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November 21, 2013

40th Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Votes and Proceedings

Orders and Notices

Hansard Transcripts 2013-Nov-21 (PDF)

L088 - Thu 21 Nov 2013 / Jeu 21 nov 2013

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L’ONTARIO

Thursday 21 November 2013 Jeudi 21 novembre 2013

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ENHANCING PATIENT CARE

AND PHARMACY SAFETY

(STATUTE LAW

AMENDMENT) ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

AFIN D’AMÉLIORER LES SOINS

AUX MALADES ET LA SÉCURITÉ

DES PHARMACIES

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

ORDER OF BUSINESS

VISITORS

ORAL QUESTIONS

MINING INDUSTRY

MINING INDUSTRY

MINING INDUSTRY

MINING INDUSTRY

MANUFACTURING JOBS

MINING INDUSTRY

ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE

DRIVE CLEAN

MANUFACTURING JOBS

SMALL BUSINESS

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

ANTI-BULLYING INITIATIVES

ONTARIO COLLEGE OF TRADES.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION

MEMBER’S BIRTHDAY

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

SCHOOL FUNDING

EVENTS IN HAMILTON EAST–STONEY CREEK

NOBLETON AND KING CITY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY

LEBANESE INDEPENDENCE DAY

DISASTER RELIEF

GERALDINE HEANEY

TOWN OF ST. MARYS

CEDRIC LEBLANC

DEER HUNT

VISITORS

REPORTS BY COMMITTEES

STANDING COMMITTEE ON

FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

AND RESPONSES

HOLODOMOR MEMORIAL DAY

PETITIONS

LYME DISEASE

ONTARIO MUNICIPAL BOARD

SMALL BUSINESS

DARLINGTON NUCLEAR

GENERATING STATION

CANCER TREATMENT

PUBLIC TRANSIT

AIR QUALITY

MINIMUM WAGE

WASTE REDUCTION

AIR QUALITY

TAXATION

LEGAL AID

DARLINGTON NUCLEAR

GENERATING STATION

PRIVATE MEMBERS’

PUBLIC BUSINESS

FISCAL TRANSPARENCY

AND ACCOUNTABILITY

AMENDMENT ACT

(PRE-ELECTION REPORTS), 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR LA TRANSPARENCE

ET LA RESPONSABILITÉ FINANCIÈRES

(RAPPORTS PRÉÉLECTORAUX)

ENERGY CONSUMER PROTECTION

AMENDMENT ACT

(ELIMINATION OF FIXED RATE

ELECTRICITY CONTRACTS), 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR LA PROTECTION

DES CONSOMMATEURS D’ÉNERGIE

(ÉLIMINATION DES CONTRATS

DE FOURNITURE D’ÉLECTRICITÉ

À TARIF FIXE)

WORKPLACE SAFETY

AND INSURANCE AMENDMENT ACT

(PERMANENT PARTIAL DISABILITY

SUPPLEMENTS), 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LA SÉCURITÉ PROFESSIONNELLE

ET L’ASSURANCE CONTRE

LES ACCIDENTS DU TRAVAIL

(SUPPLÉMENT POUR INVALIDITÉ

PARTIELLE À CARACTÈRE PERMANENT)

FISCAL TRANSPARENCY

AND ACCOUNTABILITY

AMENDMENT ACT

(PRE-ELECTION REPORTS), 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR LA TRANSPARENCE

ET LA RESPONSABILITÉ FINANCIÈRES

(RAPPORTS PRÉÉLECTORAUX)

ENERGY CONSUMER PROTECTION

AMENDMENT ACT

(ELIMINATION OF FIXED RATE

ELECTRICITY CONTRACTS), 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT

LA

LOI SUR LA PROTECTION

DES CONSOMMATEURS D’ÉNERGIE

(ÉLIMINATION DES CONTRATS

DE FOURNITURE D’ÉLECTRICITÉ

À TARIF FIXE)

WORKPLACE SAFETY

AND INSURANCE AMENDMENT ACT

(PERMANENT PARTIAL DISABILITY

SUPPLEMENTS), 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT LA LOI

SUR LA SÉCURITÉ PROFESSIONNELLE

ET L’ASSURANCE CONTRE

LES ACCIDENTS DU TRAVAIL

(SUPPLÉMENT POUR INVALIDITÉ

PARTIELLE À CARACTÈRE PERMANENT)

ORDERS OF THE DAY

WASTE REDUCTION ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 SUR LA RÉDUCTION

DES DÉCHETS

The House met at 0900.

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

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

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

Hon. John Gerretsen: Good morning, Speaker and all members of the House. On the day before the 50th anniversary of the shooting of President Kennedy, the government is pleased to call government order G117.

ENHANCING PATIENT CARE

AND PHARMACY SAFETY

(STATUTE LAW

AMENDMENT) ACT, 2013 /

LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT DES LOIS

AFIN D’AMÉLIORER LES SOINS

AUX MALADES ET LA SÉCURITÉ

DES PHARMACIES

Resuming the debate adjourned on October 22, 2013, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 117,

An Act to amend certain statutes with respect to the regulation of pharmacies and other matters concerning regulated health professions / Projet de loi 117, Loi visant à modifier certaines lois en ce qui concerne la réglementation des pharmacies et d’autres questions relatives aux professions de la santé réglementées.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Further debate? The member from Nickel Belt.

M me France Gélinas: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure I see the connection between the assassination of President Kennedy and what I’m about to talk about, but I will talk about Bill 117, Enhancing Patient Care and Pharmacy Safety.

Why are we here, Speaker? Well, we’re here for a very sad reason. We’re here because, between February 2012 and March 20 of this year, 2013, 1,202 Ontarians received diluted chemo drugs. Of those, 1,162 were adults and 40 of them were children.

The events that led to the diluted chemo drug have been studied by Dr. Thiessen, a very well-known teacher of pharmacy that I would say has taught a great many of the pharmacists who presently work in our province. He is respected by all and was asked by the government to look at the supply chain of the drugs.

At the same time, the social policy committee of this Legislature was tasked to look at what happened, what went wrong. How could this be, in this day and age, that from 2012 to 2013, 1,202 people received diluted chemo drugs?

I’m a little bit surprised that the minister would choose to put forward Bill 117 now, because the social policy committee is just about to finish their work and their recommendations. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to share those. It will be up to the committee to share them, but I think it would have been wiser to wait not only for Dr. Thiessen, who looked at the supply chain of chemotherapy drugs—they’re called admixtures, because they’re the sort of chemotherapy you get through an IV bag—but the minister had also agreed and the House had also agreed that the social policy committee should look at what happened, and we did.

So without sharing any secrets of the gods about what the committee has been doing while we are putting the finishing touches on our report, I can share with you some of what is already in Hansard. I can make reference to some of the comments that Dr. Thiessen made while he was at committee in an exchange that he and I had the pleasure to have.

So Dr. Thiessen had finished his report. A couple of weeks later, the government made the report public, and then we invited Dr. Thiessen to come to social policy, the committee that was charged with looking at the diluted chemo drugs, and he came and told us all of the good work that he had done and all of the findings within the limited scope of his mandate, which was to look at the supply chain.

When I started to ask him questions a little bit outside of his mandate—Dr. Thiessen is a wealth of resources. He is very knowledgeable about anything that has to do with pharmacy in our province. So I started to ask him questions as to, “You know, Dr. Thiessen, the mistake happened when a group purchasing organization”—most people don’t know what those are, and, frankly, I was not too familiar with them either before I started this work. It is basically a purchasing agent, somebody who puts out tenders for the sort of supplies that you buy in a hospital.

The theory behind it is pretty good. If everybody buys their bandages in bulk, every hospital will be able to have economies of scale and pay less. So everybody gets this. You can buy a pack of four rolls of toilet paper or you can buy a truckload of it, and you’ll probably have a better price if you buy the Costco size than if you buy the little family pack. So that’s what hospitals have been doing. Hospitals have been doing it as a way to save money in everything that they purchase.

Then came those group purchasing organizations. Group purchasing organizations basically are—the hospital asks those group purchasing organizations to get them as good a deal as possible on a number of items. So different hospitals look at what they need to buy, so, “We need to buy crutches, and we need to buy four-by-four for dressing wounds. We need to buy sheets”—everything that a hospital needs. A hospital uses a lot of stuff.

Different groups of them get together. They contract out to the group purchasing organization, and the group purchasing organization arranges the tender. So they put a tender out: “We need so many truckload of bandages, and so many truckloads of crutches, and what is the best price we can get?” Then the hospital ends up paying less than if they had done that purchasing themselves.

In theory, the whole thing looks pretty good. We all win: If hospitals spend less money buying bandages, then they can use that money providing care. So, in theory, everything goes fine. Except that as we started to peel the onion, I would say, of why 1,202 people received diluted chemo drugs for a period of close to 15 months, we realized that the error lay with that organization.

That organization was asked to go out to tender for admixtures for chemo drugs, which they did. They put a team of 11 pharmacists together who reviewed the tender. The tender went out, and three different companies submitted bids. Of the three different companies that submitted bids, Marchese Hospital Solutions—we’ll call them “Marchese” for now—was the bid that was selected. What had happened, though, is that what the hospital wanted was chemo drugs that were concentration-specific—in the hospital world, in the pharmacy world, this is pretty basic knowledge.

I’ll try to make it easy to understand. When you get this little bag of IV drugs that they attach to a pole and then attach to your arm or other part of your body to give it to you, the little pouch either has a set amount of medication in the little pouch—so as long as you get the whole little pouch, you know that you get the right amount of medication—or the little pouch is concentration-specific. Let’s say we know that we have four grams of that medication in a 100-millilitre bag.

That means that, depending on your body size, if you don’t need the whole bag, we know exactly that if we use half of the bag, we will have given you two grams of it. If you’re a medium-sized person and need three grams of medication, we will give you three quarters of the bag, and you get the medication. So you get the idea that, if you’re not using the whole bag, you have to make sure that the medication is concentration-specific so that you know how much medication you are actually taking out of the bag and how much medication is left in the bag.

Sometimes you throw it out; sometimes you can use it for somebody else.

Of those 11 people who sat down, none of them picked up on the fact that the hospitals all needed those chemotherapy drugs to be concentration-specific. This is where the mistake happened.

From then on, we will follow, like Dr. Thiessen did, a chain of events where nobody picked up on the mistake that was made by a group called Medbuy, which is the group purchasing organization that handled the tender. So the tender goes out for medication—that is, chemotherapy medication—without saying that it has to be concentration-specific. Now, anybody who deals in oncology and knows those drugs would have caught it right away that those drugs need to be concentration-specific, because they have to be adjusted exactly to the body size of the person—as I said, 40 of them were children.

They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and those medications need to be adjusted exactly to your body weight.

None of the 11 pharmacists at Medbuy had oncology—oncologists are the people who specialize in treating cancer; they are the people who deal with chemotherapy drugs—so none of them picked it up. The hospital was clear as to what they wanted to buy. They wanted to buy chemotherapy drugs that were concentration-specific, but the GPO, the group purchasing organization, called Medbuy, which handled the tender, put out for tender a drug that was not concentration-specific.

The tender is won by Marchese. Marchese looks at this and prepares exactly what the tender asked them to prepare. They prepare a concentration that has four milligrams in a bag, but they don’t prepare it concentration-specific, because that’s not what the tender told them to do. Then Medbuy ships it, first to London Health Sciences, then Windsor, then Lakeridge, then Peterborough hospital.

