAUTAIRES)

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AND RESPONSES

WOMAN ABUSE PREVENTION MONTH /

MOIS DE LA PRÉVENTION

DE LA VIOLENCE

FAITE AUX FEMMES

CRIME PREVENTION WEEK

WOMAN ABUSE PREVENTION MONTH

CRIME PREVENTION WEEK

WOMAN ABUSE PREVENTION MONTH

CRIME PREVENTION WEEK

PETITIONS

TAXATION

GOVERNMENT SERVICES

HIGHWAY INTERCHANGE

DIAGNOSTIC SERVICES

CHILD CUSTODY

ELMVALE DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL

CHILD PROTECTION

ONTARIO BUDGET

DOCTOR SHORTAGE

SOCIAL SERVICES FUNDING

PENSION PLANS

CEMETERIES

YOUTH ACTION ALLIANCE

OPPOSITION DAY

HEALTH CARE OVERSIGHT

ADJOURNMENT DEBATE

TOXICS REDUCTION

The House met at 0900.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Good morning. Please remain standing for the Lord's Prayer, followed by a moment of silence for inner thought and personal reflection.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

GOOD GOVERNMENT ACT, 2009 /

LOI DE 2009 SUR LA SAINE

GESTION PUBLIQUE

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 2, 2009, on the motion for second reading of Bill 212,

An Act to promote good government by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting two new Acts / Projet de loi 212, Loi visant à promouvoir une saine gestion publique en modifiant ou en abrogeant certaines lois et en édictant deux nouvelles lois.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The member from Timmins—James Bay.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: I move the following amendment:

That the motion for second reading of Bill 212,

An Act to promote good government by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting two new Acts, be amended by deleting all the words after "that" and substituting therefor the words "that the bill be not now read a second time but be referred back to the government with instructions to:

"

(1) Reintroduce those sections of the bill pertaining to the Municipal Elections Act as a separate bill."

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Mr. Bisson has moved that the motion for second reading of Bill 212,

An Act to promote good government by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting two new Acts, be amended by deleting all the words after "that" and substituting therefor the words "that the bill be not now read a second time but be referred back to the government with instructions to:

"

(1) Reintroduce those sections of the bill pertaining to the Municipal Elections Act as a separate bill."

Further debate?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: I think that amendment kind of speaks for itself. I want to say again to the government: Understand that we are not trying to be deleterious here. You need to understand what we're up to.

We understand there are sections of this bill that are, quite frankly, time-sensitive—the municipal election will be next year—and we understand far too well the implications of holding up this entire bill, including that

section of that bill that would deal with the Municipal Elections Act; it would cause a problem for our municipal partners here in Ontario. That's why we're suggesting to you that you remove that

section of the bill out, you reintroduce that

section of the bill as a separate bill and then we would be very amenable to allowing that bill to go forward so that you can get passage before Christmas so it's enacted before January 1, which is the time deadline you need for the municipal election.

Your changes to the Municipal Elections Act are a step in the right direction. They're not everything we want, but we consider them better than not doing anything at all. Therefore, we would support that. But then it would allow us to take the rest of the bill and give it proper time so that we can really have ourselves, as members of this Legislature, along with the public and those people who are interested in those amended acts, a look at this omnibus bill in some detail and determine if there are things that need to be changed.

Because I remind the government House leader that we've had it happen plenty of times in this place where governments have introduced omnibus bills only to come back and amend their own omnibus bills numerous times after because, quite frankly, errors were made in the drafting. It's not that the people who are drafting it aren't doing their jobs; it's simply that it's a huge bill. There's lots in it, and sometimes errors are made.

We just need to make sure that in fact the bill does do what the government intends for it to do, and if there are people who have a problem with those particular amendments to these bills, that they have a chance to have their say.

Trying to pass all of that before the end of this session, which will be the second or third week of December, I think is unreasonable, so we're trying to find a middle ground, give the government those parts of the bill that they need, and we'll support that, but allow those other parts of the bill to go to committee. I'm looking for some support from the government House leaders and others in order to be able to move in that direction.

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

Mr. Mike Colle: Just in terms of this bill, again we've heard basically from the opposition that the bill is too thick. That has been their main argument; it's too many pages. I know in the past they stood up and argued, "The bill is only three pages. The bill is too short." This has been the basic crux of their argument, but it doesn't really hold water.

I think that the member opposite, the member for Timmins—James Bay, is doing his

part in opposition to criticize the bill or the government, and that's his job. But on the other hand, he has done very little to look at the necessary parts of the bill that cross many ministries, which all governments have done in order to catch up to a lot of technical

interpretations that have to be adjusted from time to time.

The government has given ample opportunity to both opposition parties to be briefed on it with ministry staff. In fact, the Attorney General said that they can come and get more briefings at any time if they want. But to stand up here for—I think they were here for three, four hours yesterday just complaining about the thickness of the bill; that was their argument. And now they say they want to decide which sections should be in or out. Well, if they decide on one section, then what about the other sections? Again, they say, "We haven't had time. It's too thick.

It's too complicated for us." Well, their job is to look at the bill and make some valid criticisms based on the content, not on the thickness of the bill.

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

Mr. John O'Toole: I did have the privilege last evening to speak on Bill 212, and I think we'll be holding debate on this for some time. But I want to make it clear that this is an omnibus bill. It's actually a distraction from the other trouble the government's in—the $25-billion deficit, $100 million in consulting fees, the whole eHealth scandal, ministerial resignations. There you have it.

This is sort of like playing Jeopardy! here this morning because there are so few people here. I thought I'd read a quote and see if they can tell me who may have said that. It reads as follows, "This omnibus, megabill approach to legislation makes for bad legislation." I'm quoting here, so I'm going to have to give this to Hansard.

I want you all to follow me and say slowly, "Public hearings." These two words go nicely if you believe in true democracy, if you recognize that public input is one of the tools that make for good legislation. If you really believe in this tool, instead of saying the same old-fashioned things—who do you think said that?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Michael Colle.

Mr. John O'Toole: No. Actually, Michael Colle wasn't allowed to participate in those days as much as today. He's the whip. It was Dalton McGuinty in 1999. Those are Dalton McGuinty's famous words. I'm going to repeat them: "This omnibus, megabill approach to legislation makes for bad legislation." And it's not good for democracy.

Clearly, in what they've got buried in here, I uncovered two pieces of information: one on cancelling legislation retroactively—legislation that has already been passed, voted on, duly debated and discoursed on in the House, and then it's been cancelled retroactively. It's malicious in that way, but in other ways as well. In know in

section 16—there's a

section that's worth looking at: nuclear waste. It's changing the rules around nuclear waste. And in my section,

section 17, it talks about titles to property. So, it's a very—

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. The member for Trinity—Spadina.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: I'm going to be supporting this motion, of course, because it's eminently reasonable. I should point out that all governments have done this in the past. I remember the infamous Bill 26, which was introduced by the Tories many years ago. It was of similar length, and we all complained and attacked. It's the usual kind of thing.

My only complaint against the Liberal government is that they are calling this bill—or at least in the explanatory note: "The bill is part of the government initiative to promote good government." I had so much fun with that line. I was roaring with laughter. My complaint in my speech is going to be 20 minutes on that kind of balderdash that we put into bills.

Look, this is housekeeping, by and large. We never really get much done to debate the bill. That's generally the case. But to call this a good-government kind of initiative versus housekeeping—come on. It reminds me of the Tory bill, the Tenant Protection Act. I had a laugh with that one, because it wasn't about protecting tenants; it was about protecting developers. So when you call this bill a good-governance bill, I tell you, I just can't take it.

I have to, of course, prepare myself to attack the government as best I can and use as many minutes as I have to be able to do that and to then say, in the brief 30 seconds that I have left, to say to my colleague from Timmins—James Bay—he's dead on.

The only substantive amendments that have anything to do with some substance are the changes to the Municipal Act. We deserve to debate that separately from this. That's the argument my colleague makes that I believe the Liberals are missing the point on—either deliberately or otherwise. But that is the essence of the point: We should separate these two. By and large, most of these other housekeeping changes we can live with. But the other needs a real debate.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Further debate? Yes, the House leader.

Hon. Monique M. Smith: I'm pleased to be able to participate in the debate this morning and to respond to some of the comments that have been made by those opposite.

As the member for Trinity—Spadina noted, every government has introduced a good-government bill. In fact, the NDP in 1994 were the first government to introduce such a large bill that really is a housekeeping bill that looks at—

Interjection: Number one.

Hon. Monique M. Smith: Yeah, they're proud to be the first. We've had, since 1997, 16 good-government bills. What was that? It wasn't good back then? I think that you probably would have argued the opposite on that back then. We've had 16 good-government bills, and these good-government bills look at how we can improve different pieces of legislation. As all of the members of the Legislature know, times change. We have new technology, we have new-term terminology, we have new names of ministries, and as part of that we have to update our legislation.

We find ourselves at a couple of junctures in our mandate looking at how we can clean up the legislation and improve the system for all those who use government services.

We use these good-government legislations to enable us to have these amendments and move these things forward—things that would not be able to sustain a piece of legislation on their own. I know that my friends in the third party are well aware that this is what is happening. Our friends on both sides have been given ample opportunity to have a briefing. We have offered briefings since we told them about the legislation over two weeks ago. We have offered them the opportunity to meet with representatives from the Ministry of the Attorney General and various ministries to talk about the amendments. We are moving forward. We are pleased to be moving forward.

My friend from Timmins—James Bay has introduced an amendment which we will not be supporting, because we feel that we have plenty of time here this morning, and again yesterday afternoon, for a number of hours—despite the bell-ringing—we had a number of hours of debate. There's ample opportunity for everyone in this House to provide us with their opinions. This will go to committee, as all of our legislation does, and they will have ample opportunity there again to speak to it. I appreciate the opportunity this morning to speak to it as well.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member for Timmins—James Bay to respond.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: I want to thank all members, but I want to speak first to the points made by the government House leader. I want you to understand: My argument isn't that we're doing this because we didn't have enough time to read the bill; that ain't the point. Yes, it's true, the government introduced this bill and there wasn't sufficient time to be able to prep for debate on Monday, but that's not the reason we introduced the amendment whatsoever.

The reason we introduced the amendment was that we recognize that you're trying to get this entire bill past third reading within the next four sessional weeks we have here in the Legislature. We're here for this week and for three more weeks after the break on November 11 and you want to get this bill passed in that record time. We're saying that this particular bill has a whole bunch of things in it that people need to scrutinize much more, and to do so, they need some time.

That's why we suggested to the government that we delay the third reading and we give it some time in committee this winter so that we can actually pass the bill later on this spring, in February or March, when we come back here in the Legislature.