It was not till it got to Peterborough hospital’s cancer treatment centre that a very timid, but I would say diligent, pharmacy technician picked up on the fact that the bag he had in front of him was not concentration-specific. The task he had to do that day was prepare medication for a client—we ended up finding out it was a woman—of a certain size body. In order to do this, he needed this bag to be concentration-specific, and it was not. Then the whole thing unravelled. We owe this very timid and diligent pharmacy technician in Peterborough a great deal of respect for what he has done. Then they brought it up the chain of command, and we were able to trace it back.

So here we are today, November 21, 2013, talking about a bill, Bill 117, that the minister put forward to sort of reassure Ontarians that what happened will never happen again. But there is nothing in this bill that talks about group purchasing organizations. The bill in itself is pretty sound. What we’re trying to do by legislating a change in the oversight of hospital pharmacies and giving some regulatory colleges more power—I’m not opposed to any of this; all of that work should have been done.

But it has very little to do with making sure that what those 1,202 Ontarians went through never happens again, because you see, Mr. Speaker, what happened is a mistake that happened at the group purchasing organization.

Back to my conversations with Dr. Thiessen: When Dr. Thiessen came, I told him, “You see the value of oversight,” because one of his recommendations was that we add a layer of oversight to hospital pharmacies, and this is what Bill 117 does. It does other things, but when it comes to drugs, that’s what it does. Dr. Thiessen agrees that oversight has value. Oversight brings quality into the health care system.

He recommended that an area of the supply chain of the drugs already has quite a bit of oversight—every single hospital in this province is accredited, and when the accreditation team comes to the hospital, they review everything that goes on in that hospital, including everything that goes on in their pharmacy department. So we have an environment that already has oversight, and Dr. Thiessen recommended that we add a supplementary level of oversight where the College of Pharmacists, which is one of the regulatory colleges in Ontario, which presently inspects retail pharmacies, would also inspect hospital pharmacies.

There’s nothing wrong with that. It is a step that many other provinces do: British Columbia, Alberta and a few more do this. They have the accreditations of their hospital pharmacy, and they also have their colleges that oversee the same pharmacy. Two levels of oversight just makes things safer. There’s no harm in doing this as long as you don’t spend too many resources in the process, but that’s for another talk. That’s what the bill does.

But the bill does not address where the mistake happened. By adding a level of oversight in a hospital, are we doing something good? Yes, and I can tell you that New Democrats will be supporting Bill 117. But what we fail to do is, we fail to assure people that what happened from February 2012 to March 2013, where 1,202 Ontarians received diluted chemo drugs, never happens again.

How do you make sure it never happens again? Well, you have to pay attention to where the mistake took place, and the mistake didn’t take place in the hospital. It didn’t take place at Marchese Hospital Solutions. It didn’t take place at the cancer treatment centre, although any one of them could have caught it. The mistake took place with the group purchasing organization. The mistake took place with Medbuy.

Yet there is nothing in this bill that affects Medbuy. There is nothing in this bill that brings oversight of those group purchasing organizations. There is nothing in this bill that will guarantee Ontarians that the mistake that happened does not get repeated in years to come. This is why I started my remarks by saying I would have much preferred that the minister wait until the committee of this Legislature tables its report and its recommendations. Although I cannot tell you what the recommendations are, because the report has not been tabled, I can guarantee you that our recommendations will have to do with making sure that what happened never happens again.

Other things that you will find in Hansard: We spent quite a bit of time questioning Medbuy, the group purchasing organization. I can tell you that the funding for the group purchasing organization is very strange. I hope people will be able to follow this. You know when you ask somebody to purchase something for you—for example, you go to a travel agent. So you go to a travel agent, they purchase a trip for you and you pay them for your services; or you have a contractor, and you pay them for their services.

For Medbuy, the hospital doesn’t pay for those services. What happens with group purchasing organizations is that the group purchasing organization organizes the tender and says, “We need that many of these medications, we need those bandages, we need those crutches, we need those lifts and we need all of this,” and the different bidders put in their bids. Then they put in what they call a discount but what I will call a kickback, because that’s what a kickback is.

The group purchasing organization settles on the price and says, “From now on, this group of hospitals, you purchase your crutches and your bandages from Marchese Hospital Solutions. They are the one with the best price,” and most of the time they are able to bring those prices back—

Hon. John Gerretsen: Rosario Marchese? Is that Rosario’s company?

M me France Gélinas: The Attorney General is heckling that Marchese is also the last name of one of my colleagues. They share a last name, but they don’t share anything else. He knows nothing about pharmacy, and they know nothing about MPP Marchese. So I hope we’ll put that one to bed.

The group purchasing organization, Medbuy, says, “From now on, you’re going to purchase these drugs from Marchese at that price.” Every time the hospital puts in an order, Marchese ships the drugs to the hospital and the hospital pays Marchese, and at the same time Marchese gives a 5% kickback to the group purchasing organization, to Medbuy. The hospital never really pays Medbuy; it is whenever they make a purchase directly.

Why is this of significance? Well, for a number of reasons. First of all, we all know where those dollars come from. Those are taxpayers’ dollars we’re talking about. The hospital is funded by the taxpayer, it purchases drugs from Marchese using taxpayers’ dollars and Marchese pays back to the group purchasing organization, to Medbuy, their 5% kickback. But because the transaction takes place between Marchese and the group purchasing organization and the hospital does not pay them directly, it changes everything.

The first thing it changes is that Medbuy is not subject to the sunshine list. I have their organizational chart in front of me right now. They have a president and CEO; last year, for reasons unknown, they had two of them. They have a VP of strategic sourcing and member services. They have a VP of pharmacy clinical services and business development. They have a VP of finance. They have a chief financial officer—all with support staff. They have a chief information officer. They have decision support. They have a manager and coordinators of human resources. They have strategic sourcing and member service pharmacy, with one director, two managers and two coordinators.

They have a business development and communications department with one director, one manager and one coordinator. They have a physician adviser. They have a clinical service director and two managers. They have strategic sourcing operations, with five managers and five operators. They have consumer support and implementation, with have one director, one manager and three coordinators. The list goes on and on. I am not allowed to share with you how much those people made, but they shared that with us. Let me tell you that if the sunshine list was to apply to this group, a whole lot of the positions that I have just rhymed off would be on this list.

Let me tell you that hospitals presently have purchasing departments. I have spent quite a bit of time looking at hospital budgets. There is not one director of purchasing in all 150 hospitals in Ontario that makes half of the salary that the president and CEO of Medbuy is making. There is not one director of purchasing in all of the hospitals in Ontario that makes a salary that resembles the VP’s salary. I wish I could share those numbers with you, but we would have to agree with their lawyers, which we haven’t been able to do.

But the point that I’m making is that this contractual arrangement does not support transparency. It does not support clarity. This is where the mistake happened. Not only does it not support transparency; it is also unaccountable.

Remember how we talked about oversight and how important oversight is, and this is what Bill 117 is all about: adding a layer of oversight to hospitals? Well, this group purchasing organization has no oversight whatsoever, no transparency whatsoever. It makes sure that it doesn’t get paid by the hospital so that it is not subject to the sunshine list. It is not subject to any accountabilities to the public, which is sort of weird.

So when Dr. Thiessen was in front of the committee—Dr. Thiessen is the good doctor who did the supply chain investigation after the diluted chemo drugs became known. When I questioned him and said, “I can see that you value oversight, because you’ve added a layer of oversight to hospital pharmacies, which already have some,” he agreed with that.

But then I said, “Why is it that another organization that has no oversight whatsoever, that is responsible for having made the mistake that led to the diluted chemo drugs—you don’t make any recommendations regarding them?” He agreed that he should have, and he agreed that some level of oversight to those group purchasing organizations would improve quality and would put us on a path to make sure that what happened with the diluted chemo drugs never happens again.

But we’re not talking about any of this this morning, Mr. Speaker, because the minister decided to go ahead with Bill 117 before we had even started to write our final report. We were still hearing from witnesses when she put out Bill 117.

Myself, my entire caucus and, I would say, every member in this Legislature don’t want this error to ever happen again. Going through chemotherapy is no picnic. For most people, it means mega sickness. It means mega side effects. But people agree to go through some of those brutal treatments because they’re hoping for a cure. They’re hoping to get better. They’re trusting that although, in the short term, chemotherapy makes them feel pretty sick, with horrifying side effects, they will agree with and trust their oncology team and take those drugs, because they want to get better; they want to get healthy again.

Then when you look back and see, “I went through that brutal treatment, I lived through all of those side effects, and I was not receiving the right dosage of chemotherapy,” it’s not an easy thing to live through. It hasn’t been easy for those people.

I can tell you that what happened, the dilution, will be studied extensively by Cancer Care Ontario and others to see if it really had an effect. But so far, nobody is able to answer that question. We hope that it did not have a negative effect, but we cannot tell those 1,202 people for sure, “Oh, don’t worry. It didn’t affect you.” Nobody can say that, because we don’t know, because a doctor had selected a precise dosage of a drug and you got less than that. You got diluted drugs.

So here we are with Bill 117, which does not address the fundamental mistake that happened, which is too bad. I look forward to the day—soon, I’m hoping; within the next few weeks—when our final report will be tabled, and you will see some of the recommendations that have been made, specifically aimed at making sure that it never happens again. But for now, we will be talking about Enhancing Patient Care and Pharmacy Safety, Bill 117, which talks about a new layer of oversight in hospital pharmacies.

I’ve said, and I will continue to say, that it’s a good thing. New Democrats have—nothing wrong with putting a new layer of oversight in our hospital pharmacies. I think this is something that most hospitals agree with. This is something that other jurisdictions have put in place, and it has served people well.

The bill in itself will need a little bit of a look into, just to make sure that we get it right. It is quite a big change for the College of Pharmacists, which, up to now, has been supervising all of their members. No matter where the pharmacist works, whether he or she works in retail or in hospital, they are a member of the college, and the college always protects us, the people of Ontario, from wrongdoing of their members. That was always there, and that will continue to be there. If you are a pharmacist practising in Ontario, you are a member of the College of Pharmacists, and you fall under their oversight.

The college is there to protect the public if one of their members was to stray. This has always been there; this will continue to be there.

The new power that the bill would give to the College of Pharmacists has to do with the right to credit, to look over, to oversee a pharmacy department within a hospital. Right now, the college does this for the thousands of pharmacies, mainly retail pharmacies, that we have throughout Ontario. Whether you go to Rexall or Shoppers Drug Mart or your independent pharmacy down the street, or a pharmacy at Costco or Walmart or at your grocery store, it doesn’t matter: The College of Pharmacists has inspected them, they have oversight of them, and they meet the requirements for retail pharmacy.

Now the college will not only continue to look after all of those retail pharmacies no matter where they are; they will also oversee pharmacies within hospitals.

There are a few problems when you do this. The first thing is that a hospital pharmacy and a retail pharmacy do not have the same amount of risk at the same place. You can easily see that in a retail pharmacy, nobody buys the amount of drugs that a hospital pharmacy purchases. It doesn’t matter how big a bottle of Aspirin or Tylenol you buy; you will never come close to the size of the bottle that a hospital pharmacy buys. They are way bigger.

So the criteria, the regulations that we have in place right now for the college of pharmacy to oversee retail pharmacy, are not easily transferable to the hospital pharmacy. Hospital pharmacies have never done that before, have never had that level of oversight. They have had accreditation hospital-wide, but they’ve never had the college of pharmacy, so nobody really knows what this is going to be like.

Something that I would like to make sure is in the bill is that what we call the provisions of the Drug and Pharmacies Regulation Act—they’re called DPRA. Basically, there are certain provisions within the Drug and Pharmacies Regulation Act—we will call them the regulations—that make no sense in a hospital environment, and other areas of risk within the hospital that are not covered at all within this act. What we want is to make sure that this transition is done in a way that improves patient care.

There is no point in applying a set of regulations to our hospital pharmacy just to discover that all of our hospital pharmacies fail, none of them meet the requirements, simply because the requirements makes no sense in their environment, because the regulations were done for retail pharmacies; they were not done for hospital pharmacies. That’s the first thing that I will be looking for in the bill, to make sure that this process as to how we change the Drug and Pharmacies Regulation Act—that the changes to that act are done in a way that makes sense for hospitals. Ontario has never done that before.

The bill is not silent, but not very explicit on that. That’s one of the first things that I will be looking for clarification on when the bill goes to second reading, and as I’ve already mentioned, we, the New Democrat caucus, will support this bill going to second reading.

The second thing that needs to be taken into account and that is not really explicit in the bill—the bill talks about it a bit, but not explicitly—is the timeline for the coming into force of the provisions of the bill. The bill does say that it will be a scattered timeline, but we have no idea as to what is the scope of this. I can tell you that for some smaller hospitals with significant budget constraints, depending on what the regulations end up being, they could have a very tough time meeting those regulations on a small deadline.

Not that they shouldn’t; we all agree that if it’s going to improve patient care and patient safety, it should be done, but it’s really, “What will those regulations be?” And if it means changing the actual set-up and construction and everything else within our hospitals, none of that comes cheap; none of that comes fast. The last thing I want is a whole bunch of hospitals to fail those new accreditation standards because we haven’t given them time to adjust.

You have to remember, Mr. Speaker, that they were not the cause of this problem. Hospital pharmacies have not failed us; they have not made mistakes. The mistake was made at the group purchasing organization, at Medbuy. They were not made in our hospital pharmacy. So I certainly do not want to set up a process that is going to punish them.

Although the bill talks about an appropriate timeline, I will be seeking clarifications to make sure that, for some hospitals, these timelines could be several years before they can save enough money to make the structural changes to their pharmacy environment to make regulations that we think would be applied to them, but we still don’t know. Those are my two major concerns with the first part of Bill 117, that is, Enhancing Patient Care and Pharmacy Safety.

The second part of the bill has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Frankly, that’s the only way I could describe it. It got added on to Bill 117 because it’s something that needed to be done for a long time. It’s something that has to do with patient safety, I guess, but has nothing to do with the diluted chemo drugs or anything like that. It’s like you tack on a whole bunch of stuff at the end. It’s a good thing; we will support it. But forget everything I’ve told you about diluted chemo drugs; we’re now into a new

chapter that talks about colleges.

In Ontario right now, we have 27 either full colleges or transitional colleges that regulate health care professionals. So if you are a nurse, a physician, a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist, an audiologist, a midwife, a chiropractor, a dentist, an optometrist—they’re already covered—an oculist, a Chinese medicine practitioner, an acupuncturist or a social worker—there are 27 of us. In order to provide care in Ontario, in order to work in Ontario, you need to belong to a college. The college is there for one reason: to protect the public.

We understand that there’s always a possibility of risk. If you were to deal with somebody who was incompetent, how will you know until maybe it is too late? So to make sure that everybody who calls themselves dentists or chiropractors or nurse practitioners or anything else, to make sure that those people are competent, we have 27 colleges. Those colleges are given their power through the government, through

an act—through a bill, through a law. We need to make changes to that bill so that the colleges can protect us even better.

It has nothing to do with the diluted chemo drugs. The diluted chemo drugs had nothing to do with the power of the colleges or anything like this, but it is something that colleges have been asking for for a long time, and the minister decided to tack this on. It’s sort of weird, but I have no problem with it. I will support it. They are things that have been needed to be done for a long time.

So what are some of them? The first one is that the bill will enhance the mandatory reporting from hospitals to colleges. A lot of health care professionals work within our hospital sector. If you go into any hospital at any time of day or night, you will see a large array of different health care providers from pharmacists to lab technicians to physio to occupational therapists to physicians to nurses to respiratory therapists. There are many, many who work within our hospitals.

But the way that it is right now, if a hospital realizes that they have a problem with one of their health professionals—take a physician that has privileges in a hospital. So the hospital realizes that one physician is having a problem maintaining his competence, is having problems that have an impact on patient care: The hospital has a duty to report that to the college. They’re supposed to talk to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which is the specific college that looks after physicians, and tell them, “Physician such-and-such is being investigated right now. We have doubts as to his or her competence. We have doubts as to the quality of care that he or she is able to dispense.”

The law is written in a way that is very, very restrictive. The law is written so that the duty to report hospital privilege changes rests with the person who imposes the change. It looks like that’s pretty clear. It is pretty clear, except that it is never a person who does the change; most of the time, it is the board of directors of the hospital that will end up being the one signing off on the changes of privilege. A physician won’t have privileges, or he or she will have limited privileges, or there’s a change of privilege based on a patient’s quality of care and physician competence.

But because this decision is made by a board, not by a person, hospitals don’t report those. Yet the same physician could have privileges in a number of other hospitals, especially in an urban area, and continue to practise, although his or her college has no idea that one particular hospital has had to take measures to limit or suspend their privileges or expel the physician altogether. It’s funny how one word makes the system fall apart.

In that particular bill, when we—we; I wasn’t there at the time—when the good people in this Legislative Assembly drafted that bill, they put the responsibility on the person who imposes the change, but the practice in our hospitals right now is that it’s not a person; it’s a board. Therefore, nobody does it. This doesn’t protect the public.

Remember: Colleges are there for one reason: The colleges are there to protect the public. But now we have a loophole. We have identified an area where the public may need to be protected. The hospital has acted upon it and tried to protect the public, but that information was never shared with the college. That’s in the bill, that will get changed, and I think that’s a good thing.

The next thing that the bill will do is that it will enable the college to share information back with the hospital. Right now, the college might have received a complaint against one of its members. They do an investigation. They find that this particular member has a problem, and they may restrict their licence. They may take it away. They may take disciplinary procedures. But the law is written in such a narrow way that they are not allowed to share that information back with the hospital or with the employer. I don’t think it serves the patients well.

Remember: The colleges are there to protect each and every one of us. When the bill was first written, it was written in a way that we put the bar for the college to be allowed to connect back to the hospital so, so high that it very seldom met the threshold. All we want right now is, if your college has disciplined you—as in, a health professional under the 27 colleges has been disciplined—then the college will be allowed to share that information with the hospital sooner. I think this is a step that will help protect patient care and will help to protect Ontarians.

This is certainly a step that I and the New Democrats are willing to support.

The next one again has to do with sharing information. When the bill was first written to direct how the different health colleges were to do their work, here again the threshold to be able to share information was extremely high.

Probably for the first time ever in your life, you will remember that the College of Physicians and Surgeons had done a follow-up on a complaint on one of their members from the Ottawa region who was not conducting colonoscopies in a way that was appropriate. Basically, they were not going far enough into the colon to be able to put the diagnosis forward that they were putting forward, that either they were or were not at risk for cancer. That was a risk to public health. There were also problems, also in the Ottawa area, with the sterilization of the equipment that was used by this particular physician.

That information finally met the threshold for the college to be able to share information with public health agencies. But before this, although sometimes they were able to identify a threat to public health when they did investigations of complaints of their own members, or when they did investigations of their members, they were never allowed to share that information. So although the physician or the nurse or whoever got disciplined for having failed public safety, for having failed in their duties, the college was set up in such a way that the duty to protect the personal information of the physician or the other health professional overrode the duty to protect members of the public.

This also needed to be changed. This has been included in the bill—and this has nothing to do with the diluted chemo drugs. But it’s in the bill, and I’m here today to talk about the bill, so I’m telling you what’s in it and what it will do.

The fourth piece that is in the bill has to do with greater discretion on the part of the college to investigate a complaint. As the law is written right now, if a complaint comes to one of the colleges, the college has no choice but to follow up on that complaint.

In theory, I guess when the good people in this House first wrote it up, they wrote it up with the view that, “We really want to protect the public, so no matter how trivial, you should do a follow-up, you should investigate and you should make sure that you protect the public.” So what started out as a goodwill intention on the part of the people who drafted the bill way back then is now being used for personal gain. Sometimes, a dispute between—and I can give you an example of a dispute between two physicians. They work in the same practice, and one is late paying his share of the rent.

The other physician is kind of ticked off and says, “I’ve had enough of this,” so they phone the college.

Explain to me, Speaker, how a dispute over rent is putting patients at risk. It has nothing to do with providing good patient care. Both of those physicians may be excellent at quality patient care, but one phones the college against the other, and the college has no choice but to put that particular physician under investigation.

An investigation is something that is public. It’s something that can be viewed by you and me and everybody else, but it has no merit. The college is there to protect the public. It is not there to side with one or the other because one has not paid his share of the rent. There have been numerous complaints like that. I can give you another example: A patient goes in to see his family physician—it happens to be a “he.” The family physician is quite busy that afternoon. The appointment is 30 minutes late. When he comes back out, there’s a parking ticket on his car. The patient is quite upset with this.

He goes back into the doctor’s office, gives the secretary hell for having a parking ticket and tells them, “You have to pay my ticket because you’re the one who was late, and that’s why I have a parking ticket.” The physician says, “I don’t know why I should pay your ticket. You could have gone back out and put more money in the meter,” whatever. I wasn’t privy to the conversation. But what I do know is that if you go on the College of Physicians and Surgeons website, you will see that that particular physician had a complaint against him.

This complaint has nothing to do with the quality of care that that physician provided.

It gets even uglier when you look at a divorce and custody battle. When you go through a divorce or custody battle, especially the ones that are very acrimonious, the fact that the college has to investigate every single complaint is used as a way to basically make trouble for the other. The college was never set up for that. It was not set up to take part as to who should have custody of the kids on what weekend or anything of the sort. The college is there to protect the public if one of their members has failures; the fact that you get separated or divorced has nothing to do with protecting the public.

None of the people receiving the care from those health care professionals are complaining. It is their spouse who wants to put a mark on the professional’s record just to spite them, just to escalate the fight between two ex-spouses who don’t get along anymore.

I could give you other examples. Some of them are completely frivolous. Two physicians live side by side—I shouldn’t always pick on physicians. There are 27 others, but this happens to be a physician. They live side by side, and Dr. A complains to Dr. B that their fence is poorly maintained, and that looks bad in their yard. “It was your fence. You’re the one who put it up. You’re the one who should maintain it.” The other physician says, “I’ll maintain my fence the way I see fit,” and then one of them calls the college.

Do you see where I’m going with this, Mr. Speaker? This has nothing to do with protection of the public. But those are the kinds of complaints—because the law right now mandates the college to investigate every single complaint, those complaints have to be handled as if they were as serious as a sexual assault by a health care provider to a client, as seriously as if they were a complete breach of trust between a care provider and their client.