The government is still going to get their bill in the end, but the real winners are going to be the public, because they will have an opportunity to speak to those parts of the bill that they either support or don't support. I just think that when it comes to omnibus bills, we need to take our time and do it right.

We understand that in the bill, there are sections that you need to get before January 1, and those are the changes to the Municipal Act. What we're saying to you is that we get it; we understand. We're not going to hold up the changes to the Municipal Act, because there is a municipal election coming in 2010. You may not have done everything we wanted in the Municipal Act, but it's a step in the right direction, and we recognize that these changes are needed for the next municipal election.

That's why I believe our amendment is quite reasonable in saying, we'll allow you to pass that

section by third reading within the next four weeks by reintroducing it as another bill, then allow a second reading debate to happen on the rest of the bill, and then from there, send it out to committee later on in January or February and have third reading later on in February or March. You'll get your bill and the public will be satisfied.

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

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Thank you—

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Are you going up?

Interjection.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: That's okay; I'm just surprised they didn't get up.

Mr. Rosario Marchese: The Liberals obviously don't want to discuss this. That's okay—

Interjections.

Mr. Gilles Bisson: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: Can I ask for unanimous consent that we defer back to the Tories so that we can allow them to do their lead?

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Do we have unanimous consent? Yes.

The member for Halton.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: I was amazed that the Liberals didn't want to address this bill. However, I was amazed this morning when I got to my office. I opened the computer—I know how to do that now—and the quote of the day popped up, which I thought was interesting. The quote of the day was from Kin Hubbard, and his quote was, "Now and then, an innocent man is sent to the Legislature." I thought that was very appropriate for this morning.

I would say that I'm going to share my time with my critic from Burlington when the time comes.

I would also like to comment on how the minister, in his opening remarks, talked extensively about how this bill will scope various inquiries that are called by the government. It should also be noted that the new requirements made by this bill for calling an inquiry are somewhat more difficult to satisfy than in the past; therefore public inquiries will be more difficult.

We've been calling for a public inquiry into the eHealth scandal, where this government has allowed $1 billion of taxpayers' money to be distributed to their friends in the consulting business, and consultants hiring consultants and so on and so on. We've read that in the newspapers; we've talked about it ad nauseam. The government is making it more difficult to call those public inquiries.

But the minister went to some length talking about how this bill will be able to scope inquiries, join different inquiries together. They focus on how an inquiry is going to start, making it somewhat more difficult. They talk about the process. This bill talks about the budgeting of the process and needing ministerial approval for those budgetings. As the inquiry goes on, the minister continues to have control over the budget. Ostensibly, if the inquiry was going badly, the minister could withdraw the budget or at least shorten the budget and therefore control the inquiry process.

As I read the bill, I find that this is all about control and controlling the inquiry process as opposed to any accountability or creating any transparency that might be evident if this bill truly was a bill about good government. In my comments when the bill was introduced, I mentioned that, if this is good government, what came before? The obvious answer might be that there was bad government. And if this bill is to correct that bad government, it does a very poor job of correcting bad government, because I think that this bill continues with that tradition.

I would also like to begin by outlining in greater detail some of the serious concerns we have with the procedure used by the Liberal government to introduce this bill. The opposition is elected by the people to ensure good, accountable and transparent government on their behalf.

Bill 212 is over 300 pages long. It came with a compendium close to 100 pages and a 37-page explanation note. It includes 26 schedules. It's a huge tome. There are 36 pages of explanatory notes and 26 schedules.

Schedule 2 alone amends 79 different pieces of legislation.

Schedule 21 significantly amends the Municipal Act.

Schedule 5 and

schedule 6 introduce two completely new bills. I think that's going a little above and beyond: When you introduce two completely new bills in an omnibus bill, I think it does discourage debate surrounding specific pieces of legislation.

I would assume that the government is going to—and that might be a difficult thing to do—give favourable timelines for debate on this bill. I hope they will give favourable timelines for committee on this bill. However, I am very suspicious. Having been in this Legislature for 14 years, I've developed some suspicion of what this opposition—what this government might do—soon-to-be opposition. I suspect that we're going to see a time allocation motion on this bill sometime in the future. I hope that time allocation bill is in the distant future.

I heard a rumour that you want to pass this bill by December, and I find that ludicrous when a bill of this size, affecting 22 different ministries, is going to be debated in a brief period of time and when the people of Ontario will want to comment on this bill during the committee process. That committee process could take weeks and weeks.

The organization of the bill as a whole is very difficult. A single act is amended in various different schedules of the bill, making any comprehensible understanding of the overall changes very difficult and very time-consuming, because you have to go through the bill, you pick out the various changes to a piece of legislation and then you have to arrange those changes back in. So the organization of this bill has been—I don't know if it has been purposeful, but it has been organized in such a way that has made it very difficult for the opposition to pull that together, especially given the very short time frame.

Before Bill 212 was introduced, the Liberals were tight-lipped with the opposition about what they were introducing. We had no idea an omnibus bill of this size was coming down. We had only our ideas about what the Liberals were going to do. We knew that the selection of juries was under some difficulty and that a bill would be coming forth to fix that. Yes, that is included in here, and that's probably one of the good parts of this bill. However, we had no idea that there was going to be such an extensive bill passed or brought to the House when this was introduced.

We were wondering whether this bill would create a larger bureaucracy, which would follow the Liberal pattern, but we did not know. With the billion-dollar eHealth scandal, the $2.5-billion harmonized sales tax grab and the massive $24.7-billion deficit, the official opposition hoped this would be a good-government bill in order to fix some of these disasters. I must say that we were disappointed.

These billion-dollar scandals are coming at a time when Ontario's unemployment rate is a whopping 9.2%; we're approaching double-digit unemployment in this province. As recently as last month, Statistics Canada noted that "Ontario has suffered the fastest rate of employment losses since October [2008]," which was 2.9%, "mostly in full-time and in manufacturing, construction and a number of service industries." Those are full-time jobs. Those are jobs that support families. Those are jobs that support dreams. Those are jobs that are lost to Ontario, along with the hopes and dreams that those families had.

I hoped that this would be a good-government bill. I hoped these scandals would be addressed. I hoped this bill would bring Ontario back to being the number one province in this country economically, driving the economic engine, driving this country forward. However, again, I was disappointed.

On so many levels, this is not a good-government bill, and my hopes for the people of Ontario are not great at this point in time. But the people of Ontario are extremely resilient, and they will have the opportunity to bring this province back. It won't be the government that brings it back—government policies perhaps—but the people of Ontario are the ones who will make it work. Their work ethic and their level of education and knowledge and their skill levels will bring this province back to its rightful place as the engine of economic growth in this country. However, under this government we haven't seen the kind of legislation that's going to make that happen.

The timing of this bill makes me wonder if the Liberals hoped that the staffing resources of the opposition would be diverted from representing the people of Ontario, that we would be forced to put aside the scandals and spending abuses rocking the Liberal government to review these 600 provisions that are presented in this bill. The PC caucus and our staff have reviewed this bill. We do not have the huge government support that the government has in examining this bill in its entirety, but we'll represent the people in debate.

We encourage interested groups and the people of Ontario to contact us with their concerns. We'll address them, and we encourage the people of Ontario to make themselves available to the committee process and to express those concerns to the government of Ontario. Surely a bill of this size will travel the length and breadth of this great province.

But we will not let this bill divert us from continuing to uncover the scandals that the Liberal government has been saddled with in their summer of scandal. We will not let this bill stop us from calling for Liberal accountability when it comes to how Ontario's hard-earned tax dollars are spent—and in the case of this government, how our hard-earned tax dollars are wasted. We will not let this bill stop us from representing your concerns here on the floor of this Legislature.

We were provided a 324-page bill that on so many levels is not good government. This bill was created after the work of 22 different ministries; we were given 15 minutes after the bill was introduced to review those 600-or-so provisions before commenting. The public only got a look at this bill in its entirety yesterday when it was put up on the website. Providing the opposition with nothing, the Liberals leaked Bill 212 to the media. This Liberal practice slapped democracy in the face. This Liberal practice denied the people of Ontario fairness and a strong voice. This is not accountable or transparent; it is definitely not good government.

The Attorney General highlighted—and I could point out that from the accountability point of view there are a number of acts that this bill affects; for instance, the Collection Agencies Act. Subsection 3(3) of the bill removes the director's supervision of the registrar's performance of his or her duties. It seems to me that that makes it less accountable in that bill. The Consumer Reporting Act: It does the same thing. It removes the director's supervision of the registrar's performance of his or her duties. The Film Classification Act: Again, it removes the director's supervision.

The Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act: Again, it removes the director's supervision. There are nine acts which that same clause follows—the director's supervision of the registrar is removed. That does not give me confidence that this government is becoming more accountable. It is removing accountability from the civil servants.

Also, in the Ministry of Culture, there are eight different acts which remove the accountability of one representative or another.

All of those things bring less accountability to the governance of this province and make it more difficult for taxpayers to ensure that their tax dollars are being well spent.

The Attorney General highlighted the amendment to the Juries Act when he introduced Bill 212. This is one

section of close to 600. He spoke briefly about the new Public Inquiries Act, and that is one

section of 26. He said Bill 212 will ensure "the people of this province are well served by their government." Fifteen minutes later, after the Liberals had leaked the bill to the media, they asked the official opposition to respond. Is this how the Liberal government serves the people of Ontario? Is this how they define good government? Is this representative of their democracy? I say, too bad for Ontario.

The Liberals slapped democracy in the face a second time when they provided one working day and the weekend for the opposition to review the 600 provisions and respond again. We worked hard and diligently for these three days to ensure the we could serve the people of Ontario in this chamber. We reviewed and examined those 324 pages, and we found that this is not just a housekeeping bill and it is not always a good-government bill. Tucked within these 600 provisions, 324 pages and two new acts are some significant changes that I have serious concerns about.

I would like to voice my extreme disapproval on how the Liberal government has handled this bill. It is undemocratic, it is bad government and it is not serving the people of Ontario well.

Schedule 2, which is 56 pages long and amends 79 existing acts: A majority of these changes are administrative. Compared to the scandals and spending abuses currently rocking the Liberal government, this is not the time to be addressing a majority of these issues. We are facing serious economic crisis in this province because the Liberal government's economic agenda has failed, their famous five-point plan.

We haven't heard too much about the five-point plan in the last little while, and that's probably a good thing, because the five-point plan was an unmitigated disaster which drove industry from this province, drove over 300,000 manufacturing jobs out of this province and left this province reeling as a have-not province in a Canada that sees new provinces across this country becoming "have" provinces. That is a sad day for the people of Ontario.