All of those changes to the law are also contained in Bill 117. They’re all good. They’re all going in the right direction. I may do a little tweaking of some of the language, especially when it comes to “prescribed purpose.” I always hate when they bring new terminology that has not been defined, because then it will get defined by different people in different circumstances in different ways.

So I will probably try to bring clarity to “prescribed purpose” just so that we don’t end up with a lot of people spending a lot of money in court, saying, “Well, the prescribed purpose was this, but it was that.” There’s one term in there that I don’t like. I will be bringing changes. The rest of those are all good things—good things that the Minister of Health could have brought at any time. She linked that up to the diluted chemo drug when, really, there was no link to it, but it will get done. I guess that’s all that matters.

Ça me fait extrêmement plaisir ce matin de vous parler du projet de loi 117. Le projet de loi 117 a été mis de l’avant par la ministre de la Santé suite à un grave problème qui s’est passé dans notre système de traitement du cancer : 1 202 personnes en Ontario—1 172 adultes et 40 enfants—ont reçu la chimiothérapie diluée. C’est quelque chose qui ne s’était jamais produit en Ontario et que j’espère ne se reproduira jamais. Les 1 202 familles qui ont été touchées par cette erreur-là ont vécu des moments très difficiles.

La ministre de la Santé a mis de l’avant le projet de loi 117 dans l’espoir de rassurer les gens qu’on avait appris de nos erreurs et que ces erreurs-là ne seraient jamais refaites. Je suis bien d’accord qu’on doit apprendre de nos erreurs et qu’on ne doit pas les répéter, mais le projet de loi 117 touche à la supervision des pharmacies à même les hôpitaux. Ce n’est pas là que l’erreur a été faite; l’erreur a été faite lorsqu’on a demandé à une tierce partie, une compagnie indépendante qui s’appelle Medbuy, d’acheter les produits de chimiothérapie en gros à un prix réduit.

L’idée était bonne : si on était capable d’avoir le même produit à un meilleur prix, ça serait mieux pour le système de la santé. Malheureusement, lorsque Medbuy a fait l’appel d’offres, ils ont mal identifié le produit qu’on voulait. Ils n’ont pas dit que le produit avait besoin d’être dans une concentration spécifique. Donc, puisque ça n’a pas été dit dans l’appel d’offres, lorsque Marchese, qui est celui qui a gagné l’appel d’offres, a préparé le produit, ils ne l’ont pas préparé dans une concentration spécifique.

Pendant près de 14 ou 15 mois, la chimiothérapie qui était préparée par Marchese était préparée en n’étant pas dans une concentration spécifique, et à chaque fois qu’elle était utilisée, elle était utilisée de façon diluée.

Le projet de loi met une nouvelle série de mesures en place pour surveiller les pharmacies d’hôpitaux, ce qui n’est pas mauvais et ce qu’on va appuyer. Mais ça ne va pas au coeur du problème, le coeur du problème étant que c’est Medbuy, lorsqu’il a fait l’appel d’offres, qui a fait l’erreur. Quant à moi, c’est là où les changements doivent être faits pour que ce type d’erreur-là ne se reproduise plus jamais.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Questions and comments?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: I’m pleased to rise today to speak in favour of Bill 117. I was listening very closely to the member from Nickel Belt, and she brings about good recommendations. But I asked to review again the credentials of Dr. Thiessen, and I’m very impressed with his credentials, and, actually, I remember the member from the official opposition who came to congratulate the minister for appointing such a competent professional, not just in pharmacy but in cancérologie. So I’m very impressed with him.

He provided the minister with recommendations this past summer, and the minister accepted and endorsed each of his recommendations. Because some may be put forward without needing legislation, we have established an implementation task force to oversee the implementation of Dr. Thiessen’s remaining recommendations. But this legislation responds to one of those recommendations, and that recommendation needs specific legislation.

It’s always unfortunate when a situation like this happens. The minister reacted very quickly by appointing Dr. Thiessen. I know that the member from Nickel Belt would have much preferred that the minister slow down in putting forward Dr. Thiessen’s recommendations, but I strongly disagree. I think that Dr. Thiessen brings to us good recommendations to prevent what did happen with the Marchese company.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Questions and comments?

Mr. John O’Toole: It is always a pleasure to listen to the member from Nickel Belt. I have high respect for her role and activity here as a critic for the NDP on health care matters. I think, even listening to her remarks on this bill, this bill really is an important response to a failure in the health care system, and I think it does achieve reasonable outcomes.

Putting it in context,

section 4 of the Health Professions Procedural Code is amended to provide that where a college member resigns or voluntarily relinquishes or restricts his or her privileges, a person such as a member “who has reasonable grounds to believe that the resignation, relinquishment or restriction, as the case may be, is related to the member’s professional misconduct, incompetence or capacity, shall file with the registrar within 30 days after the resignation, relinquishment or restriction a written report setting out the grounds upon which the person’s belief is based.”

I think it’s important that professionals and colleges, who are the regulator, have strong enforcement tools. I really, firmly believe that. After all, with health care, we all depend and trust the professional and their training, and of course the college is an important part of this. I don’t know; I’m not qualified here, but certainly someone should have known there was diluted chemotherapy. People’s lives and their families and all those things are at risk.

The health care system in Ontario is actually in paralysis right now. I think, even in recent questions in the last couple days on Ornge helicopters—after a year, it still isn’t resolved. Mr. Klees has made it very clear that the minister’s capacity itself should be somewhat overseen by a college of some sort, maybe removed from the office; I don’t know.

I’m saying, too, that I know in my own riding, the minister has failed to respond to Esbriet on IPF. She hasn’t listened to other provinces using the same data. She’s refusing to give it to Ontario citizens.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): Questions and comments?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: It’s a pleasure to follow on the heels of my colleague from Nickel Belt. We heard her talk about this, because more than 1,200 cancer patients at five hospitals, including 290 in Windsor, many of whom are constituents of mine and constituents of my colleague from Essex, ended up receiving doses of chemo that were weaker than caregivers realized over the course of about a year. This is a problem.

Some of us still realize that the Ontario College of Pharmacists needs more oversight powers for facilities that fall under its jurisdiction, requiring all other facilities to obtain licences from Health Canada.

The member from Nickel Belt, our party’s health critic, has questioned why it took a public health crisis for the government to notice the dangers posed by gaps in oversight, and she has pointed out repeatedly that hospitals are outsourcing more and more services, from heart diagnostic tests to urology. There are still questions whether proper oversight is in place across the health care system.

I know last summer in the Windsor Star, reporter Brian Cross spoke to some of the patients who were affected in our area about their concerns after this crisis. One patient, Marlene Roy, who was 60, said, “You’re left wondering, did this cause my life to be shorter?” That’s a question that many patients are still grappling with, because they were given drugs that weren’t what they were supposed to be. Another patient argued: “I’ve got reassurances from my oncologist that the underdosing won’t affect the outcome.” She has put her faith in her doctor.

We put a lot of faith in our doctors and in the system—

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

Questions and comments?

Mr. Mike Colle: I was pleased to hear the member from Nickel Belt give her overview of this very important bill that protects patients from mistakes that happen—and this was quite a systemic failure in the system. One of the key tools we’ve used here is the committee that the member from Nickel Belt was part of. The member from Oak Ridges–Markham, Helena Jaczek, and I sat on some of those committees, and I think that committee did excellent work. They went through so many technical aspects of this situation.

I know sometimes the member from Durham says some smart things, but sometimes he says some very frivolous things, because this is a very serious matter and it just exemplifies that there are checks and balances. The health care system in Ontario provides important care to over 13 million Ontarians, 24/7.

We’re just up the street here from Princess Margaret Hospital, the incredible oncologists at Toronto General Hospital and the incredible pediatric oncologists at SickKids. We have some of the most dedicated health professionals, whether they be the doctors, whether they be the lab technicians, whether they be the nurses—the people who work in these hospitals have so much responsibility.

I hear of so many families going through the trauma of cancer, so I just think that this is a very important bit of intervention that had to be done. Luckily it was caught, because there were some middlemen that tried to game the system, in a way, but at least we’re able to put a stop to it with this legislation.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): The member for Nickel Belt, you have two minutes.

M me France Gélinas: I thank my colleagues for having toughed it through for a whole hour. You all deserve a medal. It was not exactly the most interesting thing to listen to, but thanks to the comments that have been made. It becomes obvious that we all agree that oversight improves safety in our health care system. We all agree that oversight improves quality in our health care system.

I will warn you.

We have to learn from the misery that those 1,202 people went through that when we take services from our hospitals, which have layers upon layers of oversight, and move them into the community without transferring those levels of oversight, we have to know that it will affect safety and we have to know that it will affect quality, because we all agree that when you bring oversight, you improve safety and you improve quality, so when you do the opposite, when you take a program or a service where it has oversight, where it has been offered safely with high quality for a long time and move it into the community—I’m not opposed to moving things into the community when it makes sense; I’m all for that—you cannot forget to also carry with it the oversight that was there, because this is how the system works.

Every piece in the system has to be able to trust that the piece before it did its work.

Do you know how bad all of those pharmacists who dispensed those medications feel right now? Do you know how bad all of those nurses who dispensed those diluted chemo drugs feel right now? It is unbelievable. They trusted that the people before them had done their job. We can only trust the system if we have good oversight.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bas Balkissoon): This House now stands recessed until 10:30.

The House recessed from 1013 to 1030.

INTRODUCTION OF VISITORS

Mr. Randy Pettapiece: I don’t see them here yet, but I’d like to introduce Eric Barbosa and Aida Kummer from my riding of Perth–Wellington.

Hon. Linda Jeffrey: I wish to introduce Lal Khan Malik, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Canada; Khalifa Abdul Aziz is the president of the Ahmadiyya Abode of Peace; Malik Kaleem Ahmad; Khalid Naeem; Rizwan Masood Mian; Nasir Khan; Karim Tahir; Syed Tariq Ahmad from the Ahmadiyya Peace Abode; Syed Hidayat Ullah Hadi, the editor of the Ahmadiyya Gazette; and Bashir Nasir, photographer. They’re here to receive a congratulations on a very green housing initiative. Thank you for being here today.

Ms. Lisa M. Thompson: I’d like to take this time to welcome Ralph and Betty Watson from the Brussels area in my riding of Huron–Bruce to this hallowed chamber today.

Mr. Shafiq Qaadri: I would also like to add my voice to welcome members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and say Es salaam aleikom and Khush amdid.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): We have with us today in the Speaker’s gallery the ambassador of Portugal to Canada, His Excellency José Fernando Moreira da Cunha. Welcome, Your Excellency. With him is our consul general of Portugal to Toronto, Mr. Júlio Vilela. We welcome both our guests.

ORDER OF BUSINESS

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Members will be aware that there appear, on today’s Orders and Notices paper, two notices of an opposition day to be debated next week. Under standing order 43(c), the Speaker is required to select one of these notices for consideration. These presented a challenge in this case for two reasons. First, both opposition parties have only one allocated day remaining, and, second, the notices were both received at virtually the same time. Any decision based on these considerations therefore would have been arbitrary.