We are facing serious economic problems. Our unemployment rate is almost in double digits. We have been saddled with a $24.7-billion deficit that will divert taxpayers' money from public programs to interest payments in years to come. A $24.7-billion deficit, to put it in context, is almost double what the previous largest deficit was. It isn't just a few billion dollars—a few billion, if you can use that term—more than the largest deficit in the past; it is almost double the largest deficit in the past. The context of that is truly scary.

We are in a time when Ontario has become a have-not province under a government voted the worst provincial government in Canada. It is monstrous for the Liberals to have introduced this bill during a provincial crisis they have played a large

part in creating.

I cannot help but wonder if this good-government bill isn't a scandal to cover up those previous scandals that we were talking about.

Mr. Bill Murdoch: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I know Mr. Chudleigh is doing a great job speaking, but I don't believe there's a quorum in here.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): Is a quorum present?

The Deputy Clerk (Mr. Todd Decker): A quorum is present, Speaker.

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

Mr. Rosario Marchese: Monique just stepped in.

Hon. Monique M. Smith: I'm here.

Mr. Ted Chudleigh: Oh, they snuck one under the wire there.

I want to touch on a few points within the 79 acts amended by

schedule 2 of this scandalous bill. Remember that there are not only 79 acts that are amended; there are two completely new bills brought in under this legislation.

This

schedule removes

section 95 of the Ontario Municipal Board Act. It strips away the right of Ontarians to send a petition of appeal to the Lieutenant Governor in Council after a decision or an order of the OMB is made. It removes one more ability for people to control or have input into the things that occur in their neighbourhood or in their community. I think that certainly doesn't represent good government; that represents a more restrictive society, and I can't see how this government can think that would be a good thing.

As the heavy hand of the Liberal government increasingly pounds down on the lives of Ontarians and on the independent decision-making of our municipalities, I have serious concern that this avenue is being abolished.

This

schedule amends the Compensation for Victims of Crime Act. It does not speak to victims such as Patricia Marshall and her daughters, whose victim rights were infringed. It does not speak to the unacceptable statements used in the crown's letter to Mrs. Marshall explaining why he withdrew charges against a young man caught masturbating in her yard while peering through her windows. It does not speak to the contrasting reasons given by the crown and the assistant deputy Attorney General of the criminal law division to this victim explaining why the charges were withdrawn.

It does not assure the Marshalls and the people of Ontario in similar circumstances that justice will be done. It does not force the Attorney General or this province to explain what he means by taking an issue "seriously" when he is doing absolutely nothing about it.

I'm somewhat concerned about the addition of

section 10.1 in the Legislation Act. This new

section will allow, through a report tabled by the Attorney General, all acts that meet the specific requirements to be repealed. I understand the general purpose of this provision, but there are a number of unanswered questions. For example, I'm unclear as to how this report will look. There is no indication of what procedures will be used to vote on this report, including how this chamber will determine if a bill should be removed and therefore not repealed. I am concerned that the opposition will be unaware of the decision-making process used to decide which relevant bills are included in the first instance.

I think I should remind the government that bills are not the property of the government. Bills are the property of the people of Ontario, and removing them is a very serious business. If this government cannot find the time in this Legislature to bring those bills forward for some debate before they are removed, then I think Ontario has certainly lost some of its accountability and has lost some of its transparency—two issues that this bill purports to support and yet, in this instance, it has not supported at all.

In 2010 and 2011, this new provision could provide the Liberals with opportunities to table a report and bury the opposition in another mountain of paper as further scandals come to light. This is not good government.

Schedule 2 is massive. It repeals bills and allows older bills to be repealed more easily. This is not simply housekeeping, this is not accountability, and this is certainly not good government.

Schedule 5 creates a new act, the Adjudicative Tribunals Accountability, Governance and Appointments Act. This is not housekeeping. It is a disgrace to have it included within the good-government bill, and it is the subject of a third party amendment to this bill, an amendment which I will be pleased to support when it comes to a vote. That vote should be many months from now as we continue to debate this bill in this House.

This

schedule should not have been included as part of this bill. If the Liberals wanted to ensure good government and transparency, they would have introduced this new act as a separate public bill. Yet, with a twist of irony, the Liberals have included this new act as part of their Good Government Act. It boggles my mind why the Liberals chose these titles: the Good Government Act, the Adjudicative Tribunals Accountability, Governance and Appointments Act. Did they really believe that these titles would be nice enough for a nice photo op? Did they think that the scandals would not be revealed?

This is not a Good Government Act or accountability. This is scandalous. It's a typical act of bad government because it's restricting people's abilities for accountability and transparency. And we get this from a government that has been voted the worst government in Canada. This new act has a nice name. It may divert people from its content. But I think people will dig a bit and realize that the act is supported on some pretty weak fluff.

First, what is the scope of this act? It tries to codify accountability, but for who and for what adjudicative tribunals? Adjudicative tribunals are defined as "an agency, board, commission, corporation or other entity that is prescribed" in the massive government the Liberals have created. That's all we know. I don't know, Ontarians don't know and even the media likely doesn't know, unless it has been leaked to them, who this act will apply to. Why? Because the affected administrative tribunals will be laid out in regulation. When? We don't know.

All we can say for certain is that it doesn't affect the unaccountable, bad government of the Liberals, the body that needs accountability and transparency more than anyone.

But it seems to get worse. Not only are we left in the dark about accountability but we don't know which administrative tribunals the appointment process and this new act apply to. Again we have to wait for the regulations. We're asked to vote on something which could be referred to as a pig in a poke. Again we have to wait for the regulations.

This is bad government in the name of good government, unaccountability in the name of accountability, and a scandal to cover up scandals.

If people aren't convinced, they should look to see when this new act will take effect: not immediately. In fact, only when the government decides to proclaim the

schedule will this new act come into force. When is that? We don't know, but likely it will involve a nice photo op.

Why was this new bill introduced in a housekeeping bill? Why are we denied knowing how widely these accountability measures will be applied? If it is so important to introduce them in the middle of a provincial crisis, why is the government not ensuring this

schedule has immediate effect? Why is the worst government in Canada imposing accountability on administrative tribunals when it is failing so miserably in this regard itself?

A second problem I have with this new bill, this new act, is the requirements being imposed on administrative tribunals. Accountability and good governance are principles that the PC caucus and I take seriously. It is why we have such a problem with this bill on so many levels. But in equal measure, we take the effective and efficient operation of government extremely seriously. We believe that a government acts on behalf of the people of Ontario and that every dollar it spends is not the government's money, not Dalton McGuinty's money but that of the taxpayers.

That's why we were so upset last spring when this Premier was at a photo op introducing the construction of a building in Toronto, I believe it was, when he spoke about the money that was coming from Ottawa and the money that was coming from McGuinty. It was as if he had put his hand in his pocket and taken out his own money to finance this project. I've noticed that he has changed his tune since then, but it was an indication of the attitude, the cavalier attitude, that this government has developed over their six years of governance of this province.

Let's see what the Liberals believe is a good use of taxpayers' dollars. Remember that this in the middle of an economic downturn, when the government's mismanagement has saddled Ontarians with billions of dollars of scandals, tax grabs and an astronomical deficit.

This bill will require administrative tribunals, whichever they are, to develop "public accountability documents" and "governance accountability documents." If we dig a bit, we see that these include a mandate and mission statement, a consultation policy, a services standard policy, an ethics plan, a member accountability framework, a memorandum of understanding with the responsible ministers, a business plan and an annual report. This list does not even include what comes under regulation.

A $24.7-billion deficit is becoming less and less surprising. This new bill is only one more example of how the Liberals like to sit around a table busying themselves on bureaucratic red tape as opposed to efficiently managing the economy of our province.

I would like to address two more concerns I have with this new act. The first comes with what the Liberals have termed "clustering." In principle, I can see some efficiencies in this idea, but reading through this new act, I do not see how it is being applied. Again, we are left in the dark about what effect this clustering will have in reality. The act of clustering will be done in regulation.

I believe that this clustering that the government is doing could also lead to many abuses of accountability and transparency. It gives the government additional powers over the operation of inquiries so that they can be scoped, they can be focused, they can be restricted, their budgets can be restricted, and they can be moved in a way that suits the government, as opposed to the accountability, the transparency and the ultimate truth that public inquiries are meant to bring.

When a cluster is created, the new bill allows the Lieutenant Governor in Council to appoint an executive chair, an associate chair, one or more vice-chairs for each tribunal in the cluster and one or more alternate executive chairs from among the associate chairs. My goodness, that's a lot of Liberal appointments for one inquiry. Wow. My head spins when those figures come out, and I think of all the Liberals who are going to get those nice appointments. For the most part, we don't know what the chairs will do. That's in regulation as well. We know they may create an even larger bureaucracy. That has been the way of this government.

Another

section controls the budget of the agencies, boards and commissions. Government controls structure, they control budget, they control mandate and they control the inquiry. They have significant control over the results of that inquiry as well—and that, my friends, is not good government.

My final concern, topping off all the others, is found in subsection 20(2) of the new act, which states: "Any failure of an adjudicative tribunal or its chair to comply with this act does not affect the validity of any action taken or decision made by the tribunal or the chair." That gives everybody a pass. A basic tenet of British law that goes back to the Magna Carta of 1215 is that when there's been an error made, the judgment of that court or tribunal is set aside, yet this bill will change all that.

The history of the British law system, the history of the Canadian system of law, the history of law in Ontario will be changed in that you can make any mistake you want during the inquiry, but it won't affect the outcome. I don't know how a government can say that that is accountable, that that is transparent or that it adds to the ability of a government to bring freedom and accountability to the people of Ontario. Just think about the ramifications that could happen during those inquiries.

With that, my friends, I've got to share my time. I'm going to turn it over to the member from Burlington, who I know is equally shocked. I'll look forward to a long and healthy debate on this particular bill as we move through the 600 different schedules. Many of them are housekeeping, but the fact that two complete bills have been included in this legislation makes it unacceptable on the very surface of it.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): The member from Burlington.

Mrs. Joyce Savoline: I'm happy to join my colleague the member from Halton to speak to Bill 212,

An Act to promote good government by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting two new Acts.

As the title implies, this bill, if passed, amends or repeals a number of acts and enacts new acts. I believe the bill actually makes about 600 changes in total—600 changes. The McGuinty Liberals say that this bill is part of the government initiative to promote good government. Well, I want to point out that just because they have dubbed the bill the good-government bill doesn't mean that it is.

I would hope that the McGuinty Liberals don't think they can pull the wool over our eyes or the eyes of Ontarians by referring to this bill as "good government." I know Ontarians are a whole lot smarter than that, and they will see right through what is trying to happen here with this bill. Clearly I do not agree with the title of the bill, and I would argue that it is a bad-government bill, not a good-government bill. It's simply bad politics in the name of good government.