However, members will also know that standing order 43(a)(iii) provides that five available opposition days in this fall sessional period are to be allocated between the two opposition parties on the basis of the membership of their caucuses relative to each other. Currently, where circumstance presents us with the situation where it will be possible for there to be only four opposition days this fall, it is, I think, a fair and reasonable thing to apply that same formula. In doing so, the result is that the official opposition is mathematically closer to being entitled to three of four opposition days than the third party is to being entitled to two of four.

I therefore decide that the motion standing in the name of Mr. Hudak is the one that will be selected for debate next week.

It is now time—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): If this is an indication of what’s going to happen, let it be known that I shall make sure that it doesn’t.

VISITORS

Hon. Charles Sousa: Speaker, I apologize for the delay. I just wanted to welcome two individuals from my riding—Mr. Alex Banks, the past president of the Sherway Homeowners Association, and his wife, Linda Banks—to this chamber. They’re here on behalf of the Credit Valley Lions Club, which is celebrating their 50th anniversary. Thank you for being here today.

ORAL QUESTIONS

MINING INDUSTRY

Mr. Norm Miller: My question is to the Acting Premier. I, like many Ontarians, was shocked at yesterday’s decision by Cliffs Natural Resources to pull out of the Ring of Fire.

What is truly unfortunate is the amount of unheeded warnings that your government received throughout the process. The Premier deflected my questions here in the House numerous times and in one instead chose to reminisce about paddling on the Attawapiskat River.

Acting Premier, back in April, Bill Boor, senior vice-president of Cliffs, said that “company officials have yet to talk with representatives of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government.” He went on, “As we approach a year since the agreement in terms, that’s become more of a concern.” In September, he said, “Since last winter’s provincial leadership change, talks with Queen’s Park have stalled.”

Acting Premier, it is clear that the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of your government. Who in your government is going to be held accountable for your failure on this file?

Interjections.

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

Deputy Premier.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Speaker, I’ll refer this to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Let me begin by saying that our government, our province, remains absolutely committed to seeing smart, sustainable and collaborative development in the Ring of Fire project. This is an extraordinary multi-generational economic development activity, with known mineral potential worth $60 billion. We know that there is extraordinary interest in this.

I will certainly say that I am disappointed with the decision and the announcement that Cliffs made, but I also appreciate their continuing interest in the project.

What’s really important is that we continue to move forward to develop this project. We are going to work diligently to ensure that we are ready to support this development, and we’re going to remain firmly committed to working with any and all interested parties to develop the region.

The fact is that we are taking strong action to move the project forward. We are bringing—

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

Hon. Michael Gravelle: —to create a development corporation.

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

Mr. Norm Miller: Again to the Acting Premier: How many generations do we have to wait?

What is so shameful is, your government has been bragging about developing the Ring of Fire for years now. On May 9, 2012, your government issued a press release that stated, “Thousands of Jobs Coming to Northern Ontario.” The release also touted a refinery in Capreol, promising to employ 450 people during the construction and as many as 450 people in 2015 when it was scheduled to be operational.

Acting Premier, you sold hope to the people of northern Ontario and have failed to deliver. First Nation communities and cities like Thunder Bay and Sudbury are all waiting for the investment in jobs that this project would bring.

You’re sitting on the largest deposit of chromite ever discovered in North America. Acting Premier, why have you failed to bring the promised jobs and prosperity that Ontario so desperately needs?

Interjections.

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

Minister.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Speaker, we are working incredibly hard on providing really strong action to move this project forward. We are establishing a development corporation that will bring together any and all interested partners to this project. That certainly includes the historic consultations that were undertaken with the Matawa First Nation, important partners, and other industry partners—let alone further discussions with Cliffs—that we intend to continue to have to bring in the corporation.

May I say, we’re also making significant investments in communities, both First Nations and other northern communities, bringing them forward, and skills upgrading.

But let’s also make sure that we recognize how important it is to bring the federal government to the table. We’re calling on them to bring matching funds. We are prepared to make very significant investments in this project. That—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Answer.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: —but we need the federal government to come to the table. The fact is, they have made strong commitments to other projects in Newfoundland and Labrador: hydroelectric projects. So we need you to come and call on the federal government—

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

Interjections.

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

Final supplementary.

Mr. Norm Miller: Again to the Acting Premier: How did things get so far off the rails that Cliffs, the major player in the Ring of Fire, has pulled the plug on their development? You had plenty of warnings, yet even in the face of prominent miners publicly raising concerns about unresolved “agreements with the government of Ontario that are critical to the project’s economic viability,” you insisted that the Ring of Fire was moving ahead.

Well, yesterday, Cliffs announced that it would be shuttering its mining camp in the Ring of Fire and closing offices in Thunder Bay and in Toronto. Acting Premier, what do you have to say to these hard-working people who are now out of work as a direct result of your government’s failure?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Mr. Speaker, there continues to be an extraordinarily high level of interest among industry, among First Nations, and among—may I hope to see—the federal government in seeing this project move forward. We are taking very strong action to move it forward—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member from Burlington will come to order.

Be seated, please.

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Because she was very much engaged and probably, even with my mike on, didn’t hear me, the member from Burlington will come to order.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: This project is moving forward; there’s no question about it. There’s an extraordinarily high level of interest, and we are going to continue to have our discussions.

The formation of the development corporation is crucial to seeing this project moving forward. We are bringing together any and all partners, and I would like to actually have the members of the opposition, let alone members of the third party, recognize the important work that’s being done with the First Nations as well. We need to create the climate to allow the private sector to get involved.

We understand how important infrastructure is. That’s why we put in place the development corporation. That’s why we’re going to continue to work with all our partners in this project, a $60-billion project in terms of mineral potential in a part of the province that’s never seen development before.

MINING INDUSTRY

Mr. Victor Fedeli: My question is for the Deputy Premier. A month ago, my colleague from Parry Sound–Muskoka told you that Cliffs said the Ring of Fire is in a “tenuous state. If the company doesn’t have a transportation route, it doesn’t have a project.” The Premier’s response: She told us that this summer she paddled on the Attawapiskat River.

That’s not an urgent call to action. Her reply wasn’t about the thousands of jobs at risk, many of them First Nations. Her reply wasn’t about the wealth that could be created. No, she paddled 100 kilometres away.

You and your ministers were warned by Cliffs. You have absolutely bungled this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s obvious you have absolutely no plan for the north. Will you at least take and implement the PC plan for northern Ontario?

Interjections.

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

Deputy Premier.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Minister of Northern Developent and Mines.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Mr. Speaker, our government remains absolutely committed to seeing the Ring of Fire project move forward. We are committed to smart, sustainable and collaborative development. That is why, indeed, we have set up a development corporation in order to bring all the partners together. That’s going to be crucial in terms of making the kinds of decisions we need to make related to infrastructure.

We recognize how important it is to make the right decisions about infrastructure, and that’s the work that we’re going to be doing. We need to bring our partners to the table. We are doing extraordinary work with our First Nations. We need to bring the federal government to the table. They supported many other projects. Clearly that’s crucial.

We’d sure like to have you, over on that side of the House, join our call to have them reach our matching funds. The fact is, this project—we’re doing extraordinarily hard work. We’ll continue to do hard work. The Ring of Fire project remains an absolute priority for our Premier. We recognize the economic development opportunities, the thousands of jobs that will be created, and we remain confident that indeed the hard work that we’re doing will make—

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

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Well, thank you for creating another panel. Deputy Premier, our leader, Tim Hudak, led a group of us MPPs up to the Ring of Fire site. We all saw first-hand the two actual mine sites that were going to be developed. Each would have seen a $3-billion investment. The transportation route adds another $1 billion.

Last week I had the privilege of touring Cliffs’s proposed smelter site in Capreol. I must say, it really is a fascinating 4,000-acre site and a further $3-billion investment that would have happened. Guys, you just blew a $10-billion deal of a lifetime, and you’re about to put more people out of work. Much of those exploration drill bits and drill rods are manufactured in my riding of North Bay and Powassan, and Cliffs was spending $4 million a month here in Toronto. What will you tell those families who are getting their pink slips this morning?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: It is absolutely startling how suddenly dismissive the member is about a development corporation that’s being welcomed by industry, that’s being welcomed by the First Nations, something that will help us move this project forward in a way that it needs to happen. It certainly is interesting coming from a party as well that, as part of their PC platform or white paper, were talking about actually dismantling, discarding and shutting down the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. That’s right there in their platform.

The fact is, we remain absolutely committed to this project. We are taking strong action to move it forward. The formation of the development corporation is absolutely vital. We need the federal government’s involvement. We have the province’s commitment to a significant investment. Industry partners are interested. This is a huge project with a great deal of interest. We look forward to continuing our conversation with Cliffs. Certainly, the—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Answer.

Hon. Michael Gravelle: —other partners that are involved in this are going to bring this project forward. We are going to make this project happen, and we’re going to continue the hard work that—

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Stop the clock. Be seated, please. I’m going to ask that—

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Let me try again. I’m going to ask that we tone it down.

Mr. Monte McNaughton: What about Imperial Oil?

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

Final supplementary.

Mr. Victor Fedeli: Thank you, Speaker. Speaker, I have to tell you how appalled I am at a standing ovation for losing a $10-billion job here in Ontario.

Deputy Premier, last week we learned that Heinz is shuttering their plant in Leamington and shedding 1,000 mostly full-time people. We also learned that while you were warned in advance, you did nothing.

Cliffs warned you a month ago that the project needed urgent action, and again you did absolutely nothing. Your Premier went canoeing and jogging, but you did nothing about these companies, despite their warnings, which now have come true.

I’m sorry. Now you’re disappointed. The northern minister says, “Don’t worry. The rock is in the ground. It’s not going anywhere. This is a multi-generational opportunity.” My question is, which generation did you have in mind to finally get around to doing something?

Interjections.

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

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Indeed we are disappointed by Cliffs’s decision, and I do appreciate that they continue to express interest in the project. They have not spoken about suspending it indefinitely. The fact is that we are going to continue to have conversations with them. The fact is that we are moving forward with the project in a most definitive and in a very action-oriented way. That’s exactly why we have formed the development corporation. We recognize that this was a business decision by Cliffs, and I respect that.

I’ll let them speak for themselves, but we are absolutely committed to seeing this project move forward. This development corporation is absolutely key to seeing this project move forward.

We recognize how important infrastructure decisions are. We are prepared to make a significant investment. The province is committed to that investment. We need the federal government on board, but we also want to bring together the other industry partners who have expressed such a strong interest in this project. They’re committed to it. This is going to move forward. This project remains an extraordinary priority for our province.

MINING INDUSTRY

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. In 2010, the current Premier and other members of the Liberal cabinet announced that Cliffs Natural Resources would be building a refinery outside of Sudbury. When exactly did the government first learn that the Cliffs project was in jeopardy?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Mr. Speaker, we have been working closely with Cliffs over the last couple of years, and we recognize that the announcement they made yesterday is very disappointing.

The fact is that we are continuing to move forward on the Ring of Fire project, as I would hope the leader of the third party would want us to do, and I hope she will join us in doing the work that we need to do.

We need to do a number of actions to make this project come to fruition, and those are the actions that we’re taking, which is why, indeed, working on the development corporation is absolutely crucial; which is why it’s so important for us to continue our work on historic consultations with the Matawa First Nations; which is why we need to continue to make the investments that we’ve made to have skills upgrading and communities ready in terms of capacity building. That’s the work that we’re going to continue to do.

This is a huge project. There is $60 billion in mineral potential. We are going to see this project move forward, and we’re going to continue to take strong action to see that that happens.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Beyond issuing a press release announcing “thousands of jobs coming,” what steps did the government take in 2010 to ensure that the jobs they had so confidently announced were actually going to appear?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: The economic development potential for this project remains very much the same. The project has got a mineral potential of $60 billion. There is extraordinary interest in this project, and that interest continues with Cliffs Natural Resources. But there are other companies, as well, who are very interested in moving forward on this project.

We are going to continue to take strong action to move the project forward. It would be great to have the third party, as well as other members of the opposition, supporting us and moving together with the development corporation.

We’ve got very interested partners from industry, from the First Nations. We are hoping to have discussions with them very, very soon. The fact is, we need the federal government on board as well.

This is a multi-faceted project; nobody argues with that. But we are going to move this project forward. We continue to remain absolutely, committed to it.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: The minister didn’t mention any steps that they took in 2010 or 2011 or 2012.

Two weeks ago, the minister issued another press release, pledging to create a development corporation for the Ring of Fire. When the minister made that announcement, did he already know that Cliffs would be pulling out?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: As the leader will know, there were some very encouraging, positive comments that were expressed after we announced the creation of the development corporation, and those comments continue.

We are having very important discussions. We have already had very important discussions with a number of potential partners for the development corporation, and those will continue; in fact, they will be redoubled.

We recognize how important it is to make decisions related to infrastructure, and the way to do that, I think, is to bring the potential partners together. Certainly, that includes discussions with members of industry, who are obviously very much involved in the Ring of Fire, recognizing the long-term, let alone the medium-term, economic development potential for this all across northern Ontario in terms of the creation of jobs. That’s still our priority.

The fact is, again, we need to have the federal government join us in matching funds. We’ve seen them support other major projects across the country. We need them at the table. I look forward to having an opportunity to sit down with the federal—

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

Hon. Michael Gravelle: —say they’re committed to the project. We need them at—

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

MINING INDUSTRY

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My next question is for the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. You know what? Nobody likes the blame game. We don’t want a blame game. We want jobs in this province. That’s what the government should be focusing on, not the blame game.

A lot of people are counting on the jobs and prosperity that the natural resources of the Ring of Fire bring, but they worry that the development corporation announcement is once again about a desperate government scrambling to get ahead of bad news, instead of getting something done for the people who need jobs.

Can the minister provide any detail whatsoever about this development corporation that he announced two weeks ago?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Mr. Speaker, this is certainly not about the blame game. This is about bringing all of our partners together on a project with extraordinary economic development potential for northern Ontario, a project with extraordinary mineral potential: up to $60 billion. We are very committed to seeing this project move forward.

The development corporation will bring those partners together, bring industry together. We hope to bring First Nations as partners to the project as well. We certainly are inviting the federal government to join us for that project as well. The fact is, that’s the key to making the decisions that certainly need to be made related to infrastructure, related to a transportation corridor, and that’s why we are so keen to move this development corporation forward.

So, may I say, Mr. Speaker, this project continues to be a huge priority for us. The opportunities for economic development and jobs in the north continue to be enormous, and that’s why we are staying so committed to this extraordinarily important project.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Speaker, the Premier promised that “thousands of jobs” were coming—those were her words—but, once again, when people desperate for work look beyond the press releases, they see a government without any plans, any details or, frankly, any idea what they are doing. The only jobs the Liberals seem to rally about and seem to really care about are their own jobs.

Does the minister have any evidence whatsoever that Liberals took any meaningful steps to actually deliver on the jobs that they had promised—the thousands of jobs that they have promised—back when the Premier promised them?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that we’ve seen some really interesting opportunities in the mining supply and services sector that have come about as a result of the opportunities we’re going to be seeing in the Ring of Fire.

But in terms of the actions that we have taken, I do hope that the leader of the third party would recognize how important our historic consultations with the Matawa First Nations are. Clearly, we need to work with them, and we are very much happy to work with them: Bob Rae representing the Matawa First Nations, Frank Iacobucci representing the provincial government.

It’s absolutely crucial that First Nations see those benefits, and in fact I know the leader of the third party has called on us to make that happen. That’s a very important part of the process, as is the fact that we need to bring all of our partners together in this development corporation. That will be a key element in moving this project forward. We need to make decisions related to infrastructure. This will allow us to make those decisions, and certainly, again, I can only say how strongly committed we are to seeing this project move forward. It’s a huge priority for us.

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

Ms. Andrea Horwath: Across Ontario, people are worried about jobs, and they see unemployment above the national average, 300,000 jobs lost in manufacturing and the highest electricity rates in the entire country; in fact, the entire continent. And their government reaction is a promise to conduct studies, strike panels and churn out press releases. Beyond the talk, we keep seeing the same old status quo.

How can anybody take this government’s job plan seriously when it’s obviously written on the back of an envelope or maybe on the back of a press release?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Mr. Speaker, our role and our commitment is to get the best value possible for all Ontarians, and that’s exactly what we are doing with the Ring of Fire project. We all understand it is truly a multi-generational opportunity, with a huge mineral potential, and we recognize that the right decisions need to be made and the right climate needs to be provided. That’s the hard work that we have been doing, and that speaks to the hard work that we will continue to be doing.

We continue to be very, very excited about the opportunities, but it’s important that we do it right, which is why, indeed, establishing a development corporation was such a key part of the process. It’s why, indeed, the historic consultations with the Matawa First Nations are so absolutely vital. It’s why the investments that we’ve made in skills upgrading and community capacity building is so important. This is all part of a large project. We’re committed to it; we’re going to stay committed to it. It’s a hugely important project; we’re going to move it forward.

Interjections.

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

New question.

MANUFACTURING JOBS

Mr. Robert Bailey: My question is to the Deputy Premier. Yesterday, Imperial Oil announced it would close its lubricant blending division at Sarnia, citing its inability to be competitive in Ontario. This means lost jobs and investment at Imperial, lost jobs and opportunity for the local trades, lost business for local suppliers and lost tax revenue for the city of Sarnia.

Deputy Premier, will you do anything to kick-start our economy or generate investment in Ontario, and did you do anything to compete for those jobs at Imperial Oil and the supporting jobs in the local community?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: To the Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Employment.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: This is precisely why, a year ago, we created the Southwestern Ontario Development Fund, a fund which has actually helped to create and retain more than 6,000 jobs in southwestern—

Interjections.

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

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order. I don’t get things quiet for the last shots.

Carry on.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Mr. Speaker, of course, the party opposite, the PCs, chose not to support that important investment of $20 million that has already been responsible for creating and retaining 6,000 jobs in southwestern Ontario.

Last week, I met with Imperial Oil out in Calgary. I also met with another important Sarnia company, Nova Chemicals, headquartered in Calgary. I had meetings with both of them. I have great confidence in the chemical and petrochemical industry in that part of Ontario, and I will continue to work hard to make sure that we support investments, incent the creation of new jobs—and it is succeeding, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Robert Bailey: Back to the Deputy Premier again: You might ask how that fund is working out for you.

Imperial Oil was founded in Lambton county in 1880. It has been over 100 years in Sarnia, and it has created great jobs.

After 10 years of your Liberal government’s skyrocketing energy prices and anti-business policies, companies across this province are heading for greener pastures. Deputy Premier, we saw that at Leamington’s Heinz facility last week; Cliffs just announced today—and, of course, Imperial Oil in Sarnia.

Deputy Premier, the hits keep adding up. Will you finally agree that your government is bad for business in Ontario? It’s time for a change in the team that’s leading Ontario. Just apologize and resign.

Interjections.

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

Interjection.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Attorney General.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): You ain’t seen the Speaker mad.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): No, you haven’t—nowhere close.

Minister.

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Mr. Speaker, as the official opposition continues to denigrate and talk down our manufacturing sector, as I mentioned, just last week I met with two companies that have their bases in the Sarnia–Lambton area. I met with their executives to continue to promote investment in that important area.

I need to remind the Legislature as well, of course, that the PCs opposed, back in 2008, the support that we provided to the auto sector. If they had gotten their way, Mr. Speaker, GM and Chrysler would not even be in this province anymore. Instead, we have a record sales year for cars in this country.

We’re very proud of what is happening with our businesses and our manufacturers. We continue to invest in that sector.

MINING INDUSTRY

Mr. Michael Mantha: My question is to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines.

For over five years, the Liberal government has failed to develop a framework for northern development in the Ring of Fire, but this inaction hasn’t stopped the government from issuing press releases touting opportunities that they have done no work to develop.

Cliffs’—the biggest player in the Ring of Fire—pull-out announcement is not only a blow to job creation in the province but demonstrates most clearly that this government has no plan for northern job creation.

If this government is actually doing work, why can’t we get a briefing on what this development corporation plan is, which the government belatedly announced two weeks ago?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Mr. Speaker, we have a very clear and detailed action plan for the Ring of Fire project. That is why we are so keen to move forward with the development corporation.

While I appreciate that the member and the third party may want to play politics with this issue, the fact is that we are moving forward in a number of direct ways to move it forward. That certainly includes the establishment of the development corporation, which is crucial to bringing all the partners together. It certainly includes the historic consultations with the First Nations, which are vital. It includes our capacity building.

In terms of a briefing, Mr. Speaker, we had an opportunity to discuss this yesterday, and we will be very pleased to have that set up for you.

In terms of the project itself, it’s an absolute commitment for us. It continues to be a huge opportunity for northern Ontario. It continues to have huge economic development potential for jobs. We’re going to continue to work to keep working on our action plan to move this project forward.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Michael Mantha: Mr. Speaker, a plan to enact a plan to implement a plan to put a plan into action is not action.

The Ring of Fire is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for people in Ontario. Last year, this government made a big announcement that it had reached a deal with Cliffs that would create processing jobs in Capreol and that would build infrastructure. Last night’s announcement sadly proves that there was no deal, no plan, and that government inaction on this opportunity is costing the province jobs.

Why did the government stall for five years instead of creating a framework for developing job creation in the Ring of Fire?

Hon. Michael Gravelle: Mr. Speaker, we’ve got a very close working relationship with Cliffs, and we will continue to speak with them about this. There are other companies who are very, very interested in the Ring of Fire development as well.

This is a huge economic development opportunity which everyone in this House certainly knows about, and many people in the province know about. That’s why we have got a clear plan moving forward. That’s why we have made it so important to invest in skills upgrading. That’s why we have invested significantly in capacity building. That’s why we are involved in these historic consultations with the First Nations. The member opposite understands how important that is.

Perhaps most critically, that’s why we are so excited about the establishment of a development corporation, because we recognize that, indeed, that will be the piece bringing together all the partners to move this project forward.

ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE

Mr. Steven Del Duca: Speaker, my question today is for the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. The Ontario Provincial Police is responsible for policing almost one million square kilometres of land across our province, over 100,000 square kilometres of waterways, and two thirds of the municipalities in a province that makes up almost 40% of the country’s population.

Day in and day out, OPP officers are patrolling our roads and highways, helping Ontarians where they’re in need, when they’re in need, and providing excellent police service to keep communities safe. Our government and the OPP are committed to ensuring the safety of all Ontarians. Like all first responders, OPP officers are running towards danger when everyone else is running to safety.