For starters, this bill was introduced in the Legislature last Tuesday. That's a week ago. However, it was not posted or made available to Ontarians until later Thursday afternoon. That's two days later. The first day of debate was then scheduled for yesterday, which left almost no time to prepare. That is really quite appalling, especially for a bill of this magnitude. I'm sure the intent was to overwhelm the opposition parties and Ontarians, and to push this bill through without giving us and the public proper time to review it, which I will say really does hinder the democratic process.

This government has had months to review this bill. They have had time to review it so that they fully understand it and have had time to consult with stakeholders about the implications of the bill. As my colleague has already mentioned, there was a great delay in getting this bill introduced. If this government wasn't prepared to provide copies of this bill and make it public or get it up on the website for all the world to see, they should have delayed the introduction of the bill until they were prepared.

I would suspect that the answer has something to do with the McGuinty Liberals wanting to attract attention away from the long list of Liberal scandals and the record-breaking $24.7 billion in debt that was announced just a couple of weeks ago. I will elaborate on these points a little bit later.

I want to first talk about the democratic process that is supposed to be in place in this House and how discouraged I am that it isn't. It would seem that the media had an inside scoop on this bill before opposition MPPs even knew about it. A case in point: On Wednesday morning, we were privileged enough to read about some of the implications that this bill would have through the press. I tried to pull up the bill on the website, and as I already mentioned, it was nowhere to be found.

I guess I really shouldn't be surprised at this, coming from this government. There seems to be a trend here. Earlier this month, we learned about the findings of the Auditor General's report regarding this government's electronic health records system through the media—and days before the actual report was released. I'm sure this was quite disappointing to the Auditor General himself. I will say that as a courtesy, the Auditor General provides a copy of his report first to the minister and the ministry. In this case, it was the Ministry of Health and it was in advance of the report being released.

This does, of course, come with strict instructions that the report not be decimated in any way or copied. This government should have more respect for these sorts of rules and for the people of Ontario, but instead, they seem to have this culture of entitlement and they often deviate from the rules.

Another example is the 2009 budget. There, we learned about what was in the budget days before it was actually tabled. The Premier himself deliberately breached the convention of budget secrecy when he announced the amount the government was promising to spend on infrastructure over the next two years prior to the budget being tabled. I greatly respect the traditions of this Legislature and the democratic process that should be taking place each and every day here in this House. I would hope that this government learns to respect that as well.

As I already mentioned, I am quite sure the intent of this bill was not housekeeping at all, as the McGuinty Liberals have indicated. It is to deviate from the long laundry list of Liberal scandals. It seems quite suspicious to me that this 322-page bill was dumped on us as this government tried to dodge the scandals that they have been plagued with. The McGuinty Liberals needed to provide a distraction from all the opposition research that was being done to expose this government's continued long list of scandals.

The fact that a majority of this government's agencies are not even subject to freedom-of-information requests wasn't doing the trick anymore; they needed another tactic, so they introduced this massive bill. I guess the hope here was that the McGuinty Liberals could buy themselves a little time in which to perhaps avoid a new scandal that might be revealed. As we all know, for weeks now, each time we pick up the morning paper, turn on the news or listen to the radio, there's a new link to a Liberal scandal. The hope of this bill is to serve as a distraction to try to prevent all of that.

However, there is no bill large enough to cover up this government's secrets.

It is no coincidence that a couple of weeks after the PC caucus called for a public inquiry to resolve the many unanswered questions that remain about the serious abuse and misuse of taxpayers' money that occurred within the McGuinty Liberal eHealth scandal, this government dumps a massive 322-page bill. The Premier has refused a public inquiry.

The Liberals voted down our opposition day motion requesting a public inquiry and the Liberal-majority-held public accounts committee voted down bringing the former eHealth Ontario CEO, Sarah Kramer, and former board chair Alan Hudson before the committee to be questioned. They blocked off all roads to answers that Ontarians are asking for and deserve to know.

Haven't the McGuinty Liberals learned that you cannot just make your problems go away by covering them up? They should, because this tactic has backfired on them before. Let me refresh their memory: Over the spring and summer of 2008, the PC caucus held this government to account on their neglect of the very serious C. difficile issue. This government knew about the severity of C. difficile dating back to 2003, when a serious outbreak killed over 20 patients. The ministry did a study—they actually did a study—into those deaths in 2004, yet this government did nothing.

And as everyone remembers, hundreds of people lost their lives and got sick. Finally, on May 28, 2008, former health and long-term-care minister George Smitherman announced that mandatory reporting of C. difficile cases in hospitals would begin on September 30 of that year.

Fast-forward a few months. David Caplan takes over as Minister of Health and Long-Term Care and moves that date from September 30 to September 26. Well, guess what? September 26 is a Friday, a day when the Legislature does not sit for question period, so the opposition cannot immediately hold the government to account here in the House; a day when the ministers don't walk out of the Legislature to stand in front of the media to answer the questions the media have; and a day when Ontarians are preoccupied with the upcoming events of the weekend.

Aside from Friday, September 26, being the beginning of the mandatory reporting for C. difficile, it was also the same day that the government dissolved the Smart Systems for Health Agency and replaced it with eHealth Ontario. Now, here's the irony: This is a so-called good-government bill that's been introduced to cover up the disastrous scandal that ended up occurring at eHealth.

Another example is the release of the Cancer Care Ontario audit—this is shameful. The audit was quietly released the same day as the auditor's report on electronic health records systems. The audit found that the agency had spent nearly $75 million on consultants over the last two years and did not consistently apply tendering rules for all of the contracts. The audit also found that one consulting firm received single-source contracts worth $18.7 million over a three-year period. None of these expenses billed by consultants were preapproved by the agency, and almost all of them weren't backed up by receipts.

So again we see the McGuinty Liberals follow this trend by releasing the Cancer Care Ontario audit on a day when MPPs, the media and Ontarians were preoccupied with the Auditor General's report.

I would like to make one more point regarding this bad-government bill. I think there are really some significant changes in this bill, and the fact that they have been thrown into a 322-page document raises some very big red flags.

What is in this bill that the McGuinty Liberals are hoping we won't find? Why are the large parts of this bill not stand-alone bills? My colleague has already spoken about the proposal to replace the Public Inquiries Act. Well, I think this is really interesting timing, since the PC caucus has called on the Premier to call a public inquiry into the eHealth scandal. I won't pursue this today, but I can only wonder whether this is one of the changes the McGuinty Liberals were hoping to hide in these 322 pages of changes.

Regrettably, I again have to say that this is not the first time that we have seen this government play the game of "find the needle in the haystack." They dumped binders full of OLG expenses on us; they dumped thousands of pages of Ministry of Health FOIs on us; and perhaps the most notable, they dumped six binders of information regarding the freedom-of-information request from eHealth Ontario. I would just like to remind the McGuinty Liberals that we went through those six binders.

We went through them page for page, and I am sure that every member on the opposite side of this House knows what the result of that was. This bill will be no different. We will go through this bill page for page and pull out what the McGuinty Liberals hope to hide.

Let's talk about what this bill does.

The bill makes some significant changes to the Municipal Elections Act. One change that would affect almost everyone is the change to

section 5, which amends the voting day from the second Monday in November to the fourth Monday in October. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has said that a number of seniors' groups, as well as female candidates, have asked for this change, and I can appreciate that. I think that a lot of people, particularly snowbirds leaving us as of November 1, wanted to have this date moved forward. This will allow more Ontarians the ability to vote.

I have spoken about the democratic process already, but I will just add that voting is certainly part of that democratic process. So if we can encourage a greater voter turnout, that is something I will strongly support.

The change in the election date, of course, changes the deadline for a candidate to file their nomination papers. As I see it, this bill would also amend the cut-off date for nomination papers. It would move the time from 4 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the second Friday in September. Two o'clock seems a little odd to me; I don't know why they picked 2 o'clock. I wonder why it's not still 4 o'clock, which is closer to the end of the day and easier for most people to come in and file.

This bill also addresses the needs of candidates and electors with disabilities, another good thing in this bill. The bill includes a change that states, "Campaign expenses related to a candidate's disability are excluded from the candidate's spending limit." So if a candidate needs a ramp built to their new campaign office, that can be done without actually charging it to the campaign expenses.

This bill would also allow the Municipal Property Assessment Corp., MPAC, to enter into an agreement with the Registrar General to broaden the range of information available to MPAC to create a preliminary list of electors. As you know, the Registrar General is responsible for the province's birth certificates, birth registrations, marriage certificates and name changes, as well as death certificates. This could prove to be helpful with respect to getting a more accurate voters' list. I think we have all heard about outdated information on voters' lists, and we all know it can be quite the nightmare.

I just want to ensure that all the appropriate steps are taken to ensure that there are no privacy breaches here, and that we are mindful of the confidentiality of this personal information.

The accuracy of the voters' list was of concern to me, and I did take the time to address that in my 15 hours at the estimates committee with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Specifically, I asked the minister a question regarding the MPAC enumeration process. In 2006, as you may remember, the enumeration process included a new code, and the new code was simply the letter "U." It was to determine citizenship status. It created some concern in municipalities because many voters were classified with that "U," which represented unconfirmed citizenship.

This meant that those voters had to then fill out an amendment form so that their citizenship would be known and proof would be given, which is very important. I don't disagree with that, but you can imagine the real problem at the polls when something like this occurs. Many, many backups happened. There were huge lineups in some municipalities.

MPAC has indicated that they're working on this, and they hope to improve the accuracy of this enumeration process. My question to the minister was to provide some insight into the status of this and whether municipalities could look forward to a less cumbersome process for the 2010 municipal election. Actually, if I remember correctly, the minister pointed out that it was a very good question. In his response, the minister told me that he undertook this issue with the Minister of Finance, as MPAC falls under the Minister of Finance's portfolio, and that, if they were to make changes to the Municipal Act, it would be one of the areas that would be addressed.

But you know what? I see in this bill that MPAC is given the ability to use data from the Registrar General regarding the registration of births, deaths and changes of name, but I don't think that it will address the unconfirmed citizenship status issue. As far as I can see, this issue has not been addressed in this bill. And because of how quickly this bill has been thrown at us, I must say that I have not had the opportunity to take

part in my technical briefing yet from the staff of the ministry. I am, though, looking forward to that later this week, and I will be asking that very specific question of the staff.

Another point that I want to make is with respect to the environment and land use planning cluster. I also addressed this in my 15 hours with the minister at the estimates committee. The cluster will combine the Assessment Review Board, the board of negotiation, the Environmental Review Tribunal and also the municipal board. Although these tribunals affect municipalities directly, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing would not respond to my questions and suggested that they be asked of the Attorney General.

I see that the minister will not be speaking on this issue, on this so-called good-government bill, so again, he will be off the hook with respect to questions regarding this new cluster and the implications that it has for the municipal sector.

I'd also like to point out that the initial report that resulted in the proposal for the environment and land use planning cluster was prepared for the Minister of Government Services, even though the tribunals fall under the jurisdiction of the Attorney General. So I don't really buy this whole thing of the "not my issue" response, and I will certainly be looking for further answers regarding the cluster when I speak with the ministry staff.

I want to touch on what I think has been missed in this bill. I think that since this bill opens up the Municipal Elections Act, there is an opportunity to talk about some other changes, changes that have been talked about over the last couple of years but have not been presented in this bill.

I would like to talk about voting locations. In the last general election, and even in my by-election in 2007, I received many e-mails and phone calls from concerned parents regarding their children's schools being used as voting locations. I understand the logistics of using a school as a voting location because they're really the centre point of a community. They also have facilities to allow for voting stations to be set up mainly in the school auditorium so it facilitates people coming in and going out.

However, most recently, we have worried about the safety of our schools, and I think that schools have most doors locked, and strangers and visitors must check in with the office and that kind of procedure.

So I can appreciate the concern of parents that outsiders, even though they may be going through their democratic process of voting, are really outsiders to that school, and they're coming into their children's school while their children are there. I think that school security has really increased over the last years, and we have all heard some disturbing stories. We really need to ensure that we do everything in our power to protect the safety of our children.

It is for this reason that I'm suggesting that we try to coordinate a professional development day occurring on the same day as the municipal election. This would allow for municipalities to use the school as a voting location, and it would also put the many concerned parents at ease that their children are not put in any potentially dangerous situations. This bill allows for the opportunity for us to look at this now, because we're opening the act. The Attorney General should work with the Minister of Education on this front and arrange that a PD day be coordinated with the municipal election.

I know that as an opposition member, our recommendations are most usually not considered, let alone taken, but I feel that this one has very strong merit. I will, of course, be suggesting this as an amendment to this bill, and I guess I will just have to wait and see how it is perceived by the Liberal majority.

I will wrap up my time today by reiterating a comment I made earlier. This bill is truly bad politics in the name of good government. It has the potential to be a political diversion for the long list of Liberal scandals. It has diminished our democratic process by not providing all members of the Legislature with the bill in a timely way, by rushing a bill of this magnitude to debate before the hard copies have even arrived at our desks, and by leaking parts of this bill before members had a chance to even look at it. This is certainly my definition of bad government, not good government.

We have already seen far too much money and time wasted on the McGuinty Liberals' photo ops. There is absolutely no more room for any waste, especially now with their record-breaking $24.7-billion debt. If the McGuinty Liberals are truly to their word on this being a good-government bill, they will act in that way and they will accept the recommendations from the opposition parties for amendments—from my colleagues as well as myself—because that is what good government does.

As members of official opposition, it is our role to critique the actions of this government and present suggestions that will benefit all Ontarians. It is also the current government's role to adopt some of these suggestions of changes that may previously have not been considered.

On that note, I look forward to the continued debates on this bill, and I look forward to following this bill to committee.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Julia Munro): It being close to 10:15, this House stands recessed until 10:30. When debate continues, we will begin with questions and comments.

The House recessed from 1014 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Mr. John O'Toole: I'm pleased this morning to rise and introduce a couple of the truck drivers in Ontario who are under stress from the lack of action by the government: Gus Rahim, who's the president of the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario, Rich Lupiccini and Rob Coleshaw, who join us here in the visitors' gallery today.

Mr. Peter Tabuns: It's my honour to introduce the family of page Hannah Walters-Vida: her mother, Heather Walters; her father, Ron Vida; and her sister Sophie Walters-Vida. Welcome to the Legislature.

Mr. Jim Brownell: I welcome to the Legislature today Dale Petrie, the general manager of the Ontario Soybean Growers, and Barry Senft, the CEO of the new Grain Farmers of Ontario. I know that they certainly will welcome you this evening to committee room 2 at 5 p.m. for the Ontario Soybean Growers' reception. So welcome to the Legislature.

Mr. Tony Ruprecht: I'm really delighted to introduce to you the grade 10 students from one of the best schools in the city of Toronto, Oakwood Collegiate. They're here with three teachers: Jeff Jones, David Adam and Gaynor Priestley. I say, welcome.

Mr. Peter Tabuns: It's also my honour to introduce my new daughter-in-law, Karen Lao Quintero, who has just emigrated to Canada from Cuba. Welcome, Karen.

Hon. Ted McMeekin: Today, Madeline Thomson, the daughter of a very good friend of mine, Paul Thomson, will be visiting the Legislature. Madeline is with her grade 5 class from Charles Beaudoin school in Burlington. I understand they'll be doing a tour and exploring the historic legislative precinct, including an encounter, perhaps, with you later, Mr. Speaker. So we'd like to welcome them today to Queen's Park.

ORAL QUESTIONS

FLU IMMUNIZATION

Mr. Tim Hudak: My question is to the Minister of Health. Let me say that I am pleased to hear that the McGuinty government is listening to some of the advice that my health critic, Christine Elliott, and the PC caucus have brought forward. I encouraged you to open up workplace and school clinics and also to recruit retired nurses and doctors to make sure we get more shots in arms immediately.

A question to the Minister: How is it that the government can say how many inmates in our prisons have been inoculated, but you're not aware of the number of high-priority Ontario residents that have received the shot?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I appreciate that the Leader of the Opposition recognizes that we're working very hard to get the vaccination out and into Ontarians as quickly as we possibly can. Our goal—our target—is to get the 2.2 million doses that we currently have into people by the end of Saturday. Our public health units across the province are working very, very hard to accomplish that goal. The vaccine does nothing for people when it's in the fridge. We need to get it into people as quickly as we can, and we are committed to doing that. We have hundreds of thousands of people by the day, and by Saturday, it will be, I hope, 2.2 million.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mr. Tim Hudak: That's precisely why the PC caucus recommended clinics opening 24 hours a day, and workplace and school clinics, because it does no good when the vaccines are sitting on shelves in refrigerators. We hope the government immediately puts that advice into effect.

According to government records, some 70 convicted prisoners have been given the H1N1 shot. However, no guards were, not even Anita Mastracci, a prison guard who is seven months' pregnant. Eddy Almeida, chair of the corrections division, said the government told them it deferred to public health on who should receive the vaccine. He told us this was "a break from practice," and based on past practice, officers were assuming they would get the H1N1 flu shot as well.

Does the minister think it's appropriate that inmates are getting the shot but prison guards like Ms. Mastracci are not?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Let me make it very clear that pregnant women are in the highest priority group. I urge all pregnant women to get that vaccine. The unadjuvanted vaccine has now arrived in Ontario and is on its way out to the public health units. All pregnant women should receive the vaccine as quickly as possible. As I say, we have a new supply of 86,000 doses of the unadjuvanted vaccine that is specifically for pregnant women. I urge all pregnant women to get that vaccination either in a clinic or from their doctor. Many doctors will be having the unadjuvanted vaccine as well.

Pregnant women should be receiving that vaccine. It protects not just them; it also protects their unborn child.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary.

Mr. Tim Hudak: Here is the problem: While prisoners are getting their H1N1 vaccine—as I've said, a number already did as of Monday—pregnant women, young children and vulnerable people are still lining up at clinics across the province. It's very sad that somebody like Anita Mastracci, a seven-months-pregnant prison guard, is forced to line up behind the prisoners before she will get her shot at one of the clinics across the province. I hope the minister will correct that immediately.

The minister says that the reason prisoners are getting the H1N1 flu vaccine is because you're only following medical and public health officials' directions. But we understand that yesterday, Ron McKerlie, the Deputy Minister of Government Services, arbitrarily cancelled the prisoner vaccination plan. Why are you saying you're following the advice of health officials when it's clearly not the case?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: We are following the advice of the experts. I think that is actually what your critic has advised us to do.

High-risk people are receiving the vaccination. That includes people who are in our prisons. If the Leader of the Opposition is recommending that we withhold vaccine from people in our prisons, if he would prefer to see those people in our hospitals, then I think he should stand up and say that.

FLU IMMUNIZATION

Mr. Tim Hudak: Back to the Minister of Health: The problem that Ontario families have when they see this growing fiasco at the vaccination clinics is that sometimes the government says it takes the medical officer of health's advice and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes they say they follow their plan, except when they don't follow their plan.

While we know how many doses of H1N1 vaccine were given to inmates, the minister has yet to tell the general public how many people in the general population have received the vaccine to date. Minister,

chapter 9, page 1 of your own Ontario Health Plan for an Influenza Pandemic says the government should have "a mechanism in place to monitor antiviral and vaccine uptake and effectiveness." Why haven't you followed the Ontario influenza pandemic plan that you yourself commissioned?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I don't think there's anyone here who is going to defend what we saw last week, when clearly the demand for vaccine far outstripped our capacity to deliver it in some parts of the province. I should say that Niagara region, however, delivered the vaccine very smoothly. We learned from that. There are lineups that are very, very short. There are clinics where there are no lineups at all. Over 2,000 places across this province are now delivering the vaccine.

Again, I urge people who are in those high-priority groups to get their vaccine as quickly as possible. There is still vaccine available, although I must say we do expect, as we accelerate the distribution of the vaccine, that we will start to see empty fridges this week. We are hoping that the federal—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: That's exactly the concern: We are now almost a week into this and we're still seeing fridges packed with H1N1 vaccine when clinics close their doors. We're still seeing lineups of pregnant women and young children while vaccine is sitting on the shelves. I certainly am pleased with the progress in the Niagara area and commend all the health care workers and Dr. Robin Williams.

The minister makes an important point for us: You have a wide variety of approaches that are happening in every corner of the province. Minister, I cannot believe that in a city the size of Toronto, there was not one single clinic open this past Sunday, a very convenient day for families to take their kids to get the shot. Will the minister direct public health units where needed to have clinics open this Sunday to help Ontario families?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: We are getting updates from public health units. What I can tell you is that we have hundreds of thousands of people now vaccinated and that our target is 2.2 million people vaccinated by the end of the day on Saturday.

Let me tell you, as of November 3—that's today—in Guelph, 2,300 have received vaccinations; in Niagara, 45,000 have received vaccinations; in Cornwall, in eastern Ontario, 20,000 people; in North Bay and Parry Sound, 20,000—and they are expecting to run out very soon; in Ottawa, 80,000 people; in Hamilton, 20,000 people; in Sudbury, 18,000 people; in Toronto, 100,000 people; in Peterborough, 10,000 people; in Brantford, 7,000 people—and the list goes on.

We are working as hard as we can, as are health care workers across the province, to respond to this pandemic, to get the vaccine that we have into Ontarians—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Final supplementary?