On Tuesday, our government introduced Bill 133,

An Act to amend the Ontario Provincial Police Collective Bargaining Act. Could the minister please explain to the House the intentions behind this bill?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: I want to thank the member from Vaughan for this question. I couldn’t agree more with his comments this morning. OPP officers are vital to Ontario. If our communities are not safe, then we cannot build the successful, compassionate and united province that I believe all parties here are striving for.

But we need to level the playing field for OPP officers. This bill, if it’s passed, will amend the Ontario Provincial Police Collective Bargaining Act, 2006, and would make the labour rights of OPP officers consistent with the rights of officers working for municipal police services. We want to make the system fairer across the province, and I really look forward to working closely with both of the opposition parties, who have endorsed this bill.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Steven Del Duca: It’s great to hear from the minister that we are making efforts to make sure to make labour rights consistent for all police officers in Ontario. I understand that the proposed changes would move the management rights clause out of the legislation and into the collective agreements for uniformed and civilian staff.

I have a two-pronged follow-up question for the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. If the bill is passed, how many uniformed and civilian staff will be impacted by the changes, and secondly, were these amendments meant to pass as part of the budget?

Hon. Madeleine Meilleur: If passed, these changes would ensure more consistency in the OPP Association’s collective bargaining. With that said, 9,000 OPPA members would be impacted.

These amendments were meant to pass as part of the 2012 budget. The removal of these measures in committee was an error, and one that the other parties agree was not intentional. I know this item is something that the official opposition and the third party support. I believe this gives us a great opportunity to show Ontarians that we can work together on common goals, and I really look forward to that opportunity.

In closing, I want to show my great appreciation for these 9,000 men and women who work with the OPP on an everyday basis.

DRIVE CLEAN

Mr. Michael Harris: My question is to the Acting Premier. I continue to point out that the Supreme Court of Canada has in fact ruled that profits made off of revenue-neutral programs like Drive Clean are an illegal tax and must be repaid. So I was surprised to see that your environment minister ignored the letter I sent him earlier this month outlining how the Liberal government could bring itself in line with Canadian law. It’s quite simple, actually: First, stop imposing illegal taxes today. Second, pay back the $19 million that’s been taken from the pockets of Ontario’s drivers. But you continue to refuse to take either of these steps.

Deputy Premier, how do you expect Ontarians to have any respect for your government when you have no respect for Canadian law?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: To the Minister of Finance.

Hon. Charles Sousa: As noted in the fall economic statement, we are addressing Drive Clean. We want it to be revenue-neutral. We know that the work done over the many years with the Drive Clean program has helped to improve our quality of life, protect public health and also reduce emissions.

We also mentioned at great length the need to provide for consumer protection. It’s not just Drive Clean; we’re also looking at ways to control cellphone contract pricing to save consumers more money.

In this case, we will do our effort to ensure that Drive Clean remains revenue-neutral, notwithstanding the fact that over many years it was subsidized and the taxpayers were actually covering the excess cost of the Drive Clean program throughout that time.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Michael Harris: Back to the Acting Premier: The Ontario PC Party has now been calling on the Liberals to scrap Drive Clean for more than two and a half years. Nearly everyone agrees it’s time to phase out the program. In fact, even officials in your own environment ministry say it’s time to end Drive Clean because the program has, in fact, outlived its usefulness.

I couldn’t help but notice that the NDP leader hinted earlier this week that she’ll support keeping this temporary program running indefinitely—if you lower the fees by a couple of bucks. Deputy Premier, will you continue to force Ontario drivers to pay hundreds of dollars for your faulty e-test as a result of your collusion with the NDP?

Hon. Charles Sousa: The Drive Clean program—brought forward by the other government, no less—was a good move. It is about saving lives. It’s also about controlling emissions, improving the environment in which we live. It has taken hold and we have made a lot of advancements. We will continue to work with the program to ensure that it’s revenue-neutral, and reduce the costs to consumers to protect the interests of all concerned. I think that’s an appropriate thing for us to do.

MANUFACTURING JOBS

Ms. Catherine Fife: My question is for the Minister of Economic Development and Trade. Less than a week after Heinz announced it would close its Leamington plant, we learn that Heinz will invest $28 million to expand its facility in Ohio and create almost 250 new jobs there. Get this: The reason they chose Ohio was the state-enabled job creation tax credit that netted Heinz $513,000 for moving Leamington jobs there. New Democrats have long called for a similar job creation tax credit here in Ontario. Some 740 people will be out of work in Leamington and 46 area tomato growers will lose a significant contract because of this government’s inaction.

Why did this government ignore the advice of New Democrats and refuse to implement a job creation tax credit that would keep jobs here in Ontario?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: I appreciate the question. Of course, I think all of us are very disappointed with the decision of Heinz to close the plant in Leamington. Of course, they’re also closing two plants in the United States as well, and they made this based on business decisions.

However, we’ve been working very hard. I’ve spoken with the local officials and the local MPP, of course. My staff have been on the ground—yesterday—meeting with members of the supply chain to make sure that we do whatever we can for them. Tomorrow, I’ve got my ministry, together with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, sitting down with the union and the employees. We’re looking at all possible options.

In fact, I’ll be travelling myself to Leamington tomorrow to meet with the local officials and the leadership there, the business community, to see what we can do—everything from repurposing the plant to perhaps looking at a co-operative opportunity. Certainly, our first priority is the employees, their families and the broader community.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Catherine Fife: Again, to the minister: It is amazing that you have 10 trade offices around the world but you don’t have a made-in-Ontario jobs plan.

On Tuesday, the Premier stood in this House and she said they had done “everything we could” to keep this plant from closing—everything. But had she created a job creation tax credit along the lines that New Democrats had suggested, there would be a good chance, there would be some hope, that those 740 Leamington workers wouldn’t be losing their jobs.

How can this Premier claim that her government did everything they could when you outright rejected a New Democrat solution that would have saved 740 Leamington jobs?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Judging by her supplementary question, I’m not sure if she’s proposing to do what her government did in the 1990s, which was to close our international trade missions, because we’re not going to do that. We believe that they’re important. In fact, the future of Ontario businesses is to find those opportunities overseas in the emerging and new economies to be able to increase the jobs here in Ontario; to find, for their services and goods, other opportunities.

We’re working hard with the employees, the unions, the labour representatives as well as the local businesses and the local leadership in Leamington to do whatever we can to make sure that there are opportunities for these employees going forward. As I mentioned, I’ll be there tomorrow. My ministry is already on the ground. Training, colleges and universities is there working with the union employees. We’re working hard to make sure that this is a positive result.

SMALL BUSINESS

Mr. Shafiq Qaadri: Ma question est pour le ministre du Développement économique, du Commerce et de l’Emploi, l’honorable Eric Hoskins.

Speaker, as you’ll appreciate, small businesses are a fundamental engine of job growth, a cornerstone of our economy. It’s been estimated that something in the order of about 99% of Ontario businesses are in fact small or medium-sized.

Of course I see this vividly as I tour my own riding of Etobicoke North, as we have quite a vibrant business sector in addition to our residential areas. These enterprises are encouraged and heartened to learn that our government’s plans for jobs and growth will support small business, cut red tape and invest in infrastructure necessary to create a dynamic and innovative business climate.

From my briefings, it’s clear that the Supporting Small Businesses Act is part of this plan. Can the minister please inform this chamber about this act and its impact on the bottom line of small businesses in my riding of Etobicoke North and broadly across the province?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Thank you to the member for his question. He’s right that small businesses are critical to the strength of our economy. As jobs minister, I’ve had the privilege of meeting with many, many business owners right across this province. They’re moving our economy forward. Their innovation is not only making our economy more dynamic, but it is creating jobs.

This is why our government wants to offer every support we can, and incentives, to help make doing business in this province easier. That’s why we’ve introduced Bill 105, the Supporting Small Businesses Act. This act will cut taxes for 60,000 small businesses and eliminate that tax altogether for 90% of the small businesses in this province.

Business is behind this bill. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business supports this act. They’ve said, “By passing Bill 105, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to supporting the province’s job creators.” This is from their press release.

I’ve got additional issues that I’ll address in the supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Shafiq Qaadri: Thank you, Minister. I appreciate your comments regarding these long-sought-after changes to the Ontario tax regime. I’ll get right to the point: What is the importance of finishing third reading, passing this bill and proclaiming this as Ontario law?

Hon. Eric Hoskins: Not passing this legislation before the House rises means that tens of thousands of our small businesses will have to pay higher taxes in the new year. More taxes mean less money to spend on expanding their operations, on going global and on hiring youth. It means less growth for our economy.

We’ve already eliminated 80,000 regulations pertaining to businesses. We’ve launched our $295-million youth jobs strategy. We’ve eliminated the small business surtax, the capital tax.

Mr. Speaker, I call on all my colleagues in this Legislature to support the Supporting Small Businesses Act to make our economy stronger and make doing business easier for the entrepreneurs and business leaders who contribute so much to this province.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mr. Frank Klees: To the Minister of Health: It’s been some two years that we’ve heard from the Minister of Health that all is well at Ornge. Here is yesterday’s headline from the Toronto Star: “Ornge Endangered Helicopter Pilots, Federal Probe Says.”

From the Globe and Mail: “Ornge’s Lack of Training Endangered Pilots’ Safety, Federal Report Says.”

From the Toronto Sun: “Next Tragedy Inevitable Unless Service Stripped of Air Operations.” And today, we find that last Friday, there were no helicopters available in Thunder Bay, in Moosonee and in Kenora due to a helicopter pilot shortage. We continue to hear from front-line staff that the air operations of Ornge are in serious trouble.

Three federal reports, continuous input from front lines—why does this minister not acknowledge that the aviation aspects of Ornge should be outsourced? Even the CEO agrees with that.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I have to say that there has been an extraordinary change at Ornge, and change does take some time. But I have to say that the new leadership team at Ornge is extraordinary. It is an exceptional group of leaders. I believe that even the member from Newmarket–Aurora has, on several occasions, acknowledged the skills and the expertise of that new leadership. They are doing their work. I have confidence in them that they are doing the right thing.

When I look at someone like Dr. Andrew McCallum, who was prepared to come and work as president and CEO of Ornge—he came to that job when it was a very difficult organization to take over. He is an exceptionally well-qualified person with experience in trauma and with experience as a pilot. This is a man who is leading real change at Ornge, and I think it would be appropriate that we support him in that change.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Frank Klees: Then why doesn’t the minister listen to Dr. McCallum? Here’s what Dr. Andrew McCallum told the public accounts committee two weeks ago when I asked him if divesting the aviation operations of Ornge would be considered as part of his strategic plan.

I quote from Dr. McCallum’s testimony: “The short answer is yes, we’re open to all models…. [P]roper strategic planning should consider all aspects of what the company does and what’s best for the mission that the company is trying to achieve.” Why isn’t she listening to Dr. McCallum? The CEO is willing to look at all options, but when I put the same question to the minister just days after that, her response was an emphatic “No, we will not do that.”

Would the minister tell us and the pilots and the paramedics and Dr. McCallum why she is pre-empting Ornge’s own strategic plan to consider outsourcing the aviation operations of Ornge? Will she do that?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I would urge the member opposite to actually take a look at Hansard. What he suggested that we do is privatize Ornge. I tell you, we are not going to privatize Ornge. To the member opposite, I would say: Check Hansard.