Mr. Tim Hudak: The minister makes my point for me: While there has been progress in Niagara, other areas like Hamilton and Toronto are far behind, and we continue to get concerns from pregnant women and moms who can't get their kids into lineups.

We've brought forward a number of suggestions, Minister, that I understand the McGuinty government is now thinking about implementing. Now is your chance for those areas that have fallen far behind. Will you give direction to the public health units where needed to open up clinics on Sundays, to open up clinics around the clock and to put workplace and school vaccination clinics into play to help families get the shots, where they need them?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: With the greatest respect, I do suggest that the Leader of the Opposition learn what's happening on the ground today. We have learned from what has happened. The clinics are working as quickly as is possible.

As I say, we expect to be out of vaccine by the end of the week. To move to a 24/7 clinic cycle, to respond to political partisanship, I think would be irresponsible. We will continue to work as hard as we possibly can to get that vaccine to people. It's our responsibility.

FLU IMMUNIZATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is to the Premier. Thanks to the efforts of Ontarians and hard-working health care professionals, H1N1 vaccination lines have finally subsided somewhat, as of yesterday. But people are still trying to decide whether this government actually has a coordinated plan. To cite one example, pregnant women in Peel have been told they are not a high priority even though they are in the rest of the province. Why are expectant mothers in Peel different from women everywhere else in Ontario?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I appreciate the question. This is the first that we learned of this particular circumstance. We and our public health officials haven't been anything but unanimous when it comes to who are to be found in the highest-priority groups and who are those who are most at risk, including pregnant moms.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the public health officials in Peel and everywhere across the province for the heroic efforts that they have been making to adopt best practices as quickly as they can. I think if you turn on your TV this afternoon and this evening, you will see that those long lineups have all but disappeared. There are 2,000 places now that are giving out the vaccination. We have doubled the number of public health clinics. We have made some real progress.

I want to thank Ontarians for their patience and understanding in allowing those in the high-priority groups to get in line first.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Families want to be reassured that this government has a coordinated plan, but their confidence continues to wane. In some parts of Ontario, vaccinations are happening quickly and efficiently, but in other communities, parents are waiting or buying their way to the front of the line at private clinics.

This government has had months and months to plan. How does the Premier explain the woeful lack of coordination in the rollout of this vaccination?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I just want to assure Ontarians that public health officials and units right across the province are making real progress. They have learned from some of the shortcomings that were manifest last week. There are in fact many more clinics open. They are open for extended hours. I've just received a note here that's saying that when it comes to Peel, they are running clinics from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. from Monday to Friday, and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

So I think what's important to understand—my colleagues opposite continue to look in the rearview mirror. What I would encourage them to do is to develop a better understanding of what is happening on the ground today. There are now many more sites that are providing vaccinations, including the doubling of our public health clinics.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Parents, expectant mothers and hundreds of others with delicate health conditions simply want to do the right thing to protect themselves and their families, but their government has fallen short. Over the coming weeks, millions more vaccinations will be delivered. How can Ontario families be assured that this government has a coordinated plan to handle this well?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Again, what I can say is that we have, working together, made some tremendous progress. I think that's evident in how the vaccination is now being delivered in Ontario. We have doubled the number of public health clinics. There are now at least 2,000 sites, and that's probably a number that is growing in terms of places where people can obtain the vaccine: family health teams; community health centres; hospitals, certainly, for our health care deliverers; and the public health units. We've doubled that number from 50 to 100 right across the province. So we expect that we will continue to find ways to make more progress.

I'll say two things to Ontarians in particular: One, thank you so much for your patience; for allowing those people in the priority groups to get in the front of the line. They are most at risk, and we owe it to them to ensure that they get their vaccination first.

Secondly, I would say to the broader population: Continue to wash your hands. Continue to cough or sneeze into your sleeve. Stay home if you're sick. In the end we are still going to ask, we're going to plead with you and urge you to avail yourself of the vaccination opportunity. We want as many Ontarians as possible to get their vaccination.

FLU IMMUNIZATION

Ms. Andrea Horwath: This is to the Premier. The Minister of Health said that the government wants to administer 2.2 million doses of the vaccine by the end of the week, but yesterday she couldn't say exactly how many people had already had their shot. So how can the Premier know if the government is actually on target if he doesn't know how many vaccinations have actually been administered?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Health.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Perhaps I'll repeat: We are on track to deliver our target, which is 2.2 million doses to the people of Ontario, by the end of Saturday. We are getting updates from public health units. They are very busy delivering the vaccine. That is their number one job, but let me share some numbers that we do have.

In Guelph, 2,300 people have received the vaccine; in the Niagara area, 45,000 people have received the vaccine; in Cornwall and eastern Ontario, 20,000 people; in North Bay and Parry Sound, 20,000 people; in Ottawa, 80,000 people have received the vaccine; in Hamilton, 20,000 people; in Sudbury, 18,000 people; in Toronto, 100,000 people; in Peterborough—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: I'm trying to do the math as the minister brings the numbers forward, and the simple math suggests that hitting the target is going to be extremely difficult. There are 100 clinics operating, and each clinic can vaccinate 2,000 people a day. The best-case scenario is 200,000 vaccinations a day. If the government is to reach 2.2 million, the target that they're talking about, they would have to have already vaccinated one million people. Is that the case?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I'd like to help the leader of the third party with her math a little bit. People are getting the vaccine in clinics; that is correct. We also have over 2,000 other locations where people are getting the vaccine. Our public health officials assure us that it's an aggressive target but it is an achievable target. So we are on track to deliver 2.2 million doses of the vaccine by the end of the day Saturday.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Final supplementary.

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Instead of teaching me math this minister should learn how to roll out a vaccination program that has the confidence of the people of Ontario. That's what she should be focusing on. You know what? Families just want to be assured that this government has a coordinated plan, but their confidence continues to wane. First, a complete lack of communication—a complete communication breakdown; now, Ontarians see a government that says it's on target, but they can't actually say exactly how many people have been vaccinated.

Over the coming weeks, millions more vaccines are going to be delivered. How can Ontario families be assured that their government has a coordinated plan to handle the swell?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I actually need to say that I don't think the leader of the third party or anyone in this House should be running down our public health workers at this time in a pandemic. Our public health workers across the province are working day and night to get vaccines into people. These people are working very, very hard—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Stop the clock.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Start the clock. The clock had been stopped, but there were interjections from the opposition side.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The member from Hamilton East.

Minister?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I have every confidence that our public health units will deliver the vaccine in a way that respects people. They have learned from the problems that did exist in the first week and they have revised their plans. They've expanded the number of clinics; they've expanded the number of places where people can get it. We are dealing with a shortage of vaccines in coming—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

FLU IMMUNIZATION

Mrs. Christine Elliott: My question is for the Minister of Health. Minister, more people are going to get H1N1 as a result of your government's failure to distribute and administer the vaccine effectively.

Let's look to the line of next defence. Minister, is the ministry ready with a steady and sufficient supply of antivirals?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I confess that I had a little bit of trouble hearing the question, so let me speak to our preparedness to respond to what we know will be an increased number of people who will be ill with H1N1. We are seeing more people in the hospital, but I have to say that the vast majority of people who are admitted to hospital are subsequently released. There are approximately 82 people who are in the hospital as of yesterday; the vast majority of them are doing just fine.

We do have probably the world's best pandemic plan in place. Our hospitals are ready for the surge of people that we expect. I will be happy to answer more in the supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mrs. Christine Elliott:

Chapter 9.2 of the influenza pandemic plan says, "To be effective, antiviral treatment must be started within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms." The plan calls for an effective distribution system for antivirals, but the lead stories on all the newscasts throughout the day indicate that there is not an effective system in place for distributing the vaccine. You haven't followed the influenza pandemic plan up till now. Will you start following it and ensure that the province is ready for the increased supply of antiviral medication that we know we're going to need?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: We have an ample supply of Tamiflu. It has been distributed to pharmacies across the province. We have enough Tamiflu for 25% of our whole population. That is by any means considered an ample supply of Tamiflu.

ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION

M me France Gélinas: Ma question est pour le premier ministre. I, like most people, recognize that electronic health records are vitally important. We have to succeed, but not at all costs. It has to be transparent; we have to be accountable. In the midst of the investigation by the Auditor General, eHealth brokered a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar, behind-closed-doors deal with the OMA, a secret $236-million deal that only came to light as a result of Nightingale announcing to its shareholders that it is well positioned to benefit.

Premier, why wasn't the public made aware of this deal, and who approved it?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: In fact, this news appeared in the auditor's report on page 32. He has a special

section entitled "Electronic Medical Record Systems." Specifically, on page 32:

"In 2005, in partnership with the Ontario Medical Association, it provided funding"—that is, the ministry—"to enable an estimated 30% of Ontario's primary-care physicians, or 3,300 of them, to acquire EMR systems." He goes on to say, "More than 1,700 additional primary care physicians had applied for funding.... The board of the eHealth Ontario agency recently approved another $100 million in EMR support.... The eHealth strategic plan targets a 65% EMR adoption rate"—that is, electronic medical record adoption—"by primary care physicians by April 2012...."

He goes on to total all this up to at least $225 million. It's all here, in black and white, in the auditor's report.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

M me France Gélinas: Let's get our facts straight. The Auditor General documented $1 billion spent on eHealth, with little to show for it. In the midst of the investigation, $236 million goes out the door. To me, $236 million is a huge amount of money—it is bigger than a lot of the ministries sitting on the other side—and that, to benefit 5,700 physicians. If you do the math and say they're allowed $30,000 each, that makes $171 million. I'm interested in finding out who gets the other $65 million from that deal.

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: What I can say is that so far we have 3,300 Ontario doctors who are using electronic medical records, which are covering four million Ontarians. With this new $236-million investment, we want to have another 5,700 family physicians using electronic medical records, covering another six million Ontarians, for a total of 10 million Ontarians who will then be covered by our electronic medical record system. We think that's exactly what Ontarians want us to keep doing, which is making progress when it comes to laying the foundation for our electronic health record system.

RURAL HEALTH SERVICES

Mrs. Maria Van Bommel: My question is for the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. I know from experience with the health care issues in my riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex that there are many challenges unique to rural communities that need to be addressed, so I was very pleased to hear about the formation of the rural and northern health care panel earlier this year.

There are serious concerns being expressed about the process the panel is following and the lack of consultation to date. Hearing from Ontarians about health care issues and services in their communities is very important, and I know my constituents expect to have a voice. Could the minister please address the concerns of my constituents?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I can say that this is a very important issue to many Ontarians and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to it.

Ontarians should have access to high-quality health care no matter where they live in the province. That's why we created the rural and northern panel to examine the unique challenges that these communities face. We will be consulting with Ontarians. This plan is about improving health care services in their communities. Their voices are crucially important to this.

The panel is now in its first stage. The first stage is developing the rural and northern health care framework. Part of their work includes engaging Ontarians on five specific questions, through the website. Their report will then form the base for discussion at broader community consultations—the second phase of our approach—and inform the development of our provincial framework, which is the third and final stage of their work.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mrs. Maria Van Bommel: I'm very glad that I'll be able to reassure my constituents that they play a real role in shaping how we will improve the health care of our rural communities.

One of the greatest concerns for people in rural communities is the sustainability of their local health care facilities, especially our rural hospitals and emergency rooms. Hospitals are important to communities, and constituents in my riding are understandably anxious about changes occurring at their hospital. Could the minister please confirm that the panel will be looking at the sustainability of hospitals and emergency rooms as part of the larger picture of local health care in rural communities?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I agree that hospitals and health care facilities are important to communities, and that is never more true than in rural communities, and certainly we hear that from our rural caucus members on a regular basis.

The terms of reference for the panel recognize the challenges, and I would like to quote from that: "The challenges facing rural and northern communities across Ontario are long-standing, difficult and complex. Health care facilities serve multiple roles relative to those in urban centres and are farther apart, with significant travel distances between locations."

I can tell you that the panel will be recommending guidelines for LHINs, to be used when considering changing roles for health facilities.

I very much look forward to the report from the panel, consulting with Ontarians in rural and northern communities, and moving forward on a framework to improve health care services in our rural and northern communities.

ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION

Mr. Ted Arnott: My question is to the Premier. On the very same day the McGuinty Liberals blocked Sarah Kramer and Dr. Alan Hudson from giving evidence about the untendered-contract spending spree at eHealth, the assistant deputy minister of health, John McKinley, told the public accounts committee it was he who blocked the auditor's investigation of the ministry. No public servant would put a career on the line for nothing. The question is this: Was John McKinley assigned to the program area specifically to block the auditor?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: Clearly, the auditor pointed out that he did not receive the compliance, which had, until that point in time, completely characterized our dealing with the auditor on any number of files.

The deputy minister has had an opportunity to speak to this, the secretary of cabinet has had an opportunity to speak to this, and I have certainly done so as well. We want to make it clear to all of our civil servants, all of our ministers and everybody inside the government that our responsibility, and in the public interest, is to comply with any request coming from the auditor, and we intend to do that.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mr. Ted Arnott: The Premier's answer clearly underlines the reason why we need a public inquiry.

Mr. McKinley told the public accounts committee he was trying to have the scope of the audit broadened before letting in the auditor, but he had only been recently promoted to the program area and had very little personal stake in the outcome of the audit. It defies common sense for a public servant who was just appointed to the program area to take a personal interest in whether the audit was narrow or broad or if the audit made the minister look better or worse. What on earth would John McKinley have had to gain by obstructing the auditor's investigation of the billion-dollar eHealth boondoggle?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: My honourable colleague is seeing ghosts.

This is a pretty straightforward matter. I think we should take Mr. McKinley at his word.

What has become obvious, as well, is that as soon as the matter was brought to the attention of the deputy minister, there was a phone call between the deputy minister and the auditor to clear the matter up immediately and assure the auditor of 100% compliance and support for his work. That's what happened. It was unfortunate that, for the first time ever in the history of our government when it comes to our dealings of the auditor, there was this unfortunate slip. I want to assure the auditor and Ontarians that it will not happen again.

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

Mr. Michael Prue: My question is to the Premier. Yesterday, the McGuinty government caved to the powerful insurance lobby by announcing deep cuts to basic benefits for auto accident victims. Mandatory rehabilitation and medical benefits for serious injuries will be slashed from $100,000 to $50,000. Second doctors' opinions will no longer be allowed. As a result, the auto insurance industry will save hundreds of millions of dollars in claims costs while individuals will be left unprotected and vulnerable.

Why is this government putting the interests of powerful insurance companies ahead of the interests of ordinary Ontarians?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I am confident that we have achieved the right balance here. My colleague believes that we should have public auto insurance. He would have the government create a brand new bureaucracy that would have to employ thousands of people to somehow act as a substitute for the private sector model.

We think we've struck the right balance. What we want to do is ensure that Ontarians have greater choice when it comes to the kinds of insurance that they might want to purchase for themselves. We've tried to strike a balance between affordability and coverage. Even the most modest package that will be required in law in the province of Ontario will be in keeping with the best compensation packages and coverages that are available in other Canadian provinces. So we think we've struck that balance to help drivers, frankly, better manage their costs associated with auto insurance.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Michael Prue: These changes of which the Premier speaks will force accident victims to turn to rehabilitation and medical treatment in the public health care system. There, they will find that the chiropractic and physiotherapy services have been delisted and that wait lists are so long that timely intervention becomes almost impossible. Victims will be forced to pay out of their own pockets for private care and will end up in debt. These changes will hurt Ontarians and help insurance companies.

Why won't this government put people first?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I assume that "putting people first" is code for public auto insurance. The NDP government in the province of Ontario rejected that— fortunately—for the right reasons. We reject it as well.

With respect to premium increases under the NDP government, it is worth reminding ourselves that they went up 20% in just two years. On our watch, after six years, we are still down about 2% on average. We understand that pressures are growing when it comes to costs in the insurance industry. That's why we brought in a package which I again believe strikes the right balance between consumer choice and affordability. Again, the minimum available package in the province of Ontario is on par with the very best right across the country.

TAXATION

Mrs. Amrit Mangat: My question is to the Minister of Revenue. Two weeks ago, I attended a meeting put together by the Brampton Board of Trade. The groups of businesses at the meeting were made up from various sectors and were all different sizes. There were some businesses at the meeting who had questions about how the HST was going to be implemented. Many businesses are aware of the benefits that harmonization will have for them.

My question is: What will the HST mean for businesses in my riding and across the province?

Hon. John Wilkinson: I want to thank my friend for the question and particularly for the warm reception that she and I both received at the Brampton Board of Trade.

Brampton and Mississauga South have one of the highest concentrations of manufacturers in the province of Ontario. Under our tax reform package, manufacturers will be receiving some $1 billion worth of tax savings each and every year. Why? Because we need our manufacturers, our advanced manufacturers, to be even more competitive in the global economy.

As I criss-cross Ontario, I can tell you that people understand that the economy we had before this recession is different than the economy we're going to have after the recession. They understand that their government has to make a bold move to ensure that we are increasingly competitive.

On this side of the House, we are for reducing income taxes for people and businesses so that we are more competitive. We on this side of the House believe that there's a brighter future for our economy if we will just have the political courage to take this necessary step and have—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mrs. Amrit Mangat: I'm glad to hear about the measures being taken to educate businesses about the HST. However, some of the businesses, like Purolator, in my riding of Mississauga—Brampton South want to get prepared for the transition by clarifying any questions now. Over the next couple of days, I know the Ontario Chamber of Commerce is hosting the Ontario Economic Summit at Niagara-on-the-Lake. I'm sure many of the businesses there will have similar concerns.

My question is: What are you doing to reach out to the businesses which have specific, technical, HST-related concerns?

Hon. John Wilkinson: We recently released, in conjunction with the federal government and the government of British Columbia, the transitional rules that will apply in the year 2010, a year of transition, when we go from having two sales taxes collected by two governments in this province to just one sales tax collected by one government.

I have had an opportunity to travel across Ontario, as have my colleagues, talking about the benefits, but there are specific questions that businesses have, and there are a number of opportunities. I can refer all businesses to a website called ontario.ca/taxchange. All of the latest information is there.

Working in conjunction, my ministry, the Ministry of Revenue, and the Canada Revenue Agency of the federal government will be holding joint seminars right across Ontario where we answer those detailed questions for businesses. It is important for businesses to understand that changes are coming, and it's important for them so that they can be competitive in the 21st century—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

DRIVER EXAMINATION CENTRES

Mr. Frank Klees: To the Minister of Labour: The strike at Ontario's DriveTest centres is now in its 11th week. We have people here on the grounds of the Legislature; they're demonstrating against this government's inaction. They would rather be working than demonstrating. The reason they've lost their jobs or can't start the jobs for which they've trained for months is because they've been held hostage by a strike that continues to drag on. Today, we hear that Serco presented what it referred to as its final offer.

I want to know from the minister: Given the fact that the union has rejected that offer, will he now step in, exercise the authority that he has and put an end to this strike so that people can get back to work?

Hon. Peter Fonseca: I'd like to thank the member for the question.

I understand that individuals have been negatively impacted by this strike, and those that have been inconvenienced by this situation, be it truckers or new drivers or anyone—I can remember, at age 16, how eager I was to get my licence.

However, that being said, I want to remind the member opposite that we must trust and respect the collective bargaining process. We have some of our best mediators working on these negotiations, and they are making positive progress. As the member was mentioning, my understanding is that the union has agreed to present the employer's final offer to the membership this week. This means that the collective bargaining process—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Frank Klees: People are out of jobs, they're hurting, and we have more rhetoric from the minister.

The reality is that he does not understand that the reason people felt compelled to come to Queen's Park today is because this government has not been listening. They don't believe that this process is working for them. People need this minister to assume the responsibility and the authority that he has to ensure that this doesn't continue to drag out, so that people have an opportunity to take on the jobs for which they're trained.

This is not about a 16-year-old wanting his licence; it's about adults who have lost their jobs, who cannot get to work, and it has gone on long enough. On behalf of the official opposition and people across the province, I am calling for the minister to step in and put an end to the strike once and for all.

Hon. Peter Fonseca: What I can agree with the member on is that some negotiations can be very challenging, and they may take place, as this one does, in the public eye. But again, to remind the member, it's not only the responsibility of the employer and the union to work through the collective bargaining process; it is their right. I think this member is asking to take away that right of the collective bargaining process. I do not agree with what the member is asking for. I trust that the employer and the union will work as hard as they can to conclude with a collective agreement.

I want to commend those who are at the table in these difficult negotiations. They're finding common ground. We have a terrific record of labour relations in this province, and we will continue with our mediators to—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

DRIVER EXAMINATION CENTRES

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is for the Premier. Jake Allin is a 16-year-old student from Aylmer who has a question, and his 8,000 Facebook friends also have a question that they would like the Premier to answer. The question is this: How can the government require a driver's licence but not have the power to ensure timely access to drivers' testing and licensing?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I appreciate the question in the absence of Minister Bradley. What I can say is that we are working as hard as we can to provide access to drivers' testing at the earliest possible opportunity to take advantage of new drivers who are coming on the scene. Not only does this open up some employment responsibilities for our newest drivers, but it also enables them to take on some social and family responsibilities to help out at home. Those are the kinds of things that I can say at the highest level.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The McGuinty government has taken steps to help experienced drivers by extending their licences during the work stoppage at DriveTest. Why is the government ignoring new and young drivers like Jake and his 8,000 Facebook friends?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Labour.