There is an ideological bent in the party opposite to privatize services. They privatized the 407. I think we all know that we have lost billions of dollars in revenue as a result of that scheme. They had a failed privatization of hydro. The rates skyrocketed by 30% because of that commitment to privatize.

I take advice from Dr. McCallum. Your question was about privatizing Ornge, and privatizing Ornge is not a plan.

TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

Mr. Percy Hatfield: My question is to the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. Good morning, Minister. Because there was no ministry oversight, hundreds of deficient girders were installed along the Herb Gray Parkway. It happened because there was no clause in the P3 construction contract that called for independent testing and inspection reports to be sent to the ministry.

Today, the highly respected Canadian Council of Independent Laboratories claims that dozens of other road and bridge contracts also lack this independent testing clause. Will the minister investigate and report to this House on all MTO and Infrastructure Ontario construction contracts that do not require independent safety testing and inspection reports?

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Good morning to you, my friend from Windsor–Tecumseh. We actually have gone through, in the last several months, and inspected every girder production facility. All MTO projects are tested. As you obviously know from the Windsor experience and others, we do destructive testing when necessary. I have met with this very respected body. We’ve had a number of conversations. I have asked them to deliver their criticisms in a paper. The ADM, Gerry Chaput, has reviewed this. While I appreciate their concern, I don’t think that’s a fair representation of the facts.

There will be tougher rules and regulations as a result of what happened in Windsor-Essex, but what I also want to point out is that all of those girders were tested twice and are being removed and paid for by the private company at full cost recovery.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Speaker, let’s admit it: The P3 experiment with the short warranty periods has failed. Let’s get back to the old, proven method of requiring independent testing and inspection with the results given not to the contractor, Minister, but to the people paying the bills. Face it: Public safety may be endangered here. Taxpayers may be faced with the cost of repairing or replacing this infrastructure years earlier than expected.

Will the minister end this failed warranty experiment and direct MTO and Infrastructure Ontario to ensure all infrastructure projects require independent safety testing?

Hon. Glen R. Murray: Mr. Speaker, while I respect my friends in the third party, there’s a very good reason I’m not a member of that party, and it’s because of the ideological bent. This is classic example of it.

We have had over 80 AFP projects—over 80. All of them have been under budget. All of them have delivered billions of dollars of savings and, when there have been errors, the private sector has had to pay for it.

In spite of the evidence, the ideological bent of the NDP won’t allow them to be pragmatic enough to realize this has been a huge success. So the party of pragmatism over here always enjoys the blinkers on the right and our left, and this is another one of those old ways we always used to do it: lack of innovation, which is why they’re the third party.

ANTI-BULLYING INITIATIVES

Ms. Soo Wong: My question is for the Minister of Education. This week, in my riding of Scarborough–Agincourt, students are participating in Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week activities. We have all heard heartbreaking stories where students have been bullied by their peers, and some of us in this House may have experienced bullying first-hand. Bullying is a serious issue affecting their learning, and it must be addressed.

This week, we all need to take time, not only to raise awareness about bullying in our schools, but also to look for ways to prevent it from occurring.

Mr. Speaker, through you to the minister, can she share with the House what action our government is taking in stopping but, more importantly, preventing bullying in our schools?

Hon. Liz Sandals: Thank you to the member from Scarborough–Agincourt for raising this important issue. The member is absolutely right: Prevention plays such an important role in combatting bullying in our schools, which is why, almost two years ago, we introduced legislation, Bill 13, the Accepting Schools Act. For the first time ever, we defined “bullying” in legislation, so that every student, every teacher, every principal and every parent knows what we are talking about when we say bullying is not okay in our schools.

The Accepting Schools Act requires school boards to develop a bullying prevention plan. It must be created in consultation with local communities and made publicly available. Schools are also required to conduct school climate surveys to check on the effectiveness of their bullying prevention plans.

Speaker, all members of the school community need to be involved in promoting respectful and caring relationships to make sure that every student feels safe and accepted.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Soo Wong: I thank the minister for her response. It’s very appropriate that we have in the gallery a bunch of young students, visitors, and we’re talking about issues affecting your classroom and your schoolyard, and that’s the right thing to do.

Minister, you have outlined some of the initiatives on how our government is addressing bullying in our schools and bullying prevention. However, we see and hear that, more and more, bullying goes beyond the classroom and the schoolyard. Technology has allowed bullying to follow students wherever they go.

Mr. Speaker, through you to the minister, can she share with the House what action our government is taking to confront the growing and troubling problems of bullying affecting our students?

Hon. Liz Sandals: Cyberbullying has been a concern of our government for many years. That is why the Accepting Schools Act explicitly defines cyberbullying as a form of bullying, and, in fact, our Education Act already stated that if a principal believes that actions which occurred online had a negative impact on the school climate, the principal has the authority to take action, i.e., discipline the responsible students.

I was also pleased to learn just yesterday that the federal government will be tabling legislation to amend the Criminal Code to combat cyberbullying. I know my colleague the Attorney General and our government have been calling on the federal government to make it an offence to distribute intimate photos or video recordings of a person without that person’s consent.

These are all important steps being taken to combat bullying. We are all responsible for combatting bullying in schools and in the workplace.

ONTARIO COLLEGE OF TRADES.

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: My question today is for the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. Minister, the highly successful Red Seal Program has allowed tradespeople holding certificates of qualification in their respective provinces to have mobility in their trades. These red seal holders achieved a higher standard in their examinations. Only Quebec does not participate, and we all know what’s going on in Quebec.

A very credible contractor right here in Ontario has hired a red seal plumber from BC. He came back to Ontario to help his ailing father. Now we find out that under the College of Trades and their trades equivalency assessment, it will take a minimum of six weeks before he can work and a fine of up to $10,000 for both him and the employer if he works at all during that six-week period.

Are we not trying to create jobs here in Ontario? Enough is enough of this nonsense, of this ridiculous red tape and bureaucracy. What are we going to tell companies like this? They need the help now. They’ve got a qualified person who can do the work now. Will both your Liberal government and your NDP friends agree that we have to finally abolish this Liberal boondoggle once and for all?

Interjections.

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

Be seated, please. Thank you.

The Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities.

Hon. Brad Duguid: I think what the member opposite is trying to do is say that every challenge that exists in the skilled trades, in apprenticeships or anywhere in that sector is the fault of the College of Trades.

There have been challenges between provinces in terms of ensuring that we can have our workers flow through our apprenticeship programs and our red seal programs for a very long period of time, and the provinces, in fact, and the federal minister are working together to try to resolve those issues.

For the life of me, I don’t know why the member continues to be obsessed with trying to do away with the College of Trades. Why would he be against a body that’s going to provide greater consumer protection for those that hire skilled trade workers? Why would he be against self-governance for this industry, something that traditionally Conservatives are in favour of? Why would he be against a body that’s going to promote the skilled trades to our young people?

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Answer.

Hon. Brad Duguid: I can go on, Mr. Speaker, and I’d be happy to, but I think you’re going to tell me to close off very soon—

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): No; now.

Hon. Brad Duguid: —so I’ll stop there, and I’ll finish my discussion in the supplementary.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: Well, Minister, the trades equivalency assessment is being done by the College of Trades. It wasn’t done before you created this monster.

I didn’t give you the name of the contractor—and you know why—because we’re afraid your enforcement cops will go out and harass them. That’s what they’re doing. The fact you even have a trades equivalency assessment is an insult to the highly skilled Canadian tradespeople. These people want to work in our province.

We’re losing Heinz; we’re losing Cliffs; we’re losing all these different companies. This guy actually wants a job, and he’s got a job to go to. Now, because of so much negativity around the College of Trades, we now know that you’ve hired an expensive communications department down there—by the way, at the expense of the tradespeople.

Interjection.

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: No, it’s not David Tsubouchi. It’s a whole new group of communications people down there trying to deflect the letters to the editor. They’re wanting Pat Dillon types to write letters to the editor to try to deflect the negativity around the College of Trades.

Interjections.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): First of all, let’s tone it down. Second of all, comments to the Chair are most appropriate, because then I can deal with the heckling, so don’t respond to it.

Wrap up, please, and we’ll go to the minister.

Mr. Garfield Dunlop: So, Minister, we now know that you and your NDP friends are fighting for the Working Families money, but can’t you all agree that it’s time to join with Tim Hudak and the PC caucus and get rid of this ridiculous College of Trades?

Interjections.

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

Minister?

Hon. Brad Duguid: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

For the life of me, I don’t know why the member would be opposed to all the good things that the College of Trades is doing. He points to things that have been in existence long before the College of Trades came along and thinks that somehow, just because we set up a College of Trades, those challenges will somehow mysteriously disappear. There are still challenges, and the College of Trades, in conjunction with our government, in conjunction with provinces and territories across the country, will continue to work on those issues.

But, Mr. Speaker, why would he be opposed to our efforts, through the College of Trades, to crack down on the underground economy? That’s something that skilled tradespeople want us to do. Why are you trying to get in the way of that? Why would you be opposed to the College of Trades’ efforts to ensure that in workplaces across this province health and safety is being maintained? Why would you be opposed to our efforts to protect those who have worked so hard to get their credentials?

It’s time to stop playing politics. It’s time to start working with our skilled tradespeople.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: My question is to the Minister of Labour. Jimmy Velgakis, my constituent, has diabetes and is on a hunger strike outside the WSIB office. He’s also 72 years old. It has been 10 days, and Jimmy is ill. His lawyers and all of us are frightened that we will lose him.

Two years ago, the WSIB made a promise to Jimmy that he would get a fresh hearing based on the merits and justice of his case, but that promise was broken. As you know, I am also fasting along with Jimmy because no response from the WSIB has been forthcoming—none whatsoever, and I’ve tried.

Minister, will you step in to save Jimmy’s life?

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: I thank the member opposite for asking the question. I share the member’s concern about Mr. Velgakis’s health and his safety, and I urge the gentleman to end his hunger strike in order to sustain and, of course, protect his health.

The member opposite and I have spoken about this issue, Speaker. The member knows that, as the Minister of Labour, I’m not able to get involved in the particulars of a case. I cannot speak about the issues and the merit of the case. Both the WSIB and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal are arm’s-length agencies, and it would be highly inappropriate for me to speak in any detail, in any specifics about the merits and issues of this case.

I just really hope that Mr. Velgakis ends the hunger strike and will be able to get back to health.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: Mr. Velgakis—Jimmy—is a man of great dignity and great commitment. This is the second hunger strike he has been on in two years. He’s not going anywhere. I know what the rules say, but I think this is a situation that calls for compassion and calls for justice and calls for someone to act, especially this minister, outside of those rules, if necessary.

On Tuesday, the OFL is staging a rally in support of Jimmy. There will be hundreds out on the street in front of the WSIB. Civil Liberties has also been involved. To settle Jimmy’s case wouldn’t cost a lot of money. We’re talking about a fairly small amount here.

More to the point, at this point and particularly in this season—we’re leading up to Christmas—I’m asking you: How much is your ministry’s promise worth? I’m also asking: How much is a life worth to your ministry?

Hon. Yasir Naqvi: Speaker, again, I’m very concerned about the health of Mr. Velgakis, and I urge the member opposite—I think we need to convince Mr. Velgakis to end his hun