Hon. Peter Fonseca: The Minister of Transportation has been working with the parties to—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): The members will come to order, please.

Minister?

Hon. Peter Fonseca: First is to say again that we understand the inconvenience that those who are waiting to take their driver's test are going through; also, those who have been negatively impacted, like the truckers. I do have here from the Minister of Transportation, who could not be with us here today, that that's why we have put in place a temporary regulation to ensure that drivers who require a test to renew their licence can continue driving. It's also why Serco has been calling DriveTest applicants prior to their booked tests to inform them of the strike.

The Ministry of Transportation has been working actively to help get the message out to all those who are being inconvenienced by this situation. The Ministry of Labour is working as hard as it can with some of the best mediators that we have, not only in the country, but, I've been told, in the world. They are working to help the parties so that they can conclude with—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

TIRE DISPOSAL

Mrs. Carol Mitchell: My question is to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Minister, as you have said in the House, Ontario farmers consider themselves the first stewards of the land. They are aware of the finite land and resources that are available to us and look to improve their practices to ensure that we leave healthy and ample resources for our children and for generations to come.

There continue to be sound environmental techniques and practices developed that would be of interest to farmers to increase their environmental sustainability. Minister, what information and resources are available to Ontario farmers to increase their environmental management efforts?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: Our government is very happy to work in partnership with farmers in Ontario to assist them to continue their environmental stewardship. That is why, in June of this year, we announced the Growing Forward environmental and climate change program. This is a program that supports initiatives that farmers want to implement on their farms.

The program includes both on-farm and food sector components. The on-farm component includes the environmental farm plan. This is a program that has been in place for a number of years. Farmers told us that it was very important to them that we continue providing resources for that, and in fact we have done so: A total of $41.8 million in funding is available to support farmers who would be looking to implement environmental farm plans. Also, a total of $500,000 is available to the food sector to improve their capacity for environmental strategies—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mrs. Carol Mitchell: The farmers I know are all very concerned about the environment and would certainly take every opportunity, such as the programs just outlined, to protect the land and the resources that they and we depend on.

The member from Dufferin—Caledon rose in the House a couple of weeks ago to bring up the cost of the environmental stewardship fee on tires and requested that farmers be exempt from the environmental stewardship program, as she felt the cost to replace a tractor tire was prohibitive. Then, the next day, on a radio show in my riding, the member continued to provide figures that the replacement—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Stop the clock for a moment. I'm going to ask the honourable member to consider the rephrasing of aspects of her question.

Ms. Sylvia Jones: And the credibility of it.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: And the credibility of it.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I would just ask the honourable members to please listen to the Speaker. The clock is stopped.

I've raised an issue about appropriate language in the House on a number of occasions, and I think it's possible for members to ask questions without insinuating misrepresentation on the part of other members. I would just ask the honourable member to be conscious of that or I will be forced to just pass and go to the next question.

Mrs. Carol Mitchell: Thank you, Speaker.

So the entire Ontario tire stewardship program and the cost to Ontario farmers: What I'm looking for is for the minister to clarify the cost of replacing agricultural tires and the linkage to the environment.

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: It is a very good question, and we do recognize that farmers want to participate in every initiative that is going to protect our environment.

What I would say to the members of this assembly is that typically farmers, who would pay between $1,000 and $2,500 for a tractor tire, will be required to pay a fee of $15.84 for the disposal of that tire. This will replace a tire tax that they have been paying that was never directed toward the recycling of the tires. I think it's important to remember that there is a $250 fee applied for those tires that might be used in the construction industry or the mining industry; those very large tires. But I would say that typically for farmers, the disposal fee for tires for farm implements is $15.84—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

Mr. John O'Toole: My question is for the Minister of Government Services. The consulting feeding frenzy in the McGuinty government goes far beyond eHealth; it includes provincial government ministries as well as government agencies. Recently, this House learned that over $1 million every day is being spent on consultants working for various provincial ministries. Minister, can you explain why almost one quarter of the $390-million consulting bill comes from your ministry and will you tell the taxpayers of Ontario how this government spent the money?

Hon. Harinder S. Takhar: I am very pleased to answer this question. Let me just put things in perspective. In 2001-02, when their government was in power, the total expense on consultants was $656 million. That number now stands, for 2006-07, at around $377 million. So you can see the math: from $656 million to $377 million. There's a significant decrease in the number of consultants that are being employed in the ministries. It has become sometimes necessary to employ very specialized skills. That's why different ministries actually employ consultants. I will be more than pleased to answer the question.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Mr. John O'Toole: Minister, this is 2009. You've already squandered $1 billion; now you're spending $1 million a day, and provincial government technology resources still aren't providing the level of service that you promised. This would include information technology which was at the very heart of the eHealth scandal that we're still talking about, and yet there are no answers or clarity.

Minister, how many more eHealth-type scandals are you hiding within your ministry? This is outrageous.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I would just ask the honourable member to withdraw that comment, please.

Mr. John O'Toole: I would say that they're buried in your ministry.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): No, you need to withdraw the comment.

Mr. John O'Toole: I withdraw.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you.

Minister.

Hon. Harinder S. Takhar: Actually, I'm surprised at this question because the honourable member on the other side asked me to give him the full briefings on every issue; we offered that. He was given the full briefing. I guess even after those meetings he really didn't understand what he was being briefed on. But let me tell you, I think most of the—

Mr. John O'Toole: That's a personal insult. Take it back.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I believe what I heard, I heard, and I would ask the honourable member to withdraw that comment.

Mr. John O'Toole: I—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I thought I heard a very negative comment, but—

Mr. John O'Toole: I said it was personal. He should withdraw it.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I thought I heard something—just withdraw.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you.

Minister.

Hon. Harinder S. Takhar: Most of the consulting expenses in my ministry are actually for collective agreements. We signed almost all collective agreements last year, and that's where the expenses were. A full briefing was given to the member on the other side to actually highlight all of these issues when he met with my ministry staff.

DRIVER EXAMINATION CENTRES

Mr. Gilles Bisson: My question is to the Premier. Premier, in 2003 the province privatized driver testing. Many, including the NDP and the Liberal opposition of the day, warned that this move would lead to a reduction of full-time staff in favour of more part-time staff, which in turn would affect public safety.

Last summer the workers at Serco decided enough was enough, now that more than 50% of the staff at Serco are now part-time, affecting public safety. It has now become a central issue in bargaining, and that is what the strike is all about.

Premier, this part-time issue is very similar to the issue that was central to the LCBO strike. My question is as follows: If the province was prepared to intervene in the LCBO strike, are you prepared to do the same with driver tests?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I refer this to the Minister of Labour.

Hon. Peter Fonseca: Again I would like to thank the member for the question. It gives me the opportunity to speak to the good work that our mediators are doing with the parties. They continue to work with Serco and the Steelworkers and help them find common ground at the negotiating table.

We know that a collective agreement that is negotiated through that process is the most stable and productive agreement that can be had. That is what we are working towards. As I have mentioned, I understand that the union has agreed to present the employer's final offer to their membership this week. It shows that the collective bargaining process works. Through the Ministry of Transportation, we have done what we can to allow those drivers who cannot take—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Mr. Gilles Bisson: Let me see if I've got this straight. When it comes to booze in the province of Ontario, the province is prepared to intervene and find a settlement so that the government can keep on reaping the benefits of selling booze and allowing the public to get what they want from LCBO outlets. But when it comes to public safety and the essentials of being able to get a driver's licence, the province is saying, "No, we're not going to intervene." What's different? If you were able to intervene on the LCBO strike, you should be able to do the same on DriveTest. After all, it is a provincial service. Will you do so?

Hon. Peter Fonseca: I say to the member that the NDP, of all parties, should be respecting the collective bargaining process. We respect that process; we trust in that process. We know that it provides the best agreements for parties.

We have taken steps beyond the negotiations and the mediation that we are providing through the Ministry of Transportation. We have taken steps to minimize the impact on drivers and businesses alike. Drivers who require tests now can continue driving until the strike is resolved. The majority of licensed drivers can continue to renew their G licences at ServiceOntario. I encourage all those who want more information to visit our website at the Ministry of Transportation.

We will continue to work with the parties—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.

ACCESSIBILITÉ POUR LES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

Currently, one in seven Ontarians has a disability. This is expected to rise to one in five in 20 years, so more and more citizens will expect barrier-free environments and services.

Canadians with disabilities have spending power of $26 billion. This is a market that no business can afford to overlook. Imagine what that spending power will be in—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

M. Shafiq Qaadri: Une question supplémentaire : madame la Ministre, je suis d'accord avec vous. Aucune entreprise de ma circonscription ne peut se permettre d'ignorer un pouvoir de dépense de 26 $ milliards. À mesure que vieillit la population de la génération du « baby boom », il devient de plus en plus crucial de créer une société accessible. Mais les municipalités, y compris celles de ma circonscription, s'inquiètent de leur capacité à rendre leurs collectivités pleinement accessibles d'ici 2025.

Madame la Ministre, que fait exactement le gouvernement McGuinty pour aider les municipalités comme la mienne à mettre en œuvre ce plan d'accessibilité?

L'hon. Madeleine Meilleur: En fait, ils ont le pouvoir de dépenser 26 $ milliards, ce que nous ne pouvons ignorer parce que présentement, il y a une personne sur sept qui a une forme d'handicap, et dans 20 ans, il y en aura une sur cinq. Alors, à mesure que les gens vieillissent, la population de la génération du « baby boom », il devient de plus en plus crucial de créer une société accessible. Mais les municipalités, y compris celles de ma circonscription, s'inquiètent de leur capacité à rendre leurs collectivités pleinement accessibles d'ici 2025.

L'année dernière, notre premier ministre a annoncé un investissement d'un milliard de dollars dans des projets qui vont améliorer les transports en commun, les routes et les ponts, et d'autres projets municipaux comme l'accessibilité des services municipaux aux personnes handicapées.

Les 1,85 millions d'Ontariens et Ontariennes handicapés sont aussi des contribuables qui ont le droit à accéder aux mêmes services, bâtiments, magasins et emplois—

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. The time for question period has ended. This House stands recessed until 3 p.m. this afternoon.

The House recessed from 1135 to 1500.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Mr. Reza Moridi: It's my pleasure to welcome this afternoon to the House Bruce Bodden, president and CEO of MMM Group Ltd.; Bill Longden, vice-chair of MMM Group Ltd.; David Bannister, past chair, York Central Hospital board of trustees; Janice Bannister; Kathryn Bannister; James Bannister; Warren Collier, chair, York Central Hospital board of trustees; Rodney Webb, board member, York Centr